9 Performances on Our Radar This March
March’s performance calendar is action-packed, with perspective-shifting premieres from women choreographers, ambitious works touring to the U.S., a pair of Broadway musicals inspired by popular novels, and more. Here’s what’s at the top of our lists.
A Lake of Nightmares and an Android Coppélia
ON TOUR Les Ballets de Monte Carlo brings two twists on ballet classics by artistic director Jean-Christophe Maillot stateside this month. Lac, which probes Swan Lake’s inherent dichotomies, lands at New Orleans’ Mahalia Jackson Theater March 1–2. Coppél-i.A., which updates the narrative so the lovers’ relationship is threatened not by a lifelike doll but, instead, an artificial intelligence, follows March 7–10 at Segerstrom Center for the Arts in Costa Mesa, CA. balletsdemontecarlo.com.
Like Rabbits
NEW YORK CITY A surreal contemplation of childhood attachments and the nature of desire, Pontus Lidberg’s On the Nature of Rabbits makes its North American debut at The Joyce Theater March 6–10. joyce.org.
Dismantling Classic Cinema
SAN FRANCISCO How do the archetypal roles in classic genre films—the romantic lead, the hard-boiled detective, the femme fatale—shift when embodied by BIPOC performers? Kayla Farrish is joined by five other dancers and musician Alex MacKinnon to explore the question, pushing back against the erasure and marginalization of non-white actors in Hollywood’s golden age, in Put Away the Fire, dear, which premieres at ODC Theater March 8–10. odc.dance.
Eating Its Own Tail
CHICAGO Ouroboros, a new evening-length dance-theater solo from Nejla Yatkin, draws inspiration from Middle Eastern snake dances and the choreographer’s nomadic ancestry. Set in the round, the work invites audience participation as it incorporates multiple languages and movement styles, all connecting to, in Yatkin’s words, “heal the sacred thread of the feminine.” March 8–10. ny2dance.com.
Statement Begins
VANCOUVER AND SURREY Ballet BC’s NOW program features a pair of commissions—one from Micaela Taylor, the other by choreographic duo Out Innerspace (Tiffany Tregarthen and David Raymond)—alongside the return of Crystal Pite’s darkly political dance theater work The Statement. The program premieres in Vancouver March 7–9 and repeats in Surrey March 22–23. balletbc.com.
Intimate and Explosive
NEW YORK CITY Doug Varone’s two-part To My Arms/Restore plays with contrasts. The first half, set to a suite of Handel arias, evokes intimacy, love, and loss, while the second focuses on visceral, explosive physicality to the beats of Nico Bentley’s “Handel Remixed.” With live music by MasterVoices and New York Baroque Incorporated, the new evening-length premieres at NYU Skirball March 22–23. nyuskirball.com.
New at NW
PORTLAND, OR Associate choreographer Joseph Hernandez, former Luna Negra Dance Theater artistic director Gustavo Ramírez Sansano, and independent dance theater choreographer Nicole von Arx each contribute a premiere to NW Dance Project’s spring program, Secret Stories. March 29–30. nwdanceproject.org.
Books on Broadway
Two page-to-stage adaptations sing and dance to the Great White Way.
The Notebook
Based on the novel by Nicholas Sparks and the blockbuster movie it inspired, the musical adaptation follows Allie and Noah as their love repeatedly brings them back together in spite of the forces trying to keep them apart. Katie Spelman (associate choreographer on Moulin Rouge! The Musical) choreographs to music and lyrics by Ingrid Michaelson. Opens at the Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre March 14. notebookmusical.com.
Water for Elephants
A young man jumps on a train with no idea of its destination and finds himself swept away by a traveling circus. As in the novel by Sara Gruen, the adventure is recounted through the memories of the main character’s older self in the musical adaptation, which brings the circus to life through choreography by Jesse Robb and Shana Carroll (who also acts as circus designer). Opens March 21 at the Imperial Theatre. waterforelephantsthemusical.com.
