World-class review of ballet and dance.
While the intersection of film and dance has been on the rise, most recently because of the global pandemic, Los Angeles-based Bridget Murnane has been working in those two arenas for years: She was not only a professional dancer in the 1980s, having performed with, among others, Gloria Newman, but she also earned a master’s degree in dance from UCLA in 1985, where her thesis was video as a choreographic tool.
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Out Innerspace Dance Theatre is devoted to creating exciting and integral contemporary-dance works. Through their research and experimentation, the Vancouver-based company celebrates the importance of challenging preconceptions of what is to be experienced and expounded in contemporary dance-theatre. The company was officially formed in 2007 by David Raymond and Tiffany Tregarthen, after years of various collaborative endeavours together. During a pleasant conversation with Raymond, I had the opportunity to ask him for some more detailed information about the company, the process of creation of their last work, their methodology, and upcoming productions.
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In 1994, at the peak of the AIDS crisis, Neil Greenberg premiered what has become his best- known work, “Not-About-AIDS-Dance.” Over the heads of the five dancers, surtitles narrated—in sans serif type and the most laconic terms—what had been happening in the dancers’ lives outside rehearsal as well as what was happening right before us on the stage: the wide lunges, wheeling legs, windmilling arms, supplicant kneels, reckless penchés, and bouts of stillness more rash than anything you’d see in Cunningham, with whom Greenberg had danced for seven years, beginning in 1979.
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When the Paul Taylor Dance Company returns to Lincoln Center November 1-13, iconic Taylor dances like “Esplanade” and “Company B” share the stage with world premieres from Amy Hall Garner and newly-appointed resident choreographer Lauren Lovette. Other highlights of the programming include a special evening celebrating the collaboration between Taylor and the painter Alex Katz, Kurt Jooss’s classic anti-war ballet “The Green Table,” and live music from the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, led by maestro David LaMarche.
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Jennifer Homans, The New Yorker’s dance critic, has written a must-read biography, Mr. B: George Balanchine’s 20th Century. While plenty of ink has been spilled about the iconic choreographer, what makes Homans’s work distinct is her ability to get inside his head and capture his spiritual and personal life in graceful, poetic prose. Reading this monumental work felt like a full-bodied experience.
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Meg Howrey’s engaging new novel, They’re Going to Love You—her fourth—immerses readers in the ballet world. As a former ballerina, this is a place with which Howrey is intimately familiar. The plot revolves around a 40-something choreographer/erstwhile dancer, Carlisle, and her estranged father and his partner, James, both of whom are also in the dance world.
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Squeezing in as much time as possible together in the dance studio, Mythili Prakash and her collaborating musicians are rehearsing their new work “Poo | Poo” for the Erasing Borders Dance Festival. Presented annually in New York City by the Indo-American Arts Council, the festival, this year, is celebrating India’s 75th anniversary of independence. Four days away from the premiere, Prakash and her musicians are still figuring out the ending. But that may be because of the collaborative nature of this endeavor (as well as the fact that half of them were stricken with Covid during one of their dedicated...
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On a hot July Sunday in Monterrey, Nuevo León, Mexico, young dancers and their families are crowded outside the Teatro de la Ciudad awaiting to take master classes with renowned Mexican dancer, Isaac Hernandez. The excitement is palpable. A proud father captures video of his son on his phone, as he tells the camera about the class he is about to take. Scenes like this may be common in cities like New York or London, where ballet, and the arts in general, have found their stronghold. But for Hernandez, it’s something he has devoted the last decade to forging.
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Dancer, choreographer and musician Mavin Khoo's career straddles many disciplines, from Bharatanatyam (he is a leading soloist in the artform) and Odissi, to classical dance, and Cunningham technique at the Cunningham Studios, New York. He has worked with Wayne McGregor, Christopher Bannerman and most recently, has become the coach and creative associate to Akram Khan as part of the prestigious Akram Khan Company. Lorna Irvine caught up with him ahead of the live performance of “Jungle Book reimagined” at Edinburgh Festival Theatre as part of Edinburgh International Festival in August 25-28, 2022.
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In 1991, Molly Lynch, who was then director of the Orange County-based Ballet Pacifica, launched an annual three-week workshop, Pacifica Choreographic Project, to provide the company with new works created for her dancers by four guest choreographers. Fast forward to 2004, when Lynch, who’d resigned from Ballet Pacifica the year before, founded the National Choreographic Initiative (NCI). Its mission, however, was essentially the same: to provide emerging and mid-career contemporary ballet choreographers a three-week laboratory to foster new works, with the workshopped dances then performed on stage for an audience.
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For years Amar Ramasar was one of the most popular dancers at NYCB, admired for his joyful stage presence and exuberant dancing. He always seemed to be having more fun onstage than anyone, whether he was dancing Phlegmatic in “The Four Temperaments” or the “rhumba sailor” in “Fancy Free.” Choreographers like Justin Peck, Christopher Wheeldon, and Alexei Ratmansky were drawn to him. And colleagues like Sara Mearns and Peck involved him in outside projects like “A Dancer’s Dream,” with the New York Philharmonic, and “Carousel,” on Broadway.
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Born in 1985 in Leverkusen, Philippe Kratz first encountered dance with the German Tanztheater through pedagogue and choreographer Suheyla Ferwer. He then studied classical ballet at the École Supérieure de Dance du Québec in Montréal and at the Staatliche Ballettschule in Berlin. As a former long-time company member of Italian Aterballetto, he has worked with numerous international dance makers before deciding to deepen his understanding of, and artisanship in, choreography. In 2018 he created and danced “O,” which won Hanover’s choreography competition, as well as a residency with the Australian Dance Theatre. His work often focuses on resilience and its myriad...
PlusWatching 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,...
PlusThe 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.
PlusAfter 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.
PlusAn “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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