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Letter from New York, 5-9: Robbins Mill
Jerry's kids throw a birthday party
By Harris Green
Copyright 2008 Harris Green
NEW YORK -- New York City Ballet looked exceptionally sharp during the first week of its two-month spring season. Apparently it does make a difference not to have to spend over a month performing nothing but "Nutcracker" day after day before moving on to repertory -- and please understand I am second to none in my admiration for Balanchine's sumptuous, definitive setting of Tchaikovsky. The spring season, officially dubbed the "Jerome Robbins Celebration" in honor of what would have been the late co-ballet master in
chief's 90th birthday, also promised an exceptionally challenging repertory: 33 Robbins ballets, or six more than were performed during the company's 1990 salute, which lasted a mere three weeks. Balanchine and other choreographers will be represented, of course, but this is undeniably a Jerry-built season. Click here for the full Letter...
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Letter from New York 2, 5-9: Transitions
Curran goes with the current and finds the flow
By Catey Ott
Copyright 2008 Catey Ott
NEW YORK -- For more than a decade, Sean Curran has
been distinguished by his eloquently idiosyncratic
theatrical solos. He is 100% present and
unreservedly honest while projecting his body, mind, and
spirit through the characters he brings to life on the
stage. His innate musicality and sense of rhythm, evocative and imaginative
shape-making, and a movement style that draws equally
on gestural originality and technical finesse make him an
outstanding dance artist.
Since 1997, when he founded his own company, Curran
has also been exploring group choreography. Through
this work, he further developed his sense of
physicality and style, continued to be inspired by
themes close to his heart, and found a systematic
way of making dances that made sense to him. In
Curran's early ensemble work, his sweet, clever, highly
committed and dedicated personality came through, yet his
divine theatricality and soloist sensibility had not yet
fully translated into his dancers' aesthetics. Click here for the full Letter...
Flash Flashback, 5-9: Current Curran
Into the Deep with Sean... and Company
By Alicia Mosier Chesser
Copyright 2002, 2008 Alicia Mosier Chesser
(Editor's Note: To celebrate its 10th anniversary, the Dance Insider is revisiting its Archive. This Flash was first published on March 7, 2002.)
NEW YORK -- Trust Sean Curran to
make you weep, then help you forget your troubles, then set you musing and still
your heart to peace -- all in the space of 90 minutes on a little black box of
a stage. The Sean Curran Company opened its season at the Duke on 42nd Street
last night, under the auspices of the 92nd Street Y Harkness Dance Project, with
three works (two of them premieres) that gleamed with dense, deft movement and
subtle emotion. Curran's style, both as a dancer and as a choreographer, is unmannered
and unmelodramatic. He tells you in his movement just what he is doing; he doesn't
play games, or if he does, he lets you in on them. It's that straightforwardness
that emboldens you to go with him wherever he might lead -- which takes you, more
often than not, right into the deep. Click here for the full review...
Letter from New York, 5-2: From Petersburg to PoMo
A Ballet Gold Standard and Mettlesome Postmodern Baser Metals
By Gus Solomons jr
Copyright 2008 Gus Solomons jr
Kirov Ballet
NEW YORK -- The legendary company from St. Petersburg danced a three-week season at City Center, where the stage could barely contain its lavish classical productions (reviewed here). But for the program (April 15-17) which featured the ballets of William Forsythe, the stage size was just right, and the repertoire choices showed a nice balance of his work.
In the April 16 performance, "Steptext" (1985), which deconstructs theatrical convention -- house lights out, stage lights up, dance to the music -- begins while the house lights are still on with a male dancer (Alexander Sergeev) onstage in a wide second position, doing a stretchy, lunging phrase. A second man (Mikhail Lobukhin) enters, as the house dims, and repeats the phrase. A snatch of Bach's Chaconne from his Partita No. 2 in D minor blasts on. During the course of the piece, the lights black out at random moments, the front curtain even descends and rises again midway through.
Tall, rail-thin Ekaterina Kondaurova in a neon red unitard wags her arms in intricate semaphore, downstage left. The men pass her between them, tilting her at rakish angles, flipping her into shockingly splayed extensions. These Forsythe ballets are all about physicality, and here, the Kirov dancers' hyper flexibility and technical prowess adds drama to the motion, rather than obscuring the expressive intention, as it sometimes does in the 19th century ballets. Click here for the full Letter...
Flash Review, 5-2: Partner Dances
About Tango, About Intimacy -- and About Tulsa
By Alicia Chesser
Copyright 2008 Alicia Chesser
Photography copyright Christopher
Jean-Richard
TULSA -- To look at what Marcello Angelini has accomplished in 13 years at Tulsa Ballet is to see what a community-based arts revolution looks like. Thirteen years of serious imagining, planning, fundraising, and creating have resulted not only in the development of a company recognized for excellence at home and abroad, but now also in a newly renovated and expanded rehearsal and school facility and an adjacent very modern, very spectacular $5 million theater, Studio K - Kivisto Hall, dedicated to the creation of new work. The April 24 opening of the paint-not-even-dry 300-seat black box ("Don't fall asleep tonight, because we can see you from here!" Angelini joked before the performance) featured three new ballets, under the rubric "About Tango." This massive civic undertaking, which took 19 months to complete, involved local philanthropists, a local construction company, and an architect, Kathleen Page, who just happens to have danced with Tulsa Ballet back in the Roman Jasinski / Moscelyne Larkin days. As TB's foremost financial supporter, Tom Kivisto, noted before the show, "to party" in Tulsa means not to have a fancy soiree at one's home, but "to raise money for some great charity." (Such is the magnetism of TB these days that Kivisto was pulled in after seeing just one rehearsal; he had never even seen the company perform until two years ago.) Click here for the full review...
Letter from New York #1, 4-25: Somewhere Past the Rainbow
Lessons in Color from Our Mr. Brooks
By Chris Dohse
Copyright 2008 Chris Dohse
Photography by Julie Lemberger
NEW YORK -- I trust color. Nothing in it lies. Brian Brooks has built the first leg of what promises to be a long and rich career from isolating fistfuls of Crayola hues into evenings of delight, surprise and physical daring.
