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writers on dancing

Volume 4, Number 38 - October 23, 2006

this week's reviews

Merce Cunningham at the Joyce
by Susan Reiter

American Ballet Theatre's City Center Season
The Opening Night Gala

by Susan Reiter

ABT's mixed bill: Elo's new clothes....and then a masterpiece
by Michael Popkin

A fine triple bill
by Mary Cargill

Betontanc's "Wrestling Dostoyevsky"
Brutish Theater

by Lisa Rinehart

Letters and Commentary

San Francisco Letter No. 15
Kathak at the Crossroads: Innovation within tradition

by Rita Felciano

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

did you miss any of these?

Marguerite in Paris
Paris Opera Ballet

by Marc Haegeman

Royal Ballet's season opener
by John Percival

Mark Morris's "King Arthur"
by Paul Parish

Joffrey Ballet dances Ashton's "Cinderella"
by David Vaughan

Sylvia Guillem and Russell Maliphant in "Push"
by Lisa Rinehart

San Francisco Letter No. 16
Lizz Roman & Dancers and Flyaway Productions
by Rita Felciano

“Small Dances About Big Ideas”:
Choreographer’s Commentary Version
Liz Lerman Dance Exchange

by Susan Reiter

Pandit Birju Maharaj
by Leigh Witchel

SAKEDance
by Naima Prevots

 

 

 

 



There will be a new issue up next Monday (November 6). Come back then!

Merce Cunningham at the Joyce
by Susan Reiter

Any appearance by the Merce Cunningham Dance Company is a major event. Having the company back at the Joyce Theater, where the dancers’ exceptional alertness can be viewed in a wonderfully intimate setting, was a particular treat. And a generous one at that, since it brought us a world premiere, plus the premiere of a major — and stunning — revival. ... .READ MORE

 

American Ballet Theatre's City Center Season
The Opening Night Gala

by Susan Reiter

A brisk evening that clocked in at just over two hours, including intermission, and featured un-excerpted performances of both Twyla Tharp works in the season’s repertory made for a gala that was anything but staid and run-of-the-mill. There were two standard pas de deux included to satisfy those who expect an evening of tutus and fouettés when they come to this kind of event, but otherwise this program set an appropriate tone for the repertory-rich season it introduced. READ MORE

 

ABT's mixed bill: Jorma Elo's new clothes....
and then a masterpiece

by Michael Popkin

For all the ballets on the program Thursday at ABT had in common with each other, the evening might have been a continuation of the Fall For Dance festival. The debut of Jorma Elo’s new ballet, “Glow Stop,” was followed by two Twyla Tharp works, “Sinatra Suite” and “Known by Heart” (the last is a fragment of a longer work — “Junk Duet” — and proved to be a little gem); and finally by Kurt Joos’s “The Green Table.” The voyage from Elo’s cold modernism to Joos’s Apocalypse by way of Tharp and Frank Sinatra was a strange one. In the end, though, it did attain a kind of logic, though not the one the company probably intended: the last two ballets highlighted what was missing from the first two, and “The Green Table” in particular got a fantastic performance. READ MORE

 

A fine triple bill
by Mary Cargill

This family-friendly triple bill was a big hit with the many youngsters in the audience, who ooed and awed and laughed at all the right times. And to ABT’s great credit, there was no shortage of fine dancers performing at the top of their game.

“Symphonie Concertante” is early Balanchine, and has many echoes of more familiar works, but as usual, the pure craftsmanship is eternally rewarding. It is a formal ballet to Mozart, with Balanchine’s celestial geometry for the female corps. The stage looked crowded, but the resulting somewhat small-scale dancing had its own rewards, because the little grace notes of the corps choreography — the delicate leg movements going back and forth, the small head and arm movements — were more noticeable. READ MORE

 

Betontanc's "Wrestling Dostoevsky":
Brutish Theater
by Lisa Rinehart

Jerzy Grotowski would have liked the Slovenian group, Betontanc — if not because they want to break all the rules, than at least because they don't bruise easily. Betontanc's six actors sing, jog, slam dance, and literally wrestle through a gutsy distillation of Dostoevsky's "Crime and Punishment" that leaves one hoping there's a physical therapist in the house. With "Wrestling Dostoevsky," director Matjaz Pograjc successfully conjoins MTV era dance theater with cut to the bone honesty, and achieves a pleasingly disturbing result. Surely Grotowski, ever the provocateur, lurks in the murky corners of St. Mark's Church (the site of the performance, as well as that of his 1999 memorial) and smiles in ghostly approval. READ MORE

 

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