Seeing Things

The dancing of the all-female troupe is . . . beguiling: lusty and luscious where appropriate, elsewhere as light, calm, and carefree as the early spring breeze. Village Voice 04/16/03

One moment . . . disarmed . . . Harold “Stumpy” Cromer vividly recalling hoofing in the Depression while Gemze de Lappe and Gus Solomons jr improvised a duet full of wit, love, and the wisdom of long experience. Village Voice 04/09/03

A whole bunch of people are doing something right: Besides being fierce technicians, the young dancers of Ailey II, under the direction of Sylvia Waters (Aaron Davis Hall, March 14 though 16), infuse their performances with heart and soul. As we’ve seen with their parent company, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, the approach can transform mediocre choreography. Village Voice 03/24/03

The look of the thing is handsome, like an ultra-chic magazine animated into a tantalizing (and ravishingly clothed) half-life. (Mandle) [The piece] explores the marvelous human ability to experience disparate emotions simultaneously. Even at the height of tragedy . . . we are assailed and relieved by the ridiculous. (Beller and Kingsley) Village Voice 03/19/03

[The] evocative dim lighting [of Buglisi’s Requiem], now glowing, now ashen, reveals five women draped in baroque swaths of gleaming fabric tinted bronze, gold, cream, and dried-blood burgundy. Their dance-nothing more than sculptural postures and gestures, simple runs and collapses-turns them into anguished victims, stricken corpses, souls rising to heaven, heroic monuments. Throughout, cloth seems as sensuous and vulnerable as flesh. Village Voice 03/12/03

[They] performed their assigned tasks carefully and competently, always with attention to grace. But . . . their dancing contains little breath, little evidence of imagination, almost no expression beyond what can be rehearsed. Village Voice 02/26/03

Bill Shannon (a/k/a “CrutchMaster”)[‘s] . . . moves, though limited, provide an engaging contrast between percussive pacing and lyrical gliding, and they’re spiced with sleight-of-hand feats and illusions of flying as his legs swing free. Village Voice 02/12/03

[The hour-long show] features four of American Ballet Theatre’s galaxy of fabulous male stars: Jose Manuel Carreño, Angel Corella, Vladimir Malakhov, and Ethan Stiefel. [It] has clearly been designed for popular consumption, urging the viewer to understand these phenomenal athlete-artists as regular guys. (Born to Be Wild) [This] extended duet . . . is rooted in the way- back-then ’20s, when pastel sentiments flourished in American culture. (Green and Wright) Village Voice 01/29/03

[Mark Morris’s] work accommodates these as yet unformed aspirants. It forgives the limitations of their skills, makes their awkwardness touching, and reveals their best qualities-seriousness of purpose, charm, vulnerability, desire, radiance. Village Voice 01/20/03

Both the bios of these dance makers and the solid craft of their pieces contradicted the series’ claim to be presenting artists we know best as dancers, trying their choreographic wings-but no matter. We must take pleasure as it comes to us. Village Voice 01/08/03