The 10th anniversary season of Brian Brooks Moving Company, simply called "10 Year Retrospective" and seen March 15 at the Ailey Citigroup Theater as part of the 92nd Street Y Harkness Dance Festival, was divided into two parts. The first act folded together excerpts from "Faster!" (2001; orange), "Dance-o-Matic" (2002; pink), "Acre" (2004; green), "Pinata" (2005; black and white) and "Again Again" (2006; tan). Act two premiered a working version of "Happy Lucky Sun."
In a nutshell, the barrage of excerpts failed to capture the bratty sense of fun that I felt when seeing two of the evenings in their entirety. (I reviewed "Faster" and "Dance-o-Matic" for this journal.) In these early works, Brooks had the balls (and the boas) to carve a unique position: sexy, saucy, deadpan, and pomo. Careened into each other, the fragments of a decade didn't quite communicate this glee, and seemed garish artifacts. Click here for the full Letter...
Summer Study Ad: Parsons Dance -- New York City Summer Intensive -- May 19-31. Open to pre-professional and professional dancers ages 18 and up. Offering a variety of classes including modern and ballet technique and Parsons dance repertory. Held at Marymount Manhattan College. College credit is available through MMC. For more information: 212-517-0610 (MMC), 212-869-9275 (Parsons Dance), or click here or e-mail info@parsonsdance.org.
Letter from New York #2, 4-25: The Russians are Coming! Without their Director!
Brave Solo Turns Highlight Uneven Kirov Programs
By Harris Green
Copyright 2008 Harris Green
NEW YORK -- The Kirov -- or, if you prefer, the Mariinsky -- Ballet managed to fit into the confines of New York's City
Center by traveling light. Even its director Makhar Vaziev was left behind after apparently withering into such a Soviet-style nonperson under the dissatisfaction of artistic and general director Valery Gergiev that he wasn't even listed among the administration and staff until the final week of the
April 1-20 visit.
All the evening-length Petipa classics and half the
company remained in St. Petersburg. I'm told The Kingdom of
Shadows -- or, if you prefer, Shades -- from Petipa's "La Bayadere" lacked its ramp. Harald Lander's "Etudes" was shorn of its kiddie corps. Fokine's "Le
Spectre de la Rose" was given in a touring set so
barren it looked like the ballerina (Yana Selina) had
just moved in and the armchair was the only furniture
that had been delivered. "Spectre" looked rather
skimpy, too, as "reconstructed" by Fokine's daughter Isabelle. Compared to the tighter, more focused version danced
by American Ballet Theatre, the steps seemed to be
strewn all over the stage. Anton Korsakov's
long-stemmed Spectre, with arms and wrists rippling
like Plisetskaya's, lacked the power to pull it
together. After his exit leap through the window,
Korsakov was not only seen to land, he was heard to
land. "The Dying Swan," not credited to anyone but
Fokine, was better served by Uliana Lopatkina; her
final tremor was enough to prevent this well-worn solo
from being totally abandoned to the crossdressing
troupes. Click here for the full Letter...
Flash Focus, 4-18: Think Globally, Act Regionally
Angelini Builds a New Home for New Dance; Lustig Smashes the Ceiling
By Paul Ben-Itzak
Copyright 2008 Paul Ben-Itzak
Recently I received the Royal Ballet's programming announcement for next season. I had trouble keeping my eyelids open. The same old dinosaurs being trotted out, whether in tired versions of classics or tired names of supposedly original modern ballet choreographers. Fortunately, where many of the large ballet companies have failed to imagine, the companies we big-city types used to condescendingly refer to as "regional" (as in, 'not bad for a regional company') have come through, commissioning new work with traction from choreographers not named Wheeldon, encouraging untested voices to work in the ballet idiom without sacrificing classic values or, like many European ballet companies (Lyon comes to mind) resorting to extra-dance elements like text and 'technology.' At the top of this list are Marcello Angelini's Tulsa Ballet and Graham Lustig's American Repertory Ballet. Click here for the full article...
Flash Flashback, 4-18: Full Words
Preljocaj Caged by Cage, Married with Violence
By Paul Ben-Itzak
Copyright 2006, 2008 Paul Ben-Itzak
(Editor's Note: To celebrate its 10th anniversary, the Dance Insider is revisiting its Archive. This Flash Review was first published on April 5, 2006. "Empty Moves" (Part 1 & 2) will be performed April 28 & 29 in Dublin as part of the newly renamed and annual Dublin Dance Festival, which opened last night in its first year under the direction of Laurie Uprichard, former executive director of Danspace Project.)
PARIS -- It was with
a bit of skepticism that I took my seat last night for Ballet Preljocaj's
opening performance at the Theatre de la Ville - Sarah Bernhardt.
The program notes promised dance for the "pure pleasure" of dance
from artistic director Angelin Preljocaj, but recent experience
with prop-laden Preljocaj augured otherwise. I was there, nonetheless,
for the opportunity to see his classic 1989 "Noces" again, to the
Stravinsky score, as well as the 2004 "Empty Moves," the program
opener, which lured me with its promised John Cage soundtrack. If
the movement that unrolled in the first piece did indeed exude the
promised "passion of movement," exuberantly executed by Isabelle
Arnaud particularly and also Lorena O'Neill, Yan Giraldou, and Thomas
Michaux, the choreographer rather undermined himself by the choice
of this particular Cage recording, which in effect gave us a total
of three concerts to contend with. Click here for the full review...
Flash Response, 4-11: DTW's Eviction of Ellen Robbins
A Total Turn-around of the DTW Mission
(Editor's Note: After more than 30 years of giving renowned children's creative movement classes at Dance Theater Workshop, internationally revered and respected teacher Ellen Robbins is being evicted by DTW artistic director Carla Peterson and executive director Stephen Greco.The decision has set off a firestorm in the dance community. Following is one response, reprinted from DTW's blog with the author's permission. More reaction can be found here. )
By Katie Bull
Copyright 2008 Katie Bull
Shame on this egregiously bad judgement for the eviction of Ellen Robbins. My name is Katie Bull. I am a jazz vocalist, playwright, director, professional vocal coach, and teacher at New York University's Atlantic Theater Company Studio, where I am also the head of the vocal production program for their professional classes. Growing up in New York City in the 1960s and 1970s with my father, dancer/choreographer Richard Bull and my step-mother, dancer/choreographer and dance anthropologist Cynthia Novack, Ellen Robbins and DTW was a fixture. My parents were dedicated to dance improvisation as a performance art way before it was an acceptable idea, and ELLEN was and IS a pioneer in that regard, teaching choreographic improvisation and incorporating improvisational options into performances for children who are THE NEXT GENERATION OF ARTISTS. I was beyond proud when -- all these years later -- Ellen accepted my daughter, Hannajane Prichett, into her program at DTW. Hannajane is now one of Ellen's students and recently performed on the mainstage in Ellen's DTW Family Matters. EVICT ELLEN ROBBINS? What are you people thinking? Click here for the full letter...
