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.
SFDanceworks – Season Three: Snap, Homing, The Old Child, Jardí Tancat – San Francisco
★★★★✰ SFDanceworks is going places. Formed in 2014 by longtime San Francisco Ballet soloist James Sofranko, the relatively new company already finds itself in a season of expansion.
Fall for Dance – New works by Michelle Dorrance, Kyle Abraham, Sara Mearns and Honji Wang, Mark Morris – New York
★★★✰✰ I caught all four new works: an expanded version of Michelle Dorrance’s Myelination, Kyle Abraham’s Drive, the Sara Mearns and Honji Want collaboration No. 1, and Mark Morris’s solo Twelve of ‘em for David Hallberg.
SFDanceworks – Concerto Six Twenty-Two, Lickety Split, Joe & Ida, Portrait, Z – San Francisco
★★★✰✰ With this first season, Sofranko has proved himself a good curator of choreographic and dance talent, with a preference for loveliness in movement and movers.
Wendy Whelan – Restless Creature bill – New York
The whole evening has the feeling of an extended experiment. We see Whelan ridding herself of ballerina habits and trying on new clothes.
Wendy Whelan – Restless Creature bill – San Francisco
Ultimately, it mattered less what Whelan and her collaborators were doing, and more that they were doing.
Fall for Dance at the Delacorte Theatre – New York
For the second year in a row, the Fall for Dance Festival began with a pair of performances at the outdoor Delacorte Theatre in Central Park, one of the most enchanting spots in the city.
Wendy Whelan – Restless Creature bill – London
It would be invidious to compare Wendy Whelan’s brave attempt to reinvent herself as a contemporary dancer with Sylvie Guillem’s far more mature achievement.
Hubbard Street Dance – Little mortal jump, Azimuth, Too Beaucoup – San Francisco
The dancers are really top-notch, razor-edge precise and boundlessly energetic, but limited to an eclectic vocabulary reflecting a Nederlands Dans Theater aesthetic…
Hubbard Street Dance Chicago – Casi-Casa, Blanco, PACOPEPEPLUTO, Untouched – Chicago
Ek’s movement teeters on the outer limits of emotion, barely contained and threatening to explode at the drop of a match, and there are numerous metaphoric lit matches in this piece – Casi-Casa.
Mats Ek, Choreographer, working at Hubbard Street Dance Chicago
Ek laments the loss of dramatic repertory in today’s classical programming. “Many modern dancers don’t want that ‘reason’ for doing,” relegating drama in dance to childish pantomime, not serious business.
Chicago Dancing Festival – Free Tickets Available
The Chicago Dancing Festival today announces that free tickets for the Festival’s 6th annual series of dance performances will become available to the general public beginning Tuesday, July 17.
