Portraying an auditioning opera singer [in her Solo for the History of Piece, Summer] Morgan evoked a doomed Jean Rhys heroine-all ravaged beauty and morbid sensitivity. Village Voice 12/25/02
Christopher Caines; Silesian Dance Theatre: Straight Into the Eyes
Snow . . . harks back to the modest scale and subtle emotional range of early ballets by Tudor and Ashton, [but it] achieves nothing like the dramatic power of these models. (Caines) [Jacek] Luminski’s choreography is ostensibly rooted in his extensive research into Polish folk tradition and Hasidic ecstatic rituals, [but] . . . I didn’t see much connection to these resources . . . on stage. Village Voice 12/13/02
George Balanchine: The Nutcracker; Mark Morris: The Hard Nut
Each choreographer recognizes the delicate balance [E.T.A.] Hoffmann proposed between gemütlichkeit and the darker regions of the erotic, the phantasmal, and the demonic. Village Voice 12/11/02
Xavier Le Roy
Le Roy begins [his 50-minute solo, Self-Unfinished] by turning himself into a postmodern Coppélia doll, moving as if the sequential postures and steps that normally connect and flow in a living being had been reduced to small, discrete elements executed by a creaky inanimate mechanism. Village Voice 12/04/02
Jeremy Nelson
Narrative, character, emotion, atmosphere-Nelson admits these theatrical elements into his SightUnseen only by implication, concentrating instead on kaleidoscopic reconfigurations of space by the bodies traveling through it. Narrow in vocabulary, the choreography is opulent in texture. Village Voice 11/13/02
Momix
Inspired by the sunstruck landscape of the American Southwest and the rituals of its indigenous peoples . . . Moses Pendleton’s program-length Opus Cactus . . . is a collection of toys designed to beguile adults not necessarily addicted to dancing. Village Voice 10/02/02
Fringe Festival 2002
New York’s annual Fringe Festival-a 17-day marathon of nearly 200 shows in 20 downtown theaters-lures its audience with the prospect of discovery. It offers rediscovery too, through visiting spaces rich in the history of neighborhoods and the cultures they’ve sheltered as well as the history of cutting-edge creativity. For a veteran, art-hungry New Yorker, personal history is likely to be involved as well. Village Voice 09/18/02