Kabuki in Contemporary Form
"Hokaibo" at the
Lincoln Center Festival
by Gay Morris
How far can a classical form be pushed before it becomes something else? That was a question Vaslav Nijinsky faced when he created "Le Sacre du Printemps." Had he transformed the ballet vocabulary to the degree that it was no longer ballet? Directors who drastically alter Shakespeare’s works grapple with a similar, although perhaps less radical, problem. Kushida Kazuyoshi, one of Japan’s best known directors of contemporary plays, and Nakamura Kanzaburo XVIII, a well-known Kabuki actor, have also dealt with this issue while working together to give a contemporary inflection to Kabuki theater. READ MORE
Nederlands Dance Theater II at the Pillow
by Susan Reiter
There was something crisply efficient, but less than inspiring, about the program Nederlands Dance Theater II brought to Jacob’s Pillow, where it was performing for the first time. It certainly showcased the youthful (ages 17-23) dancers of this “second” company to the venerable NDT, with their bracing fluency and ability to immerse themselves in each choreographer’s style. The trio of works duly represented the past, present a future of NDT. They were by Hans van Manen, whose association with the company goes back to its earliest days; Jiri Kylian, whose tenure as artistic director consolidated its international profile, and Johann Ingber, who danced with NDT until 2002 and has choreographed for all three of its companies during the past decade, and also has been artistic director of the Cullberg Ballet since 2003. READ MORE
Letter from the Montpellier Dance Festival
by Rita Felciano
Dance festivals can be both mind numbing and soul nourishing. They also demand a clockmaker’s precision for scheduling performances and an athlete’s stamina to switch mental and physical gears. At the very least, they’ll wipe your mind clean of whatever else goes on in the world and allow for an all-consuming focus on dance, rarely possible the rest of year. This year’s Montpellier Dance Festival offered all of the above. On paper attending fifteen performances in seven days sounded crazy; on the ground it was bliss. READ MORE
Letter from the XIV Annual International Contemporary Dance Conference & Performance Festival of the Silesian Dance Theater
in Bytom, Poland
by George Jackson
Very alive, avidly breathing and with intensely thoughtful expressions, a young woman from Brazil — compact Korina Kordova — takes tiny items out of a box and puts them down at her side. She becomes my poster child for non-dance at this year’s Silesian Festival. The men of Lines Ballet cock fingers, flip wrists and bend elbows as their legs stretch and their feet flex in tempo to the pulsing of drums. I make them, with their elegantly faceted bodies and musically responsive brains, my icons of dance. What is dance and what is it not? READ MORE
"Jewels" in Saratoga
by Tom Phillips
Dusk was just gathering in the forest around the open-air theater at Saratoga, when the curtain went up on the verdant array that begins “Emeralds.” The effect was of a jewel set in nature, drawing a lengthy ooooh from the audience at the old spa. New York City Ballet doesn’t seem to have bothered working out a repertory for Saratoga, simply recycling programs and casts from its spring season in New York. But there are always moments like this, confluences of nature and art, that make an outdoor season worth the trip. READ MORE
Dancers of the Royal Danish Ballet at the Pillow
by Susan Reiter
In case it wasn’t clear that a full generation has passed since a contingent from the Royal Danish Ballet last performed at Jacob’s Pillow (1986), on this occasion the group’s co-leader is Sebastian Kloborg, who was born in that year. The generational aspect is further confirmed by the fact that he is the son of RDB director Frank Andersen (who frequently led similar groups in the 1970s and 1980s) and veteran leading ballerina Eva Kloborg. The Danes have had a close connection with the Pillow since the 1950s, so it is fitting that the long-overdue return of RDB dancers is part of the Festival’s 75th anniversary festivities. READ MORE