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FLASH NEWS, 11-20: DEATH OF A GIANT
Clive Barnes, Rest in Peace
By Paul Ben-Itzak
Copyright 2008 The Dance Insider

If there's a Heaven and it has a theater, Clive Barnes has probably just taken his preferred seat to watch the new solo being created by Gerald Arpino for Rosella Hightower. And the subsequent thrilling, erudite, and witty review in the Paradise Post -- positive or negative -- will no doubt increase the audience for dance in the Great Beyond. (Oh look: Paul Newman has just taken his seat behind Clive's; but you know who the dancers in the audience are watching before the curtain rises.)

Barnes, the reigning dean of newspaper dance criticism -- while he also wrote for specialist magazines, it was as a mass-circulation newspaper critic that he helped popularize dance -- passed away Thursday at Mt. Sinai Hospital in Manhattan, at the age of 81, from cancer-related complications, reported the New York Times, where Barnes spent 13 years as dance and sometimes theater critic. For the last 30 -- up until a few weeks ago -- he worked tirelessly as dance and theater critic at the New York Post. He began his professional dance writing career at Britain's New Statesman more than half a century ago, was appointed the first dance critic of the Times of London in 1961, and was brought across the Ocean by the New York Times in 1965. If Barnes had one over-riding achievement, it was his key role in popularizing ballet and dance through lively writing that did not depend on reader dance literacy to be riveting, even if those in the know could reap extra benefits. (For piquant examples of his reviews, the responses they sometimes incited from theater world luminaries, and a complete assessment of his career, see the Times obit, written by William Grimes with reporting from Anna Kisselgoff.) Click here for the full article...

Letter from New York, 11-20: West Coast Swing
Dances Across the Spectrum from SF Ballet
By Gus Solomons jr
Copyright 2008 Gus Solomons jr

(Editor's Note: For more on some of the works reviewed here, see also this piece by Harris Green and this from Aimée Ts’ao.)

NEW YORK -- The San Francisco Ballet returned for an all-too-brief nine-day run with three programs of repertoire. The company is one of America's oldest -- it's 75 -- and best. Program B, seen on October 11, showed the dancers' mastery of classic style with a strong Balanchine influence; artistic director Helgi Tomasson is a distinguished NY City Ballet alumnus. Click here for the full article...

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The Johnston Letter, Volume 4, Number 4
The Constitution and Same-Sex Marriage
By Jill Johnston
Copyright 2008 Jill Johnston

This piece was first published in July 2006, and is updated here.

Other than the two main discussions involving gay marriage -- "the kind of society we want," and any Constitutional debate over what the structure of government can permit -- there is a third possibility. A third would be critical of the Constitution itself, which remains short of passing the ERA or Equal Rights Amendment for Women. With half the population (or somewhat more) not recognized as equal under the Constitution, what kind of meaningful debate over and above that is possible where women are involved, as of course they are in gay marriage? The background to considering women in this context is over three decades old, thus largely forgotten. Click here for the full Letter...

Letter from New York, 11-13: Temperaments
Old Temperaments, New Babies and Instant Classics from Morphoses & SF Ballet
By Harris Green
Copyright 2008 Harris Green

(Editor's Note: In a time of globally diminishing editorial space for dance reviews, the Dance Insider sometimes has the luxury of being able to provide multiple reviews of a single choreographer's work by diverse leading national critics. Readers interested in Morphoses's performances of Christopher Wheeldon's "Polyphonia" and "Comedia" and Frederick Ashton's "Monotones II" should also see Gus Solomons jr's earlier review; in San Francisco Ballet's new works, Aimee Ts'ao's review here.)

NEW YORK -- Christopher Wheeldon dominated the first three weeks of City Center's October programming. Such prominence was expected in the repertory of Morphoses (October 1-5); it is after all subtitled "The Wheeldon Company," although room had generously been made for works by Frederick Ashton, Emily Molnar, Paul Lightfoot and Sol Leon, and Annabelle Lopez Ochoa. That Wheeldon could also upstage the house choreographers of the visiting San Francisco Ballet (October 10-18) should cause some reflection on commissions policy in the front offices of SFB. Click here for the full Letter...

Flash Review, 11-13: Escapism
Children of Cocteau: John Kelly Presents Dargelos
By Philip W. Sandstrom
Copyright 2008 Philip W. Sandstrom

NEW YORK -- In a word, John Kelly, seen October 19 at the Spiegel Tent as his latest alter ego Dargelos in "The Escape Artist," was mellifluous. What else can be said that would mean more, would confirm his artistry, or describe the absolute joy of experiencing the aural pleasure of the Kelly voice in action? Done more like a staged reading than a cabaret act, this humble presentation, thanks to Kelly's dedication to his audience and his art, played as a grand coming out party, the professional debut of "Dargelos," as channeled by Kelly. The unveiling was modest, enchanting, generous, and genuine; he eased us into the world of this new man. It felt like we had been invited into Kelly's living room, the intimate setting of the main floor of the Spiegel Tent reinforcing that atmosphere. Click here for the full review...

Flash Reflections, 11-6: Remembering Gerry
'He loved us, and he was so, so proud and devoted to his company'
By Christian Holder
Copyright 2008 Christian Holder

(Editor's Note: The Dance Insider has asked several leading luminaries from the Joffrey Ballet's illustrious history to reflect on Joffrey co-founder and former artistic director Gerald Arpino, who passed away October 29. For more reflections, see also today's Buzz.)

I danced with the Joffrey Ballet from 1966 to 1979. I then returned as a guest artist for the company's 25th anniversary season at City Center in 1981. Finally, in 2006, I danced again with the company in Chicago as a Step Sister (with Gary Chryst) in the Joffrey's 50th anniversary production of Frederick Ashton's "Cinderella." This was the last time I saw Gerald Arpino. He was gracious and welcoming. Click here for the full article...

