New York Notebook

Club Keigwin

Never one to rest on his choreographic laurels, Larry Keigwin returns to the Joyce with three premieres, plus the sweetly frenzied favorite, Megalopolis. Though two of the new works for Keigwin + Company, 12 Chairs and Contact Sport, promise his usual mix of intricacy and higly stylized provocation, the real treat will be Panic, an anxiety-fueled solo for Keigwin. Here’s hoping that this first solo in nearly a decade lets him delve back into his club-dancing roots, once responsible for “enlivening many a bar and bat mitzvah,” as Keigwin has joked. June 12–17 at the Joyce.  www.joyce.org. —Rachel Rizzuto

 

Larry Keigwin, cooking up a new solo for himself. Photo by Matthew Murphy, Courtesy Keigwin + Co.

 

 

Catching Fire

The big news for ABT’s spring season is that Misty Copeland will dance the lead in Alexei Ratmansky’s new Firebird. It’s about time she got a starring role, and Ratmansky’s the man to give it to her. Of course, the first cast goes to the Russian star Natalia Osipova, but plenty of ballet goers will be rooting for Misty. Other news: Santo Loquasto is designing the sets and costumes for a new production of Onegin. He has swanked up many a Tharp ballet, so let’s see what he does for Cranko. Otherwise, the usual assortment of story ballets will keep the audiences cheering (and sighing) and the coffers full (hopefully). At the Metropolitan Opera House until July 7.  www.abt.org.

—Wendy Perron

 

Misty Copeland, who will appear as the Firebird. Photo by Matthew Karas.

 

 

Occupy Joyce SoHo

David Gordon calls what he does “behavior” instead of dance. And just to prove his point, he has pulled in actors and puppets as well as dancers for his 50th-anniversary, monthlong run at Joyce SoHo. Beginning of the End of the Beginning of… is based on Pirandello’s pre-absurdist writings like the play Six Characters in Search of an Author. Gordon, who is directing, writing, and choreographing this “new comic dramatic emotionally loaded theater movement narrative,” can be counted on to produce a thought-provoking, wryly funny, mixed-media evening. June 1–30.  www.pickupperformance.org or www.joyce.org.

—W. P.

 

David Gordon, master of the absurd. Photo by Andrew Eccles, Courtesy Pick Up Performance Co.