New Voices from Japan + East Asia
Japan Society presented its 20th showcase of contemporary dance with works from emerging choreographers in East Asia over a mid-January weekend.
Continue ReadingWorld-class review of ballet and dance.
“Carmen” has been in the air this year. Especially at the Kimmel Cultural Campus. Almost as a prelude to the Philadelphia Ballet’s “Carmen,” the Philadelphia Orchestra presented choreographer Brian Sanders’ aerial play on Rodion Shchedrin’s 1967 “Carmen Suite” (created for his wife, the Bolshoi’s Maya Plisetskaya) last March at Verizon Hall. Sanders’ version, with life-sized dueling bulls dangling over the orchestra as Yannick Nézet-Séguin conducted, was phenomenally daring and often comical. It all happened down the block from the venerated Academy of Music, also part of the campus where Ángel Corella unveiled his new full-length ballet, “Carmen.”
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Japan Society presented its 20th showcase of contemporary dance with works from emerging choreographers in East Asia over a mid-January weekend.
Continue ReadingIn a four-day span of early January I saw: Monica Bill Barnes wrestle a giant beach ball at Playwrights Horizons; Malcolm-x Betts and Nile Harris shoot blanks into the rafters of the Chocolate Factory in honor of Judith Jamison’s spirit; Symara Sarai run in and out of a swirling lasso at New York Live Arts Studios; and Angie Pittman dart across a shallow stage, in character as a vampire, cape flying, at BAM Fisher Hillman Studio in a shared bill with Kyle Marshall Choreography. In short, it was APAP season.*
Continue ReadingSara Veale’s new book Wild Grace: The Untamed Women of Modern Dance (Faber & Faber) examines the lives of nine boldly subversive dancemakers over nearly a century, starting with Isadora Duncan and ending with Pearl Lang. Along the way, it provides a pared but potent mini-history on the emergence of women’s rights.
Continue ReadingNo matter the theme, an evening with David Dorfman Dance is likely to uplift. The gregarious choreographer has a habit of engaging with the audience pre and/or post show with energy approaching that of a church revival gathering.
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