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!

Oh my gosh you guys, I just heard about this on PinballPeople. I’m so shocked. I didn’t even know she was sick (apparently she was only diagnosed with cancer days ago). I’m so upset. We’re never going to have any new work from her again. I didn’t see enough of her. I’m sorry, this is so much more shocking to me than the deaths last week… She was just at BAM a few months ago and she seemed fine.

Here is a good piece on Bausch by Guardian’s Judith Mackrell. Here is the Bausch archive on YouTube.

I was just reading a group of tributes to David Foster Wallace in the Sonora Review last night and now I’m thinking this loss is on that level. This is one of those artists we will all suffer without, whether you’re aware of it or not. This is huge.

There’s currently a debate raging in London over Sadler’s Wells (the most important venue there for contemporary dance) and its new season lineup showcasing the work almost entirely of male choreographers. Thanks to Pinballpeople for pointing me to it!

See Guardian posts by dance and culture writers Judith Mackrell and Charlotte Higgins here, here, and here (and read the comments section in that last link; some are by choreographers and are very astute.)

Alistair Spalding, the artistic director of Sadler’s Wells, has apparently responded that he realizes there’s an imbalance but can’t do anything about it; he has to choose the works he thinks best. Spalding posits one reason for the lack of female choreographers as being that women are perhaps not as “assertive” as men, but it’s unclear to me what exactly he means.

Continue reading ‘ARE THE ‘BUZZIEST’ CHOREOGRAPHERS MALE IN THE US AS WELL AS UK? AND DO CRITICS IN THE UK HAVE MORE POWER?’

(photo by Andrea Mohin from the NYTimes)

I’ll write more after I see the second program, but I want to highly recommend for people in NY to go see Ronald K. Brown’s company EVIDENCE, at the Joyce Chelsea now through February 15th. His work is by turns serious, sobering, thought-provoking, humorous, celebratory, exciting in a makes you wanna stand up and dance yourself way, and always spiritual. His movement style is a beautiful blend of African and American modern, danced to music ranging from percussive African drums (played live) to Duke Ellington, Sweet Honey in the Rock, and Fela Kuti, and, unlike with the majority of dance companies I’ve seen, the women (who are, gloriously, all shapes, sizes, and ages) really stand out!

On Tuesday night (opening night), the audience was so into it, applauding and cheering on the individual dancers throughout: “You go, girl; Okay, Clarice, tell it!”, etc. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen that level of excitement at concert dance.  Usually everyone’s so quiet and “well behaved” My friend Alyssa and I were cracking up. If you can, do go!

Go here for more info and to see a video.

(photo of Alvin Ailey cast in Masekela Langage by Steve Vaccariello from Alvin Ailey website)

I managed to be sick for the last two weeks of December, so, horribly, I wasn’t able to go to as many Alvin Ailey performances as I usually do. Now, I’m depressed and feeling like I really missed out. Especially since I was just told how excellent the season finale was last night. Sob sob.

I did get to see all the major things though: the revivals (Blues Suite and Masekela Langage); the two premieres (Go in Grace and Festa Barocca), which I wrote about here and here and here; Suite Otis, a fun piece set to Otis Redding and comprised of jazzy all-male and all-female ensemble numbers and cute vignettes of couples in various stages of a relationship; and of course several Revelations.

(Linda Celeste Sims and Glenn Allen Sims in Suite Otis, photo by Paul Kolnick)

(Suite Otis, photo by Steve Vaccariello)

(Suite Otis, Paul Kolnick photo)

Blues Suite was Mr. Ailey’s first major dance, made in 1958, when the company began. It’s a bluesy piece that takes place in a nightclub, based on The Dew Drop Inn, an African American hangout in his Texan hometown, and consists of a set of female cabaret dancers and jazzy dancing men, who mostly perform in groups for the audience but sometimes dance together as if we, the audience, are getting not a “performance” but are eavesdropping on what goes on in a real club. The latter were my favorite parts.

With Masekela Langage, my overall favorite of the season besides Revelations, we get just that: a glimpse into another world, a troubling world.

(Steve Vaccariello photo, Masekela Langage)

And that’s what I liked about it so much. It was described to me as a “political” work (a totally loaded term!) portraying racial violence and oppression both in the era of South African apartheid (it’s set to music by the South African trumpeteer Hugh Masekela) and in 1960s Chicago. So, I expected to see all these scenes of white farmers burning black farms, of bands of white police attacking black men on the streets, etc. But it wasn’t.

Continue reading ‘Masekela Langage and the Brilliance of Revelations’

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.

