I love going to shows at Joe’s Pub for Dance Now’s Dance-mopolitan’s Commissioned Artist Series. But doing so takes a kind of expertise that I may lack. Did I manage to cut the sticky burrata that topped my little salad while keeping clean the blank paper on which I intended to take notes? Check. Did I really order a second beer? Yes, I did. Did I actually take some notes on top of previous notes … [Read more...]
Touched by a Virtual Hand
Charles Atlas, Rashaun Mitchell, and Silas Riener collaborate on a video/live performance. So what do you do if you meet a dancer who’s twice your size in every way, and he (or she) reaches out a hand to you? Well you could take off the 3-D viewing glasses that you were given as you entered BAM Harvey to see Tesseract. Or you could just sit back and ponder the enigmas of the virtual stage … [Read more...]
Pushing the Past Forward
The Limón Dance Company performs at the Joyce Theater, May 2 through 7. José Limón might have been a fine architect had he chosen that profession instead of dance. Beginning his career in the company led by Doris Humphrey and Charles Weidman, he inherited some of their principles of movement and, shortly, a mentor: Humphrey herself. And during the latter part of his career, when he had a … [Read more...]
Dancers and Puppets Rebirth the World
Fantasque by John Heginbotham and Amy Trompetter opens Bard Summerscape 2016. The 2016 season of Bard Summerscape (July 1 to August 14) is devoted to the opera composer Giacomo Puccini. Hosted by the Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts at Bard College, the concerts, lectures, panels, films and performances that comprise “Puccini and His World” pop up at various sites on the … [Read more...]
70 Years of History Brought to Life
The José Limón International Dance Festival at the Joyce, October 13-25. José Limón was choreographing right up to the end of his life. His last dances, Orfeo and Carlota, premiered in 1972, the year of his death at 64. Those two works are included in the Limón Dance Company’s 70th anniversary celebration, now entering its second week at the Joyce Theatre. So is one of his earliest … [Read more...]