Performances Onstage This Month

October 31, 2014

 

From Stage to Stage

MINNEAPOLIS

November is a busy month for Minneapolis’ resident jack-of-all-trades, Zenon Dance Company. Nov. 1–8, it will join in Minnesota Opera’s new Hansel and Gretel, choreographed by Doug Varone. Then, the company will try on the athletic, yet silky-smooth contemporary work of rising Cuban choreographer Osnel Delgado in his first piece for a U.S. company, at the Cowles Center, Nov. 21–30. zenondance.org.

 

Above: Alyssa Mann rehearsing Delgado’s
Coming Home. Photo by William Cameron, Courtesy Zenon.

 

 

 

Vishneva As Impresario

MOSCOW

Always up for an artistic challenge, ballet superstar Diana Vishneva is producing a festival of contemporary dance in Moscow, where classical ballet reigns. Last year, the event’s first, CONTEXT. Diana Vishneva brought together artists as far apart in style and distance as Cunningham-influenced Richard Alston from London and Israeli/American Barak Marshall. This year the festival introduces L.A.–based contemporary Ate9 dANCE cOMPANY, led by the wildly imaginative Danielle Agami, plus Nederlands Dans Theater 2, Ballet Preljocaj and Germany’s Gauthier Dance. CONTEXT, curated by Holland Dance Festival’s Samuel Wuersten, also aims to cultivate emerging choreographic talent. The festival includes a dance film program and provides a smaller, modern venue for young Russian dance artists to show their work and interact with more established choreographers. “Today there exists a hunger for new things in Russia,” says Vishneva. “We are still missing a choreographer of the Ratmansky caliber.” Fear not: The ravishing Vishneva isn’t just staying behind the scenes. She plans to perform works by Hans van Manen and Paul Lightfoot and Sol León—along with some surprises. Mossoveta Theatre. Nov. 26–29. vishnevafest.com.

 

Right: Vishneva in Carolyn Carlson’s
Woman in a Room. Photo by Jerry Metellus, Courtesy Vishneva.

 

 

Elo at X

PHILADELPHIA

BalletX
is getting Jorma Elo’s European touch with a premiere at the Wilma Theater, Nov. 19–23. Audiences can catch the troupe’s new hires from Miami City Ballet and Complexions Contemporary Ballet tackling his ooey, gooey choreography. balletx.org.

 

Left: BalletX in Elo’s
Scenes View 2. Photo by Alexander Iziliaev, Courtesy BalletX.

 

 

 

 

 

Sashaying with Scissors

U.K. TOUR

Matthew Bourne
first showed his Edward Scissorhands, based on the 1990 Tim Burton film, back in 2005. Nearly 10 years later, the storyteller revisits the production, touring this November through March 2015. new-adventures.net.

 

Right: A scene from the original production. Photo by Bill Cooper, Courtesy Raw PR.

 

 

 

 

Just Dance

NEW YORK CITY

What do dancers love most about Broadway? The dancing, of course! That’s the bread and butter of American Dance Machine for the 21st Century, a new troupe with a rotating cast of professional ballet and Broadway dancers, led by artistic producer and founder Nikki Feirt Atkins. The company will stage numbers of pure dancing that run musical theater’s gamut—from Jack Cole’s Someone to Watch Over Me to Michael Bennett’s A Chorus Line to Andy Blankenbuehler’s In the Heights. The Joyce Theater, Nov. 11–16. adm21.org.

 

Above: ADM21’s Stephen Hanna and Naomi Kakuk in Susan Stroman’s
Contact. Photo by Christopher Duggan, Courtesy ADM21.

 

 

 

A Different Kind of Rainbow

CHICAGO

When you hear “Over the Rainbow,” you probably imagine a utopian place. So does Heidi Latsky. Her poignant piece Somewhere creates a world that accepts difference with grace and gravitas: One dancer has Parkinson’s, another is deaf and a third has cerebral palsy. Dance Center of Columbia College Chicago, Nov. 6–8. colum.edu/dance-center.

 

Right: Saki Masuda and Jillian Hollis in
Somewhere. Photo by Darial Sneed, Courtesy Latsky.