(photo by Paul Kolnick)

Favorite new dances:

1) Nimrod Freed’s PeepDance in Central Park;

Continue reading ‘Favorites of 2008′

(photo, of Vernard J. Gilmore and Antonio Douthit, by Andrea Mohin from NYTimes)

So Sir Alastair called Festa Barocca “rubbish”!

I didn’t really know what to think of it, to be honest (which is why it’s taken me so long to write about). I found it oddly intriguing and very different from his (choreographer Mauro Bigonzetti’s) other work that I’ve seen, Oltremare. That piece made perfect sense and was clear in what it was trying to express: the fear, sadness, and longing of poor immigrants bound for the New World. This wasn’t so clear.

The whole piece is set to Handel’s classical Baroque music, but the movement is extremely varied, encompassing ballet, Argentine Tango, African — a hodge-podge, and with styling that looked at times Asian (like the beautifully flexed wrists), Egyptian (the iconic “King Tut”-esque Cleopatra arms), and even some styling that reminded me of the movie Pulp Fiction (with the bandit eyes — where Uma Thurman and John Travolta are dancing, extending elbows outward, arms turned down, circling their eyes with their fingers — remember that?)

There was definitely a lot of humor, and Hope Boykin, whose enchanting solos frame the piece, smiles out at the audience a lot, kind of indicating she is taking us on a wild ride. I couldn’t really tell, though, if Bigonzetti was making fun of Baroque music, or if he was trying to expand our assumptions about how it could be used for dance. Don’t think I’d ever have thought of putting African to Handel. Or, if Baroque music is defined as representing the “perfect order” of the universe, of “avoiding trivialities as well as willful eccentricities,” then maybe he is playing with the definition of Baroque music itself.

By the way, Antonio Douthit (right in pic above) and Jamar Roberts I thought were the best in the ensemble parts. Jamar really threw himself into it full out and made the most of every little movement detail. And Antonio is one of those unbelievable dancers who seems to be able to excel at both ballet and African. Have I said that before here? Sorry if I have; I honestly forget what I’ve tweeted and what I’ve blogged. He has these gorgeously high extensions that he holds so well and he’s graceful and feathery, but then he can be so rhythmic with those beautifully snaky full body-undulations as well.

The dance is comprised of several ensemble parts, a couple of solos, and a couple duets that seemed by turns sexy, mysterious, and kind of violent. At points, it seemed like the men were casting a spell on the women, at other places it seemed the women became the mens’ puppeteers, like when the women would raise their legs to their partners’ faces or necks, gripping with their toes, kind of teasing them as they circled their feet about, head or throat attached, round and round, and then harshly pushing them away.

Macaulay seemed peeved because such movement (which he amusingly calls “acrobatic foot fetishism”) didn’t seem to fit the Italian lyrics of the Handel songs. I didn’t know those lyrics, but, assuming the translation in his article is correct, it is rather interesting how a husband’s singing “Where are you? Come, beloved, to console my spirit” to his wife (who doesn’t yet know he’s dead) correlates with a dancer throttling her partner’s throat with her foot. Either an unusual reinterpretation, or Bigonzetti is trying to throw in some comedy with the duets as well (which generally seemed more serious), or else he, like many choreographers, is more interested in putting movement to rhythms than actual words.

In the end I’m not sure what to make of it. I loved the dancers, as always. I’m not sure I could ever be dissatisfied watching them do anything. I’m interested to hear what others make of this piece though. They don’t yet have any of it up on YouTube, but let me know if you see it live.

Oh, and costumes (by Marc Happel) were gorgeous. Men and women both wore long, brightly-colored flowing skirts in the ensemble pieces, donning more form-fitting garb for the intricate pas de deux.

(Hope Boykin in solo, above; below, Gwynenn Taylor Jones and Clifton Brown in first duet; photos by Steve Vaccariello)

I know I’m very behind on my Alvin Ailey posts (on all my posts actually). Promise to catch up!

Here are some pictures from Hope Boykin’s sweet Go in Grace, which premiered at Ailey last week and which I wrote about here.

The “family” — “daughter” Rosalyn Deshauteurs, “father” Amos J. Machanic (who blew me away, as always!), Renee Robinson as “mother”, Clifton Brown as the “son” (my “son” was Matthew Rushing), and Kirven J. Boyd and Antonio Douthit as the up to no good boys (spelled “Boyz” in the program)

(First two photos by Steve Vaccariello, taken from the Alvin Ailey website)

The dancers, with Sweet Honey in the Rock members, who provided live singing and acted as a kind of chorus, interacting with the dancers throughout, warning the daughter not to let herself be taken advantage of by boys, shaking their heads at the boyz for leading the son astray, comforting family members dealing with the pain of the father’s death, etc.)

