Corella Ballet’s Starry Brother-Sister Love

posted Thursday, Mar 18

 

 

 

 

 

As soon as I saw the… Read More >

 

Anna Halprin: The Eye of a Storm

posted Sunday, Mar 14

I was overwhelmed on seeing Anna Halprin’s workshop in full centrifugal force at Judson Church yesterday. Almost 50 years since the seminal Judson Dance Theater started, with crucial influ… Read More >

 

Strong Emotion in Pre-Ironic Modern Dance

posted Monday, Mar 08

 

 

 

 

When all the stars are aligned in certain Limón works, the emotional rewards are tremendous. There Is a Time (1956) is one of those pieces, and it left me emotionally sated at the Y last Friday. You feel like you’ve … Read More >

 

The Miracle Worker, Gaga, and Ballet

posted Tuesday, Mar 02

Last night I saw a preview of William Gibson's powerful play, The Miracle Worker, which opens tonight. Because Helen Keller was blind and deaf, her whole child self was about moving and touching. The young actress Abigail Breslin was great as Helen—not quite the animal that Patty Du… Read More >

 

That “Somewhere” Place? It’s Dances at a Gathering

posted Monday, Mar 01

 

 

 

 

Seeing Dances at a Gathering and West Side Story Suite in the same program suddenly connected Robbins’ utopia for me. At the end of WSS Suite, when the blue sky with a couple wispy clouds appear in the &ld… Read More >

 

Part of the Tribe

posted Saturday, Feb 27

Being in From the Horse’s Mouth last night, I felt like I could taste the dance world in its glorious diversity. We hovered backstage before our entrances. There was Rajika Pur… Read More >

 

My Whirlwind Tour of the Windy City

posted Sunday, Feb 21

Chicago is bursting with dance. In just three days I saw performances by the Joffrey Ballet and Jump Rhythm Jazz Project, rehearsals of Hubbard Street and Giordano Jazz  Dance, and classes … Read More >

 

Valentine’s Day @ Trisha Brown @ Dia: Beacon

posted Monday, Feb 15

It was the kind of experience you’d want to share with someone you love: quiet, expansive, sensual, revelatory. So many couples made the trek to Beacon, NY for … Read More >

 

Wayne McGregor: Fastest Mind/body in the West

posted Friday, Feb 12

 

 

 

 

In my “Shoptalk” with Wayne last night at Peak Performances@Montclair, he raced through telling us about some of his science experiments. They went beyond my (very rudimentary) knowledge, but what I got was that it is a way to… Read More >

 

Tiler Peck's Thrilling Debut as Aurora

posted Thursday, Feb 04

 

 

 

 

The second she appeared, the whole stage came alive. She was light and happy as the 16-year old princess, but not too happy. She never pushed it. She danced with her customary crispness, but also with the assurance and graciousness befitt… Read More >

 

I'm here at the Prix de Lausanne

posted Sunday, Jan 31

This world renowned competition emphasizes potential, and there was plenty of it in the finals earlier today.  The big winner is a boy from Argentina who studies at the Ben Stevenson Academy in Houston. His first round was a solo from La Sylphide, in which he made a beautiful present… Read More >

 

J.D. Salinger Liked Dance and Here Is How I Know

posted Friday, Jan 29

I met J.D. Salinger around 1982 and visited him several times. He had a collection of old movies he loved to watch. One time he set up his screen and projector for me and watched a Fred Astaire/Ginger Rogers movie. After all, the parents in his famous Glass family, Les and Bessie, had been a song-and… Read More >
 

Exhilarated by David Zambrano’s “Soul Project”

posted Sunday, Jan 24

His performers were all so intense that at times they were hypnotic. Their solos, danced to soul music, were each unpredictable: hell-bent or convulsive, with sudden stops or loosenings. And each of the six dancers, including David (pronounced d… Read More >

 

Where is the humor in Agon?

posted Thursday, Jan 21

 

 

 

It’s there, in the choreography, but I don’t see it in the dancing. I never really focused on it before, cause there is so much going on in that ballet—the bold lines, the now-thick-now-thin Stravinsky music, the mathematics of trios, … Read More >

 

Haiti, Katherine Dunham’s “Island Possessed”

posted Tuesday, Jan 19

The catastrophe in Haiti made me re-look at what Haiti has meant in the dance world. It was the place and culture Katherine Dunham fell in love with, the place that helped her build her dance vocabulary and her spiritual, artistic self. If it weren’t for her researc… Read More >

 

Freddie’s Gems

posted Tuesday, Jan 12

It’s such a privilege to hear Freddie Franklin talk about his decades of dance experience—he is 95!—that I decided to write it down for those of you who missed his talk at the Guggenheim Works & Process program last night. It&r… Read More >

 

Oh Why oh Why Is Ragtime Closing?

posted Thursday, Jan 07

 

 

 

 

Ragtime is an epic, irony-infused, emotionally wringing experience. I can’t believe it’s closing because it’s one of the glorious things on Broadway. I left feeling fully satisfied, energized,… Read More >

 

Talking About Momentum

posted Wednesday, Jan 06

 

 

 

 

Benjamin Millepied’s 3 Movements was nonstop… Read More >

 

Martha Graham Needed Her Rage

posted Friday, Jan 01

I had heard about the fights with Louis Horst that were part of Graham’s creative process, but I had no idea how violent their sessions were—and how necessary. Dorothy Bird, who danced with Graham in the 1930s, descr… Read More >

 

Best of 2009 (and a few Worsts)

posted Wednesday, Dec 30

As usual, I have no discipline when it comes to narrowing down my favorites to 10 best. There are way too many performances and people that I loved. 

On another note, the deaths of two giants, Me… Read More >