Foot in Mouth

Treat yourself, if you're so lucky: you only have till Saturday, and Wednesday, the house was packed. Some critics have been ambivalent--Gia Kourlas in the NY Times and Kathleen O'Connor at Danceviewtimes. I was enthralled, and set free for flashes of insight, from blast off to lights out. O'Connor is a brilliant choreographer, but his Mommy and Baby dances (2006 and 2004, respectively) … [Read more...]

Karole Armitage is a choreographer who misses more than she hits, but even that bumpy track record didn't prepare me for Itutu, playing BAM for a mercifully short run this week. Here are the first few paragraphs of my Financial Times review, out tomorrow: If cultural appropriation didn't already have a bad name, Karole Armitage's Itutu (until Saturday) would give it one. That the choreographer … [Read more...]

Mudan 175/39 by Garth Fagan. Photo by Paula Summit.I don't think this year's Joyce season is the best showing of Fagan's work. There's only one premiere--the lovely Mudan--but even that wouldn't be a problem if the rep didn't also fall on the minimalist end of the Fagan scale. Still, I admire the Rochester choreographer's aim and method enough to not much mind if one year is less revelatory than … [Read more...]

I asked my friend and Foot colleague Paul Parish whether I could paste some of his review last week of Bill T. Jones's and Joe Goode's latest shows--Jones's is the big Lincoln fete we New Yorkers will be getting some side dishes from later this month at the Joyce--and he said, yes, please. There's all sorts of observations Paul makes that have me starting up with excitement--the unusual way … [Read more...]

I didn't do either in my review for the Financial Times tomorrow of the popular European choreographer Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui's Orbo Novo. There were other things, for which I felt distinct dislike, such as the dance's confusion about its stance towards its material (a woman entering nirvana by suffering--if that's even the right way to put it-- a stroke). It's okay for the choreographer to be … [Read more...]