Good and Evil, Embodied
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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Working the Room
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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An Empire of Florals and Tweed
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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Music and Meaning
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, gratified or even, complacent. It is also the root of the adjective contentious.
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The Tempo is Rising
Artistic director and guest curator for this year’s Tempo Dance Festival in New Zealand is proud Ngāti Tūwharetoa man, Moss Te Ururangi Patterson.
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Innovations Past and Present
The American Ballet Theater’s Fall Season opened at the Koch Theater with a program called “Innovation Past and Present,” which featured two world premieres and a company staple.
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Darkness Never Dies
Touted as a “Halloween destination for ballet and horror fans alike,” American Contemporary Ballet, now in its thirteenth season—a feat in and of itself for any dance company—is presenting, “LA’s Fatal Attraction: “Inferno” (2017), “Burlesque” (2018), and “The Rite” (2023), in repertory throughout October.
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Water World
To children or the young at heart, it’s pure magic. “Mermaid,” the beloved Hans Christian Anderson fairy tale, reworked and dazzling to behold, is a new original production from K-Ballet Tokyo.
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Dreams and Disorder
There are certain elements you can expect to find in any piece by Hofesh Shechter: a deafening, grungy, and distorted score composed by the choreographer himself; dim lighting and smoke enveloping the stage to create a nostalgic yet unsettling atmosphere; and a signature hunch-shouldered, gestural movement language referencing various forms of folk dance.
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Mother Tongue
A colourful, decorative rug is positioned centre stage. “It lasted pretty well,” a disembodied voice comments through the speaker system, explaining how it was chosen for its pattern, which is ideal for concealing dirt.
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Romeo & Juliet Redux
This is decidedly not your mother’s “Romeo and Juliet.” Indeed, Benjamin Millepied’s “Romeo & Juliet Suite,” choreographed for the superb members of his L.A. Dance Project, featured a female duo (Daphne Fernberger and Nayomi Van Brunt) in the titular roles at the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts on Thursday.
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Spellbound
Two performers crawl in on hands and knees wearing neon green, hooded coveralls—the lightweight papery kind made for working in a sterile environment—and clusters of balloons pinned to their backs.
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Green Light
Will Rawls makes boundaries visible by defying them. Known for the disciplinary and topical range of his projects, the choreographer, director, and performer approaches issues of representation in “[siccer],” a multi-part, multi-site work co-presented by L’Alliance New York’s Crossing the Line Festival. A live performance at Performance Space New York...
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It is always interesting when multiple theme steps emerge over the course of a mixed repertory evening, but it is uncanny on one featuring five different ballets, each with a different choreographer and composer, covering a twenty-year span (2005-2025).
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Of Dandelions and Resilience
Zvidance premiered its new work “Dandelion” mid-November at New York Live Arts. Founded by Zvi Gotheiner in 1989, Zvidance has been a steady presence in the New York contemporary dance scene, a reliable source of compositional integrity, and a magnet for wonderful dancers.
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The Music Within
Cleveland native Dianne McIntrye received a hometown hero's welcome during her curtain speech prior to her eponymous dance group thrilling the audience in her latest work, “In the Same Tongue.”
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