New York Notebook

Love in a Snowstorm

A boy and a girl are playing when it starts snowing. As they shyly tease each other, the flurries grow into a storm. They’re tugged this way and that by hurtling torrents of snow. The boy (the Nutcracker Prince) tenderly shelters the girl (Clara). And when the snow clears, their innocent bond eventually blossoms into a lovely romance between their fantasy adult selves. This is the heart of the story of Ratmansky’s Nutcracker for American Ballet Theatre, now playing in its second year at BAM, Dec. 14–31. See www.abt.org or www.bam.org. —Wendy Perron

Athena Petrizzo and Philip Perez in the Snow Scene of ABT’s
Nutcracker. Photo by Rosalie O’Connor, Courtesy ABT.

Taking Cover

Tere O’Connor’s work is usually not about anything you can pinpoint, and yet you come away feeling you’ve had a bracing experience. Now it seems that instead of treading the line between theme and no theme, he’s tipping in the direction of theme with Cover Boy, a piece for four men that, according to the press release, draws on the closeted gay experience. Celebrating the 25th year of Tere O’Connor Dance (oh my, I remember back when O’Connor’s own beguiling dancing graced his early works), he brings Cover Boy to the Danspace Project Dec. 8–11, 13, & 15.  See www.danspaceproject.org. —W. P.

Niall Jones, Michael Ingle, and Matthew Rogers are holding Paul Monaghan. Photo by ©Mathew Pokoik, Courtesy NYLA.

A Fright Dance

In 1993, Yvonne Meier wanted to create a dance “thriller.” She filled a pitch-black space with a maze of giant boxes, leaving narrow tunnels through which the audience is drawn, pushed, and pulled. And she called it The Shining. In corners and crannies, the performers mix task-based movements with extreme dancing—illuminated only by flashlights. This eerie piece picks up on both aspects of the word “thriller,” moving between heart-fluttering excitement and edgy fear. It is now being revived for New York Live Arts’ inaugural season, one of the goals of which is to reconstruct works that “have taken on a mythological life beyond their stage lives.” Dec. 13–18, 20–23.  See www.newyorklivearts.org. —Cynthia Hedstrom

 Enrico Wey in Meier’s
Brother of Gogolorez. Photo by Ian Douglas, Courtesy Danspace.