Double-Cross
“He sounded deep, dark and mysterious and quite agitated about something.”
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I Fly, I Fall
“It’s human to feel vulnerable; it’s honest to feel lonely. I don’t see these emotions as negative so much as critical and introspective.” So responded Hagit Yakira when, during an audience discussion following the performance of her 2013 work “…in the middle with you” last week, a viewer enquired about the distress the piece’s characters face as they grapple with that thorniest of existential concerns, the human condition. Yakira's answer explains the meditative, rather than brooding, tone that prevails in this dance theatre work, which examines how we transition emotionally from suffering to release. The work is at once abstract...
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The Boy Should Always Meet the Girl
Pam Tanowitz is a choreographer of conflicted interests. “When I talk about narrative and non-narrative, I feel like I want it both ways,” she said in an interview with the Joyce Theater in 2013. She cites George Balanchine and Merce Cunningham as her two greatest influences, artists whose methods and techniques lie at opposite poles of virtually every spectrum. She comes from a background in contemporary (and mostly Cunningham) style, but says that she enjoys working in ballet. This interest has sometimes gone awry. In 2012 she presented the stuffy “Untitled (Blue Ballet)” at the Kitchen, with a cast drawn...
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No Rest for the Wilis
Their cheeks had the satin frost-glow of the moon;Their eyes the fire of Sirius.They circled, and droned a monotonous tune,Abandoned to love delirious.–George Meredith, Phantasy, 1861
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The Body Politic
(Pay attention to what it is, just as it is.)Each person is in the best seat –John Cage[note]lines 3, 31 of 2 Pages, 122 Words on Music and Dance, 1957[/note]
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Classical Cores, Modern Moves
This triple bill weaves together works by three seminal twentieth-century choreographers: Jiří Kylián, John Neumeier and William Forsythe. As critic Sarah Crompton points out in the programme notes, each of these so-called ‘modern masters’ spent the early years of his career at the Stuttgart Ballet, where a hotbed of artistic innovation bloomed under the direction of the late John Cranko, who encouraged his dancers to create their own works during his reign as director in the 1960s. Together the works on display form a splendid retrospective on the ballet scene of the late twentieth century, and mark English National Ballet’s...
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Space Opera
In real estate, the prevailing axiom is “location, location, location,” with Heidi Duckler, whom the Los Angeles Times once dubbed the “reigning queen of site-specific dance,” proving the dictum formidable. Whether choreographing in and around laundromats, shuttered hospitals, bowling alleys or parking lots, Duckler continues to mine magic in her choice of venue, tapping a collective vein that, in the process, invariably unlocks complex emotions.
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Northern Lights
When the prerecorded voice of Karen Kain announced that this year marks her tenth anniversary as artistic director of the National Ballet of Canada, the theatre burst into applause. Twice. It is no secret that the company has transformed under her watch, and the mixed winter programme suggests nothing is out of reach. The four works, spanning the balletic spectrum, highlighted the company’s range, and gave glimpses of rising stars.
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Shout Out Loud
If Chunky Move’s “Depth of Field,” the beginning of my Dance Massive 2015 marathon, was to show me a seasonal pattern unshaped by human hand, “Meeting” revealed a pattern defined by sixty-four small-scale robots whilst “Overworld” writhed in a chaotic pattern of YouTube fragments tethered to the four elements, earth, air, fire, and water. The tenuous link between these Dance Massive performances is solely that of my own programming: one night, two performances seen back-to-back, separated by an hour, at the North Melbourne Town Hall.
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Fleet Figures
Sylvain Émard Danse of Quebec celebrates their 25th anniversary this year, with a Canadian tour of Sylvain Émard’s most recent work, “Ce n’est pas la fin du monde” (“It’s not the end of the world”). The work premiered a year ago at the Plateau d’Eysines in Bordeaux during the Danse Toujours biennial, and the company have twice since visited France to perform the piece.
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Field Notes
Seated in a purpose built grandstand in the formally exposed run-though of Chunky Move and Australian Centre for Contemporary Art’s forecourt, I waited. From this position, squinting into the sun, I was presented with a brilliant urban stage set. I pondered what I might have missed in a space I have only ever moved through at speed; the ‘field notes’ of author Richard Mabey came to mind:
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Beauty Sleep
Contrary to Mae West’s delicious quip, “Too much of a good thing is wonderful,” choreographer and ABT Artist in Residence, Alexei Ratmansky, whose interpretation of the iconic fairy tale landed in Orange County stuffed with ballet stars, sequins and sky-high wigs, this over-the-top world premiere is somewhat of a snooze. Blame, too, must be placed on Richard Hudson’s elaborate sets and costumes, which, although inspired by Léon Bakst’s 1921 Ballets Russes production,“The Sleeping Princess,” might be better suited to Las Vegas or Macao, where spectacle is the norm but taste is generally tossed aside.
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Spellbound
Two 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.
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Green Light
Will 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).
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Of Dandelions and Resilience
Zvidance 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.
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The Music Within
Cleveland 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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