Isobel Anderson Awards
Isobel Anderson Awards & Joan and Monica Halliday AwardsScience Theatre of the University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW, March 26, 2017
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Black Grace
Performances of the New Zealand company Black Grace, founded, directed, and choreographed by Neil Ieremia, a charismatic New Zealander of Samoan heritage, are as rich as multilingual conversations. Almost instantaneously upon being introduced to Ieremia’s egalitarian and boundless movement language, embodied by eleven sturdy, versatile dancers, many of whom are of Samoan or Maori descent, one-dimensional ideations of “culture” are rendered passé and ridiculous. The work draws from—and transcends—contemporary dance, ballet, dances of the Pacific islands, and Ieremia’s personal reflections. He and the dancers are fluent in all of it, all at once.
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Siegfrieds & Swans
For his 2009 revamp of San Francisco Ballet’s “Swan Lake,” artistic director Helgi Tomasson added a Prologue. The idea was to make this Odette’s story, but if you ask me it’s still all about Siegfried. We may see Odette first, witnessing her capture by Von Rothbart and transformation into an animal, but Siegfried is still the character who has, as the narratologists might say, “agency.” He’s the one who makes the wrong choice and must pay penance; his is the narrative arc.
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Ode to Spring
Under Tamara Rojo’s direction the English National Ballet have become a strong, ambitious company. Alongside the classical ballets, Rojo has made contemporary works a feature of the company’s repertoire and their latest triple bill comprises the signature works of three of modern dance’s key choreographers—William Forsythe, Hans van Manen and Pina Bausch.
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Walking on Clouds
The Bureau of Meteorology La Trobe St. Weather Station, near to the Carlton Gardens, has always intrigued me. A triangular wedge of fenced-off green on the city’s fringe, it looks like an art installation or a performance space. With a tiny garden shed, and unfamiliar equipment to measure climatic changes and patterns neatly dotted and connected by pathways, it is not so unlike the world Chunky Move’s Anouk van Dijk and Singaporean artist and filmmaker, Ho Tzu Nyen, have set up for their collaborative work, “Anti-Gravity.”
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Simulations
3, 2, 1, go. Beyoncé ‘borrows’ moves from the Belgian choreographer Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker. She duplicates De Keersmaeker’s “Rosas Danst Rosas” (1983) in her 2011 clip “Countdown.” It isn't plagiarism; it’s homage, it’s a tribute, darling. Besides, what’s original anyway?
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Human Engine
See below the line. Look beyond the surface. Delve beneath the city. Peer underneath the skin. Vide infra. What makes us tick, and ultimately what holds us together, piece by splintered piece.
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Fast and frenzied
Mental illness isn’t a common subject matter for dance, but then again Company Chameleon isn’t your average dance troupe. The Manchester-based company dedicates itself to showing people the possibilities of dance both on stage and off, frequently complementing its performances with public workshops that examine the stories behind its work. CC has plans to round out its current tour of “Witness,” a 2016 dance theatre work about the debilitating effects of bipolar disorder, with a series of classes in Manchester next month delving into the movement and text informing the piece.
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A Blessing and a Curse
Alexei Ratmansky’s “The Fairy’s Kiss” is a captivating piece of dance storytelling, fusing genres of fairy tale, mystery, and romance to powerful effect. Set to Igor Stravinsky’s enchanting score and replete with gripping choreographic imagery, it’s a masterfully-crafted and thought-provoking ballet in which Ratmansky’s talent of making dance as a vital, immediate, and engrossing theatrical experience shines through and through. This 45-minute-long work was created for Miami City Ballet and received its much anticipated premier at the Adrienne Arsht Center in Miami on February 10. This was the second ballet by the famed Russian-born choreographer for MCB, the first being...
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Sweet Dreams
A kind of cross between Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory and the booze-infested flick, Lost Weekend, the world premiere confection, “Whipped Cream,” landed with a sumptuous, if occasional cloying, sweetness in Orange County for a five-day run, before making its frothy way to American Ballet Theatre’s home—the stage of the Metropolitan Opera House—in May.
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Star Power
Canada's All Star Ballet GalaSony Centre for the Performing Arts, Toronto, Ontario, February 11, 2017
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Form & Content
A book, physically cut from the pages of another, is the inspiration behind Wayne McGregor’s “Tree of Codes.” Much like the Jonathan Safran Foer book with which it shares its title, McGregor’s work is an experiment in the arrangement of form and content. In collaboration with Jamie xx and artist Olafur Eliasson, who conceived the incredible stage design for “Tree of Codes,” these three artists have created a complex, multi-sensory work of dance and design that turns the act of viewing upon its head.
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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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