Vive le fromage!
by Tom Phillips
Most of our readers have probably never thought much about America’s longest-running, most popular Christmas show, dismissing the Radio City Christmas Spectacular as a cheesy production for tourists. I was in that category too, until my curiosity was piqued by an article in The New York Times about the show’s new director and choreographer, Linda Haberman. Now I say if this is cheese, then vive le fromage. READ MORE
Happy Holidays?
by John Percival
And which of the London shows this Christmas did I enjoy most? Well, don't be shocked, but actually it was an opera, not a ballet: the Glyndebourne Opera's “Die Fledermaus” brought to Sadler's Wells for a couple of performances. I'm not going to discuss the musical aspects here, attractive as they were. I'll mention however that the choreographer, Nicola Bowie, was making her Glyndebourne debut but has worked widely in Europe and the USA, including 15 years as head of movement at English National Opera. Presumably she shared responsibility with the director, Stephen Lawless, since the whole cast was constantly moving up and down stairs or round the stage, and the show altogether, both acting and singing, was tremendous fun. READ MORE
Bausch's Baedeker
by Leigh Witchel
A woman in a cocktail dress was staring at the audience. A man in a suit walked up to her.
“What are you doing?” He asked.
“I’m smiling. Without a reason. It’s difficult, try it.”
He did. And it was.
“Keep smiling.” She offered helpfully, as they backed off the stage. “Without a reason. It’s difficult.”
In this one pungent scene, you have everything good about Pina Bausch’s theater dance pieces; the offbeat, absurd, sweet-and-sour observations that remain after the piece is over. “Nefés” (Turkish for “breath”) has several of those nuggets, but in nearly three hours, you may have to be a true believer to make the effort. READ MORE
San Francisco Ballet's "Nutcracker" Settles In
by Ann Murphy
San Francisco Ballet’s “Nutcracker” still has a new car smell, and on Thursday, when the company launched the third season of its thoroughly retooled production, new car thrill filled the house.
At 7 pm, the lights came down and the first notes of Tchaikovsky’s swirling score spilled out of the pit. It was then that a delicious happiness—the kind that comes with being spirited away in a crisp, new machine—quickly spread through the aisles. The curtain rose and pictures of early 20th century San Francisco paraded before us. When the stage filled with handsome Edwardian types, including the toymaker Drosselmeyer, excited preschoolers began their loud narratives of the action. Grownups in the audience, meanwhile, joined in in their own way, gasping and clapping at the bold elegance of Michael Yeargan’s set designs, or at the precocious cuteness of the kids on stage. So began a swift ride in a fast machine. READ MORE
New Dances at Juilliard
by Susan Reiter
Doug Varone is certainly on a roll. His recent program at the Joyce Theater offered three rich, beautifully crafted works; he’ll have another New York presentation at BAM this spring; and his “The Constant Shift of Pulse,” for the Juilliard Dance Division’s junior class, was the highlight of this program. And that’s saying a lot, because the overall level of this imaginatively conceived annual project was impressive. READ MORE
Ambitious but Incoherent Framework
by Naima Prevots
Tehreema Mitha labeled her dances on this program as Classical, Classical-Contemporary and Contemporary, and this proved to be an ambitious but incoherent framework. Her two classical works were a group piece and a solo, based in her Bharatanatyam training, and these showed her to be a strong performer with a solid grasp of this Indian form. These were followed by four works which carried the label “Contemporary”, marked by basic modern dance movements mixed with traditional vocabulary, introduced with long spoken scenarios before the pieces began. While attempting to deal with themes about women, passion, and chaos theory, these pieces emerged as choreographically weak and unclear, lacking in focus and meaning. READ MORE
Barnard Dances
by Susan Reiter
The Barnard Project, an enlightened collaboration between Barnard College’s Department of Dance and Dance Theater Workshop that is now in its second year, is as much about process as it is about the end result. Professional choreographers—mostly ones that have recently been presented at DTW—spend the fall semester as associate professors at Barnard, creating new dances on the students. They get access to a larger number of performers than they might usually be able to use in their work, and the students get the experience of having a dance choreographed on them. In addition, they get the experience of performing in one of the city’s premiere downtown venues. READ MORE