Fighting Spirit
There’s a distinct warrior theme to the evening shared by Angie Pittman and Kyle Marshall, though the two choreographers are working in very different styles and tone.
Plus
Latest
All the World on Stage
It’s not often these days that aspiring dancers and smaller companies can enjoy the luxury of state-of-the-art facilities to develop their practice and put on a show, especially in a capital city.
Plus
Juliet Doherty, Following the Light
Today I have the privilege of speaking with the divine Juliet Doherty. Juliet was born in Albuquerque, New Mexico, which is slightly more Breaking Bad than “Swan Lake,” but Juliet's grandparents owned a ballet studio which passed to Juliet's mother, and so the artistic genes ran deep.
FREE ARTICLE
Into the Heart of the Cave
One of the gems of New York City’s dance landscape is the Graham Studio Series, a programming cycle that offers behind-the-scenes interaction with the work of the Graham Company in their studio space. In early January, the series presented a Graham Deconstructed event exploring Martha Graham’s modernist masterwork “Cave of the Heart.”
Plus
A Century of Moderns
Sara Veale’s new book Wild Grace: The Untamed Women of Modern Dance (Faber & Faber) examines the lives of nine boldly subversive dancemakers over nearly a century, starting with Isadora Duncan and ending with Pearl Lang. Along the way, it provides a pared but potent mini-history on the emergence of women’s rights.
Plus
Ideation
Repertory Dance Theatre’s “Emerge” had the feel of a dance studio recital, for better and for worse. The annual showcase, designed to emphasize the robust dance community in Utah—which does, by the way, exist—had a warm, familiar feel, but lacked sufficient pedigree for a company of RDT’s caliber.
Plus
Get Well with Dr. Brandi Cole
In today's episode we speak with superstar Dr. Brandi Cole. You may have seen Dr. Brandi on your screens as she worked to keep the Matilda's on the field during the Women's World Cup in 2023, and then at the Paris Olympics.
FREE ARTICLE
Greek Myth or Graham Myth?
The Martha Graham Dance Company performed two of its Greek myth-themed works at Philadelphia’s Suzanne Roberts Theatre over the weekend.
Plus
The Legacy of Arlene Croce
Although Arlene Croce was not a trained dancer (her afterschool arts training in childhood was as a painter) she took dancing seriously as both an occasion for pleasure and a cultural endeavor, and she took writing about it to be a serious cultural action as well, at least as important to the mental health of the public as some of the verbiage by politicians and their editors.
Plus
Talking Pointes Season Four
Talking Pointes, the podcast that shines a light on life in dance and the performing arts, is back for a fourth season.
FREE ARTICLE
Ragamala Dances an Epic for Our Time
The Ragamala Dance Company returned to New York’s Joyce Theater with a visual feast for the eyes and stimulating food for thought with their new production “Children of Dharma.”
Plus
An Inventive Nutcracker
For me, an undeniable highlight of Christmas 2024 was watching Wallace and Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl with my family.
PlusFeatured Reads
Teenage Angst and Institutions
Watching 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,...
Plus
The Me of Today
The choreographer Alexei Ratmansky reflects on the war in Ukraine, the connection between geopolitics and ballet, and joining the house of Balanchine.
Plus
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.
Plus
America, F**K Yeah
After 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.
Plus
Acosta Danza’s Choreographic Soup
An “Ajiaco” is a type of soup common to Colombia, Cuba, and Peru that combines a variety of different vegetables, spices, and meats.
Plus