Earlier this spring, Dance/NYC sponsored a panel on dance and race. Foot contributor Eva Yaa Asantewaa contacted panelist and Dance Magazine chief Wendy Perron (whose race issue is now on line), and Perron enlisted Theresa Ruth Howard to file a report for Foot in Mouth. (I asked for an opinionated report, as Howard had been a vocal participant in the forum.) Theresa Ruth Howard is a former member … [Read more...]
Elsewhere
Thanks to Artsjournal chief Doug McLennan, there is now a new sidebar category, Elsewhere, where I will post a rotating list of recent articles from Newsday, mainly. It's just under readers' comments, to the right. Today, a review of Ohad Naharin's "Decadance" at Cedar Lake. … [Read more...]
GO: Noche Flamenca, plus protocol
My friend and fellow blogger Terry Teachout thinks I'm a fool not to post my Newsday articles here. I don't want this blog to turn into a clearinghouse for work elsewhere, but given that the scantness of Foot posts by me often has to do with the other work I'm entangled in, I thought I'd post some reviews--eventually as a sidebar, as soon as I can figure that out. Here's a review of some great … [Read more...]
Foot In Mouth
This blog's concern is the tricky business of recognizing dance's peculiar language and history without needlessly isolating it from the rest of the culture. The blog began September 2006, with Eva Yaa Asantewaa and Paul Parish joining as cherished contributors soon after. Reader participation warmly welcomed. … [Read more...]
Apollinaire Scherr
Apollinaire Scherr is the New York-based dance critic for the Financial Times. She has written regularly for the New Yorker, the New York Times, and Newsday, and contributed to Salon, New York magazine, the Village Voice, Elle, the San Francisco Chronicle, Barnard magazine, and Flash Art International. She gave the 2010 keynote address for the Dance Critics Association. As a graduate student at … [Read more...]
GO: Ohad Naharin’s “Decadance,” performed by Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet
From Eva: Oh, my! Ohad Naharin! Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet! "Decadance!" Don't go if you don't want to feel as if someone has roughly grabbed you and dashed you all over the theater and left you winded, fighting for your life. Okay, maybe that doesn't sound terribly appealing but--trust me on this one--CLCB and Naharin will rock you. The dancers are talented and valiant. They have enormous … [Read more...]
A small epiphany about ABT’s “The Sleeping Beauty,” plus June plans
I'm under the gun with writing and non-writing, paying and volunteer assignments, so my participation in this blog may be slight for the next couple of weeks. But upcoming from others: --Eva Yaa Asantewaa's "GO" recommendations and anything else she wants to do. --A report by Theresa Ruth Howard, dancer extraordinaire with Karole Armitage, on Dance/NYC's race and dance panel, held in May. Late in … [Read more...]
Ballet Alert: Something we can agree on
Or most of us, anyway. If you think there's absolutely no merit to American Ballet Theatre's new "Sleeping Beauty," then it doesn't matter how cramped the stage space is. For the rest of us, it just might matter a lot. Tony Walton's set has internal wings on both sides of the already relatively narrow Metropolitan stage; they shrink the stage space by about six feet (and more in the Act I and III, … [Read more...]
Sleeping Beauty wakes up a little creaky, but wait till she’s had some coffee!
Since I've been babbling about the American Ballet Theatre's "The Sleeping Beauty" in excited anticipation, I thought I'd share my Newsday review. A bunch of critics aren't liking this production. The complaints have centered around the relation between the canonical material and the new interpolations--that the effect is too much of a stylistic mishmash. I find that hard to judge: for critics and … [Read more...]
Guess who was on the radio recently?
ME!!!! With the esteemed Claudia La Rocco of the New York Times. The details: Program was Soundcheck, on the NPR station in New York, WNYC, 93.9 on your FM dial. The topic under discussion was gigantic: the future of ballet, no less. And because this was dance, which no one wants to hear about for long, we covered it in 15 minutes! UPDATE post-show: Here's as close to a link as I can figure out … [Read more...]