Letter from New York, 4-11: A Rose By Any Other Name, Please!
(But Nelson's Still Smells As Sweet)
By Melinda Lee
Copyright 2008 Melinda Lee
NEW YORK -- At the start of Jeremy Nelson's restaging of his 2006 "Mean Piece," seen March 14 on a double bill with the premiere of "Sail," the space darkens and the performers are heard booming heavily into place. Regulars to performances hosted by Danspace Project (DSP) in this formidable sanctuary of St. Mark's Church probably relish the spongy-footed boom boom of dancers' feet walking into position. It's a clear, coded tradition that signals a hush, a caught breath, and an ooh ooh! -- something exciting is about to happen! Yet DSP is set up like a proscenium stage tonight, and already some of its magic on me is lost. Luis Lara Malvacias's vast canvas and string cyclorama hangs in such a way as to cut us off from the church's iconic altar, but the looming curve of the altar's still visible upper arches begs me to notice that we are STILL in a uniquely totalizing space. I have to ask myself at the sound of the herd's purposeful, predictable tread: is all of this going to be a little flat? Click here for the full Letter...
Flash Review, 4-4: Little Joys, Perturbations
Dances on a Pendulum from New York Theatre Ballet
By Nicholas Birns
Copyright 2008 Nicholas Birns
Illustration by Robin Hoffman
Photograph by Richard Termine
NEW YORK -- Combining principles of community service with those of dance preservation and innovation, all in the intimate setting of a dance studio in a church building off Madison Avenue, New York Theatre Ballet's Dance on a Shoestring series is far from your typical repertory evening.
At the March 14 performance I attended, augmenting the festive atmosphere -- and inspiring the adults in the audience to enjoy dance with the innocence and vibrancy it deserves -- were the small children who bounded the front row, most likely students in the company's "LIFT" program, which serves homeless and otherwise at-risk kids in New York City. During the evening's final dance, Antony Tudor's "Little Improvisations," a little girl holding a fan made as if to rush the stage and had to be restrained by a nearby adult; her exuberance was understandable. Click here for the full review...
Flash Flashback, 4-4: The British are Coming Out! The British are Coming Out!
Bintley's Brits Give a Schooling
By Mark Dendy
Copyright 2000, 2008 Mark Dendy
(Editor's Note: To celebrate its 10th anniversary, the Dance Insider is revisiting its Archive. This Flash Review was first published on September 29, 2000. Mark Dendy, phone home!)
Does the mother country
have something to teach us about coming out in the opera house?
We Americans tend to think of ourselves as the frontiersmen when
it comes to art and homo art and new ideas and graphic sexual content
onstage. It's the Brits who are uptight, stuffy, conservative. Watching
David Bintley's Birmingham Royal Ballet production of "Edward II"
at City Center the other night, I was reminded that this country
was founded by people who were so uptight the British kicked them
out! Click here for the full review...
Flash News, 4-1: Cultural Relevance
Dance/USA Mobilizes for Jowitt
By I.B. Foo-lin
Copyright 2008 I.B. Foo-lin
NEW YORK -- In a decisively vigorous response to the Village Voice's firing of dance critic Deborah Jowitt last week and its elimination of the dance critic position, officials of Dance/ USA interrupted their weekly dance criticism study group and suspended their massive dance funding lobbying efforts to descend on Greenwich Village and lead dancers and presenters in picketing the offices of the venerable alternative weekly. Click here for the full article...
Flash Extra, 3-29: Village Voice Fires Deborah Jowitt after 40 years and eliminates dance critic position.
Letter from New York, 3-28: I can dream... Can I?
Streams of Repertory from Paul Taylor
By Harris Green
Copyright 2008 Harris Green
Photography by Lois Greenfield and Tom Caravaglia
Describing Paul Taylor's City Center season (February
28 - March 16) as a "dream" was more than
hyperventilating press agentry. Among the 19 dances
presented were several that many admirers probably had
dreamed about seeing again, such as "Equinox" (1983)
and "Diggity" (1978). Dreams were at the heart of the
two novelties on Mexican themes, both created in 2007:
"De Sueños" ("Of Dreams") and "De Sueños que se
Repiten" ("Of Recurring Dreams"). Click here for the full Letter...
Flash Flashback, 3-28: It Must Have Been the 'Roses'
March, Snow, and Taylor: Springtime in New York
By Nancy Dalva
Copyright 2003, 2008 Nancy Dalva
(To celebrate its 10th anniversary, the Dance Insider is revisiting its Archive. This Flash Journal was first published on March 13, 2003. To read about the Paul Taylor Dance Company's 2008 New York season, click here.)
NEW YORK -- Just before the Paul Taylor Dance Company season opened at City Center (where it continues through Sunday), someone accused me of thinking that Paul Taylor can do no wrong. This isn't quite the case. I think Taylor might make a cynical dance, on occasion, or a generic one. But he's one of the great artists of his day, which has been long and ripe with accomplishment. He's great minded. He's painterly; he's musical. He's a fabulist, in any medium, and every one of his lies tells the truth, on stage or in print. (His 1987 autobiography "Private Domain" is a triumph of magic realism, and tells you more about the work than an historian or critic ever could.) His current company is beautiful, and buoyant, and how he keeps going at this I'll never know. How can you look at "Images" (1977) and not fall apart, remembering the prodigal Chris Gillis? Or at 1983's "Snow White," without remembering sunlit Jeff Wadlington carrying on as a dwarf? How can you not think of them dying of AIDS, and Taylor having to say goodbye? Taylor's perseverance must cost him, and I'm grateful to him for keeping on. Click here for the full review...
