World-class review of ballet and dance.
Andrew Tay has a kaleidoscopic vision for what dance can do. As a choreographer, dance curator, performer, and DJ in Montreal for the past 20 years, he has bridged diverse audiences and artistic communities through his multidisciplinary dance events that sit somewhere between a conversation with a stranger, interactive art installation, and late-night party.
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Things open where they began, in a loop, only I don’t know it yet. In measured steps, Angela Goh walks diagonally across the stage. She studies the audience, her focus fixed, unblinking. Upon an exposed, brightly lit stage, it could be said she is comparatively exposed, but her unflinching focus says otherwise. In the quiet of the Sylvia Staehli Theatre, at Dancehouse, for the opening night performance of “Sky Blue Mythic,” you can hear the noise of the traffic outside. In a work that “is about our relationship to what surrounds us,”[note]Angela Goh, “Sky Blue Mythic” Artist Statement, Dancehouse, https://www.dancehouse.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Sky-Blue-Mythic-Artist-Statement.pdf,...
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How do dancers with disabilities navigate space? Who is defining space for disabled dancers? What are the objects that obstruct, block and blur? How do we define choreography within the framework of disability? Candoco Dance Company are, as ever, refining and redefining what it is to move in space, and how dancers of various abilities navigate this in their practice. They ask the questions that make other people shy away, because society is still not comfortable with disability. As an arts critic recently diagnosed with a disability, I became increasingly aware during lockdown of how I interact with day to...
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It was a joyous return to the stage after a long, hard 23-month slog through a global pandemic, and it was only fitting that the Brooklyn-based Ronald K. Brown/Evidence opened the CAP UCLA season at Royce Hall on Saturday night. The losses have been—and continue to be—profound, now including the many dead from Russia’s despicable war on Ukraine, making the performance a powerful and healing statement in the name of art.
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In this moment of intense human suffering, I find that my reaction to art and beauty is complicated by conflicting emotions. The need for beauty and connection is strong, but so is the mental refusal of anything that rings false or comes across as too easy. When human frailty is so glaringly present, art that reflects that frailty becomes all the more precious.
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As jazz music was evolving in the early 20th century, people were moved by it and moved to it. Early jazz dances like the Charleston and the Lindy Hop emerged as a response to swing music and, like their musical counterpart, celebrated energetic improvisation using vocabulary rooted in West African and African American aesthetics. In the 1940s, the music took a sharp new turn: the art form moved into the era of bebop, the modern, virtuosic and up-tempo style that critics complained “you can't dance to.” While bebop musicians cleverly retorted that maybe “you can't dance to it,” the critics...
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Sasha Riva and Simone Repele, Italian dancers with parallel careers with Hamburg Ballett and Geneva Ballet, now a choreographic duo, chose the novel and the movie The Danish Girl as a subject for their new work: “Lili Elbe Show.” After a preview last summer in Montepulciano (a beautiful village in Tuscany), the piece for five dancers, with revised choreography, staging and with new costumes by Francesco Murano, premiered in February in Rovereto and Trento, headlining inDanza.22. As explained by the choreographers themselves, it was not easy to approach such a story, but they believe that this is the right moment...
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The sole is stamped with the maker’s mark, the size, and the width of the shoe. The sole is attached to the last with a staple gun, then using the relevant sized upper, the shoe is pulled over the last, the toe is pinned, and the upper is stapled to the seat of the last. This is followed by a combination of paste, hessians and cards to build up the block, depending upon the dancer’s specifications. This is how Freed of London make their bespoke pointe shoes, and this behind-the-scenes process is how Prue Lang’s “Castillo” begins.
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Sara Mearns has never been afraid of hanging up her pointe shoes for the night: In recent years, she’s thrived in the work of Merce Cunningham, Jodi Melnick, Isadora Duncan, Honji Wang, Martha Graham and others. But Mearns’ latest project, a weeklong engagement at New York City’s Joyce Theater, will be a new test of her capacity to work outside of what she calls “the ballerina bubble.”
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On Tuesday evening February 22, 2022, Israeli dance ensemble L-E-V brought “Chapter 3: The Brutal Journey of the Heart” to the dance-obsessed audiences of New York’s the Joyce Theater. Founded by co-artistic directors Sharon Eyal and Gai Behar, L-E-V traces a lineage from Batsheva Dance Company, where Eyal was both a dancer and later associate artistic director and house choreographer, and Tel Aviv nightlife, where Behar has been both a party producer and curator. “Chapter 3” held both of these influences in close proximity while also showcasing very talented dancers in Eyal’s ultra-specific, dance language.
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On February 27th, at a matinee performance, New York City Ballet’s Gonzalo García retired after fifteen years at the company, following ten at San Francisco Ballet. He’s 42—a respectable retirement age for a dancer, and he surely has his share of aches and pains. His retirement comes just as three young men in the company have been promoted to principal status. A wave of change has arrived at City Ballet.
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As we blink from the stupor of the near-hibernation of New Year and slowly come around to (supposedly) changing seasons, Northern Ballet have provided some incredible work on film to watch as storms batter the United Kingdom. Here is a round up of some of the most interesting ones to catch online. The artistry is superb, inventive and all have completely distinct visions in their ouevre.
Continue ReadingLong 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.
Continue ReadingIt 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.
Continue ReadingAs 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.
Continue ReadingOne 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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