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...]
Tell Me a Story, and Another and Another
The Tiffany Mills Company presents two new works at BAM Fishman. Remember when dancers rarely talked onstage? No? Then you’re probably still in your twenties. Beginning in the 1980s, when narrative and emotion began to slip back into contemporary American dance and knock its movement-and-form-only stance askew, some choreographers tackled stories that couldn’t be told through dancing … [Read more...]