Because Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater has tended to extrapolate badly from its founder's aesthetic and ethos, I forget every year what a strong craftsman Ailey was. Even when he was tired, the work had merit. Revelations is always my first reminder of his craft--and, no, he wasn't tired for that--followed this year by Cry, Night Creatures, and the final section of Three Black Kings. In fact, … [Read more...]

Hmmmm.... It must be something in the air--or in me--that the experimental works this month seemed too much between one thing and another, without ever wresting their own potent identity. They felt insufficiently steeped, like a stew that hasn't sat and simmered long enough for the flavors to blend. With Neil Greenberg's (like a vase), the steps were precise yet coded, private, partial: Neil … [Read more...]

This season we've had contemporary European dance not only at BAM, the usual suspect, but also at the Joyce, with Belgium's Ballets C de la B earlier this month and more recently Cedar Lake, its reputation as purveyor of B-list--or at least green--European choreographers (with a few A-list Israelis in the mix) now solid. I sound typically New Yorker, don't I? Jaded to the point of provinciality. … [Read more...]

With dances that use an academic or codified language, the route to the matter at hand is relatively direct. Not so when not steps, not structure, but method--more intangible, less empirically provable--is the reigning force. In that case, it doesn't do for the critic to isolate effects; they are mere flotsam--analogues. Of course, writers do isolate all the time, with the result that the dance … [Read more...]

We critics have grown rather grouchy about City Center's annual smorgasbord, the Fall for Dance festival--which is exactly like looking a gift horse in the mouth, as those $10 tickets have to be paid for by someone and it's certainly not the audience. The shows--five separate programs, with four distinct works on each-- sustain a huge loss, offset by corporate and state support. My frustration … [Read more...]

I have been slow to post my Financial Times reviews. So here are three that have little to do with each other. Earlier this month, the fiercely independent choreographers Nora Chipaumire--admired for solo outings and for her dancing with the New York-based Urban Bush Women--and her husband, Souleymane Badolo--whose recent piece at Danspace was bewitching--offered their first foray into joint … [Read more...]

From mid-June until late August, dance springs up in the most unexpected places in and around New York. From mid-August to the second week in September, practically all that is left of dance--and it isn't much--happens outdoors. Starting in mid-July I spent a month wandering hither and yon, which is not as fun as it sounds. It is draining to negotiate subway, boat, and the dawdling summer streets … [Read more...]

Here are six Financial Times reviews from the last few weeks. They cover events at the Joyce (two), Lincoln Center Festival (three) and outside along the Hudson for the River to River Festival. To begin, the first of two reviews of Pilobolus's four week season at the Joyce (one week left), which features a collaboration with Art "Maus" Spiegleman (yay!): There are two strains of Pilobolus - the … [Read more...]

But first: to all of you who came out on a blearily hot summer morning for my talk for the Dance Critics Association conference (see previous post ): thank you. It was lovely to meet those of you I've only corresponded with or haven't even done that, to see those of you I know, and to receive such a warm and interested response. Some of you who couldn't make it have wanted to know how you can … [Read more...]

ME! I hope you can make it. The talk will be at the Kimmel Center at NYU this very Friday July 16 at 9:30 AM for about an hour. The Kimmel is at 60 Washington Square South, near the 4th Street stop for the A, C, E, B, D, F, M; the 8th Street stop for the N, R, and W; the Astor Place stop for the 6; and not far from the Union Square stop for N, R, Q, W, 4, 5, 6. The topic is big: how to write … [Read more...]