Eifman Ballet – The Pygmalion Effect – San Francisco
★★★★✰ Yes, the narrative has its inherent challenges, but the choreography, performances and design all riveted with drama, intensity and humour.
Hubbard Street Dance Chicago – Jardí Tancat, N.N.N.N., Lickety-Split, Grace Engine – San Francisco
★★★★✰ I only wish Hubbard Street’s Berkeley run could have been longer than three performances, and based on the audience’s cheers and applause, I don’t think I was alone.
Sasha Waltz & Guests – Körper – San Francisco
★★★★✰ In English, körper means ‘body’, and so, as one might guess, the ninety-minute tour de force, directed and choreographed by Sasha Waltz, turns its eye to the body in space.
Mark Morris Dance Group – Pepperland – San Francisco
★★✰✰✰ Cal Performances patrons were clearly entertained on Friday evening. I, too, wanted to like the piece, but it didn’t really resonate with me.
Mark Morris Dance Group – The Hard Nut – San Francisco
★★★★★ The house was abuzz on Friday evening for the opening performance of Mark Morris Dance Group’s The Hard Nut. It’s been five years since Cal Performances hosted the production, and clearly fans had been anxiously awaiting its reappearance.
Dorrance Dance – Jungle Blues, Three to One, Myelination – San Francisco
★★★★★ Dorrance Dance is received with such universal enthusiasm and love that reviewing them feels like an exercise in redundancy, like piling on to a scrum that’s already 30 players deep.
Lucinda Childs Dance Company – Available Light – San Francisco
★★★✰✰ Available Light is merciless, and in the best way…
Mark Morris Dance Group – Layla and Majnun – San Francisco
★★★✰✰ Where Morris succeeded beautifully was in melding Eastern dance styles into his balletic modern vocabulary in deep torso bends, dervish whirls and arms extended beyond his already expansive port de bras.
Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater – Open Door, Awakening, A Case of You, Revelations – San Francisco
★★★✰✰ Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater gave two new works their West Coast premieres on Tuesday at Zellerbach Hall, the opening night of its annual residency at Cal Performances in Berkeley.
Mark Morris Dance Group – Acis and Galatea – New York
As he has shown again and again, the choreographer Mark Morris has a way with Baroque music. He clearly adores it…
The Joffrey Ballet – Age of Innocence, After the Rain, The Green Table – San Francisco
Closing the program is Kurt Jooss’s anti-war ballet from 1932,The Green Table, one of the greatest pieces of choreography ever created and still relevant after more than 80 years.
Mark Morris Dance Group – The Hard Nut – San Francisco
I always enjoy The Hard Nut even though there isn’t a lot of choreography.
Mikhail Baryshnikov / Dmitry Krymov – In Paris – San Francisco
Baryshnikov, now 64, still moves with style and finesse, but the choreography doesn’t offer any opportunities beyond a pseudo-Spanish cliché.
