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Dance News
03/11/10 - artsjournal.com
Hailstorm And Flooding Wreck Australian Ballet's Sets And Costumes
The company is "still trying to assess the extent of damage to 48 years of costumes and sets stored over three floors in an old Kensington wool store. Hail blocked drain pipes, sending contaminated water flooding through the sawtooth ceiling windows of the 108-year-old building."... Source
03/11/10 - danceviewtimes.com
Geek’s Paradise
Blocks of Continuity/Body, Image and Algorithm koosil-ja/danceKUMIKO Dance Theater Workshop New York, NY March 3, 2010 by Leigh Witchel copyright © 2010 by Leigh Witchel When Generation Wii makes whatever they will call their modern dance, Koosil-ja may become one of their avatars. If you take her “Blocks of Continuity/Body, Image and Algorithm” solely as a performance, it’s not very compelling. But as a raw idea, it has the interest of a nascent concept and purity of purpose that could have been what it felt like to watch the early work of Cunningham and Cage. Koosil-ja is Japanese born, of Korean descent. She studied with Merce Cunningham and danced in New York in the eighties before establishing herself as an independent dancemaker. Her current interest is dance and digital media, giving rise to this project. The evening had little set choreography; the movement was basic and minimal. It seemed less choreography than a set of rules. The performance was in two sections with a brief setup in between. As we entered, there were banks of computers on a long table at the front of the stage, their operators sitting with their backs to us. Monitors in varying sizes hung from... Source
03/11/10 - danceviewtimes.com
Celestial Bodies
"A Field of Grass", "Airs", "Syzygy" Paul Taylor Dance Company" New York City Center New York, NY March 9, 2010 by Mary Cargill Copyright © 2010 by Mary Cargill The program notes defines syzygy as "the nearly straight line configuration of three or more celestial bodies in a gravitational system", as apt a description of three Taylor works as can be imagined. It could also describe any three Taylor dancers on stage; the company is currently filled with engaged, energetic, and interesting individuals. "A Field of Grass" is Taylor's homage/takeoff on the druggy youth of the late 1960's/early 1970's, set to recordings of eminently danceable songs by Harry Nilsson. To the dancers flying around in their bell bottoms, this period is probably seems as dated as the flapper-era was to those of us who were young when the songs were new, but this trip (in more ways than one) down memory lane was gloriously infectious. Infectious, but not completely glorified, as the Prodigal Son-like hero (this country boy who goes to New York City, and meets a feisty woman does resemble Balanchine's Biblical hero) does glimpse a dark side, even though the ending is up-beat. Robert Kleinendorst had a wonderful... Source
03/11/10 - sfgate.com
Dance review: Alvin Ailey American Dance
When Judith Jamison retires next year as artistic director of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, she will leave a company whose worldwide popularity is rivaled only by the magnificence of its dancing, now at its historic best. She will not, however,...
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03/11/10 - sfgate.com
Dance review: Alvin Ailey's 'Dancing Spirit'
Virtually everybody loves the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. But the adoration wells up more easily on some nights than on others. Tuesday's opening of the annual Cal Performances season at Zellerbach Hall was one of those great evenings, thanks to one...
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03/11/10 - sfgate.com
ODC/Dance troupe primed for season opener
In the studio, the members of ODC/Dance, clad in an assortment of rehearsal togs, look almost normal. Under the lights at Friday's season opener, they will acquire that exceptional aura that distinguishes ace dancers from mere mortals. It is these performers,...
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03/11/10 - sfgate.com
This Weekend: 'Beyond Gravity,' others
DANCE Beyond Gravity: The AscenDance Project, founded by Isabel von Rittberg in 2006, presents its first home season in Berkeley. The company explores work with dancers performing on a vertical stage. 8 p.m. Fri.-Sat., 3 p.m. Sun. Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby...
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03/10/10 - artsjournal.com
The Surprising Success Of Spain's New Classical Ballet Company
Angel Corella: "I thought the company was very necessary for Spanish dancers who wanted to have their career in their country. So it's been many years of work and, now, a few years of double the work, but also the double the success. It's amazing. We had five days of Swan Lake and all the tickets were sold out in less than two hours. It was a little bit scary."... Source
03/10/10 - artsjournal.com
Choreographed Slam-Dancing
"During a recent rehearsal on the Lower East Side, the choreographer and dancer Jody Oberfelder came tearing across a small studio like a downtown banshee. Her bright magenta hair was tucked under a striped crash helmet … She was soon joined by similarly dressed dancers, pushing and banging into one another with abandon as if in a mosh pit at a punk concert."... Source
03/10/10 - danceviewtimes.com
Never Enough
“Big Eater” David Neumann The Kitchen New York, NY March 7, 2010 By Martha Sherman Copyright © 2010 by Martha Sherman At four million hits, you may have already seen the drunken David Hasselhoff YouTube video that frames the central image of David Neumann’s “Big Eater” at the Kitchen. If you haven’t, make sure you do before seeing this show. You also might want to take in “Giselle.” It helps to have anchors as you try to ingest the cacophony of imagery and possibility that make up this too-busy, but always intriguing, performance. Neumann, a choreographer of terrific humor and intellect, describes the work as being about “insatiable appetites” and the “excessive consumption of our minds.” Wildly disparate elements -- floating chairs, action-packed and existential television, and large sloppy hamburgers – mingle with dance movement and dialogue to make the point. Neumann’s mix of the sublime and ridiculous weave through each element of the work, most successfully in the marvelously mismatched cast of dancers who enlivened and co-created the piece. I can’t keep my eyes off Neal Medlyn. It’s not only because of his trademark nerdy look: the dark-framed glasses and long, stringy hair paired with a... More
03/10/10 - artsjournal.com
After Shooting, Israeli Teens Find Their Way Back To Dance
Wounded in an attack on a Tel Aviv center for LGBT youth, a pair of teenagers "had studied dance, concentrating on ballroom and hip-hop, but their gunshot injuries left them without sensation or mobility below their ribs. Confined to wheelchairs, they believed their dancing days were over. Enter Daniel Banks and Adam McKinney of New York-based DNAWORKS."... Source
03/10/10 - sfgate.com
Dance review: Alvin Ailey's 'Dancing Spirit'
Virtually everybody loves the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. But the adoration wells up more easily on some nights than on others. Tuesday's opening of the annual Cal Performances season at Zellerbach Hall was one of those great evenings, thanks to one...
