All – Page 131 – Fjord Review

Latest

REVIEWS | By Erica Getto

Colour Code

In 2010, author Jonathan Safran Foer took Bruno Schulz’s The Street of Crocodiles and sculpted it into a new story: Tree of Codes. By die-cutting each page, Foer removed most of Schulz's words, but he left behind “a thousand kaleidoscopic possibilities” on a single page. He tracked down “a small quick heartbeat, delicate and impatient.”[note]Jonathan Safran Foer, Tree of Codes, (London: Visual Editions, 2010)64[/note] And he carved out—literally—“an awkward undecided direction, a shaky and uncertain line of indefinite basic sadness.”

INTERVIEWS | By Victoria Looseleaf

Gaga for Danielle Agami

In today’s high-tech world, where trends blow up the Twittersphere and Facebook like a Tesla on Insane Mode—going from 0 to 60 in under three seconds—the current dance scene also has its share of fast moving choreographic innovators: Think Christopher Wheeldon, Justin Peck or Crystal Pite of Vancouver’s Kidd Pivot.

REVIEWS | By Gracia Haby

Perpetual Motion

Perpetual motion, states the first and second laws of thermodynamics, is believed impossible to produce, yet I unwittingly found it nesting within “20:21,” the Australian Ballet’s recent triple bill. The continuous motion within George Balanchine’s “Symphony in Three Movements” (1972), Tim Harbour’s new work “Filigree and Shadow” (2015) and Twyla Tharp’s “In the Upper Room” (1986) circumvents such laws. Physicists, I’ll hear no more about it; you’ve been looking in the wrong places. There is a device that can make motion unstoppable and it can be found at the core of these three ballets.

REVIEWS | By Madison Mainwaring

Lobsterbacks

Is there such a thing as “Englishness?” What would be at the heart of such a quality—habits and customs, the time reserved for a late-afternoon snack, the famously reserved sense of humor? I'm writing this from America, a country that can only define its people by their plurality and multifariousness, the "anything goes" mentality which frequently manifests itself as aberrant exceptionalism. But contemporary scholars and thinkers shun the idea that a national stock or stereotype even exists. Characterizing a country's people reveals more about the observer's bias and preconceptions than it does anything else. According to this line of thought,...

REVIEWS | By Erica Getto

Starting Over

This week, I found myself curled up in the corner of my kitchen, shaking. It comes over me swiftly, sometimes, thunderously, always—a wave of weight. My partner knows this routine well by now, and slips into his role: he hovers over me, cups my ears, lifts my chin, and has me look into his eyes. Slowly, softly, it feels—no, I feel—lighter.

INTERVIEWS | By Victoria Looseleaf

Architecture in Motion

Jacques Heim has been obsessed with geometric shapes for years. After founding the risk-intensive, hyper-physical dance troupe DIAVOLO | Architecture in Motion™ in Los Angeles in 1992, Paris-born Heim translated that passion into full-blown, custom-designed stage sets. Included are a 5,000-pound, 16-foot rotating aluminum wheel (“Humachina”), a large, scary-looking vertical pegboard that could serve as the centerpiece at an S&M soiree (“D2R”), and a 14-by-17 foot rocking boat (“Trajectoire”).

INTERVIEWS | By Victoria Looseleaf

Louise Lecavalier

Not too many dancers have a desire to perform in Newfoundland. But Louise Lecavalier, who got the idea from reading Annie Proulx’s book, The Shipping News, is decidedly unlike any dancer—past or present—in the universe. Indeed, it’s safe to say that nobody moves like Louise Lecavalier. The erstwhile star of Édouard Lock’s Montréal-based troupe, La La La Human Steps from 1981-1999, Lecavalier honed her fierce and extreme style that was—and remains—instantly recognizable.

FEATURES | By Apollinaire Scherr

Between the Dancer and the Dance

Six years ago, when I began teaching at the Fashion Institute of Technology for applied and not-so-applied arts, the professors hiring me asked if I might like to try my hand at a course that prepared graphic design students for the workplace—or at least got them in the door.

REVIEWS | By Sara Veale

Sylvie's Swansong

No extravagant gestures accompanied the final curtain of Sylvie Guillem’s farewell performance at the London Coliseum, which marks the end of her 39 prolific years on the stage—no lavish bouquets of roses were presented, no encores demanded or tearful hand-on-heart curtseys obliged. The iconic ballerina simply took a few bows, raised a hand to her adoring audience and marched into the wings.

REVIEWS | By Victoria Looseleaf

Deep Breath

If it’s summer in Los Angeles, it’s time for REDCAT’s annual three-week NOW festival. Featuring nine premieres by some of the city’s foremost dance, theater, music and multimedia artists, the 13th edition was launched with a mostly thoughtful, provocative and awe-inspiring trio of works that happily confirm this burg’s reputation as a hotbed of creativity.

REVIEWS | By Gracia Haby

The Creative Act

A single bicycle wheel upturned and mounted upon a stool (Bicycle Wheel, 1951, third version, after lost original of 1913). A snow shovel (In Advance of the Broken Arm, 1964, fourth version, after lost original of 1915). A painted window (Fresh Window, 1920). When Marcel Duchamp placed a mass produced ‘readymade’ before us and disrupted how we thought about and interpreted art, the “ordinary object [was] elevated to the dignity of a work of art by the mere choice of an artist.”[note]Marcel Duchamp, as quoted in The Art of Assemblage: A Symposium, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, October...

Lula Washington Dance Theatre's “Message for My Peeps.” Photo by Heather Toner

REVIEWS | By Victoria Looseleaf

Moves after Dark

Los Angeles, often dubbed the ‘city of the future,’ is not a town known for honoring its past. But with the Music Center having recently celebrated its 50th anniversary, it seemed the ideal venue for four local dance troupes to perform simultaneous, site-specific works on and around its Grand Avenue campus, one that’s been, on occasion, likened to New York City’s Lincoln Center.

Featured Reads

REVIEWS | Lorna Irvine

Teenage Angst and Institutions

Watching Matthew Bourne's reworked version of the “star-cross'd lovers,” I was briefly reminded of Veronica, played by Winona Ryder, in the dark 1988 comedy by Daniel Waters and Michael Lehmann, Heathers, and her line, “my teen angst bullshit has a body count.” Yes, this is the darker side of Bourne's repertoire,...

INTERVIEWS | Marina Harss

The Me of Today

The choreographer Alexei Ratmansky reflects on the war in Ukraine, the connection between geopolitics and ballet, and joining the house of Balanchine.

REVIEWS | Rachel Howard

Starry Nights

Beneath blue California skies, manicured trees, and the occasional hum of an overhead airplane, Tamara Rojo took the Frost Amphitheater stage at Stanford University to introduce herself as the new artistic director of San Francisco Ballet.

REVIEWS | Faye Arthurs

America, F**K Yeah

After a week of the well-balanced meal that is “Jewels”—the nutritive, potentially tedious, leafy greens of “Emeralds,” the gamy, carnivorous “Rubies,” and the decadent, shiny white mountains of meringue in “Diamonds”—the New York City Ballet continued its 75th Anniversary All-Balanchine Fall Season with rather more dyspeptic fare.

REVIEWS | Emily May

Acosta Danza’s Choreographic Soup

An “Ajiaco” is a type of soup common to Colombia, Cuba, and Peru that combines a variety of different vegetables, spices, and meats.