World-class review of ballet and dance.
Creating Urban Bush Women forty years ago—after having had a dream about her parents—Jawole Willa Jo Zollar may have stepped down as artistic director from the women-centered group dedicated to telling stories of the African diaspora through traditional and modern Africanist dance forms, but she’s busier than ever.
PlusDesigned to look at the process and art of writing dance criticism, this one-day event will feature panel discussions with Fjord Review writers, audience Q&A sessions, a conversation with a special guest choreographer, and networking reception.
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George Balanchine loved American culture because he loved America. He had lived through tyranny and chaos as a boy in the Russian Revolution, and though his displays of affection for his adopted homeland could border on silly (like the Western bolo ties he favored as fashion statements), he never took...
PlusMidway through “Frontera,” the dancers of Animals of Distinction, a multimedia dance company based out of Montreal, press their bodies into each other to form a line at the bottom of a large rectangle of blue light.
PlusHello Lauren! We haven’t spoken since June, when I interviewed you for a School of American Ballet Connoisseurship Series program about the Workshop performances.
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Designed to look at the process and art of writing dance criticism, this one-day event will feature panel discussions with Fjord Review writers, audience Q&A sessions, a conversation with a special guest choreographer, and networking reception.
FREE ARTICLE
Creating Urban Bush Women forty years ago—after having had a dream about her parents—Jawole Willa Jo Zollar may have stepped down as artistic director from the women-centered group dedicated to telling stories of the African diaspora through traditional and modern Africanist dance forms, but she’s busier than ever.
Plus
George Balanchine loved American culture because he loved America. He had lived through tyranny and chaos as a boy in the Russian Revolution, and though his displays of affection for his adopted homeland could border on silly (like the Western bolo ties he favored as fashion statements), he never took for granted the possibilities he found here, never stopped extolling America’s freshness and energy.
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Philadelphia witnessed two Gala celebrations of dance and performance on opposite sides of town in October. It seemed like a tale of two cities. One in the center where much of the cultural events take place and the other on the fringes, down by the riverside.
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Hello Lauren! We haven’t spoken since June, when I interviewed you for a School of American Ballet Connoisseurship Series program about the Workshop performances.
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Midway through “Frontera,” the dancers of Animals of Distinction, a multimedia dance company based out of Montreal, press their bodies into each other to form a line at the bottom of a large rectangle of blue light.
Plus
“Hey, kids, let’s put on a show!” said Mickey Rooney to Judy Garland in the definitive Depression-era musical film, Babes in Arms, lo those many years ago. Well, if Denna Thomsen and Zak Ryan Schlegel had been around back then, what a show they would have mounted!
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All too often it seems the human memory is too short. History is easily forgotten and, in a week where Americans are still processing the results of the presidential election, it is hard not to feel like we are doomed to repeat ourselves.
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Eyeballs, screaming crones, and bloody axes were projected on a scrim at the top of American Ballet Theater’s new production of “Crime and Punishment.” Not bad for Halloween programming! Yet, despite Isobel Waller-Bridge’s cinematic, pressure-cooker score—which frequently evoked escape room music—there was very little suspense in Helen Pickett and James Bonas’s new narrative full-length.
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Antony Hamilton is on the move. When he answers my Zoom call, the world-renowned choreographer is at the airport about to board a flight to London. This isn't a vacation,...
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Records are for keeping. A record of the past in permanent form, an account. An official report. The sum of past achievements. The best, most remarkable event of its kind, a world record, no less.
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For a man considered an icon in Japan’s performing arts world, Tetsuya Kumakawa, in person, is surprisingly down-to-earth.
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Amelie Ravalec is a London-based French film director and producer, photographer, publisher and colourist. Her internationally screened films include Art & Mind, Paris/Berlin: 20 Years Of Underground Techno and Industrial Soundtrack For the Urban Decay.
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A stool, a clothesline, a hanging sheet. But for these three things, the stage set for “Woolgathering” was largely empty. “Woolgathering” is a ‘spoken word opera’ directed and composed by Oliver Tompkins Ray with choreography by John Heginbotham, inspired by the poetic memoir by Patti Smith.
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The American Ballet Theatre’s opening bill was not a hole-in-one, but the ideas behind the programming were sound: feature a new work that builds upon company traditions (Gemma Bond’s “La...
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It’s not every contemporary choreographer who is able to cross over into directing large-scale opera. But that’s precisely what Kitty McNamee has done.
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During opening night of Ballet West’s performance of Val Caniparoli’s “Jekyll & Hyde,” my dad turned to me and said, “I remember you once told me that dancers are telling stories with their bodies.
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In a small white studio space, the line between performers and audience is being blurred. Choreographer Meytal Blanaru, born in Israel but now Brussels based, has devised this piece along with the dancers, and it’s multifaceted indeed, a study in hope and community spirit, with many playful detours along the way.
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Staging the biographical details of someone’s life is by no means an easy task; doing so for a figure who was complex and controversial amplifies this charge to a new level.
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I’ve been thinking about content for a while now. Without it, blogs, websites, and other social media die. But content, as an adjective, has a different meaning: to be pleased,...
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