The Buzz, 11-6: Redemption Songs
Forsythe, LeBlanc, Tomasson & Wheater on Arpino; Brave New World
By Paul Ben-Itzak
Copyright 2008 Paul Ben-Itzak

The problem with following the old saw that one should not speak ill of the dead is that in consequence, an obituary which has only good things to say about the just-departed can ring insincere, particularly to those who, knowing him best, are acutely aware of his faults, perhaps even still smarting from invectives hurled and injuries inflicted. So let's start out by acknowledging that along with many 20th-century dance giants in whose rarified company his artistic achievement places him -- Martha Graham, Agnes DeMille, Jerome Robbins and Antony Tudor will come to mind for dancers -- Gerald Arpino left some emotionally bruised performers in his wake. Yet in gathering the tribe to hold the wake for the dancer, choreographer, and co-founder, with Robert Joffrey, of the Joffrey Ballet, who passed away October 29 at the age of 85, one finds that as often as not, what survives in the minds of the survivors is the crucial, determinative, and positive difference he made in their careers -- and to the art. Click here for the full article...

Letter from London, 11-3: Old is New Again
Time-Stoppers from Burrows, Cunningham, and Guedes at Dance Umbrella
By Josephine Leask
Copyright 2008 Josephine Leask

LONDON -- What's refreshing about the work of Jonathan Burrows is that it never looks dated. "The Stop Quartet" was made in 1996, but when I saw it October 22 at the Linbury Studio Theatre of the Royal Opera House, its intricate movement and absurdly comic sensibility made it look timeless. Shown as part of Dance Umbrella, which brings many old choreographic gems back to the stage, "The Stop Quartet" starts with a quirky duet between Burrows and Henry Montes, who chase each other round the stage in a series of funny walks. With flailing arms and jittery feet they wiggle around the space -- carved up by criss-crosses created by Michael Hulls's lighting design -- like two characters from a Jacques Tati film, taking cues from each other which abruptly stop and start their activity. Their different physiques add to the hilarity: Montes is tall and gangly, Burrows small and compact. Nonetheless they are symbiotically in tune with one another and relate like old friends. They are not trying to be amusing, but sometimes I think they too are going to crack up laughing. Click here for the full review...

Flash Extra, 10-30: With the Angels
Viva Arpino!
By Dance Insider Staff
Copyright 2008 The Dance Insider

CHICAGO -- Gerald Arpino, who with Robert Joffrey co-founded a singular American ballet company in 1956 and as a choreographer went on to forge a singularly 20th century mode of expression for an ancient art over 40 ballets, passed away Wednesday in Chicago at the age of 85, the Joffrey Ballet announced. The company did not specify causes, but the Chicago Tribune noted that Arpino had endured a long battle with prostate cancer.

"He was larger than life, fascinated by everything and everyone," Ashley Wheater, the former company dancer who took over for Arpino as Joffrey artistic director in 2007 told the Tribune's Sid Smith. "When you think of the people he collaborated with -- once he heard two guys playing music on the street in San Francisco, and that became the music for 'Light Rain,' one of Arpino's most popular works.... He enriched us so much in our lives and our art form."

"I think I was drawn to dance because it's total theater," Arpino told the Tribune in 2005, as Smith notes in his comprehensive obituary published today. "Through the unspoken word, through movement, you can accomplish so much. With a hand. With the shake of a fist." Click here for the full article...

Flash Review, 10-23: Ballet's Next Hope
All-Star Casts Shine in Sparkling Wheeldon
By Gus Solomons jr
Copyright 2008 Gus Solomons jr

NEW YORK -- Christopher Wheeldon has come to represent the future of ballet choreography. His company Morphoses presented its second City Center season, October 1-5, and we could see why his promise is so great. The opening night program included two Wheeldon works, a masterwork by one of his mentors, Sir Frederick Ashton, and a New York premiere from Canadian newcomer Emily Molnar. Click here for the full review...

Post-Modern Classics, 10-23: Dreaming of Danzon... and John Shaft
Shut Your Mouth! And Enter the Wondrous World of Daniel Larrieu
By Paul Ben-Itzak
Copyright 2001, 2008 Paul Ben-Itzak

(To celebrate its tenth anniversary as the leading dancer-driven publication, the Dance Insider is reflecting on the new Post-Modern classics, as captured by Dance Insider critics in performances around the world over the past decade. This Flash Review from the Dance Insider archive was first published on November 21, 2001.)

PARIS -- I thought I'd seen it all after a performer at PS 122 made her naked breasts into puppet faces. But that was before last night at the Theatre de la Ville - Sarah Bernhardt, where Daniel Larrieu offered, among other wonders, a white skeleton, maneuvered by three black-garbed puppeteers, essaying a perfect pimp walk to a French-Arabic-Techno trance cover of Isaac Hayes's "Theme from Shaft." Imagine a dream, where the various people and things you were thinking about before you nodded off converge in seeming non-sequiturs, but you readily sacrifice sense to marvel, and you have the mystery of Larrieu's "Cenizas," which received its Paris premiere last night. Click here for the full review...

The Dance Insider Interview, 10-9: Tina LeBlanc
"Music is the reason I dance"
Interview conducted by Paul Ben-Itzak
Illustration by Robin Hoffman
Copyright Robin Hoffman & Paul Ben-Itzak

Tina LeBlanc, making what will likely be her farewell New York performances with San Francisco Ballet beginning Friday (in Balanchine's "Divertimento No. 15" and Christopher Wheeldon's "The Golden Hour") may be the only ballet star of the past quarter century who has conquered both North American coasts, first in her meteoric rise with the Joffrey Ballet in New York in the 1980s, then as a principal with San Francisco Ballet for the past 15 years, with frequent returns to her New York City Center home with the company. Paul Ben-Itzak first saw LeBlanc perform with the Joffrey in 1991 in San Francisco's War Memorial Opera House. Her performance in the lead in John Cranko's "Romeo & Juliet" hooked him on ballet. He subsequently interviewed LeBlanc for Reuters in 1993, profiled her for Dance Magazine in 1995, and has tracked her career nationally and internationally since. Robin Hoffman met LeBlanc when both were members of the Central Pennsylvania Youth Ballet (CPYB); they subsequently danced together with the Joffrey II.

Paul Ben-Itzak: Tina LeBlanc, you've been dancing now for 27 years, since you were 15. Will this next season be your final?

