Latest News

Posted on

Crazy Weekend of Ballroom and Books

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.

Posted on

Misnomer’s BEING TOGETHER: Dance with Original Movement that Asks How Humans Connect and How Meaning is Made in Dance

 

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…

Posted on

Shen wei opening night

 

Shen wei opening night

Originally uploaded by swan lake samba girl via mobile.

 

T-Mobile

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.

 

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!

 

Posted on

Anna Sokolow’s "Rooms" by Jose Limon Dance Co. Last Night Blew Me Right Away

 

 

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).

Posted on

140 Most Famous Blogger Pics

Here’s a kind of what-the-person-behind-the (famous) blog-looks-like list. I’ve honestly heard of about 5 percent of these people and maybe 15 percent of these blogs. Am I just totally out of it or are we really becoming a niche society? (Via)