Into the Wilde
At a time when the arts in America are under attack and many small dance companies are quietly disappearing, San Francisco’s dance scene—for decades second in its volume of activity only to New York—still has a pulse.
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Just the Steps
Noé Soulier enters the space without warning, and it takes a few seconds for the chattering audience to register the man now standing before them, dressed simply in a grey t-shirt and black pants, barefoot.
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Getting in the Groove
In the first few seconds that the lights come up on BalletX at the Joyce Theater, an audience member murmurs her assent: “I love it already.”
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Order and Disorder
The right foil can sharpen the distinct shapes of a choreographic work, making it appear more completely itself through the comparison of another.
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Fall Fashion
“Was it Benjamin Franklin, that sagacious and witty man, who, on signing the Declaration of Independence that hot July day in 1776, admonished his colleagues that they had better hang together lest they all hang separately?
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One More Time
Over the span of two weeks, New York City Center’s Fall for Dance Festival brought to its storied stage a wide range of performers from across the globe with different disciplines, perspectives, and movement vocabularies. Its fifth and final program reiterated what it’s all about: exploring, and celebrating, all the different ways we dance.
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United Dancing Nations
Program Four of the 22nd annual Fall for Dance Festival opened with an odd expression of gratitude: “thank you for going through all that you went through to get here,” Michael S. Rosenberg, the President and CEO of New York City Center, told the crowd. The 80th session of the UN General Assembly had shut down much of midtown (even to pedestrians), including the block of 55th street that is home to City Center.
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Pumpkin Spiced Rashomon
Recently, I came across a video of a woman having a meltdown at an American Football game. The details are unclear of what exactly went down, but the short clip of this young woman screaming ‘fuck off!’ to the person filming her while being restrained by her parents has garnered millions of views and thousands of derisive comments.
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The Sky is the Limit
As Martha Graham so succinctly put it, “The body says what words cannot.” Such was the case when Butoh master Oguri, his wife Roxanne Steinberg, Spanish-born Andrés Corchero and Chinese movement artist Mao, talked up a metaphorical storm in a dance performance with three crack musicians at the Electric Lodge over the weekend.
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Ballade Revival
The New York City Ballet’s fall season opened with a nicely varied all-Balanchine program. The man had range. The peasant campiness of “Donizetti Variations” led right into the romantic tremolos of “Ballade,” and his abridged version of the dramatic juggernaut “Swan Lake” followed the lone intermission.
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Slow Build
When viewing any work of art, patience may be a necessity, rather than a virtue alone. At least, in New York City Center’s second program for its annual Fall for Dance Festival, instant gratification is discouraged, with a slate of three works that reward viewers as they build, gradually, to ecstasy, horror, and mania.
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Real Men
At a time when masked ICE thugs are conducting raids up and down California, and the Supreme Court has just decreed the US government can continue arresting people based on the color of their skin, it was entirely appropriate that Rogelio Lopez’s new show opened with a voice over acknowledgement of the “horrors” besieging America’s Latino communities.
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Firebird Rising
Long before the dancers take the stage, Dance Theatre of Harlem’s season at New York City Center feels like one of the most energizing cultural events of the spring.
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Rare Birds
It is rare for George Balanchine’s grand, bedazzled “Symphony in C” to open a program. Its champagne-popping finale for 52 dancers tends to be a nightcap.
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The Spring is Blooming festival, by Dance Reflections by Van Cleef & Arpels, now in its fifth year, has become a highlight of the spring dance circuit.
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Jack of Hearts
As the audience come to their feet at the end of this ballet there is a noted difference to be seen on stage. Three women stand with joined hands, taking their call as the romantic leads of a loud and proud lesbian ballet.
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School Report
One of San Francisco Ballet’s greatest assets is its home venue, the Beaux-Arts style War Memorial Opera House, with four rings of seating that require performers to project their energies practically to the exosphere.
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