Audacity of Dance
If there’s anybody who embodies ‘rizz’—charisma in today’s coolspeak—it’s dancer, choreographer, and filmmaker Benjamin Millepied.
Continue ReadingWorld-class review of ballet and dance.
A single dancer commands the stage, her arms and legs lithely carving the space as the words of Gloria Anzaldúa’s poem “To Live In The Borderlands Means You,” simultaneously sculpt the air. A ballerina’s nimble fingertips etch lines in the sky as she dances with her partner in an ethereal, heart-wrenching pas de deux. Men in intricately embroidered jackets tap out a percussive and precise zapateado. Women in brightly colored skirts move together with force, muskets in hand. Ballet Nepantla’s “Valentina,” which was presented in an abridged version on July 13 at Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival’s Henry J. Leir Outdoor Stage, is composed of these vignettes, each centering around the stories of the women of Revolutionary Mexico: their pain, their joy, their loves, and their losses.
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Andrea Guajardo and Jorge Naranjo in “Valentina.” Photograph by Christopher Duggan
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If there’s anybody who embodies ‘rizz’—charisma in today’s coolspeak—it’s dancer, choreographer, and filmmaker Benjamin Millepied.
Continue ReadingOne might easily mistake the prevailing mood as light-hearted, heading into intermission after two premieres by Brenda Way and Kimi Okada for ODC/Dance’s annual Dance Downtown season. Maybe this is just what we need to counter world events, you may think. But there is much more to consider beneath the high production values of this beautifully wrought program. Okada, for instance, folds a dark message into her cartoon inspired “Inkwell.” And KT Nelson’s “Dead Reckoning” from 2015 reminds us the outlook for climate change looms ever large.
Continue ReadingIt’s not every choreographer who works with economists, anthropologists, neuroscientists and cognitive scientists, not to mention collaborating with the Google Arts & Culture Lab and the Swedish pop group ABBA, but Wayne McGregor wouldn’t have it any other way.
Continue ReadingDance scholars have been remarking on the great Trisha Brown nearly from the day she first stepped into Robert Dunn’s class—the genesis of Judson Dance Theater—in the 1960s.
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