In early October, Princeton University hosted A Festival of the Arts, celebrating the grand opening of the university’s impressive new...
Group dynamics are the key focus in Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker's explosive Rain, which responds to the classic "Music for 18 Musicians" (1974-6) by American avant-garde composer Steve Reich.
“First and foremost it’s a party.” This is how Belgian choreographer Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker characterises “Rain,” created in 2001 for her troupe Rosas. As far as festivities go, it falls more on the side of relaxed rendezvous than all-night rager, but certainly a feeling of elation defines the work. Over the past 16 years, “Rain” has become a signature feature in the Rosas repertory and part of the wider pantheon of contemporary classics.
Beauty and anger co-exist in a restless evening of hard-driving dance and thrashing rock music in Susan Marshall’s “Play/Pause.”
Sturm und Drang—2017 saw the dance world roiling with it, both on and off the stage. Israel’s culture minister hit the headlines for refusing arts funding to performances involving nudity; Palestinian-Syrian refugee Ahmad Joudeh made a prominent debut with the Dutch National Ballet after fleeing death threats from Islamic State; discord boiled over in Moscow as the director of the Bolshoi’s long-awaited “Nureyev” was placed under house arrest on what many suspect are trumped-up charges intended to punish him for celebrating the life of a gay man on stage—a conspicuous challenge to Putin’s ban on so-called ‘homosexual propaganda.’
Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker’s take on Shakespeare’s As You Like It opens on a bare stage. Brian Eno’s “Golden Hours”...