Tina LeBlanc: I'm winding down. I'm in good shape, I'm still dancing well, but it's getting to be time; mentally it's harder to make myself push so hard, I have other interests, and it's time. Click here for the full interview...

Flash Review, 10-9: Tilting at Petipa
Tulsa Solves the Quixote Caper
By Alicia Chesser
Copyright 2008 Alicia Chesser
Photography by Christopher Jean-Richard

Flash Review 1, 9-30: Salon Dances
Intimate "Liaisons" from Edisa Weeks & Co.
By Alison D'Amato
Copyright 2008 Alison D'Amato
Photography by Julie Lemberger

NEW YORK -- Edisa Weeks is a dance nomad, bringing her company, Delirious Dances, and the portable piece "Liaisons" to private homes scattered across New York City. The version I saw was mounted September 19 at the Geraldine Page Salon, which, despite its performance-evoking title, is actually someone's home. And that's the first of many pleasures you'll find in "Liaisons": the rare opportunity to snoop into a stranger's apartment. This particular host's welcome was warm and unequivocal. Walking up to the Chelsea venue, I was astonished to find the door wide open. I climbed a narrow, slightly curving staircase and found myself in a lovely, softly lit entryway that led into the performance space, a book-lined room ringed with chairs. After checking out the hosts' reading habits, I took a seat, joining a group of about 20 spectators. Click here for the full review...

Flash Review 2, 9-30: Place, Show, Win
Audience goes for macho, but Linder's "Foie Gras" gets Place Prize
By Josephine Leask
Copyright 2008 Josephine Leask

LONDON -- Competitions in contemporary dance are rare in the UK, which is why the Place Prize, held every two years since 2004, is a significant event. The brain child of Place Theatre director John Ashford, the Place Prize is a choreographic competition open to all UK-based dance artists and sponsored by Bloomberg. Ashford came up with the idea after judging frequent dance competitions abroad, thinking it would be great for both the profile of contemporary dance here and for uncovering new artists. He wooed Bloomberg, and the ensuing relationship resulted in the company offering substantial money for new dance. Click here for the full review...

Flash Flashback, 9-30: Pioneers
Manifesto & Murray
By Paul Ben-Itzak
Copyright 1999, 2008 Paul Ben-Itzak

(To commemorate ten years as the leading publisher of dance performance reviews and the only publication serving principally professional dancers, the Dance Insider is revisiting its archive. This Flash was first published on December 19, 1999.)

Recently, a couple of readers have expressed that my Flashes have gotten too personal (As in, It's all about me!), and that I should cut down on the personal and cut to the meat, which is critiquing the art. (If I may quote the Russian absurdist author Bely: "?" "!")

While far more flashees have expressed that it is exactly this material that makes the flashes different and compelling and accessible, being sensitive me (It's all about me!), I feel the need to offer a brief manifesto. Click here for the full article...

The Buzz, 9-19: Prodigals
Ballet blog skinny; History of a Siren; Martins commander of arts and -- huh?; All-danse in Biarritz; Up-close in Manhattan; Bessies heart ballet (not); ModErin mama
By Paul Ben-Itzak
Copyright 2008 Paul Ben-Itzak

Image is everything

I was alarmed yesterday morning, in checking out the new blog of a major international ballet company, to discover the thinness of the cover girl, the dancer who graces the Home page. I don't know her, I know nothing about her situation, so for all I know she may just be naturally skinny and 100 percent healthy, but her image, at least, conforms all too easily to that of the ballet dancer we all know too well. I'm not going to describe how this one looks because if the dancer in question does indeed suffer from an eating disorder I don't want to traumatize her further, but let's just say that if a major ballet company is going to start what looks more like a fan site blog than a vehicle for serious introspection (it's produced by the company's marketing and P.R. department), it should assume that the site is going to be regarded by young and impressionable dancers, and should really, really think about the image it's presenting, and the possible harmful influence on young dancers who will think they need to emulate what they see to get to the same place. Click here for the full article...

Flash Preview, 9-19: Autumn in New York
The 2008 DanceNOW [NYC] Festival Artist Line-up
From DanceNOW [NYC]
www.dancenownyc.org

All performances take place at Dance Theater Workshop.

Monday, October 27 at 8 p.m. -- 4OUp

Bigmanarts / Lawrence Goldhuber -- excerpt from Sleeping Giant [2008]
Janis Brenner -- On the Rim of Thought [1998]
William Catanzaro I Alice Teirstein
Dixie Fun Dance Theatre -- Friends [2007]
Doug Elkins -- Climb Ev'ry Mountain [2007]
Ara Fitzgerald Performance -- in Lotte Goslar's Life of a Flower [1943]
Risa Jaroslow & Dancers -- excerpt from Sixty [2007]
Heidi Latsky -- Gimp [2008]
On Common Ground / Donlin Foreman and Jennifer Emerson -- new work
Paradigm / Gus Solomons jr -- new work
Portables / Claire Porter -- new work
Steinberg Blake Dance / Lane Gifford -- new work
Wallie Wolfgruber -- in Lar Lubovitch's So In Love [1994]
Click here for the full schedule...

Post-Modern Classics: From the Gooey to the Sublime
Mantero Reaches Olympian Heights in Improv Program
By Josephine Leask
Copyright 2001 Josephine Leask

(To celebrate its tenth anniversary as the leading dancer-driven publication, the Dance Insider will be reflecting on the new Post-Modern classics, as captured by Dance Insider critics in performances around the world over the past decade. This Flash Review from the Dance Insider archive was first published on December 11, 2001. For more on Vera Mantero's "Olympia," see Paul Ben-Itzak's 2003 Flash of the work's performance in Paris.)

NEW YORK -- A solo, duet and group piece made up the Movement Research improvisation program of Friday night at University Settlement, which was packed out by a very enthusiastic crowd, mainly an audience of dancers. Those who appreciate improvised performance the most tend to be dancers who have improvised themselves. Click here for the full review...

