World-class review of ballet and dance.
“Call it culture.” This short phrase acted as the backbone of “Curriculum II,” a new work from the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company. Uttered as a satirical refrain or in bold type, floating in the numerous screens as a reprimand, this barb reappeared continually like so many tiny vertebrates supporting the structure of a complex and at times, unwieldy, composition.
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After the comfort-food programming of December, January tends to kick off with prestige offerings and new works. So it was unusual that the first dance show I saw in 2023 featured timeworn ballet standards like “The Dying Swan” and “Paquita.” These warhorses were being performed by the Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo, however, so they were not exactly pablum. And to be fair, I caught the Trocks in the third week of their run at the Joyce Theater; so this was, in part, feel-good holiday programming. But though the Trocks have been affectionately spoofing ballet en travesti since 1974,...
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Not satisfied with the lone “Nutcracker” I saw in New York a few weeks back, and finding myself in Florida, I decided to pay a visit to Miami City Ballet’s “Nut” at the Arsht Center in Miami. (After Christmas, the production moves on to West Palm Beach.) The company, whose founding director was Edward Villella, is now headed by Lourdes López. Both spent their careers at New York City Ballet. And given the company’s strong Balanchine lineage, it’s no surprise that it is Balanchine’s “Nutcracker” that is performed here, albeit, since 2017, with new designs by Isabel Toledo (costumes) and...
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You know something is up when, on the Friday night the last weekend before Christmas, “Revelations” is not the peak of an Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater performance at City Center. This was not the fault of “Revelations,” which still galvanized the sold-out crowd. But it couldn’t hold a candle to the opener: Ailey’s “Night Creature,” which was brilliantly led by Sarah Daley-Perdomo and danced in front of the Future of Jazz Orchestra, curated by Jazz at Lincoln Center. Throughout the first half of the evening, the pairing of the live band with some of Ailey’s best pieces to Duke...
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Even those who don’t like Rudolf Nureyev as a choreographer (and this writer is among them), cannot fail to appreciate his “Nutcracker,” returning this season to La Scala after a sixteen-year absence. It was foreseeable that the director of the ballet, Manuel Legris, a pupil of the dancer-choreographer and a great performer of his ballets, would dust off the production, allowing few regrets for the previous versions that have passed on the stage at La Scala without leaving a mark: from the bad edition by Nacho Duato to that sadly staged by George Balanchine. The return to a ballet by...
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2022’s abundant, and at times, overwhelming, calendar of dance was a weekly reminder of New York’s place as ‘a’ if not ‘the’ major dance capital of the world. Though the pandemic caused an exodus of artists from the city in search of affordability and space, I was thrilled again and again, by how many have stayed and continued to make powerful work centering their fellow dancers and uplifting their communities. And while there were many singular performances of note—like Jacquelin Harris’s brilliant conjuring of Winnie Mandela in “Survivors” during Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater’s winter season last week—what has stayed...
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In New York, the year that is drawing to a close was marked by a true return to the pleasure of live performance. Going to the theater felt almost normal again. Sure, theaters were a bit emptier than before the pandemic, and that is understandable. Some people are still nervous about spending hours in close proximity to others, especially now that the masks are coming off. But many are returning, reacquainting themselves with the irreplaceable sensation of sharing time and space with extraordinary performers, knowing that what one is about to see will never again be repeated in quite the...
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With the global pandemic mostly in the rearview mirror, dance lovers once again enjoyed—literally—a movable feast. Indeed, the movers and shakers on this writer’s radar during the past year proved to be resilient, gorgeous and, happily, an embarrassment of riches.
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Considering the ongoing conversation regarding the true scope of dancers’ labor and the role they play in a choreographer’s dance making process, I mused about the Gibney Dance Company’s announcement of their recent New York Live Arts season (December 13-17) presenting “Yag 2022,” a reimagining of Ohad Naharin's acclaimed 1996 work for Batsheva Dance Company. “Yag” is a family memoir—come to life in the Gaga-trained bodies (and minds) of the Batsheva dancers. What would happen when such a collaborative and personal work was restaged on a completely different company of dancers?
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While practically every other ballet company is putting on a “Nutcracker,” Sarasota Ballet has decided to present a program of chamber ballets in the weeks before the end of the year. And why not? It’s a triple bill, with two works by Jerome Robbins (“In the Night” and “Fancy Free”) and, in the only concession to the season, Frederick Ashton’s picture postcard “Les Patineurs,” set at a Victorian skating rink. Given the scale of the theater (the Sarasota Opera House) and of these works, it is a perfect program for getting to know the company better, with the luxury of...
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“Romeo and Juliet” was a favorite in high school lit-class, a real two-hanky play. My first experience of any version of the play on stage was with choreographer John Cranko’s version at the Academy of Music in 1969. I knew Prokofiev’s score, especially “Dance of the Knights,” where the Capulets and Montagues curtsy and circle one another. The sinister music trumpeted that they would soon be killing each other. Around the same time Franco Zefferelli’s dance-heavy film came out. Both Cranko’s dance and Zeferrelli’s film were full of pomp and ceremony, velvets, pearls, crimsons, swords, and sumptuous beyond words. So,...
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Artistic director Rafael Bonachela’s remarkable “New Breed” has hit the stage at Sydney’s Carriageworks for its 9th year. Each year the initiative provides a springboard for four budding choreographers to create a brand new work—the hope for many is to establish themselves as choreographers. Miraculously, the initiative has somehow survived the Sydney lockdowns and is now a mainstay of the company's performance season. The initiative comes with all the creative trimmings and infrastructure of Sydney Dance Company—the chosen four have access to company dancers, studios, composers, costume, and lighting designers. The concept is wonderfully simple, but rare in the performing...
PlusTwo 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.
PlusWill 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).
PlusZvidance 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.
PlusCleveland 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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