A Journey of Healing
Across North Africa, the all-night music-dance-trance ritual called lila (pronounced lee-lah) is celebrated as a means for spiritual healing.
FREE ARTICLEWorld-class review of ballet and dance.
What could be better than a performance of Merce Cunningham’s “Beach Birds” on the actual beach? On a rainy Saturday in late August, the clouds parted in time for a committed crowd of dance lovers to make way by subway and ferry to Rockaway Beach, and gather at Beach Street 108, where a band of confident dancers marched across the sand to perch themselves on the rocks of the jetty. Silhouetted by late afternoon, the dancers quietly transformed themselves into stiff-legged, twitchy headed birds. When they lifted their arms, draped in black evening length gloves, hands cupped, their limbs magically became wings.
Performance
Place
Words
“Uncommonly intelligent, substantial coverage.”
Your weekly source for world-class dance reviews, interviews, articles, and more.
Already a paid subscriber? Login
Across North Africa, the all-night music-dance-trance ritual called lila (pronounced lee-lah) is celebrated as a means for spiritual healing.
FREE ARTICLEThe Fall for Dance Festival programming formula runs roughly thus: feature a new troupe, include a pet (or vanity) project of a big NYC star, and end with a feel-good group showcase.
Continue ReadingAs the fight for greater visibility for women choreographers continues, it was encouraging to see Carlos Acosta, director of Birmingham Royal Ballet, commission an all-female creative team for “Luna,” the final piece in his trilogy celebrating the company’s hometown.
Continue ReadingHe is the love of your life. You are his one-and-only. The pair of you is doomed: Obligations to the social order make your relationship impossible. The only way out—double suicide. Actually, this being eighteenth-century Japan, you let him literally do it all; still, you are his forever and there is no turning back.
Continue Reading
Beautiful review. Maybe only a poet could have given this performance justice. I wasn’t able to see it so I especially appreciate the details—of both the old film and the new performance. I could feel the sun, the sand, and Cunningham’s connection to nature. Thank you.