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 View, 9-12: So you think you can dance?
For Ailey dancer with Muslim name, rocky entrance in the Bosom of Abraham
By Omar Barghouti
Copyright 2008 Omar Barghouti

JERUSALEM -- Israeli security officers at Tel-Aviv's Ben-Gurion Airport Tuesday forced an African-American member of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater -- by far the best-known touring company in the United States -- to perform twice for them in order to prove he was a dancer before letting him enter the country with the dance company, the dancer told the Associated Press. But even after he complied, one of the officers suggested that Abdur-Rahim Jackson change his name. Jackson felt humiliated and "deeply saddened," according to an Ailey spokesperson, particularly because his Arab/Muslim sounding first name, given to him by his Muslim father, was the reason that he was the only member of his company subjected to this typical Israeli ethnic profiling. Click here for the full article...

The Buzz, 9-12: Re-entry
Paris's new dance palace; wailing critics; revisionist reporters; Dancer withinsiders; Dance galleries
By Paul Ben-Itzak
Copyright 2008 Paul Ben-Itzak

A National Theater for Dance

Beginning this month, dance in France and Dance in general will have an unprecedented, magnificent, full-time, large-scale, grand theater of its own on the banks of the Seine looking out across the river at the Eiffel Tower. It's called the Theatre National de Chaillot and it may be the first theater of its scale in the Western world to be devoted exclusively to dance. Click here for the full article...

Flash Review, 9-5: Engaged
At Mimos, Marceau steals the show and Trigance carries on the legacy
By Paul Ben-Itzak
Copyright 2008 Paul Ben-Itzak

PERIGUEUX (Dordogne), France -- The body has an amazing capacity for transcending polemics. In Bip as a Soldier, one of the 13 short films featured in John Barnes's 1975 documentary "The Art of Silence," Marcel Marceau tells the story of war without uttering a word. As always, his arms, whether comforting a comrade, embracing a lover before his infantry-man goes off to the front, or trying to create a protective cocoon as the bombs begin to drop encompass a story and enfold his audience. There's a bit of a soundtrack, sure -- of marching troops, for example (Marceau plays the marching neutrally) -- but it's really extraneous.

Marceau, who passed last fall, was the honoree of this year's International Mime Festival or Mimos, which featured 17 companies from around the world, plus 25 more in the Mim'Off festival performed in the parks, cobble-stoned streets, nooks and crannies of the medieval village and elsewhere in this city in the heart of the country's fertile Dordogne department. It's an area known more for foie gras, truffles, pre-historic finds including cave paintings, walnuts and Bergerac wine, but anyone making the tour should definitely make this annual event part of their itinerary. Click here for the full review...

Flash Flashback, 9-05: It's the Dancer
Let us Now Praise Modern Dancers
By Veronica Dittman
Copyright 2000 Veronica Dittman

(To commemorate ten years as the leading publisher of dance performance reviews and the only publication serving principally professional dancers, the Dance Insider is revisiting its archive. This article was first published on December 22, 2000. Veronica Dittman is the founding editor of the Dance Insider.)

In the most recent issue of Ballet Review (28.2, Summer 2000), Daniel Jacobson has a fourteen-page rhapsodic ode to New York City Ballet principal Wendy Whelan. True, Ballet Review's pages are half-size and there were numerous photos of Whelan; true, there are a few paragraphs discussing her anatomy, which objectification I find more than a little repellent. And true, the prose is way over the top in places, describing her as "an authentic New York wonder: all glass and steel, strong and transparent..." But still.... How wonderful to read a dancer's artistry -- her musicality and use of technique and personal nuance -- analyzed and praised by a knowledgeable writer. Click here for the full article...

Flash Review, 8-29: In the Beginning, Middle, and End, More than Somewhat Elevated
Speed-Dialing Dance History with William Forsythe and the Royal Ballet of Flanders
By Gus Solomons jr
Copyright 2008 Gus Solomons jr

NEW YORK -- The Royal Ballet of Flanders really gets William Forsythe's work. In its July 18 performance of his 1988 epic, "Impressing the Czar," as part of the Lincoln Center Festival, the feeling of outrageous fun was pervasive. In her first act as artistic director of the Flanders company, Kathryn Bennetts -- the former ballet mistress of Forsythe's Ballet Frankfurt -- asked for the rights to the ballet, which Forsythe had until then declined to grant. He entrusted her with exclusive permission to do the work. Click here for the full review...

Flash Flashback, 8-29: In Frisco with the French
Babilée Nearly Steals the Show from the Paris Opera Ballet
By Aimée Ts'ao
Copyright 2001, 2008 Aimée Ts'ao

(To commemorate ten years as the leading publisher of dance performance reviews and the only publication serving principally professional dancers, the Dance Insider is revisiting its archive. This article was first published on May 9, 2001. To find out about sponsoring the Dance Insider's coverage of the vibrant San Francisco Bay Area dance scene by Aimée Ts'ao and other sponsorship opportunities with the Dance Insider, e-mail publisher Paul Ben-Itzak.)

SAN FRANCISCO -- This is not a Flash Review. I repeat, this is NOT a Flash Review. Included is a review, but it is also the story about what happened to me for interjecting "Le Mystere Babilée," a documentary on the French dancer Jean Babilée, between two performances of "La Bayadere" during the Paris Opera Ballet's San Francisco run.

I saw the Paris Opera Ballet (POB) in its second performance of Rudolf Nureyev's staging of Petipa's "La Bayadere" last Tuesday, then spent some time mulling it over that night and the next morning. I didn't feel qualified to comment much on the company in general since it was the first time I'd ever seen it perform live. I was planning mostly on comparing two casts since that required no more than the empirical evidence in front of me and not a historical perspective. However, as I waited in the dimly lit Kabuki theater, where "Le Mystere Babilée," an offering by the San Francisco International Film Festival, was about to begin, I scribbled the following notes as a lead in to what I wanted to write about the previous evening's POB performance. Click here for the full article...

Flash Flashback , 8-08: The Baker Centennial
Celebrating Josephine's Greatest Love

(The Dance Insider is revisiting its archive. This article was first published in March 2006. After his staff was alerted to the Josephine Baker centennial by the Dance Insider, U.S. ambassador to France Craig Stapleton will be visiting Josephine Baker's former chateau, Les Milandes, this weekend to honor Baker on behalf of the American people.)

"As Charles Trenet said, 'A long time after the poets have disappeared, their songs still echo in the streets.' In your manner, you were a poet. Your soul of a star has become a star."

