Monica Bill Barnes and Anna Bass perform Happy Hour at Jacob's Pillow, 7/26-28 and 8/2-4. The first time I saw Monica Bill Barnes’s Happy Hour, it took place in a long, narrow studio at Gibney Dance, 280 Broadway. In that re-purposed old building near City Hall, it was easy to imagine Barnes and Anna Bass—clad in hats, suits, and ties, their hair slicked back into puny buns—coming from … [Read more...]
Two Dancers and a Radio Host Walk into a Bar. . .
Ira Glass of "This American Life" collaborates with Monica Bill Barnes & Company. It’s an unlikely combination: Three Acts, Two Dancers, One Radio Host. Yet Ira Glass, the creator and voice of public radio’s Radio’s This American Life and Monica Bill Barnes and Anna Bass of Monica Bill Barnes & Company have been performing this show on and off since 2013. The three turn out to … [Read more...]
Life Under the Dome
Doug Varone and Dancers premieres two works at the Joyce Theater. What strikes me first about Doug Varone’s new Dome is the amount of stillness in it. This most musical of choreographers is at home with maelstroms. In his 2004 Castles, which opened his company’s program at the Joyce Theater, architectural and social structures form and dissolve and re-form like elaborate sand castles washed … [Read more...]