(This photo and the next two are by Paul Kolnick)

Amos as the father, having his final, heartbreaking, dance.

Rosalyn as the daughter, being carried off by the crowd.

At the end she and her father dance side by side, doing the same steps, the father in a kind of shadow position behind her, a spirit guiding her.

Go in Grace is showing a few more times this season. Go here for the City Center schedule.

Here’s a picture (by Steve Vaccariello) of the Go in Grace choreographer, dancer Hope Boykin, in the company’s other big premiere this season, Mauro Bigonzetti’s Festa Barocca. I thought I’d moblogged about it, but I actually tweeted. (I sometimes get things I do with my cell phone a bit confused…) Anyway, I have to go to bed right now, but I will blog about Festa tomorrow.

Tonight at 8pm, Deborah Friedes will livestream Misnomer Dance Company’s Being Together on The Winger. You can watch and chat with other viewers. I wrote about the dance here. If you can watch, please tell me what you think!

(photo taken from here).

Last night I went to see Pina Bausch’s Bamboo Blues at Brooklyn Academy of Music. This was my first time seeing something by Bausch live (I’d only ever seen her work in film and on YouTube, and of course in Almodovar’s Talk To Her), and I see why she is so popular. She really knows how to create a provocative spectacle. Performed by her Tanztheater Wuppertal, it, like I think all of Bausch’s work, is not pure dance but a combination of dance and theater with spoken word, little acted-out vignettes, and video installations.

Being so visual and composed of many sub–pieces, the work is hard to describe, but basically several women dressed in gorgeous, richly textured ballgowns danced, mostly alone or with one or two men, who were, in contrast, dressed in rather mundane white sheets wrapped around their waists like towels. Much of the music was Indian-based and -inspired, but with a Western beat, and at times with lyrics in English or French. The movement in the solos was Indian-inspired as well, with beautifully flexed wrists and feet, splayed fingers and toes. Not surprisingly, the dancer who had the most pronounced gestures in this regard was Shantala Shivalingappa, who is Indian and trained in classical Indian and modern dance. See NYTimes article on her here.

The women wore their hair (all of it long, long, long) down and repeatedly swung their heads about, creating generally a very sensuous effect, that turned a bit violent at times, when it became aggressive. The men were the same.

(photo by Ulli Weiss)

But then the duets and ensemble dancing was more comical, at times also violent. After one woman performed a solo, a sensual dance, in front of white, billowing curtains, her dress billowing along with them, several women took the stage, coming out one by one. Dressed in the exquisite gowns though they were, their gait was more an aggressive strut than a stylized walk, and they all seemed to be chomping on something — tobacco perhaps? They all took a position, and lay, making sexy poses, directed at the audience. But of course the sexiness was undermined by that exaggerated chomping.

(photos by Nelvin C. Cepeda)

Then the women left and the men came out in their towel-sheets, walking in a more sexy, more feminine manner, which caused the audience to laugh. I laughed too, but wondered if I was the only one who questioned why this, the gender juxtapositioning, was necessarily funny.

And there was a kind of battle of the sexes / battle of the self undercurrent, as women and men paired happily — for example in the picture at top where a woman and man rocked themselves to sleep in each others’ arms; but at times violently, when, for example, a man would repeatedly pick up a woman and throw her aggressively over his shoulder in a dangerous-looking lift, or when a man would grab a woman’s hand, run around the stage pulling her along, put a chair in her path, and rush her toward the chair, forcing her to run atop and jump off of it, falling — or crashing more like — into his arms. At times the women seemed to enjoy this aggression, at times their faces would show strain and unease.

Sometimes it was actually kind of confusing how much the women were willing participants in this, how much they controlled the men, or how much they were being controlled by them. At one point a woman took the straps of her gown down over her shoulders, as if she was going to do a strip tease. She didn’t. Instead she began rubbing, caressing her shoulders with her hands, criss-crossed over her chest. A man came up and angrily began smudging her chest with red paint, his strokes like slices of a knife. She didn’t see him, but moaned in pleasure as his hand sliced her chest. The more he “stabbed” the more she ecstatic she seemed to become.

Some of those images and vignettes with their contradictions and twists and turns from sexy, sensual, and playful, to manipulated and violent, won’t be leaving me for a while. The dance shows through December 20th; for info and to see a video go here.