-- Jacqueline Cartier, paying tribute to her friend Josephine Baker on the day of her death, April 13, 1975, in France Soir.

By Paul Ben-Itzak
Copyright 2006 The Dance Insider

CASTELNAUD-LA-CHAPELLE, Valley of the Dordogne, France -- There could hardly be a better way to celebrate Josephine Baker on what would have been her 100th birthday than the event being planned by the late singer, dancer, and decorated Resistance leader's neighbors here for June 3: a new statue depicting Baker as a mother embracing a faceless child, erected outside Les Milandes, the sprawling chateau in this verdant land overlooking one of the most breathtaking vistas in France, now a museum dedicated to her memory, where she sheltered the original rainbow tribe for decades before being ignobly evicted along with her ailing cat some 37 years ago. Click here for the full article...

Letter from New York, 7-31: American Beauties
At ABT, dazzling stars bring glitter to tired repertoire
By Harris Green
Copyright 2008 Harris Green

NEW YORK -- Because all the pollsters were obsessed with the presidential primaries this spring, conducting what H. L. Mencken would have called "boob on the street interviews," there was no attempt made to learn what loyal supporters of American Ballet Theatre were thinking at the approach of its eight-week season at the Metropolitan Opera House (May 19-July 12). There's an excellent chance, however, that most ABT admirers desperately wanted one -- or all-- of the following three questions answered at the earliest opportunity:

Would the premiere of Twyla Tharp's "Rabbit and Rogue" mark a recovery from her disastrous Broadway attempt to choreograph to Bob Dylan lieder or a further decline?

Would last season's disastrous new production of "The Sleeping Beauty" remain substantially intact or be revised to meet reviewers' minimum demands for new sets, new costumes, and the old choreography?

Would ABT's unprecedented roster of male superstars, which has suffered its first diminution with the departures of Julio Bocca and Vladimir Malakhov, begin to crumble if Ethan Stiefel and Angel Corella must moonlight as dancers? Stiefel joins the faculty at North Carolina School of the Arts next year, and Corella is already running Corella Ballet in Spain. Click here for the full Letter...

Flash Review, 7-25: Roots
Portraits of Flamenco History from Israel Galvan
By Anna Arias Rubio
Copyright 2008 Anna Arias Rubio

"Here is an impressive and plastic example of the feeling of the tragedy of life, made real with passion and precision by a Spaniard."

-- José Val del Omar, introduction to "Aguaespejo Granadino." (Berlin, 1956)

NEW YORK -- No one in the local flamenco community believed me when I told them that an artist of the caliber of Israel Galvan would be performing for free, June 17 on the Audubon Terrace of the Hispanic Society of America. My daughter Antonia and I spent most of the trip from Philly trying to guess which of the legendary musicians Galvan had previously performed with would be along for this concert: Alfredo Lagos? Enrique Morente? Fernando Terremoto? Ines Bacan? Antonia's favorite, Diego Carrasco...? Arriving early, we were surprised to see Galvan rehearsing alone on a small wooden stage on the ground in the patio, with no sound system, guitar, or singer in sight. His new work "Solo," it turned out, would be just that. Click here for the full review...

The Buzz, 7-25: The Age of Philistines
All the 'criticism' that's fit to spit on dance & dancers; as Kourlas continues her rampage, when will Macaulay speak up?
By Paul Ben-Itzak
Copyright 2008 Paul Ben-Itzak

For Aaron, whose birthday is today, and who remembers when my knock-out punches weren't always so well-placed.

Considering that the publication once considered the bible of dance journalism recently ran a review in which the writer's biggest concern seemed to be getting sweated on by the performers, I guess we shouldn't be surprised that the New York Times -- which has also descended from the journal which helped decelerate American involvement in Vietnam by defying the White House and publishing the Pentagon Papers, to the paper that accelerated American involvement in Iraq by doing the White House's bidding -- continues to publish, in the guise of dance criticism, the ignorant, vindictive, spiteful and above all cynical ravings of Gia Kourlas. But that doesn't mean we have to be silent while the newspaper once considered the paragon of American journalism continues to shamelessly desecrate dance, criticism, and its own storied heritage. Click here for the full column...

Letter from New York, 7-11: All Robbins, some Balanchine
From City Ballet, Jerry's Odyssey
By Harris Green
Copyright 2008 Harris Green

NEW YORK -- The Jerome Robbins Celebration dominated New York City Ballet's spring season from start (April 29) to finish (June 29), with 33 of his ballets presented in eight all-Robbins programs of increasingly desperate titles. "Baroque to Jazz: A Musical Odyssey I" gave way to "Bach to Glass: A Musical Odyssey II," but for an example of sheer frustration, it's hard to beat "All German and Some Tharp." Considering the perils Odysseus encountered on his homeward journey, Robbins's 1984 collaboration with Twyla Tharp on the rarely -- and here, unnecessarily -- revived "Brahms/Handel" could qualify as a stopover with Circe. (Guessing which choreographer contributed what to this fulsome, unsightly muddle is about as artistically and intellectually rewarding as a session of "Where's Waldo?") The only other performances at which Robbins shared a program with another choreographer were Damian Woetzel's farewell (June 18) and the benefit for the Dancers' Emergency Fund (June 27) -- and it was Robbins who had originated that worthy charity, in 1980. Click here for the full Letter...

The Buzz, 7-11: Who is David Koch?
Meet the new patron of the NY State Theater
By Paul Ben-Itzak
Copyright 2003, 2008 Paul Ben-Itzak
Click here for the article...

