World-class review of ballet and dance.
Memory is not linear. Have I told you this before? I saw this production of see Graeme Murphy’s “Romeo & Juliet,” filmed on Wednesday 21st September, 2011 at Arts Centre Melbourne with Orchestra Victoria, before I wrote my first piece for Fjord Review.
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The 25th of April is an important day for Australia and New Zealand—it is Anzac Day. It is a day where two countries come together and acknowledge the suffering that our servicemen and women have endured. This year, however, Anzac Day was quite different. There were not the usual migrations, no congregations and even the shores of Gallipoli—normally filled with thousands of visitors—were bare. Instead, people decided to commemorate at home. They lined their driveways at dawn and waited for the Reveille to play through the radio.
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There is something inherently mysterious about the midnight hour; it has an otherworldly power that can be both alluring yet also sinister. Curses can be sworn, spells can be broken, and even the most beautiful things (including carriages) can be returned to mundane, everyday objects. Midnight is cloaked in mystery because it is a liminal space—a threshold of time. It signifies the moment when one day turns into the next, and it is within this transition that it holds its power. As time suspends between the days, so too does rational thought. Because midnight is the hour that gives voice...
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Glasgow's Barrowland Ballet have long explored the nuances of human interaction with style, grace and humour. The company often work with those from different backgrounds and age groups, and their own professional dancers are absolutely superb. Whiteout is definitely one of artistic director Natasha Gilmore's most intimate projects, as she was inspired by creating a humane piece which speaks to her own inter-racial marriage. Speaking in an interview in The List in 2015, she said to writer Kelly Apter, “This is one of those pieces I felt compelled to make . . . So I started to identify the common...
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On March 23, 2020, the Royal New Zealand Ballet announced the suspension of all rehearsals, performances, and community events until the spring—the company joining an ever-growing list of arts organisations affected by Covid-19. The future of their 2020 season now in doubt. “Venus Rising,” due to premiere in May, has been postponed until August. “The Sleeping Beauty” remains tentatively programmed for October, and “Dangerous Liaison” has been removed from the current season entirely.
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Belgian-French choreographer, dancer and performer Damien Jalet's extraordinary works seem to be not quite of this Earth: they are comprised of a not altogether human landscape, a liminal space of knotted limbs. His complex choreography creates a fleshy mass that means his dancers are more akin to animals. He others the corporeal, wherein it often becomes hard to differentiate between plant and mammal. Bodies entwine and hands grasp like pincers or gnarled tree branches. At times, the spectator is reminded of paintings, either from Goya who referenced the horrors of civil war, or Francis Bacon's Screaming Popes. This is uncomfortable, visceral...
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What is the friction between words and movement? What does one give us that the other doesn’t? If there is an intelligence in movement and physicality that cannot be expressed through words, do we look down on that intelligence?
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March 6, 2020 was not an ordinary opening night at San Francisco Ballet. Some patrons inside the War Memorial Opera House wore hospital masks; others counseled fellow audience members to wash their hands a full 20 seconds in the bathroom at intermission. Onstage, the performers in Balanchine’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”—not staged at SFB in 34 years—danced as though this were their last night before lockdown, and in the velvet seats, the audience applauded as though we would never see these dancers again. We headed home with our memories of an exquisite performance. And as we slept, the order came:...
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There is a striking clarity and intelligence with which Crystal Pite and Jonathon Young approach narrative. Their combination of choreographer and actor/writer/director is not only dance-theatre gold, but allows for an incredibly rich interplay between words and movement.
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We enter DNK: Space for contemporary dance and performance, and right at the door we are greeted by the three co-creators and performers Aleksandar Georgiev, Zhana Pencheva and Darío Barreto Damas. Smiling and warming up, the dancers thank us for attending the Sofia premiere of their new piece, “dragON aka PONY.”
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Watching Richard Alston Dance Company perform is like visiting a Rothko exhibition. It’s tidy, bright and expressive, confident in what it is and isn’t. And it’s vividly abstract; you can drink in its colour and energy without the heft of narrative interpretation. With an Alston production you have the bonus of musicality, which the dancemaker excels at. On the other hand, ephemerality is part and parcel of the experience. The fleeting nature of dance takes on an outsized presence in this particular programme, the company’s farewell show after 25 years at the forefront of the UK’s contemporary scene.
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Catapult Dance Choreographic Hub launched in Australia’s Hunter Valley just north of Sydney in 2014. Spearheaded by former dancer and dance educator Cadi McCarthy, it champions emerging choreographers, providing the platform that is so elusive for many up-and-coming choreographers, dancers, and composers—space and time to think and create.
Continue ReadingTwo performers crawl in on hands and knees wearing neon green, hooded coveralls—the lightweight papery kind made for working in a sterile environment—and clusters of balloons pinned to their backs.
Continue ReadingWill Rawls makes boundaries visible by defying them. Known for the disciplinary and topical range of his projects, the choreographer, director, and performer approaches issues of representation in “[siccer],” a multi-part, multi-site work co-presented by L’Alliance New York’s Crossing the Line Festival. A live performance at Performance Space New York...
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It is always interesting when multiple theme steps emerge over the course of a mixed repertory evening, but it is uncanny on one featuring five different ballets, each with a different choreographer and composer, covering a twenty-year span (2005-2025).
Continue ReadingZvidance premiered its new work “Dandelion” mid-November at New York Live Arts. Founded by Zvi Gotheiner in 1989, Zvidance has been a steady presence in the New York contemporary dance scene, a reliable source of compositional integrity, and a magnet for wonderful dancers.
Continue ReadingCleveland native Dianne McIntrye received a hometown hero's welcome during her curtain speech prior to her eponymous dance group thrilling the audience in her latest work, “In the Same Tongue.”
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