Okay, here is what I was writing last night when my internet crashed:

I’m always so happy when I come out of an AA performance; I could just dance home! Tonight was Maurice Bejart’s Firebird, which was more breathtaking than the first time I saw it last year; Clifton is beyond belief — just this huge guy who’s so amazingly graceful. Ditto for Jamar — the only person who I can imagine being able to lift him, and those lifts at the end when Jamar’s bringing Clifton back to life are so stunning.

(photo by Paul Kolnick).

Then, on second, was the new Hope Boykin piece, Go in Grace, which was kind of a play without words, utilizing the singers — Sweet Honey in the Rock — along with the dancers, the singers acting as a kind of chorus and interacting with the dancers throughout. It told, in expressionistic pieces, the story of a family, the father and mother good, upstanding people trying to keep their daughter and son from going astray. They’re successful with the daughter but the son kind of gets involved with the wrong crowd (namely, Antonio and Kirven!) Eventually he comes back, but only after the father dies, which is really heartbreaking. Amos J. Machanic danced the father and I noticed from last night (which I still have to write about!) and tonight that he is the most expressive, emotive dancer, and such a great actor, he really pulls you into the dance, and creates such sympathy for his characters. He broke my heart both last night as a junkie in Masekala Language, and tonight as the dying father who wanted nothing but the best for his children in Boykin’s ballet.

(photo of Machanic by Andrew Eccles)

And last on was Revelations, which I’ve written about here. Yannick LeBrun blew me away as the second Sinner Man!

(photo of Lebrun by Eduardo Patino)

He was, yes, even better than Clifton! He is definitely one to watch. And Antonio Douthit was mesmerizing tonight as well, as the guy getting baptized in Wade in the Water. Funny though, he had some kind of large tattoo — a cobra or some kind of winged creature perhaps — creeping out of the top of his pants in back, which was kind of funny given his character here But I love it — & am sure I’m the only one who noticed such a thing… Also, someone’s big church hat flew off and created a bit of a funny nuisance onstage in Rocka My Soul. Always very funny when something goofy happens with a prop

Anyway, I have to upload and post pictures from last night and write about the night before — Masekela Language and Suite Otis, but will have to do it when I get back from Pina Bausch at BAM.

Go in grace premiere

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Aw, it was sweet! And interesting – was just as much about the music – sung live onstage- as the dance if not more. Amos machanic is so good, breaks my heart. Think i saw will from so u think u can dance talking to choreographer hope boykin.

(photo of Twyla Tharp’s Brief Fling by Lois Greenfield, from American Ballet Theater)

There’s a good article by Joan Acocella in this week’s New Yorker reviewing a couple of recent dances at Brooklyn Academy of Music. In it, she talks about American choreographers and their uneasiness with ballet, their distrust of the dance form as inherently European (and snobbish). Hence, their need constantly to compare and contrast it with other forms of dance, even to deconstruct it.

Funny, but when I saw Tharp’s Brief Fling recently during American Ballet’s Theater’s City Center season, as much as I liked the fun of it (especially since my favorites Marcelo Gomes and Craig Salstein danced in my program — both of whom really up the drama and humor as far as they can possibly go), I couldn’t help but get annoyed thinking, why do so many choreographers either contrast ballet with other dance forms (with modern, with American social, with aerobics, with tango — in Brief Fling, it was with traditional Celtic or Scottish dance) or try to take it apart and show its underpinnings, to critique it — like early William Forsythe, like Jorma Elo, like even the new piece ABT commissioned by Lauri Stallings? So, I was thankful for Acocella’s little historical discussion of American choreography and ballet. Go here for the article.

She also reviews, Urban Bush Women and Compagnie Jant-Bi and falls for African dance! Yes, Joan

Busy busy weekend for me.

Today is Dance Times Square’s student in-house competition which I’m not participating in but am covering for Explore Dance.

Ditto for tonight’s Starry Night Winter Showcase, part of Columbia University’s Big Apple DanceSport Challenge, where Slavik Kryklyvyy and Hanna Karttunen will perform! Slavik is my favorite Latin dancer and I haven’t seen him dance in a while now, so am very excited. I’ve never seen Hanna dance Latin before but have seen her amazing exhibitions at Blackpool. So, yes, very excited, to say the least. Also, Arunas Bizokas and Katusha Demidova (America’s top ballroom couple) are dancing Standard.

And, this weekend is the Independent / Small Press Book Fair in midtown, which I hope to slip in and out of today while at Dance Times Square down the street, and attend most of tomorrow.