Flash Review, 7-11: Homefull
Cohabitation with Akram Khan & Co.
By Josephine Leask
Copyright 2008 Josephine Leask

LONDON -- "Bahok," seen June 14 at Sadler's Wells Theatre, is Akram Khan Company's latest collaboration, this time with three members of the National Ballet of China. This work sums up why Khan has favored the process of collaboration in recent years: It's a way of reaching out not only to other dance and artistic disciplines but also to other cultures. The product of a Bengali family raised in London, Khan questions identity, culture and traditions in his work and believes strongly in, as he puts it in the program note, "acquiring new knowledge through reviewing the old knowledge and traditions," reflecting his own background as someone steeped in traditional Indian classical dance as well as cutting-edge contemporary performance processes. In our global society people are constantly on the move, whether through choice or necessity, and Khan argues that this is fine as long as we don't forget what we've left behind. He comments on our rapidly evolving society and talks of the "momentum of shifting," which prevents our contemporary society from becoming 'static.' Similarly in his work, he avoids stasis largely due to his lively, curious brain and the diverse groups of artists with whom he works. "Bahok," one of Khan's most challenging collaborations to date, interrogates from different cultural perspectives the notion of 'home.' A search for a universal understanding of what home means to people who are constantly on the move, the piece features Khan's company (already made up of an ethnically varied group of people) getting to grips with the language, movement and geographical distance of the dancers from the National Ballet of China. Click here for the full review...

Flash Review, 7-3: On the road to Calcutta & Kerala
Pina Bausch listens to the 'Bamboo Blues'
By Laurie Uprichard
Copyright 2008 Laurie Uprichard

PARIS -- Lush is the word that first comes to mind when considering Pina Bausch's latest work, "Bamboo Blues," which had its French premiere at the Théatre de la Ville - Sarah Bernhardt on June 16 and which comes to the Brooklyn Academy of Music in December. The intense music, the saturated colors of the women's dresses, the film of a rich green bamboo forest (with visible power lines letting us know that civilization is nearby) that runs across a mid-stage curtain just before the intermission and at the end of the piece all invoke the tropical side of India. Bausch's two residencies there with visual designer and video maker Peter Pabst and some of her Tanztheater Wuppertal company, in Calcutta and Kerala, were the inspiration for this work. Pina Bausch is a maximalist. Click here for the full review...

Flash Review 2, 7-3: Rabbit Run
Ace ABT Cast Makes Tharp's Latest
By Gus Solomons jr
Copyright 2008 Gus Solomons jr

NEW YORK -- The program for the third week of American Ballet Theatre's spring season at the Metropolitan Opera House was a particular treat for fans of hard dancing. Harald Lander's 1948 "Etudes" -- a 50-minute-long buffet of the most difficult ballet steps -- shared the bill with the premiere of Twyla Tharp's "Rabbit and Rogue" featuring sexy, sheer costumes by Norma Kamali and a commissioned orchestral score by popular film composer Danny Elfman. Click here for the full review...

Flash Profile, 7-3: American Independent
Donald McKayle celebrates 60 years of dance-making
By Paul Ben-Itzak
Copyright 1998, 2008 Paul Ben-Itzak

(The Dance Insider is celebrating its 10th anniversary. This story was first published in the DI's inaugural Summer 1998 print issue, and is posted online today for the first time. 60 years after his first dance premiered at the American Dance Festival, Donald McKayle's latest work bows August 15 in Portland, Oregon, as part of the Northwest Professional Dance Project.)

Donald McKayle's hunger to dance was born one evening in 1947 at the High School of Trades in Manhattan's garment district, where a friend took him to see a concert by Pearl Primus. "I saw something I'd never seen before," McKayle remembers. "I said, 'I want to do that.' My friend said, 'There's a scholarship audition at the New Dance Group, where you can take class with Pearl.' And I said, 'No, I mean I want to do that tonight.' So we went back to her parents' house and pushed the chairs aside and she taught me part of Pearl's 'Dance of Springs.'"

Before there was Alvin Ailey, before there was Lar Lubovitch, before there was Eliot Feld, there was Donald McKayle, a giant of theatrical dance in whose troupe all of these men danced. Click here for the full article...

Flash Review, 6-27: Forever Fancy-Full
Damian Woetzel says 'So long'
By Gus Solomons jr
Copyright 2008 Gus Solomons jr

NEW YORK -- Damian Woetzel has always been an energetic performer and a fierce technician. At his farewell performance on June 18, he said goodbye to the New York City Ballet, his dancing home since 1985, by dancing his heart out all evening. And he leaves the stage -- at a relatively young 41 -- at the peak of his powers. The packed house at the New York State Theater showed him the love and respect he's earned from his legion of fans; they showered the stage with flowers at the 20-minute final curtain call. His colleagues paraded from the wings one by one with bouquets and hugs for him. Among the well wishers were wizened Eliot Feld and American Ballet Theatre stars Ethan Stiefel and Angel Corella, who dashed across the plaza from the Met Opera House, where they're currently dancing the ABT season. Click here for the full review...

Flash Essay, 6-27: Rites of Artistic Identity
Of Harbingers and Abundance: The Mythic Appeal of "Le Sacre du Printemps"
By Marisa C. Hayes
Copyright 2008 Marisa C. Hayes

CHALON-SUR-SAONE (Saone-et-Loire), France -- Most are aware of the infamous episode in dance history when riots broke out at the Theatre des Champs-Elysees in Paris at the premiere of Nijinsky's "The Rite of Spring" in 1913, but surprisingly few dance writers or scholars have explored the ballet's undeniable appeal as a work that continues to be reshaped and regenerated on the global stage. As such, the ballet has become something of a two-way mirror, intimately reflecting the identities of the scores of dance-makers who have reinterpreted it. I pondered this recently as I witnessed the arrival of Marie Chouinard's company in France with her 50-minute "Le Sacre du Printemps" in tow. Chouinard created her version back in 1994, and 14 years later the piece continues to headline not only regional theaters (I caught the March 28 performance at Espace des Arts here in Burgundy), but celebrated venues for contemporary dance such as Paris's Theatre de la Ville - Sarah Bernhardt. While Chouinard's choreography looks less innovative these days, there's something more central to the heart of any "Sacre" (as it's affectionately called), not just hers, that warrants one reprise after another. Click here for the full Essay...

Flash Review, 6-20: Stolen Generation
Bangarra Tells Mathinna's Story
By Chloe Smethurst
Copyright 2008 Chloe Smethurst

MELBOURNE -- One of the greatest things about Stephen Page's choreography is the way he is able to tell a story through dance. Page's latest work for Bangarra Dance Theatre, "Mathinna," which premiered at the Victorian Arts Centre on May 16, is based on the true story of a Tasmanian aboriginal woman who was taken from her family as a child in the 1840s. The subject matter is an extremely topical issue both here in Australia and in Canada, with the prime ministers of both countries having recently apologized for the practice of taking indigenous children from their families. Click here for the full review...

