This site has limited support for your browser. We recommend switching to Edge, Chrome, Safari, or Firefox.

Latest


ink
REVIEWS | By Theresa Ruth Howard

And still I rise

Recently at the Joyce Theater in New York, Camille A. Brown and Dancers presented “ink,” the final installation in her trilogy of concert works: “Mr. TOL E. RAncE” (2012) explored minstrelsy past and present and the mask that black people wear merely to survive in the world; “Black Girl: Linguistic Play” (2015), featuring an all female cast, took us behind the mask and revealed the beautiful complexity of black female youth and joy. It could be said that “ink” is the period on the sentence, or more apropos, a ribbon that ties all three in a bow.

Continue Reading
What Else is There to Say?
REVIEWS | By Sara Veale

What Else is There to Say?

The question of new work has loomed large over Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch since its eminent founder passed away in 2009. Determined to uphold the late Pina Bausch’s legacy, her troupe has spent the past decade restaging her greatest hits in an effort to pass them on to a new generation of dancers and audiences. This year marks a new course for the company, as it expands its repertoire to include material from outside artists for the first time. Norwegian playwright and choreographer Alan Lucien Øyen is one of the chosen few: his “Bon Voyage, Bob . . .” joins...

Continue Reading
When Angels Fall
REVIEWS | By Merli V. Guerra

When Angels Fall

Hailing from France and presented by not one but three organizations for its North American premiere, Raphaëlle Boitel’s “When Angels Fall” masterfully blends contemporary dance, theatre, and circus arts in a war against the machine—peering into a bleak future should our reliance on technology suffuse our natural ability to communicate as humans.

Continue Reading
Briefly Dark, Then Light and Bouncy
REVIEWS | By Merilyn Jackson

Briefly Dark, Then Light and Bouncy

BODYTRAFFIC, the ten-year-old Los Angeles-based dance troupe, is touring nationally and made a stop at Scottsdale Center for the Performing Arts recently. The show featured two choreographers with Philadelphia connections. Sidra Bell, who teaches at the University of the Arts, and BalletX co-founder and Pennsylvania Ballet resident choreographer, Matthew Neenan. BODYTRAFFIC returns to Philadelphia’s Annenberg Center in April with a slightly different program that includes the Philadelphia premiere of Neenan’s “A Million Voices.”

Continue Reading
Yorke Dance Project turns Twenty
REVIEWS | By Rachel Elderkin

Yorke Dance Project turns Twenty

There are few project-based companies (at least in the UK and outside of the ballet world) that focus on presenting the work of past masters alongside that of emerging choreographers. Yet Yorke Dance Project, now celebrating its twentieth year, has built its reputation by doing just that. Founded by artistic director Yolande Yorke-Edgell in Los Angeles, the company has been based in London since 2009, and this year was nominated for National Dance Award for best independent company.

Continue Reading
The Two Pigeons
REVIEWS | By Sara Veale

Flights of Fancy

Sassy lasses and frisky creatures abound in this double bill from the Royal Ballet, which pairs a restaging of Frederick Ashton’s 1961 “The Two Pigeons” with the premiere of Liam Scarlett’s “The Cunning Little Vixen.” The latter has been created on students from the Royal Ballet School, and marks the first time since 2010 (and second time ever) that the institution has given its pupils a professional turn on Covent Garden’s main stage.

Continue Reading
Life is a Dream
REVIEWS | By Lorna Irvine

When You Wake You're in a Dream

Rambert's latest touring production is a slippery thing, with all the fragmentary structure of a fever dream and featuring enough dark imagery to induce night sweats. Inspired by Pedro Calderon de la Barca's 17th century baroque play, the original narrative focused on a Polish prince who is imprisoned by his father, only to escape for one day and see the perspective of another world. Danish born, Britain-based Kim Brandstrup's meta choreography uses this as a jumping off point. Here, he taps into the many hidden layers of the subconscious, the activity of the mind in its dreamlike state. This is both...

Continue Reading
Don Quixote
REVIEWS | By Rachel Howard

Young Love

We balletomanes don’t drink Champagne out of our favorite stars’ pointe shoes anymore, and maybe that’s a shame. If ever a performance warranted such tribute, it came at the last evening of San Francisco Ballet’s “Don Quixote,” with Mathilde Froustey and Angelo Greco. In nearly 20 years of watching this company, Saturday ranked as one of its greatest nights, the kind that makes instant converts of newcomers and re-inspires diehards—the kind dancers and their fans alike live for.

Continue Reading
Verklärte Nacht
REVIEWS | By Faye Arthurs

Love Triangles

Few narratives are as compelling as the love triangle. Throw in a baby bump and you’ve struck tabloid fodder gold. Such was the juicy premise of “Verklärte Nacht” (Transfigured Night) by Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker, performed by her company Rosas at the Baryshnikov Arts Center January 30 to February 3. It is danced to Arnold Shönberg’s 1899 string sextet of the same title, which in turn takes its name and inspiration from an 1896 poem by the German Symbolist Richard Dehmel. In the poem a woman in a moonlit grove confesses to the man she loves that she is pregnant with...

Continue Reading
All for One
REVIEWS | By Victoria Looseleaf

All for One

Today, when democracy, some would say, is being attacked by various forces both large and small, it’s good to know that French choreographer Jérôme Bel is wholeheartedly embracing the democratization of dance. Or is it? In Bel’s 2015 work, “Gala,” which landed at the Theatre at Ace Hotel for one performance on a blustery and rainy Saturday night in Los Angeles, a mixed-ability cast of nineteen locals, including several professional dancers and together known as Company Company, performed a series of moves for some ninety minutes under a constantly leaky ceiling that provided an extra jolt of, well, weirdness.

Continue Reading
Dancing Qweens
REVIEWS | By Gracia Haby

Dancing Qweens

There is a photo of me dancing in the lounge room of my family home. My arms are flung wide overhead, making the Y shape to the Village People’s “Y.M.C.A.” My mouth is parted in a smile, mid pronunciation of the letter Y. Caught in a moment of bliss and expression on the imaginary dancefloor before the fireplace. I am dancing with my younger cousin, following the playful choreography. The letter M: let your elbows point like rabbit ears on your head. The letter C: hug a beach ball to the left-hand side. The letter A: arms overhead once more,...

Continue Reading
Asphodel Meadows
REVIEWS | By Rachel Elderkin

Asphodel Meadows returns

When “Asphodel Meadows” premiered in 2010, it marked choreographer Liam Scarlett’s first commission for the Royal Opera House main stage. The ballet received an enthusiastic response from both audience and critics, and won the National Dance Award for Best Classical Choreography. Although revived in 2011 it has not been shown since—Scarlett’s name and choreography is, on the other hand, now well associated with the company.

Continue Reading
Good Subscription Agency