Also, last night I saw Jose Limon Dance Company’s Program B, which is their classic Limon program (The Moor’s Pavane (probably his most famous work), The Traitor (excellent excellent), and Suite From a Choreographic Offering (beautifully rich spiritual dance set to gorgeous Bach music). Don’t have time to write about it now, but I highly recommend Program B, showing through December 7th. Here is Philip’s review.

I went to the opening night of Misnomer Dance Theater’s Being Together at the Joyce SoHo last night. I almost don’t want to write anything yet since they’ll be broadcasting live their December 14th performance. I know, how coolly innovative, right! So, I encourage everyone to watch that. It’s going to be here, on their website. Don’t worry; I’ll remind you again closer to the date

The work is divided into three sections: “Too Late Tulip”; “Rock.Paper.Flock”; and “Zipper”. All deal with different ways human beings have of connecting to each other. The second and third also deal with (a related issue, I suppose, of) how meaning is made in dance — is it due more to the choreographer or the dancers? — which to me, as someone who’s never danced anything but ballroom, is something I’ve always wondered about. I mean, with all other kinds of artists — writers, painters, composers — the work is due entirely to the person at the helm. Sure, actors (in the case of a play) and musicians over time add their own interpretations, but it’s ultimately the writer or composer’s words or notes. I’ve never understood choreographers who say they couldn’t have possibly made their dance on anyone else. That seems to contribute to the ephemeral nature of dance. And that ephemeral quality would seem to negate that a dance, like the other arts, can have a history, and a future. And yet great dances, thankfully, do survive the dancers on whom they were made.

Anyway, choreographer Christopher Elam says his dances are completely open to interpretation, but my interpretation of the first, “Too Late Tulip” was that it’s the story of a woman who has trouble connecting to others. She enjoys swaying to the music on her own, but when others try to join her, to connect with her in various shapes, she kicks out at them, pushes them away. Soon, she is taken with a male dancer, who has a female partner already. The effect is at times chaotic, at times sweet.

The second part I really can’t write about because so much of it was improvised, albeit “directed” on the spot by the choreographer, by Elam. His commands to the dancers are at times hilarious in their generality or seeming contradictions: “Coco, I want you to do what I am thinking” (she playfully shoved another dancer); “Dorian, take center stage with intention and an air of mystery stage and then act like a bowling trophy”; “Luke, focus intensely on something beyond our comprehension” (this was actually rather mesmerizing); “Coco, transform yourself into a magical being and engage in a battle and negotiation with Luke”; etc. It was hilarious watching the dancers take on these commands and this section will be the most interesting to watch repeated on December 14th.

The third part, “Zipper,” seemed to be an extension of the themes of the first two. A dancer (Coco Karol, pictured above with Elam) moved her arms about as if conducting an orchestra. Two dancers would at points move along with her gestures, like they were her instruments, and she’d smile; at other times they’d do their own thing and her face would express surprise or concern. Was she in control or were they? Later, Elam dances, conveying (to me) a loner trying desperately to connect, at times with Karol, at times with the other male dancer in the troupe, Luke Gutgsell.

One thing about Elam — his movement language is so original, something I can’t say of many other choreographers. I’m sure this is the effect of having lived and studied abroad, working in a variety of non-Western cultures. The movement is somehow still evocative of the familiar though, and emotionally moving — the creatures he creates can be funny, sad, pathetic, cute, always endearing. (If you watched So You Think You Can Dance, think Mark Kanemura). In “Zipper”, he moves at times like a gorilla, at times like a crab. To me, this speaks to the interconnectedness of life forms, of how humans can be animalistic and non-human animals human-like. It’s worth going to see his work just to see such unique movement and partnering.

So watch on December 14th! And hopefully, they’ll put a permanent video on the website for watchers who aren’t before a computer at that time…

is now on Sling.

Shen wei opening night

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At judson church. Yulia zagoruychenko is here. Fun!

Update: Wow. Shen Wei is usually either hit or miss with me, and tonight was definitely a big hit. It was kind of an antidote to the Sokolow I saw last night, at least at the beginning, in that the dancers had no problem at all with connection. They started out dancing mostly in pairs or groups, limbs entwined, in various embracing poses. Then, a dancer wearing a mitt soaked in black paint took the floor — which was a canvass in the middle of the church, and rolled around, spreading paint everywhere. Soon, other dancers followed her, making a quite interesting overall design. But at this point the music (played by three violinists, a cellist and a pianist, one stationed at each corner of the floor) changed, grew more threatening, and the dancers began dancing alone, their bodies awkward and contorted. A female dancer came out naked but drenched in black ink, including her face, and crawled, rolled, flailed about, on the floor. Not to be too literal, but it kind of reminded me of a giant oil spill and the calamity that such a thing wreaks on all of life. Later, dancers began spreading the black ink with their socked feet, and she (that woman covered in paint), followed by all the dancers, began jumping and running about chaotically. And, in the end, dancers spread various-colored ink around the floor, resulting in a kind of Pollock-esque floor painting.