Flash Flashback, 6-20: Walking the Line
Reichian Rosas; Propped up Cie 111; Fear of Fear
By Paul Ben-Itzak
Copyright 2007, 2008 Paul Ben-Itzak & The Dance Insider

(Editor's Note: To celebrate its 10th anniversary as the only dance publication apart from Ballet Review putting reviews of dance performances from around the world front and center, the Dance Insider is revisiting its Archive. This Flash was first published on May 3, 2007. Rosas's Steve Reich evening, with choreography by Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker and music by Steve Reich and Gyorgy Ligeti, comes to the Brooklyn Academy of Music's Next Wave festival with performances at the BAM Howard Gilman Opera House October 22 - 25. Compagnie 111 performs at the same space, with a different work than the one reviewed here, November 5, 7, and 8. )

PARIS -- There are certain dances that, simply put, justify Dance. Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker's 1982 "Fase," an excerpt of which ATDK's company Rosas performed in last night's Theatre de la Ville - Sarah Bernhardt opening of an all Steve Reich program, is one of those landmark works.

Like F. Scott Fitzgerald's novel "The Great Gatsby," "Fase" is deceptively simple on first viewing but reveals new layers and levels every additional time you see it. Last night, the luminous (and Bessie-winning) Cynthia Loemij and Tale Dolven, interpreting the "Piano Fase" segment of this masterpiece, evoked images and memories of girls at play. ATDK is nothing if not girlish and, indeed, I noticed this the first time I saw this dance, nearly a decade ago, performed by a flirty De Keersmaeker with Michelle Anne De Mey. This time, though, the duet was tinged with poignance -- particularly when Loemij leaned forward, as if precipitating into a memory, one leg extended behind her, before righting herself and returning to the present. Click here for the full review...

Flash Flashback, 6-13: Battling the Dark Spaces
In a World of Conflict, Gerard Violette & Padmini Chettur See Another Path

(Editor's Note: To celebrate its 10th anniversary as the only dance publication apart from Ballet Review putting reviews of dance performances from around the world front and center, the Dance Insider is revisiting its Archive. This Flash was first published on October 27, 2006. Last night at the Theatre de la Ville - Sarah Bernhardt, where he's stepping down as director after more than a quarter of a century, tout Paris paid homage to Gerard Violette, a presenter and producer whose astronomic ambition for and investment in dance and the performing arts has always been paralleled by a unique personal modesty.)

By Paul Ben-Itzak
Copyright 2006, 2008 The Dance Insider

Well darkness has a hunger that's insatiable
And lightness has a call that's hard to hear
I wrap my fear around me like a blanket
I sailed my ship of safety till I sank it, I'm crawling on your shore.

-- Indigo Girls, "Closer to Fine"

PARIS -- As inevitable as conflict may seem these days, the world offers choices. Gerard Violette, artistic director of the Theatre de la Ville -- arguably the most critical dance presenter in the world -- and its two spaces, closes his season-opening greetings by quoting from Albert Jacquard's "My Utopia" (Stock): "Nowadays, most encounters are opportunities for confrontation, struggle, prize-listing. Yet, nothing matters but the possibility to exchange. It is our view of the other that must be transformed. We must no longer consider him as a competitor.... What I would like to say is you may become what you choose to be. And that other people's happiness concurs to build one's own." To which Violette adds: "'Other views, exchange, other people's happiness....' You're in a theater." I read this Wednesday night sitting in TDLV's 380-seat les Abbesses theater up near the sky in Montmartre, where Padmini Chettur immediately proved the precept in "Paperdoll." Click here for the full review...

Letter from New York, 6-13: Novelty Acts
At the Chapel of St. Twyla with ABT & St. Vitus; Ratmansky-Shostakovich Concerto from NYCB
By Harris Green
Copyright 2008 Harris Green

NEW YORK -- Less than a week separated the spring season's two major premieres: Alexei Ratmansky's "Concerto DSCH" on the New York City Ballet, May 29 at the New York State Theater; and Twyla Tharp's "Rabbit and Rogue" from American Ballet Theatre, June 3 at the Met. The dancing at the subsequent performances I saw couldn't have been better. Each company now exhibits unprecedented strength at every level of the roster and consistently fields casts of uniform excellence. The brilliance of the dancing in both was so constant, so incessant it verged on monotony. Not until you looked beneath the breathtaking technique to know dancers from the dances could a gap of Grand Canyon-like vastness be found yawning between the two ballets. Click here for the full Letter...

Out of the Fog, 6-6: Ballet to Breakers
10 New Works in Three-Day Decathlon from America's Oldest Classical Troupe
By Aimée Ts’ao
Copyright 2008 Aimée Ts’ao

SAN FRANCISCO -- In the dance world, longevity is cause for celebration. Many dance companies are born and die within a short period of time because of a number of factors. Companies are often started by a single choreographer and succumb to lack of funding or the retirement/death of the founder. Ensuring the long-term survival of the work itself is also more difficult than in other realms. Unlike a painting that can hang on the wall of a museum for centuries, dance productions must be constantly resurrected and every single performance brought to life on the stage by ever-changing casts of dancers. That takes a lot of work and a lot of money. So San Francisco Ballet's 75th anniversary is an opportunity to acknowledge a feat of honorable proportions. Not many people remember when the company nearly went bankrupt in the mid-1970s, more than 30 years ago. I still recall the dancers in tutus panhandling in Union Square for the "Save Our Ballet" campaign. It is sobering to reflect on this company's history and acknowledge the thousands of people on both sides of the footlights, from the dancers to the standing-room balletomanes, from the costume seamstresses to the generous donors in the boxes who have kept it alive all these years.

San Francisco Ballet's 75th season went all out, with five programs of repertory works, one program of performances by three visiting ballet companies, display cases of artifacts and memorabilia in the lobby, lectures, a historical exhibit of stage design at the Museum of Performance and Design (formerly the Performing Arts Library and Museum), symposia on the future of classical ballet, and a reunion of former company dancers. The season culminated in the New Works Festival, a three-day marathon of ten new ballets by ten choreographers, eight of whom have worked with the company regularly over the past two decades. Click here for the full review...

