Ultimate Release
Perhaps not since Mikhail Fokine’s 1905 iconic “The Dying Swan” has there been as haunting a solo dance depiction of avian death as Aakash Odedra Company’s “Songs of the Bulbul” (2024).
Plus 
      World-class review of ballet and dance.
One of the most important questions for any director who inherits a dance company from its founding choreographer is how to keep the repertory alive. Stagnation—simply repeating the same cluster of increasingly familiar works—is not really an option. Dances die if they are performed too often just as they do if they are left on the shelf for too long. Changes creep in, obscuring the original style and intention. Also, dancers need new challenges. This is why companies have tended to commission new works from contemporary choreographers. The Paul Taylor Dance Company has done this, as have the Martha Graham Dance Company, the Trisha Brown Dance Company, Tanztheater Wuppertal, José Limón, and many others. In this way, the company keeps moving forward. The quality of the new work varies.
 
    
   
             
            “Uncommonly intelligent, substantial coverage.”
Your weekly source for world-class dance reviews, interviews, articles, and more.
Already a paid subscriber? Login
 
                
              Perhaps not since Mikhail Fokine’s 1905 iconic “The Dying Swan” has there been as haunting a solo dance depiction of avian death as Aakash Odedra Company’s “Songs of the Bulbul” (2024).
PlusDance, at its best, captures nuance particularly well, allowing us to feel deeply and purely. In its wordlessness, it places a primal reliance on movement and embodied knowledge as communication all its own. It can speak directly from the body to the heart, bypassing the brain’s drive to “make sense of.”
Plus“Racines”—meaning roots—stands as the counterbalance to “Giselle,” the two ballets opening the Paris Opera Ballet’s season this year.
Plus“Giselle” is a ballet cut in two: day and night, the earth of peasants and vine workers set against the pale netherworld of the Wilis, spirits of young women betrayed in love. Between these two realms opens a tragic dramatic fracture—the spectacular and disheartening death of Giselle.
Plus
Dear Jeannette, Neither of these dances had Labanotation scores. I’m sure the reconstructors wish they did.
Best,
Marina
Nowhere in this article is it mentioned that Paul Taylor was a huge proponent of Labanotation, a system of movement notation that accurately records and preserves choreography so that future companies may perform the works as the choreographer intended.The Dance Notation Bureau has in its files 50 scores of notated works by Taylor, which may include the ones being reconstructed.