Letter from New York, 3-21: Mining the Lore, Planting the Seeds
Pasion Flamenca: Dance Globally, Produce Locally
By Anna Arias Rubio
Copyright 2008 Anna Arias Rubio
NEW YORK -- There's an element of the surreal in New
York-based Pasion Flamenca's "Flamencolorico: Lore of the Miners,"
seen February 8 at the Helen Mills Theater. Produced by the New York
Center for Flamenco Performing Arts, choreographed by Antony Hidalgo, with music by third generation flamenco guitarist Pedro Cortes Jr. based almost entirely on Flamenco mining songs from Jaen, Murcia, and Almeria and descended from the fandango, and directed
by Jorge Navarro, the work is at once the story of a family of miners in
Andalucia and of a family of artists who for 40 years have helped lay
the foundry for Flamenco in Manhattan. Click here for the full Letter...
Put in context, the unevenness shown by Nina Ananiashvili and the State Ballet of Georgia on February 29 at the Brooklyn Academy of Music pales compared to what they have achieved. Ananiashvili has only been working at the helm of the company since 2004, and she has transformed a broken institution into something presentable if not rivaling world-class just yet. Click here for the full feature...
The Buzz, 3-14: All the news that's fit to spit∗
Sheriff Spitzer, friend of Dance, hounded out of town by the Gray Lady
By Paul Ben-Itzak
Copyright 2008 Paul Ben-Itzak
(Dance Insider FlashBlast e-mail club members got this piece and other exclusive news, views, and free ticket offers earlier this week by e-mail. To receive the Dance Insider's free daily FlashBlast, click here then press send.)
In the Spring of 2002, when the Martha Graham Dance Company was taken to federal court by Martha Graham heir Ron Protas in what became a battle for control of the greatest legacy in modern dance, the MGDC didn't have a lot of resources but it had one powerful and credible friend: Eliot Spitzer. Click here for the full article...
The Buzz, 3-7: Stop your Sobbing
L.A. Times Eliminates its Dance Critic
By Paul Ben-Itzak
Copyright 2008 Paul Ben-Itzak
(Dance Insider FlashBlast e-mail club members got this news earlier this week by e-mail. To receive the Dance Insider's free daily FlashBlast, click here then press send.)
So one of the largest newspapers in the United States, based in the entertainment capital of the world, has decided that it cannot justify having one single solitary full-time dance critic on staff. Lewis Segal, the hardest working and most prodigious dance critic and reporter in the United States, has been told by his management at the Los Angeles Times that his position, that of dance critic, is being eliminated. On his supervisors' advice, Segal has applied for a buy-out; buy-out staffers are supposed to be gone by the end of the month. (Segal's supervisors also said they hoped he would freelance for the paper.) Click here for the full article...
Letter from London, 3-7: Next Stop, Rosas/P.A.R.T.S.
On the Brussels Express with De Keersmaeker & Charges
By Josephine Leask
Copyright 2008 Josephine Leask
LONDON -- To be able to arrive in Paris from London in two hours is a small miracle. To be able to do so in comfort and style is a big one. St Pancras International was officially opened on November 14 as the new London destination of the Eurostar; consequently continental Europe has never seemed closer to the British capital. Besides signifying an attempt to revive the jaded Anglo-French relationship by reaching across the Atlantic with outstretched arms, this opening represents a welcome rejuvenation of an intriguing central London neighborhood which has been until recently badly neglected. St Pancras station includes two of the most celebrated structures built in Britain in the Victorian era: the main train shed, completed in 1868, and the frontage of the station formed by St Pancras Chambers, a huge Victorian Gothic pile and formerly a hotel, built between 1868 and 1877. Dubbed the 'cathedral of railways,' in the 20th century it fell rapidly into disrepair following the closure of the hotel in 1935, while bombing from WW II inflicted damage to the roof of the train shed. In the '60s neighboring Euston station was rebuilt and expanded to become London's principal terminus for trains to Scotland and the north of England, which had previously departed from St Pancras. This left only a few suburban train services running from St Pancras, and the general inclination in London was to close the station once and for all, as it had become pretty much redundant.
Click here for the full Letter...
Letter from New York, 2-29: Back to the Future
Hübbe Caps NYCB Career with a Flower Festival
By Harris Green
Copyright 2008 Harris Green
Photography copyright Paul Kolnik
NEW YORK -- Nikolaj Hübbe's farewell performance for New York City Ballet on February 10 left an adoring capacity audience with a sense of double loss. While Hübbe in Balanchine's "Apollo" no longer looked every inch the
young god he did in 1992, when he left the Royal
Danish Ballet to join City Ballet as a principal, the
performance was obviously that of a great dancer whose
authority, undiminished at age 40, would be missed. When his Apollo responded to the call of Zeus, a moment marred as usual at the New York State Theater by childlike applause, the audience felt his surge of newfound godhood as surely
as did his excellent trio of muses: Wendy Whelan (Terpsichore), Ashley Bouder (Polyhymnia), Rachel
Rutherford (Calliope). After understandably falling
back in awe, the muses followed Apollo up the slopes
of Parnassus. The rest of us remained at ground level
in New York while Hübbe returned to Copenhagen to
become artistc director of the RDB. Click here for the full Letter...
Guest Column, 2-29: Answers for Dancers
Lowdown on Auditions (from the Pros)
By Grover Dale
Copyright 2008 Grover Dale
Previously published on Answers4dancers.com.
Monica Violetti
Music video / pop tour dancer / singer / and actress
1. During the early days, juggling school responsibilities in Cottonwood, California and auditions in Los Angeles required a lot of extra work. But I was up for it. Having my family as a support system helped get me through it.
2. Auditions are learning experiences and an important part of my education. I'm constantly discovering new things I could alter, or improve on.
3. Freestyling is really important. It can make the difference between booking the job or not. Your unique style or vibe can be enough to influence the casting directors.
4. Every dancer is a struggling dancer. The most important thing is to identify what you excel at. Be realistic about your skills. Find your niche. Click here for the full article...
Flash View, 2-22: Above Politics?
