John Jasperse presents a new work at BAM Harvey, September 21-24. John Jasperse’s new Remains has a clarity so exquisite that images from it have pasted themselves into my memory. The piece, which premiered at the BAM Harvey this past week, shows some of these images to us many times, but in different ways; imagine a painted group scene, from which someone has clipped individual figures and … [Read more...]
The Merce Resurrection
Compagnie CNDC d'Angers stages a Merce Cunningham Event in New York City. When Merce Cunningham decided that his company should be disbanded two years after his death, it wasn’t entirely clear what he expected to happen to the nearly 200 dances that he had made over the course of five decades. Some, of course, had been lost along the way, but a good number had been filmed, and more were … [Read more...]
Hail and Farewell
In January, 2011, one-and-a-half years after Merce Cunningham died, the second half of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company’s two-year Legacy Tour began in Hong Kong. It ended at 10:00 P.M. on December 31 in New York. The immense crowd of spectators in the Park Avenue Armory applauded and cheered the dancers for many minutes, as if keeping them onstage, bowing over and over, not only showed them how … [Read more...]