More
03/10/10 - sfgate.com
ODC/Dance troupe primed for season opener
In the studio, the members of ODC/Dance, clad in an assortment of rehearsal togs, look almost normal. Under the lights at Friday's season opener, they will acquire that exceptional aura that distinguishes ace dancers from mere mortals. It is these performers,...
More
03/10/10 - sfgate.com
This Weekend: 'Beyond Gravity,' others
DANCE Beyond Gravity: The AscenDance Project, founded by Isabel von Rittberg in 2006, presents its first home season in Berkeley. The company explores work with dancers performing on a vertical stage. 8 p.m. Fri.-Sat., 3 p.m. Sun. Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby...
More
03/09/10 - nytimes.com
Dance Review | Limón Dance Company: At the 92nd Street Y, an Old-School Refresher Course
The Limón Dance Company gave three performances at the 92nd Street Y over the weekend.
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03/09/10 - danceviewtimes.com
Taylor's Back in Town
"Sunset," "Private Domain," "Cascade" Paul Taylor Dance Company City Center New York NY February 28, 2010 By Carol Pardo Copyright ©2010 Carol Pardo Itinerant magicians surprise their audiences by pulling rabbits from a hat. Where Paul Taylor and his company are concerned, the surprises are the dances:131 and counting. This performance started on a high note, one of the highest in the repertory. "Sunset" is a meditation on courtship, flirtation, succor, loss, death and grief. War hangs over this vernal gathering in a park, though it is explicit only in the men’s costumes with their khaki shirts and red berets. Every interaction among the six men and four women in the cast is transient; some are tinged with desperation. The afternoon’s events will live on only in memory. Eran Bugge caught this exactly as she clutched a beret dropped by one of the parting soldiers. Her gaze turned inward; her face froze. Death was closing in. The duet for two men that comprises the second movement of "Sunset" is one of the most moving essays on friendship in dance. It begins with the two men falling backward in slow motion. Michael Trusnovic and Robert Kleinendorst executed it breathtakingly perfectly. As... Source
03/09/10 - sfgate.com
Lunar New Year ushers in a singles mixer
Online dating services may have taken the place of the singles bars of earlier eras, but photographer and philanthropist Leah Lau decided to re-create the experience for dozens of her single friends by throwing a Single Mingle Lunar New Year Menagerie dance...
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03/08/10 - artsjournal.com
Staging Merce Without Merce
In the Cunningham studio, "dancers were rehearsing Roaratorio, a work last performed by the modern dance company in 1997. A lean, young man shuffled and picked up his feet in a series of pas de chats in front of Robert Swinston, assistant to the choreographer, and Patricia Lent, a former dancer who had performed the original version of the dance. They both shook their heads. 'I interpreted that as this step,' Ms. Lent, 50, said as she demonstrated the move. 'But I don't know. Maybe. Maybe.'"... Source
03/08/10 - artsjournal.com
Patti LuPone To Make NYCity Ballet Debut
"She's done Broadway, now it's on to the ballet. On Monday, New York City Ballet announced that Patti LuPone will make her New York City Ballet debut in a new production of The Seven Deadly Sins as part of the company's 2011 spring season."... Source
03/08/10 - danceviewtimes.com
Double Setting
“Jewels” New York City Ballet David H. Koch Theater New York, NY February 27, 2010 (matinee and evening) by Leigh Witchel copyright © 2010 by Leigh Witchel “Jewels” has long passed from being a treasure unique to New York City Ballet’s repertory, but the company closed its season with a weekend of performances that reasserted NYCB’s claim to the setting. There was solid work from the principals to the orchestra as well as several debuts. Jennie Somogyi was scheduled to make her debut in Violette Verdy’s role in “Emeralds” but because of injury, Abi Stafford danced all the performances. Stafford performed gently, with elegant port de bras and delicate detail. In the afternoon, her solo seemed to intimate the girlish delight of a debutante. She seemed to mature from afternoon to evening, giving a more animated and womanly reading. Her counterpart at the matinee in Mimi Paul’s role was Jenifer Ringer. She and Stafford are complementary; they have a similar mezzo emotional range and elegant upper body, but age has given Ringer color and theatrical weight. Sara Mearns paired oddly with Stafford in the evening and almost overpowered her own solo: when she laid her face in her hands close... Source