Best of 2008

posted by Wendy Perron on Sunday, Dec 28, 2008
[ Read more Wendy | Show all blogs ]


Wendy

These picks are highly subjective and totally dependent on where I have travelled.

 

TEN BEST IN CHOREOGRAPHY

 

Most haunting, beautiful, and beguiling: Christopher Wheeldon’s In the Golden Hour, part of San Francisco Ballet’s New Works Festival

 

Best new vision of global interchange: Bahok by Akram Khan with members of his company as well as members of National Ballet of China, casually finding the humor and grace in personal stories of crossing cultures

 

Most exciting portrayal of immigrant experience: Oltremare by Mauro Bigonzetti for New York City Ballet

 

Most ferocioius rampage with glints of humor: Hofesh Shechter’s Uprising, for seven men, at City Center’s Fall for Dance

 

Most mesmerizing: Umvelt by Maguy Marin, wind-blown figures in a hypnotic surreal dream, at the Joyce

 

Best Fusion: Pichet Klunchun’s Chui Chai in Fall for Dance, for its shimmering processional of traditional Cambodian regalia alongside the T-shirted version

 

Best dance with words: Annie-B Parson’s madcap The Snow Falls in the Winter for the new company OtherShore, at Baryshnikov Arts Center

 

Most voluptuously full of pleasure: Pina Bausch’s Bamboo Blues at BAM

 

Most delicately balanced domestic (inner) world of women: 208 East Broadway, Part II, by Susan Rethorst at Danspace

 

Darkest solo that ends with an enlightened flourish: Richard Siegal’s As If Strange at Danspace

 

 

THREE BEST REVIVALS

Martha Clarke’s powerful vision of heaven and hell, Garden of Earthly Delights (1984) at the Minetta Lane Theatre

 

Anna Sokolow’s austere, angst-ridden, and well-crafted Rooms (1955), performed by the Limón company at the Joyce

 

Lar Lubovitch’s undulating, trippy, North Star (1978) during the company’s 40th-anniversary tour

 

MOST WELCOME TRIBUTE

NYCB’s Robbins celebration, mounting 32 (or was it 33?) of his ballets, including great works like Moves, Dances at a Gathering, Les Noces, and—way better than all reports would have you believe—his collaboration with Tharp, Brahms/Handel. This was a thorough reminder of how deeply Robbins ballets can touch you.

 

TWO BEST DEBUTS

Sara Lane’s radiant Aurora in Sleeping Beauty at ABT

Trey McIntyre Project, now as a full-time company, at Jacob’s Pillow, immersing the viewer in pleasure and craft

 

 

TWENTY-TWO BEST DANCERS (please excuse the splurge, but I just don’t’ have the discipline to cut it to 10)

 

Jodi Melnick’s fascinating solo in Susan Rethorst’s 208 East Broadway: shards of thoughts intersecting

 

NYCB’s Janie Taylor and Damian Woetzel in Robbins’ Afternoon of a Faun: totally intuitive with the feel of an underwater dream

 

Rosalynde LeBlanc, whose strong presence as narrator lent drama to The Snow Falls in the Winter with OtherShore

 

Andrew Veyette of NYCB, for his furiously pent up energy in Oltremare

 

Pascale Molat in Jorma Elo’s new Double Evil in SFB’s New Works Festival, for his exhilarating physicality and sheer momentum

 

Misty Copeland in Paul Taylor’s Company B, for her juicy sexiness in the song “Rum and Coca-Cola” and for her tomboy bravura in Tharp’s Brief Fling

 

Ekaterina Kondaurova of the Kirov, a wild woman of daring and precision, in Forsythe’s In the Middle Somewhat Elevated

 

Diana Vishneva, for making ballerinadom sexy in everything she danced with the Kirov and ABT, but not in her own program, “Beauty in Motion”

 

Craig Salstein of ABT for his hilarious “Oh Johnny” in Company B and for boogying on his knees in Tharp’s Baker’s Dozen

 

Shantala Shivalingappa, for melting and melding Kuchipudi and Bauschisms in Bamboo Blues

 

The Kirov’s Ekaterina Osmolkina, for being light as a feather and dancing with the proper style of dreamy subtlety in Fokine’s Chopiniana (Les Sylphides)

 

Yayoi Kambara of ODC/San Francisco in Brenda Way’s Book of Hours, warm and joyful

 

Shani Collins, embodying the earthy spirituality of Ronald K. Brown’s work at the Joyce

 

Karla Cörbes of Pacific Northwest Ballet, for carrying the musicality of Tharp’s new Opus 111 with a fluid, ballerina grandeur

 

Charlie Neshyba-Hodges, as a guest artist with PNB, for capturing Twyla’s manic alter-ego (my interpretation) in her new Afternoon Ball

 

Randy Herrera, for having a rooted kind of grit, last seen in Kudelka's new Little Dancer with Houston Ballet.

 

Liz Riga, for her over-the-top raunchy/funny femme fatale in Larry Keigwin’s Love Songs in Orange County Performing Arts Center’s Fall for Dance

 

Sarah Van Patten, totally mesmerizing in the slow duet of Wheeldon’s new In the Golden Hour

 

ABT’s Gillian Murphy, for her gorgeous tenderness and vulnerability in Tudor’s Romeo and Juliet (farewell scene)

 

David Halberg in Lauri Stallings’ Citizen, striding onstage in a corset and dancing like a bat outa hell

 

Josette Wiggan in her own tap solo Bahia: sensual, subtle, and surprising

 

 

HE WILL BE MISSED ONSTAGE

Damian Woetzel, who lit up the NY State Theater in every work he danced with NYCB for 23 years. But we will continue to hear about his activities as artistic director of the Vail International Dance Festival.