Gilles Brinas’ Che Malambo – New York
★★★✰✰ Lasting 75 minutes the Che Malambo show is quite spectacular, if unevenly so…
Companhia de Dança Deborah Colker – Cāo Sem Plumas – New York
★★✰✰✰ At times the striking images and lithe, hyper-flexible dancers are enough to seduce the eye. But Cāo Sem Plumas is a frustrating piece, in which the live dancing is overshadowed by film…
Gregory Maqoma – Cion: Requiem of Ravel’s Boléro – New York, Joyce Theater
★★★★✰ The dance style is a fusion of many elements of South African dance, other African and African diaspora influences, and modern and postmodern dance. It can be both liquid and percussive and has a complexity that is hard to take apart.
Some Memorable Performances of 2019 – New York
I don’t really believe in lists, but it’s admittedly fun to look back over the year and reflect on moments that have stayed with me. So here they are, in no particular order…
Dormeshia – And Still You Must Swing – New York
★★★★✰ Some have called Dormeshia the greatest tapper of her generation. I’m wary of such titles, but what I can say is that she is a dancer of enormous sophistication, finesse, variety, and subtlety.
Black Grace – Kiona and the Little Bird Suite, As Night Falls, Crying Men, Method – New York
★★★★✰ The dozen dancers brought a fierce energy to the stage, performing four works of astonishing speed and athleticism.
Maya Beiser + Wendy Whelan + Lucinda Childs + David Lang – The Day – New York
★★★✰✰ The pairing of prestigious participants does not always guarantee success – a lesson learned again and again in the theater.
Shantala Shivalingappa – Akasha – New York
★★★★✰ Everything in Shivalingappa’s style emphasizes clarity, shape, and intention. … a very satisfying evening of dance.
RB, ABT, NYCB & NYTB dancers at the Joyce Ballet Festival – Prog C, curated by Jean-Marc Puissant – New York
★★★★✰ Starwise, Bejart’s Wayfarer bumps this program from two stars to four.
RB, NBoC & ABT dancers at the Joyce Ballet Festival – Prog B, curated by Lauren Cuthbertson – New York
★★✰✰✰ I hadn’t seen much of the well-regarded Cuthbertson, so I was looking forward to this chance to get to know her (she appeared in four of five pieces), as well as the not-always-dubious introduction to new works by new choreographers…
Royal Ballet dancers at the Joyce Ballet Festival – Program A, An Evening of Solos and Duets – New York
★★★✰✰ Program A consisted of a string of solos and duets representing a slice of the company’s choreographic trajectory, from Frederick Ashton through Kenneth MacMillan to Liam Scarlett, Wayne McGregor, and Charlotte Edmonds.
Ulrik Birkkjaer and Royal Danish Ballet dancers – Bournonville Legacy bill – New York
★★★★✰ You can tell the Danes are in town by the fact that the Joyce Theater has been packed night after night this week.
Savion Glover – Lady5 @ Savion Glover’s BaRoQUe’BLaK TaP CaFe – New York
★★★✰✰ Light on tap and heavy on concept, the show is inspired by an imaginary conversation between Glover and Gregg Burge – a multi-talented artist lost too young (23 years ago this 4 July) to brain cancer.
Parsons Dance – Round My World, Eight Women, Runes, Caught, Nascimento – New York
★★★★✰ I can’t recall ever leaving a theater after seeing a Trey McIntyre work, and not feeling better about things.
Camille A. Brown & Dancers – ink – New York
★★★★✰ The choreographer Camille A. Brown has a rare talent – the ability to make you understand a situation or state of mind through dance.
Sarasota Ballet – Monotones I & II, Symphony of Sorrows, There Where She Loved – New York
★★✰✰✰ After viewing Ashton on a bill with works by Ricardo Graziano and Christopher Wheeldon, I’m not worried about Ashton’s relevance nor his resonance with a future audience. …Both the Graziano and Wheeldon posed some problems from what some might consider a “female” perspective.
Ashley Bouder Project – Red Spotted Purple, Duet, Alas, Symbiotic Twin, In Pursuit Of – New York
★★★✰✰ Bouder’s pick-up ensemble of eight, which she refers to as an arts collaborative, reflects her ideals. It is racially diverse; the choreographers include both men and women. Not all the choreographers are white. This should be par for the course, but it’s not.
Dada Masilo / The Dance Factory – Giselle – New York
★★★✰✰ Masilo’s is an uncompromising, ritualistic version of the story, with little room for redemption, and in its final scene, in which the spirits amass and advance upon Giselle’s seducer again and again, it tips over into a kind of animistic brutality…
Evidence, A Dance Company – Come Ye, March, Den of Dreams, Upside Down, Dancing Spirit – New York
★★★★✰ Ronald K. Brown is one of those choreographers who returns to a similar mode in piece after piece, so it’s easy to take him for granted. But what a powerful mode it is.
Catching up with Morphed – Tero Saarinen Soul Shifting in New York
Some dance can be really thought provoking and that seems to have been the case with Tero Saarinen’s “Morphed” – at least for Millicent Hodson and Kenneth Archer who recently caught up with the work at the Joyce in New York.