"Out of Israel" and into Complicity
By Omar Barghouti
Copyright 2008 Omar Barghouti
JERUSALEM -- Next month in New York, both the Joyce Theater, by featuring Israeli artist Emanuel Gat, and the 92nd St. Y, by presenting "Out of Israel," a program featuring three New York-based Israeli artists, are declaring their acquiescence to and/or apathy in the face of Israel's persistent violation of international humanitarian law; its flouting of tens of UN Security Council resolutions; its 40 years of military occupation -- the longest in modern history; its ravaging of Gaza in what has been described by international law expert Richard Falk as "acts of genocide"; its construction of an apartheid Wall and settlements on occupied land -- both declared illegal by the International Court of Justice at the Hague in 2004; its wanton killing of innocent Palestinian civilians, including close to 900 children in the last six years alone; its massive uprooting of more than a million fruitful trees; and its cutting up of the occupied West Bank into Bantustans, not very different from those that existed in South Africa at the height of its apartheid era.
But what does dance have to do with all this, one might ask? Shouldn't art be above politics? Click here for the full Article...
The Buzz, 2-22: Buzz-O-Rama
Meet Jill Johnston; Siegel Watches the Dance; Tudor Teaches the PDD; Merce goes Public; the 5,000 Dance Jobs of Mr. T
By Paul Ben-Itzak
Copyright 2008 Paul Ben-Itzak
(Dance Insider FlashBlast e-mail club members got these items earlier this week by e-mail. To receive the Dance Insider's free daily FlashBlast, click here then press send.)
Church with Johnston
If you're in New York Sunday, you'll have a rare opportunity to meet legendary dance and culture critic, memoirist, New Journalism co-founder, Judson chronicler and Dance Insider columnist Jill Johnston when she celebrates the release of "England's Child: the Carillon and the Casting of Big Bells." The book is at once a biography of Johnston's father Cyril Johnston, the bellfounder who introduced the carillon to North America via his British foundry, Gillett & Johnston; a treatise on the origin and development of the instrument, and woven into all this, Johnston's story as the engine for writing this book. The party starts at 12:30 p.m. at the Cloister Lounge of Riverside Church, 122nd Street and Riverside Drive, entrance on Claremont Avenue. Click here for the full article...
Letter from New York, 2-22: Words at War
American Playwrights Respond to Iraq
By Philip W. Sandstrom
Copyright 2008 Philip W. Sandstrom
NEW YORK -- As performed by the Fire Dept Theater Company at the Bleecker Street Theater on January 21 and 28 and February 4, "At War: American Playwrights Respond to Iraq" can be effectively described for what it was not as well as for what it was. It wasn't one of those familiar screeds which makes us feel good because it allows us to vent our anger at the war. It wasn't didactic, demagogic, or patronizing. It may not have presented all sides of the issue, but I think that's okay. That being said, it did not promote any one particular viewpoint above another, a refreshingly important element. So what was it? It was thoughtful and insightful. It illuminated and explored the human side of the war. It awakened ideas and viewpoints about the war that reveal the complexity of the subject. It made me think much more deeply about the war and its unintended consequences. Click here for the full Letter...
The Buzz, 2-15: The Problem with Gia
Time for the Times to disengage from its unengaged critic
By Paul Ben-Itzak
Copyright 2008 Paul Ben-Itzak
(Dance Insider FlashBlast e-mail club members got this column and other exclusives earlier this week by e-mail. To receive the Dance Insider's free daily FlashBlast, click here then press send.)
Wednesday we reported in the Dance Insider FlashBlast that critic Theodore Bale has recused himself from freelance duties at the Boston Herald, after finding that newspaper less and less interested in dance. I commented, with admitted self-interest, that those concerned about shrinking dance criticism should support -- by spreading the word, advertising, and their own volunteer writing -- publications like the Dance Insider which are actually trying to grow dance criticism. However, if this would address one problem created by newspaper criticism that is dwindling in quantity and quality -- the absence of *record* -- it would not solve another more immediate concern, at least in the United States: building the dance audience. Click here for the full article...
Letter from Burgundy, 2-15: Out of Africa, not
out of the 'African Dance' Ghetto
Bienvenue to the Francophone Scene
By Marisa C. Hayes
Copyright 2008 Marisa C. Hayes
LE CREUSOT (Saone et Loire), France -- As part of
its second annual Francophone series, L'ARC Scene
Nationale presented a contemporary West African
choreographers platform January 19. Well, sort
of....
The event was billed as "a day dedicated to the
vitality of African choreographers." So imagine
my surprise when the curtain opened to reveal
Xavier Lot's "Welcome to Bienvenue." Lot is an
established French choreographer with no real
visible ties to West Africa unless, like most of
his countrymen, he has visited the former French
colonies on vacation. While he did conceive the
piece as a solo for a dancer from Burkina Faso,
its inclusion in the program was confusing.
With so few opportunities to see examples of
contemporary West African choreography, and only
three slots on the entire program, surely an
additional choreographer from the 17 countries
that make up West Africa was available.
According to Joan D. Frosch, director of the new
dance documentary, "Movement (R)evolution
Africa," the African continent as a whole (with
particular emphasis on its Western regions) is
home to an active contemporary dance scene,
struggling but vibrant. If the dynamic
pre-performance discussion is any indication,
there are a lot of up-and-coming West African
choreographers whose work sounds varied and
intriguing, making it all the more regrettable
that audiences didn't get a better chance to
sample them on this program. Click here for the full letter...
Flash Flashback, 2-15: Toujours Maguy
Around Your World with Marin
By Paul
Ben-Itzak
Copyright 2005, 2008 Paul Ben-Itzak
(The Dance Insider has been revisiting its Archive. This Flash Review was first published on November 23, 2005. Maguy Marin's "Umwalt" will be reprised Thursday through Saturday at the Theatre de la Ville - Sarah Bernhardt, followed March 4 - 6 at the Theatre les Abbesses by "Ha! Ha!," Marin's response to the virulent reaction by some audience members to "Umwalt.")
PARIS -- For all the
shows which don't quite achieve their intentions, for all the shows
whose intentions don't quite reach the audience, for all the shows
founded on sand or grounded in mud, there will always be Maguy Marin.
Maguy Marin, creating not just dances but self-contained worlds,
dreamscapes believable even as they are fantastic, universes so
mesmerizing that even as you realize, ten minutes into her 2004
"Umwelt" (Tour of the World), which opened last night at the Theatre
de la Ville - Sarah Bernhardt, that the preface of performers threading
in and out of at least three rows of mirrors situated upstage in
various colorful costumes and with a cornucopia of props taken from
our daily detritus is not a preface but will constitute the whole
65-minute show, you enter into it deliciously, slowly shaking your
head all the while at the marvel Marin has managed to produce.
Click here for the full review...