Here, they are, preparing to cut up the canvass into various pieces to give and/or sell as paintings. Paintings made by dancing bodies. Very cool.

The piece was called Connect Transfer II and is showing at the Judson Church through December 7th.

Big thank you to Philip (whose review is here) for inviting me!

By the way, the Empire State Building is indeed gold!

(images of Rooms taken from here).

Last night was the opening night of Jose Limon Dance Company’s one-week season at the Joyce. Program A consisted of two dances: Into My Heart’s House by Limon protegee Clay Taliaferro, created this year, and a revival of Anna Sokolow’s 1955 masterpiece, Rooms.

Heart’s House was a lovely lyrical dance in the style of Limon, very spiritual, and set mainly to Bach music, beloved by Limon.

But it was the second piece, Sokolow’s Rooms, that really blew me away. Unfortunately I can’t find a YouTube clip of it to show as an example, but basically, the piece evokes the solitariness, the loneliness of the human condition and it does so brilliantly and hauntingly. A set of chairs are brought out onto the stage, each one representing one room containing an individual. At times several dancers take the stage at once, one to a chair (but each alone on that chair), at times only one, two or three will dance. In one section, “Panic,” a man has a frightening nightmare from which he tries desperately to escape, eventually leading to a kind of paranoia that alienates everyone around him; in “Daydream” three women seem to look off into the distance, sharing a similar vision, but each reacting differently; in one section — my favorite — “Escape” a woman (the excellent Roxanne D’Orleans Juste) seems to be remembering a loved one who has passed, feeling him caress her, only to realize he is gone, she is alone with only herself as comfort (and everyone who has lost anyone can relate to her movements, her range of emotions); in another section “Going” a man seems to run and run in slow motion, but it is more like sleepwalking as he never seems to get anywhere; and in the two sections that open and close the dance, both named “Alone,” all dancers take the stage, dancing together on their chairs, yet not connecting with each other, each alone. At one point they all lie on the floor, their legs wrapping around each others’, weaving in and out, making a kind of tangled web of would-be communication, never touching.

Honestly, one of the best dances I’ve ever seen. Makes me hungry to see more Sokolow.

I also can’t wait to see Program B later this week, which will be Limon’s classics including The Traitor and The Moor’s Pavanne about which I’ve heard so much.

Limon (who was born in Mexico and moved to Los Angeles when he was still a child), along with Doris Humphrey, his teacher and a master of American modern dance, founded the company 62 years ago, making it the longest continuously operating repertory company in the US. I feel like seeing his dances (and Sokolow’s masterpiece) is like a history lesson. They’ll be at the Joyce (Chelsea) through December 7th. Go here for info (and to see a little video clip).

If you see the Empire State Building lit in gold tonight and wonder why, it’s in celebration of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater’s opening night gala this evening at City Center. It’s the company’s 50th anniversary. Also, video clips will be shown at Times Square.

Wish I could be there. Instead I’ll be at Shen Wei with Philip. Will definitely be seeing Alvin Ailey (hopefully multiple times) next week though!

Wentworth & leggett rare bookshop

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Favorite bookstore in Durham. They have the best collection of dance books I’ve seen anywhere. Three shelves.

Travel music

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Listening to alvin ailey’s revelations & starting to get v excited about season – begins rt after holiday!

Last night, Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet invited bloggers for a little sneak preview of their Winter season. I absolutely loved the new piece by Dutch choreographer Didy Veldman. I don’t want to say too much about it because the season’s still over a month away and who knows what they might change between now and then, but I haven’t seen a new modern ballet in a while that I felt was so promising! Here are some rehearsal pix courtesy of the company:

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But really, the photos don’t do the dance justice. See rehearsal footage here.

Seriously psyched now for the upcoming season!

(photo by Andrea Mohin, NYTimes, of Desmond Richardson and S. Epatha Merkerson, in “I Will Not Be Broken”)

Sorry, am very behind again on my review posts — so busy with all manner of stuff to get done before Thanksgiving! Anyway, both of these two programs — Complexions Contemporary Ballet at the Joyce’s Chelsea theater, and Andonis Foniadakis’s new version of “Rite of Spring” at its SoHo location — were both danced brilliantly — big huge kudos to all of the dancers, but especially to Ioanna Toumpakari (below, in photo I swiped from Oberon’s Grove), who did what appeared to be an extremely emotionally intense and physically vigorous 40-minute solo in “Rite.”

