The 43rd annual Dance on Camera Festival at Lincoln Center. The coats, the hats, the scarves, the shawls, the gloves, the bag, the boots. You needed them for the long, cold walk along West 65th Street in late January and early February. And then, when you got to the Walter Reade Theater, where most of the screenings in the 2015 Dance on Camera Festival took place, you had to shed these … [Read more...]
Looking Back, Forging Ahead
A man in a fancy military jacket—gold epaulettes and all—sits slumped on an outsized throne. Six men creep in warily, circle him, bow mockingly, jump about, seem to confer. The man doesn’t move. This is how José Limón’s The Emperor Jones begins. Limón choreographed the dance, based on Eugene O’Neill’s play of the same, in 1956, to a turbulent commissioned score by Heitor Villa-Lobos. The décor and … [Read more...]
Two Companies: East from Houston, North from D.C.
In successive October weeks, two ballet companies with very dissimilar identities and agendas appeared at the Joyce Theater. The Houston Ballet is composed of over 50 dancers. It also boasts a handsome, beyond-spacious new building in its hometown (price: a surprisingly modest $46,600,00) that’s connected by a bridge to the Wortham Theater Center, where the company and the Houston Grand Opera … [Read more...]