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.
“Tanz” opens on a ballet class like none I’ve ever attended. Onstage are two portable barres and four dancers in rehearsal clothes stretching and warming up. Eighty-three-year-old ballerina Beatrice Cordua teaches from a wheelchair, naked. “The toes are the tongue of the foot,” she declares as the dancers tendu at the barre. “You should take your clothes off,” she suggests. “Muscle is beauty. Muscle is movement.” Soon the stage is filled with curvy, tattooed female flesh. A series of grand tendus reveals glimpses of vulva that challenge my sense of modesty. A familiar floor stretch leaves nothing to the imagination.
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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.
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Great review! I’m sorry I couldn’t get to this show!