I didn’t feel as strongly about the choreography of either though.

Complexions (I saw program A; there is also a program B) included five pieces, my favorite of which by far was “I Will Not Be Broken,” choreographed by Dwight Rhoden and having its world premiere this season. This ballet is on both programs, by the way. It began with S. Epatha Merkerson (an actor on Law & Order) first speaking the words of a poem, then breaking out into song — a set of slavery spirituals. Desmond Richardson — who is amazing beyond belief — sat on a bench at the front of the stage, body contorted, hunched over, then arms moving quickly, waving something off, brushing off shackles — binds not only physical but mental — then fanning himself with quick flicks of the wrists, like cooling himself down from being taken by the spirit. He’d lift his feet flexed-footed, as if tense, very alive, a body occupied by another force — then kick out violently, fall to the ground, jump up into an amazing flexed-footed split, come up for air. More jumps, then he’d sit on the bench again, cover his eyes, cradle himself.

While he rested, another couple — a man and woman sitting on another bench — danced a duet. But I just found myself unable to wait for Richardson to catch his breath, start up again. I’m not even sure what each specific movement meant or was intended to evoke, but overall I got the sense of a man being lifted out of himself, out of his pain, to freedom, letting the spirit free him — which is of course what slavery spirituals were all about. He brought the words Merkerson spoke and sang vividly and compellingly to life, to say the least.

The rest of the program was so-so choreographically, though danced very well. “Ave Maria” was performed by a couple — Hiroko Sakakibara and Simon Sliva — who lifted and wrapped their limbs around each other lovingly and with beautiful intensity; “Rise”, a set of dances set to U2 music; “Routines” a piece that started out with a group of dancers warming up, then donning exaggerated Forsythian ballet costumes — the women in saucer-like tutus, the men in short skirts danced to a collage of industrial music (with clanking bells, train whistles, etc.); and “Constructs for 4″ a nice lyrical piece for three men and one woman to soft violin music by Bach.

I guess my main issue with Rhoden’s choreography (aside from “Broken”) is that the dancing, while very rhythmic and musical, doesn’t really amount to a discernible theme or create a specific feeling. For example, the “Rise” music was great fun, it was like traveling through time, remembering all those U2 songs from when I was in college. But the songs are all about something and that’s their genius — the sentiment they convey, not just that they’re danceable. For example, “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For” is in part about race relations and our society’s continual failure to achieve social justice. I didn’t see anything evoking that here — bodies moving rhythmically – jumping happily, skipping, running, doing brilliantly high battemants — but nothing that made the song’s lyrics, its spiritual rhythm, come alive. And it was that way with the rest as well — not only the piece danced to U2 songs, but Ave Maria, the one danced to the violins (though this one was choreographed by Igal Perry) — yes, the lifts were lovely, but neither created an atmosphere for me or told a story or made me really feel anything. Still, I have to say, Complexions is worth seeing for “Broken” alone. And for the dancers and their sculpted muscularity — some are quite built — and which they somehow spectacularly combine with hyper flexibility and an air of feathery lightness. And the other dances are fun — the music is great, and the dancing is rhythmic, just not evocative enough or emotionally all there to me.

And same with the Foniadakis. Actually, I was going to wait until I had some time to do research on the history of “Rite of Spring,” and watch some of the other versions (there are many!) but then my post wouldn’t go up until the run is long over. I know the original Stravinsky music and Nijinsky dance involve violence, sexuality, fertility rites, and depictions of young girls dancing themselves to death. And I know many versions — like that by Pina Bausch, and the Joffrey — are danced by an ensemble. This was danced by one woman — the seemingly indefatigable Toumpakari. She was dressed only in a tribal thong, a grassy-looking fabric lining the waist, with paint marks on her forearms, calves and forehead.

Before the music began, she walked around stage, with kind of a prancing limp, as if performing a tribal custom. When the Stravinksy began, she seemed on the verge of a sexual awakening, her hip-jutting, pelvis-rolling movements and facial expressions very sexually suggestive. Then, she began performing more of an African dance, throwing her arms and shoulder over her waist, kicking out with flexed feet. She began fighting an imaginary person, lashing out, scratching, growling at him. This was followed by more frenzied movement, until she worked herself up so she nearly collapsed. She fell to the floor, slowly rose, bent over deeply from the waist, looked at her hands, horrified — they appeared to be turning into claws before her eyes, she couldn’t control the fingers. Finally, she gained control over her body and began the African-like movement again, running around stage with the limp, starting the process anew. Each phase seemed to repeat several times until, finally, at the end, out of breath, she slowly looked over to the side of the room, where her street clothes lay, walked over very slowly and calmly, and changed from costume into jeans and white t.

