A Danced Rituel
When Frank Gehry was tapped to be the architect of Walt Disney Concert Hall, home to both the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the Los Angeles Master Chorale, he envisioned the space to be “a living room for the city.”
Continue ReadingWorld-class review of ballet and dance.
An enduring image from Jody Oberfelder’s new site-specific dance “And Then, Now,” is of the lithe, 70-year-old choreographer perched up on a tall hill at Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn, framed by enormous trees and an expansive blue sky. Arms spread wide, the wind ripples through her diaphanous lime green tunic—the same arresting color of two parakeets I saw playing in the grass as the roving performance began. As she communes with the earth and sky, the rushing sound of this windy spring evening is nearly as loud as the violin music playing behind the audience. Her simple gestures and slow rotations alternately conjure a spirit, a memory, a vision of the future. Her multiplicity is a nod to the many narratives that exist simultaneously amidst the remains of 600,000 people.
Performance
Place
Words
When Frank Gehry was tapped to be the architect of Walt Disney Concert Hall, home to both the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the Los Angeles Master Chorale, he envisioned the space to be “a living room for the city.”
Continue ReadingSan Francisco’s War Memorial Opera House is a grand, gracious theater, so it was a big deal to see the San Francisco Ballet School hold its end-of-year performances in that hall for the first time since at least 1985.
Continue ReadingAt its heart, “Sylvia” is a ballet about the resistance to love—a theme that continues to resonate deeply, as the human spirit often recoils from love, driven by fear, pride, a need for control, or the weight of duties and moral constraints.
Continue ReadingSince the 1970s, the Paris Opera Ballet has cultivated a distinctive tradition of nurturing its own dancers as emerging choreographers.
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