Deep Dive
There’s about 14 different choreographies in this 13-minute long dance film, Dive. Some of them are bonkers. Some are sad. One has an alpaca.
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Uprooted
At first, there is nothing—just the cream and brown clad figure of Scottish Dance Theatre's guest dancer Yosuke Kusano who walks across a wooden floor. As the floor is bare, so too are his very exacting movements, just enough to infer tension: minimal, sharp and mired in a kind of self-protective series of gestures. A hand is raised like an alarm signal. He tiptoes. He moves instinctively, his body governed entirely by the feelings that exist in that exact moment. Suddenly, he pulls at something just visible to the side of his shoulder—a strand of hair that is seemingly not...
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Belinda McGuire: Choose Your Own Adventure
Belinda McGuire is a dance artist who splits her time between her native Toronto and Brooklyn. As a teen she danced with Canadian Contemporary Dance Theatre, before going on to build a career as an independent dance artist. A creative force, Belinda has produced and launched several one-woman shows, and performed as a company member with Doug Varone and Dancers, Gallim Dance, the Lar Lubovitch Dance Company, Anne Plamondon, and Joshua Beamish's MoveTheCompany.
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Sky Stories
For Red Sky Performance, dance is deeply connected to oral traditions, ceremony, and place—the land and water of Turtle Island, a name that many Indigenous communities in Canada use to refer to the continent and the ancestral territories where they live, work, and create today.
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When We Fell
The New York City Ballet’s Digital Spring Season continued this week with the premiere of the dance film When We Fell, choreographed by Kyle Abraham and co-directed by Abraham and Ryan Marie Helfant. This was an ambitious departure from the old performance recordings and Zoom rehearsal footage of the first three weeks of the season. It was also an about-face from the first ensemble work Abraham made for the company: 2018’s splashy, rap-scored “The Runaway.” When We Fell is somber and distilled. No matter which vein Abraham is working in, his singular choreographic voice and clear messaging come through.
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Fragility and Fallibility
The wavering, crepe paper-thin voice of an old man sings on a loop: “Jesus' blood never failed me yet, never failed me . . . yet, Jesus blood . . . never failed me yet / This one thing, I know, for he loves me . . . . So.” This is the first track of the soundtrack of the delicate, beautiful film Worn, screened through the Byre Theatre St Andrews, and could only be an appropriate choice to open. The heartbreaking track, by composer Gavin Bryars, samples the singing of a homeless man recorded on the streets, a vulnerable...
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Back to the Barre
William Forsythe is a dancers’ choreographer. Dancers love working with him, he challenges their minds and their bodies, his knowledge and understanding of the vocabulary of ballet is profound. In the studio, the atmosphere is one of co-conspirators, playmates. All this comes through in his most recent creation, a collaboration with New York City Ballet’s Tiler Peck called “The Barre Project (Blake Works II)” released on March 25, with a repeat performance on March 27. (The platform is CLI Studios, an online clearinghouse for dance classes.)
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Extremes of Choreography: Wim Vandekeybus
Belgian choreographer and film maker Wim Vandekeybus’ work is characterised by absolute extremes: jaw-dropping theatricality; the use and abuse of unusual props, athleticism, frenzy, danger and discomfort. He doesn't deal in soft options; rather, he credits his audience with enough intelligence to enjoy, pick apart and understand his challenging, often dreamlike pieces. The scenography and sound are as integral to the work as the steps.
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Reframing
As Glasgow's famous Tramway venue remains closed until further notice, Unlimited have commissioned a short film screening for those missing this superb live dance festival. This particular film is a superb example of the artists who would be participating on the stage throughout the spring, and feels entirely apposite, given its overarching theme.
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Dancing Out Loud
Come for the choreographers, stay for the dancers. A collaboration between Sadler’s Wells and BBC Arts, Dancing Nation presents a selection of new and restaged works from emerging and established artists across the UK over 3 hour-long episodes. Most of the pre-recorded performances were filmed on grand stages across the UK (including the Sadler’s Wells main stage), but some pop up in the foyer or, in the case of Oona Doherty’s seminal work Hope Hunt & The Ascension into Lazarus, explode onto the streets of Belfast.
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Dance Camera West Drive-In
Dance Camera West (DCW), the festival dedicated to the intersection of cinematography and choreography, was co-founded in Los Angeles in 2001 by Lynette Kessler and Kelly Hargraves, proving that the art form has come a long way since Thomas Edison hand-tinted the swirling skirts of modern dance pioneer Loie Fuller in the film version of the 1905 Danse Serpentine. And while the festival has undergone several directorial changes since its inception, Hargraves once again became its executive and artistic helmer since 2018.
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Season’s Greetings
The sputtering stop-start of lockdown measures in the U.K. has wiped most of the 2020 dance season from the calendar, including a few live holiday performances that were optimistically (and, in hindsight, unrealistically) scheduled this autumn, like a bill of world premieres from English National Ballet. But it’s the year of make-do, and few companies have the leadership and resources to salvage so much from the wreckage as ENB, who swiftly rejigged those new works into a series of pay-per-view films for homebound audiences. It might be an emergency stopgap, but the digital programme works hard to capture the versatility...
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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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