Jane Comfort & Company Revisit Forty Years of Work In 1978, Jane Comfort and I were both forty years younger. Not a surprise? I guess not. But that sentence may prove a snappier lead than my starting off by recounting what Comfort has accomplished over those forty years and how many dances of hers I’ve seen. (See how I snuck the facts into my non-lead? Or should I spell it “lede” as did … [Read more...]
Making Things Together
The Bebe Miller Company and Susan Rethorst share their processes and a program at New York Live Arts. The Making Room isn’t a dance, it’s a project devised by Bebe Miller that she and fellow choreographer Susan Rethorst have been working on for over a year via conversations both virtual and actual, plus convenings and rehearsals with their collaborating dancers wherever they could find … [Read more...]
Four Dances Mingle As One
Bill Young revives his Interleaving at 100 Grand Street, December 9 through 11. I was beginning to write about Bill Young’s revival of his Interleaving after he'd given it a 30-year vacation, when my planned opening struck a chord. Yes, there it was, the start of my 2013 review of A Place in France (a collaboration between Young and his wife, Colleen Thomas): me at 100 Grand Street, … [Read more...]
You Are Not Alone
Jane Comfort and Company premieres You Are Here at The Kitchen Jane Comfort has a formidable history as one who attacks with an intellectual cleaver subjects that most choreographers avoid: government policies, sanctioned torture, public apathy, gender stereotypes, beauty contests, talent shows. She deconstructed Shakespeare (Cliff Notes Macbeth, 1980) and Tennessee Williams (Faith Healing, … [Read more...]
Moves at LaMaMa
Jane Comfort and Company and Jon Kinzel present new works. Jane Comfort is a master teller of tales—not straight linear narratives, but dances that bristle with content—often social and/or political, often involving spoken text. She has always ingeniously layered and juxtaposed elements and viewpoints that might strike anyone else as incompatible and made them ignite one another. Her 1988 … [Read more...]