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...]
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...]
You Read It Here
DANCENOW presents Mark Dendy's NEWYORKnewyork@Astor Place in Joe's Pub. The very small stage at Joe’s Pub is bursting with people, and I’m not talking about the eight real performers. I mean the many others they personify and the many they refer to in the interpenetrating layers of Mark Dendy’s NEWYORKnewyork@Astor Place, a DANCENOW commission. Leslie Cuyjet, for example, appears as a real … [Read more...]
Journeying Along Interior Trails
Souleyman Badolo and Cynthia Oliver at New York Live Arts, April 25 through 27 At one point in Suleymane Badolo’s new solo, Barack, on the opening night of his season at New York Live Arts, Badolo dances with his back to the audience, clapping his hands together vigorously; when he stops, from the audience comes a small-voiced echo of his action (maybe two pairs of hands clapping) that … [Read more...]