The Dance Insider Essay, 2-7: Dancing with the Dirt Eaters
Time to bring cross-training to U.S. Dance Education
By Amy Smith
Copyright 2008 Amy Smith
By now, many of us in the American contemporary dance community can agree that we have lost our place of prominence on the world stage. Europeans and Asians used to come to New York to hone their craft at the knees of the great teachers and choreographers of the 20th century. Today, young American dance artists go abroad to learn new techniques and choreographic concepts, and to soak up the sophisticated, irreverent, boundary-pushing atmosphere of European dance. Click here for the full article...
Letter from Berlin, 2-7: Trickland
Macras Turns Clichés into Art
By Angharad Davies
Copyright 2008 Angharad Davies
BERLIN -- Watching Constanza Macras/Dorky Park's newest creation "Brickland" is a lot like downing a frosty can of Red Bull, followed by a few shots of Nesquik. There's not much rest for the eyes. The in-your-face, marinated in pop culture trashiness overwhelms in both its thematic scope and imagery. It's almost like watching video after video on YouTube, but without the anesthetizing effects. And it's definitely a lot more fun. The twelve inhabitants of "Brickland," which takes its name from a vacant residential development in Macras's hometown of Buenos Aires, use song, text, video, and movement to create a messy world that touches on a myriad of troubling and messy subjects. Climate change, incest, marriage, xenophobia, protectionism, bra-burning, homelessness and L. Ron Hubbard each rear their icky heads in this two-hour, intermissionless production.
The January 26 performance at the Schaubuehne opened with a shock as live musicians cracked into action with ripping guitar and drum riffs, both supporting and instigating the riotousness to come. The citizens of "Brickland," a gated community, are obsessed with the need to believe that everything is A-O.K. in their controlled environment, but as we soon learn, there is no stability in a world invented by Macras. It's a blinding whirlwind of chaos that works to blur or, perhaps, hide her true meaning. Everything is fragmented and layered, and the velocity of every scene seems to be perpetually escalating. Even the set, a huge mass of scaffolding, ramps, plastic windows, and lightweight metallic tents looks as if might crumble onto the stage at any moment. Click here for the full Letter...
The Dance Insider Pays Tribute to Bejart
In Memorium, 2-1: Maurice Bejart
Last Rites for an Eternal Dance Maker
By Maina Gielgud, A,O.
Copyright 2008 Maina Gielgud
LONDON -- Love his work or hate it? No, either way it goes much further than that; adore, revere, or abhor, revile! -- in either case Maurice Bejart's importance to dance in the 20th century can hardly be overestimated. Click here for the full article...
Flash Flashback, 2-1: Murder at the Ballet Competition
Bejart's 'Concours' a Course in Dance Theater from the Paris Opera Ballet
By Paul Ben-Itzak
Copyright 2002, 2008 The Dance Insider
(The Dance Insider has been revisiting its Archive. This Flash Review was first published June 27, 2002. To read more about Maurice Bejart, who passed away November 22, see today's Dance Insider tribute by Maina Gielgud.)
PARIS -- Whether Maurice Bejart's
1985 "Le Concours" comes off as cheesy, thinly choreographed ballet take-off or
pungent satire and poignant theater seems to depend on whether it is performed
by stellar actors and virtuosic dancers. On Wednesday night at the Garnier, with Laurent
Hilaire portraying the world-weary detective investigating the murder
at the ballet competition of Eleonora Abbagnato's Ada, it was the latter. On Thursday,
Kader Belarbi's leaden sleuth and Miteki Kudo's vapid Ada dragged the rest of
the gifted Paris Opera cast down and flattened the entire production. Click here for the full review...
Flash Journal Flashback, 2-1: The Unseeing Observer
La vraie danse francaise, from the Bastille to the Menagerie
By Paul Ben-Itzak
Copyright 2003, 2008 The Dance Insider
(The Dance Insider has been revisiting its Archive. This Flash Review Journal was first published June 5, 2003. To read more about Maurice Bejart, who passed away November 22, see today's Dance Insider tribute by Maina Gielgud.)
PARIS -- Poor Bob Gottlieb.
The New York Observer dance critic flies all the way to Paris only
to see one ballet he knew he wasn't going to like (Maurice Bejart's
"Le Presbytere") and another anyone who's seen a season at the Paris
Opera Ballet could have told him would have disappointed (Patrice
Bart's "Le Petite Danseuse de Degas"). And as if he hasn't suffered
enough, immediately upon his return to Gotham he trudges out to
BAM for a spectacle by the most well-known self-promoter in European
ballet, Jean-Christophe Maillot, and, taking a page from George
Bush, condemns the entire pantheon of French ballet based on three
bad experiences. J'accuse!
Click here for the full article...
Flash Review, 1-24: The Figure is the Enemy
Video Kills Ouramdane's "Superstars"; Culturing Forsythe
By Paul Ben-Itzak
Copyright 2008 Paul Ben-Itzak
PARIS -- If Rachid Ouramdane is a "figure of choreographic renewal," as Gerard Mayen claims in his notes for the program book of the Theatre de la Ville, at which Ouramdane's feebly titled "Superstars" opened the season for the Lyon Opera Ballet Tuesday night, then French dance is in more trouble than even I thought. Click here for the full review...
Letter from New York, 1-24: Disengage the Disconnect
Shick's Schtick Lost without a Translation
By April Biggs
Copyright 2008 April Biggs
NEW YORK -- Saturday, January 12: Vicky Shick's "Plum House (a Cartoon)" stirs even in its
pre-show darkness at Dance Theater Workshop. The hub of the piece is a
barebones wooden frame house poised upstage right. Like a doorless outhouse
with transparent walls, the beams loom and a bald light bulb with a yellow
oval in its pear-shaped belly hangs center. The solitude of the house draws
the eye to the stark black space everywhere else on stage.
