Why it’s called American Street Dancer
Books are banned, DEI scuttled, and Africanist studies scaled back. Yet, the irrepressible spirit of African American artists is not extinguished.
PlusWorld-class review of ballet and dance.
It is a kaleidoscope of references, a whirligig of Alices, I carry with me to the third Melbourne season of Christopher Wheeldon’s “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland,” presented by the Australian Ballet, at the State Theatre in Melbourne. They mingle in the ether with the Alice conjured direct from my own reading of the Lewis Carroll classic, and the memory of that encounter. From Lauren Cuthbertson in 2017 to Ako Kondo and Amber Scott in 2019, in 2024, my Alice guides are Sharni Spencer and Benedicte Bemet, on the Tuesday and the Wednesday nights, respectively. Each Alice within the tale shapes the role accordingly, and so Spencer’s gentle and trusting of the “wildest impossibilities” Alice, and Bemet’s joyful and “wildly curious” Alice form a magical gallery of Alices who I follow about the stage as they in turn follow a twitching, scurrying, quick-changing White Rabbit.[1]
Performance
Place
Words
“Uncommonly intelligent, substantial coverage.”
Your weekly source for world-class dance reviews, interviews, articles, and more.
Already a paid subscriber? Login
Books are banned, DEI scuttled, and Africanist studies scaled back. Yet, the irrepressible spirit of African American artists is not extinguished.
Plus“Lists of Promise,” a new work currently in a two-week run from March 13- 30 at the East Village cultural landmark, Theater for the New City, promised more than it delivered, at least for now.
Plus“State of Heads” opens with a blaze of white light and loud clanking onto a white-suited Levi Gonzalez, part Elvis, part televangelist addressing his congregation. A pair of women sidle in—Rebecca Cyr and Donna Uchizono—dressed in ankle-length white dresses and cowered posture.
PlusThe late John Ashford, a pioneer in programming emerging contemporary choreographers across Europe, once told me that he could tell what sort of choreographer a young artist would turn into when watching their first creations.
Plus
comments