World-class review of ballet and dance.
The ultimate totalitarian novel, George Orwell's 1984 which was written in 1948, remains one of the most powerful, often oddly prescient books of all time, presenting a fictionalised world where citizens are dehumanised through an autocratic government (simply termed ‘The Party’) with mind control, 24-hour surveillance culture and the proliferation of advertising at every corner.
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In a March 2015 interview with the New York Times, Paul Taylor spoke with dance critic Gia Kourlas on the inaugural season of his newly-established Paul Taylor's American Modern Dance. “I'm not going to disband,” Taylor makes a point to say. “I'll have to die before I leave.” The company, formally announced the year prior, was to be a solution for the continuation and preservation of Taylor works, as well as new and restaged works by choreographers deemed American masters. In the interview, one that emphasized his frankness, Taylor makes clear this was not a means to stage a gracious...
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It’s safe to say that hip-hop and street dance—from breaking, popping and locking, to krumping, jookin’ and the like—is by now an established dance genre. With the Brazil-based troupe, Companhia Urbana de Dança, the form, as deployed by its nine indefatigable members, and choreographed (and developed in collaboration with the dancers), by artistic director Sonia Destri Lie, could also be called classical hip-hop—indeed, neo-classical.
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One might say that they’ve got ballet in their blood. Colleen Neary has been dancing since she was nine; her husband of nearly 30 years, Thordal Christensen, since he was six. This year, the co-directors of Los Angeles Ballet, founded in 2006, celebrate the troupe’s 10th season, a near-miraculous feat, really, in a town not known to be particularly pointe shoe-friendly.
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“… for the only human race to which it is forbidden to sever the bonds of time is the race of those who create art.” –Alejo Carpentier, The Lost Steps
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3,000 pink carnations standing upright on the stage. A dreamscape! My “spirit rose, … let it be glory, let it be ruin!” George Meredith[note]George Meredith, The Ordeal of Richard Feverel: A History of Father and Son (London: Penguin Classics, 1999), 42[/note]
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It’s not every day that a theatre famed for dance lets four splendid horses grace its stage. Yet in “Golgota,” Bartabas’ second production for Sadler’s Wells, dance and equestrian theatre become one. Bartabas established Zingaro, his own equestrian theatre, in the mid-80s. They produce big-top style shows, living and working as a community in Aubervilliers, north-east of Paris. For the theatre stage he works on a more intimate scale and for “Golgota” he has joined forces with the talented flamenco dancer Andres Marin to create a performance with an artistic fusion you won’t find elsewhere.
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Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker's take on Shakespeare's As You Like It opens on a bare stage. Brian Eno's “Golden Hours” plays on loop, her interpretation of Shakespeare's comedy a meeting between the play and Eno's album Another Green World. The track finishes one cycle without anything happening. When the cast do enter they edge forward, their slow walk barely moving. By the third loop phrases from the song begin to catch the attention, ‘how can moments go so slow?’
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Garth Fagan Dance should be required viewing for the human race! Yes, that’s a brash statement, but the troupe is joy made palpable, with 15 dancers bringing it all on in a six-part program seen over the weekend: Virtuosity, stamina and love of life, not to mention technique to burn, are the hallmarks of this extraordinary group—attributes much needed in today’s dark world.
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In a short interview in the program for her company's recent performances at the Joyce Theater, Pam Tanowitz speaks to her interest in eliminating elements of her dances in order to find moments of greater interest. As an aside, she says, “There's a joke in my company: don't miss a rehearsal or your quartet may become a trio.”
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In her 1978 book Illness as Metaphor, Susan Sontag examined how diseases become “awash in significance.” “Nothing is more punitive,” she wrote, “than to give a disease a meaning—that meaning being invariably a moralistic one.” Sontag identified tuberculosis and cancer as two diseases that have moralistic meanings. In 1989, Sontag added AIDS to this list. “The sexual transmission of this illness,” she wrote in AIDS and Its Metaphors,” is “considered by most people as a calamity one brings on oneself.” It is, therefore, “judged more harshly than other means—especially since AIDS is understood as a disease not only of sexual...
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London’s the Place has been running its Resolution Festival for more than 25 years. The annual showcase, which presents a spate of new dance works throughout January and February, is a boon for emerging artists: along with a performance platform, the dancemakers who participate receive professional support and guidance throughout the production process—a valuable leg up in a dance scene as competitive as London’s. The festival’s track record for launching famous faces is another draw: some of the biggest names in contemporary British dance, including Wayne McGregor and Hofesh Shechter, got their start on the Resolution stage.
Continue ReadingWatching Matthew Bourne's reworked version of the “star-cross'd lovers,” I was briefly reminded of Veronica, played by Winona Ryder, in the dark 1988 comedy by Daniel Waters and Michael Lehmann, Heathers, and her line, “my teen angst bullshit has a body count.” Yes, this is the darker side of Bourne's repertoire,...
Continue ReadingThe choreographer Alexei Ratmansky reflects on the war in Ukraine, the connection between geopolitics and ballet, and joining the house of Balanchine.
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Beneath blue California skies, manicured trees, and the occasional hum of an overhead airplane, Tamara Rojo took the Frost Amphitheater stage at Stanford University to introduce herself as the new artistic director of San Francisco Ballet.
Continue ReadingAfter a week of the well-balanced meal that is “Jewels”—the nutritive, potentially tedious, leafy greens of “Emeralds,” the gamy, carnivorous “Rubies,” and the decadent, shiny white mountains of meringue in “Diamonds”—the New York City Ballet continued its 75th Anniversary All-Balanchine Fall Season with rather more dyspeptic fare.
Continue ReadingAn “Ajiaco” is a type of soup common to Colombia, Cuba, and Peru that combines a variety of different vegetables, spices, and meats.
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