I feel like I’d need to do more research on the dance history to form a better judgment of the choreography, but I was highly impressed by Toumpakari.

For other perspectives, here is Roslyn Sulcas and here Christopher Atamian on Complexions; here is Claudia La Rocco and here and here Oberon on Foniadakis.

Complexions shows through November 30; “Rite of Spring” through this Sunday.

If you’re in NY, this looks fascinating. Recommended by Lauren Cerand. I’ve never seen Compagnie Jant B, but do so love Urban Bush Women. Unfortunately I have a crazy full week ahead (three short stories, four dance reviews and a restaurant write-up, all before I leave for Thanksgiving next Wednesday) and don’t know if I’m going to be able to make it out to BAM before then. But if anyone can go to this, I’ll be wanting a full report!

(above image taken from here)

Ugh, I am so disgusted with this show right now. I just watched the very end to see who got kicked off b/c I was at Complexions — If you’re in NY, do go, just for Desmond Richardson and Epatha Merkerson in I Will Not Be Broken! (Richardson dancing, Merkerson — from Law & Order — singing the slavery spirituals. Totally Alvin Ailey, totally gorgeous, totally moving, almost cried at the beginning with Desmond brushing off those shackles, mental and physical…)

But back to DWTS: I seriously have NO desire to watch the finals next week. Brooke is good but she bores me out of my mind. I’m completely uninterested in her. The other two — Lance, though I like him personality-wise, his dancing just doesn’t do it for me. I do really like Warren — both personality and dance-wise. But can I watch a three-hour show just for him? And even if he wins — it’ll just be another sports star taking home the trophy…

TenduTV just launched on Tidal TV. I don’t have a huge amount of time to play around with it today, but check it out for yourself. It looks like several pieces have already been uploaded.

(photo by Rachel Papo from NYTimes)

I guess the Brokeback Mountain opera (to be made by composer Charles Wuorinen) is on hold for the moment (hopefully, it’ll still happen eventually). But mainly over curiosity over the Brokeback-composer-to-be, I went to the Guggenheim recently for a Works & Process event celebrating Wuorinen’s 70th birthday.

The first part of the program consisted of Sean Curran Dance Company dancing to Wuorinen’s The Mission of Virgil, a deeply tense, dramatic piece for two pianos that took as its inspiration Dante’s Inferno. The dancers appropriately thrashed about in frenzy, crawled around the floor looking animalistic and like creatures from a netherworld, and stomped in unison evoking Satanic wrath — all with immense expressiveness and very good precision of form.

But of course I’ve seen dance performed to classical or modern music before. I was most interested in the second part of the program — Ashberyana — in which Wuorinin had set to operatic music (baritone with four stringed instruments, a piano and trombone) four John Ashbery poems from the poet’s book Wakefulness.

I don’t know that much about music (yet; am learning through Tchaikovsky!) but from what I’ve heard thus far (John Adams, Wuorinen), modern opera music is so harsh, so severe, to me, and it all seems so low-keyed and monotone. With Adams’s Doctor Atomic, that made sense given the intellectually dense, emotionally heavy nature of the story, but the set of poems Wuorinen chose of Ashbery’s seemed not so much so, but instead, by turns humorous, playful with words and logic, dreamy, surreal, rhythmic. And yet it seemed the intensity of the music — violins sounding like slashes of a knife, the cello a blow to the head, and the baritone’s voice so virile, powerful, menacing, almost as if he were threatening with each word — didn’t ideally mesh with the poems.

I don’t know… judge for yourself if you like: go here to read at least one of the poems in the piece (“Dear Sir or Madam”) — scroll down; and go here to hear the poems set to music and song.

I wonder if a Brokeback opera will / would sound similarly furious and damning.

Willy laury

Originally uploaded by swan lake samba girl via mobile.

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Fix me jesus, fix me

Originally uploaded by swan lake samba girl via mobile.

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From Revelations. Glen Allen Sims and Linda Celeste Sims.

More eccles

Originally uploaded by swan lake samba girl via mobile.

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Clifton brown! (With Antonio Douthit, Kirven Boyd, and Malik LeNost in huge photo on back wall, reflecting in this one.)