Lifted Spirits
Even at his most straightforward, Paul Taylor often imbued his dances with a sardonic wit. Whether invoking darkness or light, he did so with a wink.
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Forget crooning crockery; it’s waltzing pigs and jazz-dancing ravens in David Bintley’s “Beauty and the Beast,” a glittery production with a green twist. Bintley’s version reframes the fairytale as a pro-conservation allegory: an arrogant prince with a heartless hunting habit is cursed into living as a beast himself among the very animals he once targeted. The eco slant calls to mind Bintley’s excellent “Still Life at the Penguin Café” in its manifest respect for the natural world, though “Beast” is less of an admonitory tale than one focusing on personal redemption.
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Even at his most straightforward, Paul Taylor often imbued his dances with a sardonic wit. Whether invoking darkness or light, he did so with a wink.
Continue ReadingTalk about Gesamtkunstwerk! Jawole Willa Jo Zollar’s “SCAT!...The Complex Lives of Al & Dot, Dot & Al Zollar,” is just that—a total work of art: operatic in scale, replete with stellar musicians and singers, and the glorious dancers of Urban Bush Women, the troupe that Zollar founded in 1984, is also storytelling at its best.
Continue ReadingOf all of Shakespeare’s plays, “Hamlet” might seem the hardest to adapt into dance. Its long soliloquies and a titular character stymied by indecision do not immediately scream movement potential.
Continue ReadingComplexions Contemporary Ballet turned 30 this year, and their two-week residency at the Joyce Theater was a party.
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