World-class review of ballet and dance.
“Into the Hairy”—the 45-minute ballet by choreographer Sharon Eyal and her creative collaborator Gai Behar—sets the tone immediately. Dancers dressed in arachnid-like unitards have a severe look, with black eye makeup that drips intensely down their cheeks, gothic and dramatic.
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Transformation is inevitable—and necessary in order to persist. That’s a theme that runs through two new works staged by Rotterdam’s Scapino Ballet in “Origin,” a program focused entirely on emerging choreographic talent.
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An apron-clad Marjani Forté-Saunders, spotlit on the steps of the St. Mark’s Church sanctuary, rocks from one bare foot to the other while swinging a brown paper bag, presumably filled with groceries.
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For the most dynamic performers, artistry is an embodied quality. Whether through natural aptitude or diligent training—or most often, a combination of the two—the performer transcends the physical, choreographed act of their composition to present something that lingers outside the boundaries of their form.
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The New York City Ballet mounted no premieres this spring, unless you count the stage adaptation of Kyle Abraham’s Covid lockdown film “When We Fell.” Instead, the company drummed up hype by packing the season with debuts in dances both newish and old.
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Bill T. Jones wriggles upstage on his back in a rectangle of light, reciting an unsent letter to the New York Times dance critic Jack Anderson.
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The annual Dancing the Gods Festival of Indian Dance celebrated its fourteenth and final year with a generous finale May 16-18. This final event extended for three evenings instead of the usual two.
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Something old, something new, something borrowed, and something “Blue.” The premise of Australasian Dance Collective’s fortieth anniversary celebration stems from the traditional divisions of time.
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Shadows, dark matter and the enigmas of consciousness—the ideas behind Crystal Pite’s “Frontier” are timely and timeless at once.
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Ballet West’s Works from Within program gave company dancers a chance to speak. This year’s edition featured five works: Katlyn Addison’s “Andromeda,” Nicole Fannéy’s “Lingering Echoes,” Jazz Khai Bynum’s “With Feeling,” Vinicius Lima’s “Elis,” and Emily Adams’ “Mass Hysterical.”
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For the third year in a row, I attended the Spring is Blooming festival on Mother’s Day. Thanks to Dance Reflections by Van Cleef & Arpels and artist Alexandre Benjamin Navet, in place of crowded, overpriced brunches, I now look forward to a public dance spectacle, bougie swag, and the delightful camouflaging of the concrete jungles of midtown with pop-art flowers, pastel gazebos, and lazy bench swings.
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Pattern and symmetry are the modus operandi of choreographer Thierry Malandain’s “Les Saisons” (2023), performed by his Malandain Ballet Biarritz contemporary ballet company to close out the Pittsburgh Dance Council’s 2024-2025 season.
Continue ReadingTwo performers crawl in on hands and knees wearing neon green, hooded coveralls—the lightweight papery kind made for working in a sterile environment—and clusters of balloons pinned to their backs.
Continue ReadingWill Rawls makes boundaries visible by defying them. Known for the disciplinary and topical range of his projects, the choreographer, director, and performer approaches issues of representation in “[siccer],” a multi-part, multi-site work co-presented by L’Alliance New York’s Crossing the Line Festival. A live performance at Performance Space New York...
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It is always interesting when multiple theme steps emerge over the course of a mixed repertory evening, but it is uncanny on one featuring five different ballets, each with a different choreographer and composer, covering a twenty-year span (2005-2025).
Continue ReadingZvidance premiered its new work “Dandelion” mid-November at New York Live Arts. Founded by Zvi Gotheiner in 1989, Zvidance has been a steady presence in the New York contemporary dance scene, a reliable source of compositional integrity, and a magnet for wonderful dancers.
Continue ReadingCleveland native Dianne McIntrye received a hometown hero's welcome during her curtain speech prior to her eponymous dance group thrilling the audience in her latest work, “In the Same Tongue.”
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