Tonight three dancers from Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater will be on SYTYCD! My favorite modern dance company Linda Celeste Sims, Clifton Brown, and Constance Stamatiou (above, left to right, in photos by Andrew Eccles) will perform excerpts from Ulysses Dove’s Episodes, which, if I remember correctly, I found very intense and rather haunting.
(Linda Celeste Sims and Matthew Rushing in Episodes, photo by Paul Kolnik)
If you’re in New York, it’s almost time for Alvin Ailey season here. They open at City Center December 2nd. The season lasts for a month and this year they’re celebrating Judith Jamison’s 20th anniversary as artistic director (last year they celebrated the company’s 50th anniversary).
Wow, there are a lot of video clips up of the many many companies and dancers that performed at this year’s Vail International Dance Festival. Here are some of my faves:
Dance Brazil in a modern / capoeira combo, Luna:
Daniel Ulbricht and Misa Kuranaga doing a Corsaire pdd:
Sofiane Sylve and Simon Ball in Forsythe’s In the Middle Somewhat Elevated:
Wendy Whelan and Edwaard Liang (dancing with Morphoses) in Forsythe’s Slingerland pdd:
Matthew Rushing in Ailey’s beautifully bluesy Reflections in D:
Linda Celeste Sims rehearsing Ailey’s classic Cry:
Gillian Murphy and Ethan Stiefel’s Black Swan pdd:
Tyler Angle and Tiler Peck in the pdd from Wheeldon’s Mercurial Manoeuvers:
Some Lindy Hop with Naomi Uyama and Todd Yannacone:
And some Argentine Tango by Natalia Hills and Gabriel Misse:
There are many more vids and photos though, so visit the festival’s blog. I don’t see any up yet of the Ballroom evening — Hanna Karttunen and Victor DaSilva and J.T. Thomas and Tomas Mielnicki, et al. Hoping to see some of those soon. Excellent blog though, letting peeps who couldn’t be there in on what all went on. And splendidly diverse festival!
Linda Celeste Sims and Matthew Rushing of Alvin Ailey perform the adagio pas de deux from Mauro Bigonzetti’s Festa Barocca at the Vail International Dance Festival.
With the insanity of ballet season (see this Macaulay article — at the beginning he very accurately describes what it’s like to be a balletomane in NY right now!), I unfortunately was not able to make it out to Brooklyn to see Alvin Ailey’s week-long wrap-up of its year-and-a-half-long 50th Anniversary celebration. I was very sorry to have missed it. So, in lieu of my own write-up, I’m linking to Gia Kourlas’s NYTimes review of opening night. She lauds two of my favorite dancers, Linda Celeste Sims (above, in photo by Andrea Mohin of the NYT) and Amos J. Machanic, and one of my favorite dances of all time Revelations. So very sorry I had to miss it all. Until December…
Okay, here’s my (late) list of favorites from 2008: (click on highlights to read what I wrote about each dance)
Favorite overall dance of the year:
Revelations by Alvin Ailey. Because the movement language — a unique blend of American Modern with African — is highly evocative, richly varied, and, because it’s set in a specific time and place recognizable to most if not all of us, it’s imbued with meaning and feeling accessible to everyone. And because it speaks to the human condition like no other dance I’ve ever seen. I’m still looking for something to top this and don’t know if I’ll ever find it.
Linda Celeste Sims, Clifton Brown, and Constance Stamatiou (above, left to right, in photos by Andrew Eccles) will perform excerpts from Ulysses Dove’s Episodes, which, if I remember correctly, I found very intense and rather haunting.