Flash Review, 6-6: Horizons
Ying Sings His/Her Own Song
By Toni Taylor
Copyright 2008 Toni Taylor

NEW YORK -- A performance art piece with video, dance, and monologue which considers ideas of gender, sexuality and how how we turn out in those areas affects those who love us, specifically mothers, Hou Ying's "What is Your Horizon?," presented by the Dance Ying Group on May 9 and 10 at the Puffin Room, was a perfect Mother's Day weekend performance for a certain kind of mother. Click here for the full review...

Flash Review, 5-23: Dreams of Robbins
At City Ballet, Jerry Plays with the Russians
By Gus Solomons jr
Copyright 2008 Gus Solomons jr

NEW YORK -- On May 9 at the New York State Theater, the program performed by the New York City Ballet, part of its Jerome Robbins Celebration, was titled Russian Roots. Four works by the choreographer, set to Tchaikovsky, Prokofiev, and Stravinsky, showed the breadth of Robbins's range, but all resonated with the syncopated musicality and jazz inflection that we associate with his most identifiable Broadway show dances. Click here for the full review...

Flash Review 2, 5-23: Fired up and let down
Mee's "Fire Island" can't get started
By Alison D'Amato
Copyright 2008 Alison D'Amato

NEW YORK -- I was determined to have a good time at "Fire Island," the new work created by playwright Charles Mee and presented by 3 Legged-Dog media and theater group in Lower Manhattan. Seeing the show on May 1, two days before the end of its run, I had ample time to read other reviews and hear secondhand that the "multidimensional beach party!," as the show is sub-titled, was a sprawling and somewhat incoherent spectacle. I was prepared to let it wash over me, though, knowing that the experience wasn't going to be neatly framed and traditionally packaged.

Walking into 3LD was an event in itself. The front doors open into a stark white, spaceship-like hallway that doesn't necessarily evoke a hedonistic beach party. But once I was inside the performance space, whimsical summery touches were everywhere. Audience members sprawled on blankets and beach chairs, a hot dog cart supplied food for a pre-show barbecue and big buckets were filled with ice and bottles of beer. The "Fire Island" team was pretty aggressively committed to its audience enjoying themselves. I must have had a tentative look in my face, because a woman in a short pink dress approached and said "Go ahead! Sit anywhere. There's beer in the buckets, wine on the table over there, and I think the food cart is still serving." I asked if the drinks were by donation. "No, no! Everything's totally free!" Since when have you been treated that well at the theater? Click here for the full review...

Flash Flashback, 5-23: Dancing with Disaster
Sasha Waltzes with the Tsunamis
By Paul Ben-Itzak
Copyright 2006, 2008 The Dance Insider

(Editor's Note: To celebrate its 10th anniversary, the Dance Insider is revisiting its Archive. This Flash was first published on May 19, 2006. Sasha Waltz and Guests perform Waltz's breakthrough piece "Travelogue I" through tomorrow at the Theatre de la Ville - Sarah Bernhardt.)

PARIS -- Speaking of would-be choreographer-healers, as Chappelle Chambers does today in her Flash of Heidi Latsky, personal illness isn't the only malady dance makers would treat these days. If I had a Euro for every press release I receive that promises a response to the all the disaster, death, and destruction, I'd be writing you right now from my own private island (buttressed by Bechtel, bien sur). Unfortunately, like Wim Vandekeybus's recent torture fest, in the end most of these efforts that I've seen simply replicate the dark deeds without offering any kind of real response, invariably leaving me asking, "You're dancers; what do you know about suffering?" I'm not saying artists need to solve or cure our troubles; but where they have promised a response to them, I think it's fair to expect that they're going to use the tools available to them to shed some light.

For her new "Gezeiten" (Tides), receiving its French premiere through tomorrow night at the Theatre de la Ville - Sarah Bernhardt, Sasha Waltz wanted to use her skills "to give an account" of how our constant exposure to natural and man-made disasters -- in this age of information globalization -- affects us individually and as a society. She also wanted, she says in the program notes, to exploit that the theater setting would not allow us to simply switch the channel but assign "more active participation" to the spectators. Like Ernest Borgnine on the Poseidon, we'd be trapped. Click here for the full review...

Letter from London, 5-16: Like the....
New Menageries from Phoenix Dance Theatre
By Josephine Leask
Copyright 2008 Josephine Leask

LONDON -- Under the directorship of Javier de Frutos, who was appointed almost two years ago, Phoenix Dance Theatre, from Leeds in northern England, has had an electrifying make-over. Phoenix is a company whose past is distinguished but not untroubled. Since its origins in the 1980s as a politically assertive 'black' dance troupe, the company has gone through several reincarnations and has always struggled with issues around identity which have sometimes got in the way of artistic integrity. Now, however, under de Frutos, Phoenix is comprised of a group of ten dancers, picked from around the globe; the director is quick to point out that these new dancers have been chosen because of their outstanding performance skills rather than the color of their skin. Click here for the full Letter...

Letter from the Coast, 5-16: Children's Hour
Too Much Opera, too Little Prince
By Jordan Winer
Copyright 2008 Jordan Winer

BERKELEY -- "It's opera?! I hate Opera! No fair! I'm NOT going!"
"But it's 'The Little Prince,' you liked that book."
"I don't care, remember 'The Magic Flute'!"

Seven-year-olds are quite good at reasoning, as my son Dashiell was proving. His mother once took him to a "family" performance of "The Magic Flute" at the San Francisco Opera and we never stopped hearing about how painful and terrible it was. Even Faye, my older daughter, was turned off by "The Magic Flute," but she, unlike Dash, was willing to give "The Little Prince" a try. Rachel Portman, the Academy Award winning composer ("Emma," "The Cider House Rules") created this after the Antoine de Saint-Exupéry novel in an effort to "write an opera that you could take a child to see and enjoy." With me and mine, in tow for the May 9 performance at Zellerbach Hall, she only partially succeeded. Click here for the full Letter...

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.

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...

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...

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