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writers on dancing

Volume 4, Number 36 - October 9, 2006

this week's reviews

Marguerite in Paris
Paris Opera Ballet

by Marc Haegeman

Fall for Dance Program 3
by Michael Popkin

Fall for Dance Program 5
by Leigh Witchel

Fall for Dance Program 6
by Susan Reiter

Pavlova Sighting, ca. 1921
by Paul Parish

Rosas/Akram Khan
by Leigh Witchel

A new "Chorus Line"
by Susan Reiter

Letters and Commentary

Letter from New York
Lincoln Center Festival: A Tale of Two Beowulfs

by Nancy Dalva

Letter from New York
Lincoln Center Festival: San Francisco Ballet

by Nancy Dalva

Back to Bangkok —
A Letter about Puppets and People

by George Jackson

Letter from New York:
The Lincoln Center Festival — Opening Week

by Nancy Dalva

did you miss any of these?

Fall for Dance - Program 1
by Tom Phillips

Fall for Dance - Program 2
by Susan Reiter

"The Peony Pavillion"
by Paul Parish

The Dance Actor
The Royal Danish Ballet's "La Sylphide" and "The Lesson"

by Eva Kistrup

The Art of the Solo
by George Jackson

Letter from San Francisco No. 15: Kathak at the Crossroads
by Rita Felciano

Shen Wei at the Joyce
by Leigh Witchel

Big Dance Theater
by Lisa Traiger

Noemie LaFrance's "Agora II"
by Tom Phillips

Take Dance Company
by Susan Reiter

 

 

 

 

 

 



Marguerite in Paris
Paris Opera Ballet

by Marc Haegeman

“Lady of the Camellias”, John Neumeier’s adaptation of the famous novel by Alexandre Dumas fils, always appeared like a rather heavy meal to me and seeing it now performed by the Paris Opera, which added the ballet to its repertory at the end of last season and opened the current one with it, hasn’t really changed my feelings. On the contrary, the ballet seems to have aged rather badly and after two performances at the Palais Garnier I still need to be convinced that Neumeier’s slap-in-your-face approach — which some insist to be poetic — to the Marguerite and Armand story suits the French sophistication and cool that well. READ MORE

 

Theatricality. .. .
FALL FOR DANCE, PROGRAM 3: Alonzo King’s Lines Ballet, The Martha Graham Dance Company, New York City Ballet, Compagnie La Baraka/Abou LAGRAA, The Parsons Dance Company

by Michael Popkin

The Fall for Dance Festival moved into its second week on Tuesday night with a program running the gamut from the New York City Ballet and the Martha Graham Dance Company on the one hand, to Alonzo King’s Lines Ballet, the Parsons Dance Company and a French modernist piece by Abou LAGRAA on the other. Considered as both choreography and performance, the results were mixed. The program was at times exciting, though too often, the works performed showed dance reduced to its lowest common denominator: raw movement, theatricality and little else. READ MORE

 

Scenes from the buffet
FALL FOR DANCE, PROGRAM 5: Pacific Northwest Ballet/Christopher Williams/Random Dance/Bridgman Packer Dance/Farruco
by Leigh Witchel

It’s human nature to like grazing among choices, noshing a bit, sampling sweets here and savories there.  Fall for Dance continued to present its nonstop buffet of dance at City Center; these were Thursday night’s dishes.

Pacific Northwest Ballet opened the evening with “The Piano Dance”, by Paul Gibson, one of the company’s ballet masters. Set to piano pieces by composers from Chopin to Bartok, it’s a buffet itself, but not one that goes together well. The opening, to John Cage, places the ballet in sleek modern territory, but then there’s a romantic pas de deux to, of all things, Chopin’s Prelude No. 4 (the one from the umbrella scene in “The Concert”). Choreographers who are going to make that kind of transition need to take us along with them, or else it’s like finding a salmon fillet in your wedding bouquet. Both are desirable but what are they doing together? Gibson is competent at putting together combinations and the dancers are more than competent at doing them; by and large the PNB dancers look finely bred. Louise Nadeau is still going strong entering her fifteenth year as a principal dancer; Chalnessa Eames gave an independent, modern twist to a pas de deux where she enjoyed Josh Spell’s body much as he might have enjoyed hers. READ MORE

Out with a Bang
FALL FOR DANCE, PROGRAM 6: Streb Extreme Action; ASzURe & Artists; Ballet Boyz/George Piper Dances; Odile Duboc—Contre Jour/CCN de Franche-Comté à Belfort; Jason Samuels Smith’s A.C.G.I.
by Susan Reiter

The third Fall for Dance Festival closed with its most taut, consistently interesting program, one that admirably served the intention of providing a diverse sampling of the wide range of dance options available. Classical ballet was not represented, and there was no established modern dance of Graham/Taylor/Limon stature, but there was much that provided both kinetic excitement as well as food for thought.

There was even a selection that, by general consensus, felt too short — Aszure Barton’s two sections from her 2002 “Mais We” really left ‘em wanting more. The sheer luxuriant juiciness of the movement, the deft timing, the mesmerizing way she tapped into the rhythms of the music — all this sped by too fast, and left one hoping she might bring back the full work (see Mindy Aloff’s Letter from New York, DVT 12/23/03). Of course, Barton has been quite busy in the intervening six years, producing choreography for her own troupe, commissions for Baryshnikov, and even making dances for Broadway’s “Three Penny Opera” revival. READ MORE

 

Pavlova Sighting, ca. 1921
by Paul Parish

The following account of a performance by Pavlova's company comes from a letter home that was written by a girl at UC Berkeley in 1921. Agnes Edwards worked her way through college, and wrote to her mother every week, letters which have been collected and published by her daughter, who has given permission to publish the extract. The entire volume is worth reading, since both women were intelligent and the young woman had spunk and tenacity and plenty of curiosity.

…Thurs. night we went to see Pavlova, so I got to carry my new bag right away. Thirteen of us went over — Mrs. B. went too. In spite of the number we didn't have a bit of bad luck, & the dancing was so wonderful. READ MORE

 

Birthdays and Repetitions
Rosas/Akram Khan Company

by Leigh Witchel

BAM kicked off both the Next Wave festival and a month-long celebration of minimalist composer Steve Reich’s 70th birthday on Tuesday night in grand opera house style. Minimalism has rarely looked so luxe.

The theater brought in two choreographers based in Europe for the occasion, one with a U.S. premiere, the other with an important revival. Anna Teresa De Keersmaeker performed “Fase, four movements to the music of Steve Reich”, which originally had its full premiere in 1982, though portions were made while she was a student at New York University. Akram Khan brought “Variations for Vibes, Pianos and Strings,” titled after its music, a commission by the London Sinfonietta in 2005. READ MORE

A new "Chorus Line"
by Susan Reiter

When it opened 31 years ago, Michael Bennett’s groundbreaking “A Chorus Line” set a new standard for dance-oriented musicals and put the spotlight on the individual Broadway chorus dancer in a completely new way. Not long before, he has contributed brilliantly innovative choreography for two Stephen Sondheim musicals that each broke new ground in the field — “Company” (1970) “Follies”(1971), but “A Chorus Line” was his conception and project from start to finish. It was based on the lives of Broadway dancers he knew — some of them dancers alongside whom he had worked — and brimmed with the heartfelt admiration and respect he had for these under-appreciated, generally anonymous performers. READ MORE

 

 

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