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.”
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There seems to be no clear organizing principle behind the programs at the yearly Fall for Dance festival at New York City Center. No principle, that is, beyond the very laudable one of offering a wide range of dance from various corners of the world to the public at a very accessible price.
Programs can be hit or miss, it’s true, but there’s usually at least one item that quickens the pulse. In the final program (program five) of the festival, that was Bijayini Satpathy’s performance of the Odissi solo “Sitāharan,” a retelling of an episode from the fifth century BC epic the “Ramayana.” I call it a solo, but in reality it is a quintet, danced by Satpathy, sung (with gorgeous tone) by the vocalist Bindhumalini Narayanaswamy, and played by Sanjib Kumar Kunda, Sibasankar Satapathy, and Srinibas Satapathy on violin, mardala drum, and flute. (The latter two are Satpathy’s brothers.) All traveled from India.
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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