Over three months, I followed pioneer krumpers Lil' C and Miss Prissy (from "Rize") during the gestational year of The Underground, the first-ever krump-based concert-dance company which they're building with street dance artists from Los Angeles and beyond. I saw their concert, talked to them at Miss Prissy's house on South Wilton Place, and … [Read more...]
Doug Varone the Painter-Choreographer
"I'm like a painter," said choreographer Doug Varone during his opening remarks for "Stripped/Dressed," the unique program on choreographic process and performance that he and his company of dancers brought to the Segerstrom Center for the Arts' Off-Center Festival in Costa Mesa on January 25-26 2013. The phrase sounds a little poetic (wouldn't a … [Read more...]
Wheeldon’s Wonderful ‘Alice’
[slideshow] When British choreographer Christopher Wheeldon left his dance company Morphoses in 2010, I was so worried he might retreat from choreography, exhausted from the battle of keeping a transatlantic dance company funded and strong. How glorious, then, to see the National Ballet of Canada (NBC) bring Wheeldon's robust new creation, a … [Read more...]
Teatro Zinzanni Comes to Southern California
[first published in the L.A. Times] As the outré Euro-style dinner-theater called Teatro ZinZanni parks its vintage 1910 Belgian spiegeltent on the scrubbed architectural grounds of the Segerstrom Center for the Arts for the next three months, there's much cooing among the ZinZanni staff about the luxuries of this Costa Mesa locale. "Marble … [Read more...]
The Divine Axis of Akram Khan
The west coast premiere of “Vertical Road” at CAP UCLA’s Royce Hall this week had some vocal public detractors, which surprised me. Khan is one of the most promising and original voices on the dance landscape right now, and the only one who’s creating a completely new dance lexicon. Though its still relatively early in his career, Kahn already … [Read more...]
The Mariinsky Ballet’s “Swan Lake” Satisfies Every Craving
[slideshow] I went for the downy thunderbolt of technique and expression possessed only by Russian ballet artists in Tchaikovsky’s “Swan Lake,” and I was not disappointed. The 200-person forcefield of sophistication, generosity and technical excitement that comes at you when St. Petersburg's Mariinksky Ballet and Orchestra (formerly Kirov) brings … [Read more...]
Benjamin Millepied Unveils his Gem-sized L.A. Dance Project
[UPDATE: Less than a year into this project, Millepied announced he was moving to Paris Opera Ballet, where he was offered the artistic director position. Since then, as the company toured the US and Europe, a series of exciting appointments unfolded: in 2014 James Fayette, another former City Ballet principal, became the company manager and in … [Read more...]
David Rakoff on Dance
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ldqjM7x6NhE&feature=youtu.be] Life is just a series of dances. I will miss Rakoff so much. … [Read more...]
Radiolab with Pilobolus tours “In the Dark”
[This ran in the L.A. Times.] Before touring live versions of Radiolab, his gripping radio shows of scientific discovery and biography concocted with co-host Jad Abumrad, Peabody-winning reporter Robert Krulwich made just one brief stage appearance, decades ago, when he was recruited off the Manhattan streets to play a frozen, chair-bound Prince … [Read more...]
Ballet Geneve debuts Benjamin Millepied works
[This article first ran in the L.A. Times.] Touring with contemporary, soft-slippered ballets, Ballet du Grand Théâtre de Genève made its West Coast debut at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion on Friday with a trio of eye-catching works set to canonical ballet music choreographed by Benjamin Millepied, now known widely for his work in “Black … [Read more...]