The bulb dims and the strumming of Flamenco rhythms is heard in the dark. As the stage lights
come up, we gaze upon the backs of five dancers in a marching line on stage
right. One by one they enter through the side of the house, each rendering a
unique gestural repertoire beneath the light bulb. Their costumes loosely
associate with leopard print, sooty black and a skirt theme -- but the
colorless attire is uninviting and draws me into a malaise that never quite
stops coming. One dancer, Derry Swan, is clad in a black tank and black
pants with a tiny neon purple string sewn around the waistline and trailing
down a pant leg. I expect some intriguing use of the neon in the dark, but
alas it never happens. After the idiosyncratic doorway ditties, each dancer
eventually makes her way downstage to glom the audience with a blank face
while executing hip circles. I feel like I'm waiting. By this point, my mind
has averted itself to the sound score by Elise Kermani. I doubt this is
Shick's intention as the score is mostly atmospheric, but it helps to keep
me from drifting out of the blackbox all together. Herein lies one of my
biggest pet peeves with the current modus operandi of modern dance. How much
work is an audience member expected to do? Click here for the full Letter...
Flack Attack 2008: The Voices they are a-changin'
The Best Publicists in New York
"Without adequate publicity, all efforts fail."
-- Joseph Pulitzer
By Paul Ben-Itzak
Copyright 2008 Paul Ben-Itzak
It should be easy: A good publicist is someone who writes an intriguing and authoritative press release, which then goes out on a timely basis to a wide array of media who respect the publicist, with the result that your company gets wide coverage. Unfortunately, in years past anyway, your field, dance insider, has been replete with practicing publicists who lack in one or more of these areas, to put it politely. Fortunately there are some veterans around who know dance and who know and are respected by dance and other media, as well as two relatively new entries in the field of independent publicists, who give me hope for the future -- and for your PR campaign.
Unfortunately, since I last updated this list there's been one major development which I believe will make it harder for dance companies performing in New York to get coverage in one of Gotham's major vehicles: The firing by the Village Voice (for economic reasons by a new corporate-minded owner) of its longtime dance editor, Elizabeth Zimmer. At most general interest publications, publicists and artists trying to get coverage are dealing not just with a publication with no full-time, on-staff dance critic, but no full-time dance editor. They often meet with indifference or at least ignorance. At the Voice, Zimmer was your conduit, your middle-man, miraculously finding ways to make a half page of official dance coverage expand into other nooks and crannies of the paper. That channel is now gone (although Zimmer continues to write about dance and other arts for a variety of outlets). With one less on-staff advocate, the publicist's job -- and the zeal and determination with which he or she invests it -- is even more important as he or she tries to find coverage in a dwindling universe of media. Click here for the full article...
Flash Flashback, 1-16: The Sum of P.A.R.T.S.
De Keersmaeker (and Charges) Storm the Bastille
By Paul Ben-Itzak
Copyright 2001, 2008 The Dance Insider
(The Dance Insider has been revisiting its Archive. In the nearly seven years since this review first appeared on September 21, 2001, in a slightly different version, the Dance Insider has probably written more about Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker and her company Rosas performing in more places than any other English-language publication. De Keersmaeker's latest work premieres this week at the Theatre de la Ville - Sarah Bernhardt, through Saturday.)
PARIS -- No artist I've ever seen
transports me like Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker. I was reminded of
this fact last night when, summoning myself out of the sick-bed,
I struggled onto the Metro to the Theatre de la Bastille, which
was definitely stormed by De Keersmaeker in the opening night of
P.A.R.T.S. a Paris, and left the theater dancing in the streets. Click here for the full review...
The Dance Insider Interview: Elkins
This is the Sound of Doug
By Philip W. Sandstrom
Copyright 2006 Philip W. Sandstrom
(The Dance Insider has been revisiting its Archive. This interview was first published November 29, 2006. The current sold-out run of Doug Elkins's "Fraulein Maria" at Joe's Pub closes tomorrow night, with a heavy quotient of national presenters attending the annual Arts Presenters conference expected to be in the audience. To read Gus Solomons jr's review of "Fraulein Maria," click here.)
December 8 will see the birth of a brand new work from Doug Elkins, one of the most celebrated choreographers of his generation, to music from a very old and equally celebrated work, Rodgers and Hammerstein's "The Sound of Music." Presented by DancemOpolitan at Joe's Pub and produced by Dancenow/NYC and Joe's Pub with the assistance of longtime Elkins cohort Amy Cassello, the work stars Archie Burnett, Keely Garfield, Mark Gindick, Jen Nugent, David Parker, Nicole Wolcott, Johnnie Moore, members of the House of Ninja and the choreographer himself.
I worked with Doug Elkins and designed lights for a number of his works in the early 1980s, touring with his company throughout the U.S. and in France. Like many in our field, we drifted apart and lost track of each other's work. When we spoke in mid-November, we began by catching up. While his company is not currently active, Elkins has not been idle. He continues working with the Flying Karamazovs, whose shows he's helped stage for 13 years. American Repertory Theater artistic director Robert Woodruff has hired him to choreograph or stage four productions. And last season at Juilliard, he choreographed the musical "The Listener." Like me, Elkins has also delved into teaching, taking a regular post at Town Unlimited, a performing arts high school in Manhattan. On Monday, the Martha Hill Dance Fund honored him with its inaugural mid-career award. Click here for the full interview...
Flash Review, 1-4: Extraordinary Things
Morris's Hardy Nut
By Jordan Winer
Copyright 2008 Jordan Winer
BERKELEY -- The brotha' in the tutu has biceps bigger than my thigh. The sets are an acid trip mix of Roy Lichtenstein and Archie Comics. And the teenage daughter is humping everything that moves.
This ain't granny's Nutcracker, it's Mark Morris's "The Hard Nut," playing at Zellerbach Hall in Berkeley over the holidays, and it's a trip. Though it follows the usual story (young girl, party, fever, cool mysterious uncle gives her nutcracker, she has crazy dreams of Nutcracker prince who looks mysteriously like her uncle and sweeps her off her feet, throw in enough symbolism to keep Freud and Jung reeling for weeks -- then she wakes, and in some way has crossed over to adulthood), "The Hard Nut," danced by the Mark Morris Dance Group, has a style all its own and that is its great gift to the world. Click here for the full review...
Guest Column, 1-4: Answers for Dancers
Will my body keep me from having the career I want?
By Grover Dale
Copyright 2008 Grover Dale
Previously published on Answers4dancers.com.
Hi Grover,
I am a 16-year-old female dancer. I am 5' 5" and weigh about 150 pounds.
Although a lot of it is muscle I would like to lose the weight. But my
question is this: Do you think a girl my size could make it on Broadway?
