World-class review of ballet and dance.
What do gestures become when stripped of their in-the-moment communicative purposes? South American choreographer Luis Garay borrows the word “maneries” from Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben, who, in his book The Coming Community, analyses the word’s etymology and comes to a conclusion that is mirrored by Garay’s program notes on the dance: “‘Maneries’ refers to neither a universal nor a particular; it embraces both, like an example.”
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Seeing dance in New York City is always an exciting grab-bag of movement invention and ideas. But, the companies and performers in New York can be increasingly, well, New York. Much of the work presented at our many institutions (and there are many), outside of NYC-based artists that is, are of an international set. In this city, it often seems easier to catch the latest import from Belarus or Budapest than from Boise. That is why the recent trio of works by the Pennsylvania Ballet at the Joyce Theater was a singular treat; an American company in NYC that was...
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Complexions Contemporary Ballet, by virtue of its name, conjures graceful athleticism with the more formal rigors of ballet. Co-founded by Dwight Rhoden and Desmond Richardson in 1994, the 15-member troupe is testament to sculpted lines and a hyperphysical aesthetic, one whose brand is instantly identifiable. Indeed, the Rhoden/Richardson partnership has not only built a company that tours the world, but has served as one of dance’s most illustrious creative pairings, with Richardson, still performing at 47, Rhoden’s muse.
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Upstage, the company stands in line. As the music builds, the whirring tones of Julia Wolfe’s score for eight double basses, a group breaks rank and runs forward, flying through space with strong, powerful movement. “Stronghold,” the new work by former company dancer and now associate choreographer of Richard Alston Dance Company, Martin Lawrence, is one of four pieces in the company’s latest programme. Performed at Sadler’s Wells, London, it’s a piece which, like the rest of the bill, shows this long-standing company is far from ready to rest on its laurels.
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The ultimate totalitarian novel, George Orwell's 1984 which was written in 1948, remains one of the most powerful, often oddly prescient books of all time, presenting a fictionalised world where citizens are dehumanised through an autocratic government (simply termed ‘The Party’) with mind control, 24-hour surveillance culture and the proliferation of advertising at every corner.
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In a March 2015 interview with the New York Times, Paul Taylor spoke with dance critic Gia Kourlas on the inaugural season of his newly-established Paul Taylor's American Modern Dance. “I'm not going to disband,” Taylor makes a point to say. “I'll have to die before I leave.” The company, formally announced the year prior, was to be a solution for the continuation and preservation of Taylor works, as well as new and restaged works by choreographers deemed American masters. In the interview, one that emphasized his frankness, Taylor makes clear this was not a means to stage a gracious...
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It’s safe to say that hip-hop and street dance—from breaking, popping and locking, to krumping, jookin’ and the like—is by now an established dance genre. With the Brazil-based troupe, Companhia Urbana de Dança, the form, as deployed by its nine indefatigable members, and choreographed (and developed in collaboration with the dancers), by artistic director Sonia Destri Lie, could also be called classical hip-hop—indeed, neo-classical.
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One might say that they’ve got ballet in their blood. Colleen Neary has been dancing since she was nine; her husband of nearly 30 years, Thordal Christensen, since he was six. This year, the co-directors of Los Angeles Ballet, founded in 2006, celebrate the troupe’s 10th season, a near-miraculous feat, really, in a town not known to be particularly pointe shoe-friendly.
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“… for the only human race to which it is forbidden to sever the bonds of time is the race of those who create art.” –Alejo Carpentier, The Lost Steps
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3,000 pink carnations standing upright on the stage. A dreamscape! My “spirit rose, … let it be glory, let it be ruin!” George Meredith[note]George Meredith, The Ordeal of Richard Feverel: A History of Father and Son (London: Penguin Classics, 1999), 42[/note]
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It’s not every day that a theatre famed for dance lets four splendid horses grace its stage. Yet in “Golgota,” Bartabas’ second production for Sadler’s Wells, dance and equestrian theatre become one. Bartabas established Zingaro, his own equestrian theatre, in the mid-80s. They produce big-top style shows, living and working as a community in Aubervilliers, north-east of Paris. For the theatre stage he works on a more intimate scale and for “Golgota” he has joined forces with the talented flamenco dancer Andres Marin to create a performance with an artistic fusion you won’t find elsewhere.
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Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker's take on Shakespeare's As You Like It opens on a bare stage. Brian Eno's “Golden Hours” plays on loop, her interpretation of Shakespeare's comedy a meeting between the play and Eno's album Another Green World. The track finishes one cycle without anything happening. When the cast do enter they edge forward, their slow walk barely moving. By the third loop phrases from the song begin to catch the attention, ‘how can moments go so slow?’
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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