Aside from dance I also have years of training in vocal performance and
acting. Although I have had all the training and still pursue more, I fear
that because of my body I will not make it onto Broadway to fulfill my life-long dream.
Sincerely,
Melissa
Melissa,
If we're meant to dance, we dance. Body type or weight don't have to stop us
from realizing our dream. Click here for the full column...
The Johnston Letter, Volume 3, Number 3
I moved to Pluto, and it isn't so bad
By Jill Johnston
Copyright 2007 Jill Johnston
People think we got rich when we moved to Pluto but I want to disabuse them right away. Ingrid may feel differently, but I'm just as poor as I ever was. And now I want to sell Pluto, you know turn it over as they say just as soon as possible.
Click here for the full Letter...
Letter from New York, 12-18: Partchwork Quilt
Disappointment of the Fury
By Philip W. Sandstrom
Copyright 2007 Philip W. Sandstrom
NEW YORK -- The best thing about Harry Partch's "Delusion of the Fury," seen December 6 at the Japan Society, was the music and the instruments. Although the show was billed as a theatrical event, it was really a music event with movement and minimal text and minimal song -- all done in a minimal style. Partch's eclectic style of music is made possible by his intricate hand-made instruments, displayed onstage in all their gargantuan glory. They are stunning creations of percussion and string suspended within exquisitely fashioned and polished dark wood finished frames, carefully placed and arranged. The glistening orbs of glass, tubes, plates, and bells of metal, and the concert grand piano-size horizontal string arrays, were a sight to behold. With musicians strategically placed onstage so they could see each other over their picador instruments there was no room for the dance movement section of the evening.
Click here for the full Letter...
Letter from Berlin, 12-13: Female Trouble
Sasha Waltz tries to solve a problem like Medea
By Angharad Davies
Copyright 2007 Angharad Davies
BERLIN -- Infanticide, mania, vengeance, ferocity and hate: all present and accounted for in Euripides's ancient tragedy about Medea. It's juicy stuff, and Sasha Waltz squeezes enough of these themes into her new production of Pascal Dusapin's 1991 opera "Medeamaterial" to keep her drama-thirsty audience contented. But just barely. Click here for the full Letter...
Flash Announcement, 12-13: Synergy
Dance Insider Becomes Media Sponsor of New York Theatre Ballet
By Dance Insider Staff
Contact Paul Ben-Itzak (Dance Insider)
or Roberta Grapperhaus(NYTB)
NEW YORK -- The Dance Insider Online, the leading Internet dance journal featuring reviews, commentary, news and art by professional dancers at www.danceinsider.com, is elated to announce that New York Theatre Ballet has accepted its offer to serve as Media Sponsor for the company's 2007-2008 30th anniversary season. Click here for the full release...
Letter from London, 12-13: Regime Change
Dance Umbrella Widens the Tent; CanDoCo Steps Out
By Josephine Leask
Copyright 2007 Josephine Leask
LONDON -- Commissioned by the South Bank Centre, CandoCo's program for its 2007/8 season performed in the Queen Elizabeth Hall consisted of two diametrically opposed works, one by Rafael Bonachela and the other by Arthur Pita. The program marked the huge breadth of the mixed-ability company's expertise in its ability to take on Bonachela's "And who shall go to the ball," with its tricky use of technique, and Pita's "The Stepfather," which presents a demanding theatricality. It also marked the last season under Celeste Dandeker, retiring after 16 years as artistic director. "Celeste has used her inexhaustible energy to pioneer the appreciation of disabled dance," South Bank Centre director Judy Kelly noted in a moving tribute which opened the September 25 performance. Click here for the full Letter...
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Unhappy with shrinking dance coverage? Go out and make some of your own: The Dance Insider is growing and seeks additional volunteer dancer-critics and columnists in New York City, Chicago, Berlin, Brussels, Paris, London, and elsewhere. Qualified candidates must have experience as professional dance artists and be able to express themselves cogently and originally on dance performance and/or dance issues. E-mail resume and up to three writing samples to editor Paul Ben-Itzak.
Flash Review, 12-6: Mythic Propensities
Larbi in Purgatory
By Estelle Dumortier
Copyright 2007 Estelle Dumortier
(Editor's Note/NDLR: Pour la version française de cet article, cliquez ici. For the French version of this article, click here.)
PARIS -- Tout le monde was waiting for "Myth," the latest work from Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, now unbeatable choreographer and for several years a regular at the Theatre de la VIlle, where "Myth" opened the season September 25. As the curtain rose, it revealed nothing spectacular: a decor delineated at both sides by wooden walls suggesting Moorish panels, and upstage by heavy shelves full of books and plenty of skulls, as well as by two panels and a huge door, at the left of which and on the mezzanine stood the musicians. A group of characters -- including a skeleton -- sat on benches and chairs, reading, knitting, or just waiting. Taken together, the attitude of the players and the scenery suggested a large family waiting at the gates of Purgatory, this place where, in Catholic theology, the souls of the righteous expiate their sins, this place or time for testing and for expiation where man suffers before ascending to eternal felicity. Click here for the full review...
Flash, 12-6: Propension aux mythes
Larbi dans le purgatoire
Par Estelle Dumortier
Copyright 2007 Estelle Dumortier
(Editor's Note/NDLR: For the English version of this article, click here. Pour la version anglaise de cet article, cliquez ici.)
PARIS -- Tout le monde attendait Myth, la
nouvelle création de Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui,
chorégraphe désormais incontournable dans la
programmation du Théâtre de la Ville depuis 2001
et qui en ouvrait la saison cette année, le 25 septembre. Au lever du rideau, rien de
spectaculaire: un décor délimité de chaque côté par deux pans de murs en bois ajourés tels des panneaux mauresques, et un fond dessiné par de
lourdes bibliothèques chargées de livres et de
quelques crânes, ainsi qu'une immense porte
ouvragée à deux battants, à la gauche de
laquelle, en mezzanine, se tiendront les
musiciens. Attendent là, des personnages et un
squelette assis sur des bancs et des chaises,
affairés à lire, à tricoter ou à attendre,
simplement. Le décor est planté: on devine une
grande famille aux portes du Purgatoire, ce lieu
de la théologie catholique où les âmes des justes
expient leurs péchés, ce lieu ou temps d'épreuve
et d'expiation où l'on souffre avant d'accéder à
la félicité éternelle. Pour lire l'article entier, cliquez ici...
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