Kaatsbaan Summer Festival – Works by Larry Keigwin, Leonardo Sandoval & Calvin Royal III – New York
★★★★✰ The Kaatsbaan Summer Festival offers the respite of communication without words, of the beauty of the body moving freely through space, and of shared experience.
Ballet Hispanico – Noche Unidos, a virtual fundraiser to celebrate BHs 50th anniversary
★★★★✰ One silver lining to the pandemic has been getting to see companies online that I have been largely unfamiliar with and Ballet Hispanico is a real find…
Studio 5: Great American Ballerinas – the City Center virtual series of master classes
New York City Center is streaming some ballet master classes, curated and hosted by Alastair Macaulay, and involving Misty Copeland, Sara Mearns and Tiler Peck. The coaches/guests include Nina Ananiashvili, Merrill Ashley, Alessandra Ferri, Stephanie Saland and Pam Tanowitz.
Sokolow Theatre/Dance Ensemble – premiere of the online version of Anna Sokolow’s Rooms
★★★★✰ Rooms2020 retains Sokolow’s intensely expressive choreography, which makes it a striking documentation of the aloneness and alienation that can pervade this time of pandemic.
Dormeshia – And Still You Must Swing – streamed recording
★★★★★ Dormeshia’s And Still You Must Swing is the first online dance that made me want to write about it. I knew it would be good…
Nona Hendryx and Disciples of Sun Ra in the Temple – New York
★★★✰✰ “Space is the Place,” was the Sun Ra anthem. And those were the words for the last song in a tribute to the late pianist and Arkestra leader, conceived by Nona Hendryx and presented by Met Live Arts and Harlem Stage, at the Temple of Dendur in the Metropolitan Museum…
Gilles Brinas’ Che Malambo – New York
★★★✰✰ Lasting 75 minutes the Che Malambo show is quite spectacular, if unevenly so…
New York City Ballet – Classic NYCB II bill with new Justin Peck – New York
★★★✰✰ In the last week of its winter season, New York City Ballet unveiled a new work by its resident choreographer, Justin Peck, to a score by the popular neo-Minimalist composer Nico Muhly. It was a homecoming of sorts for Peck…
Shanghai Ballet – Swan Lake – New York
★★★★✰ It’s comforting to know that at even my advanced age I can still be confounded even by hoary old Swan Lake.
Anne Teresa De Keersmaker / Rosas – Mitten Wir in Leben Sind – New York
★★★✰✰ The dance is spare and pedestrian, as is De Keersmaeker’s way, and lasts two hours, without intermission. And yet it’s not really a challenge to experience it all in one sitting.
New York City Ballet – Classic NYCB I including Haieff Divertimento & Episodes – New York
★★★★✰ The four ballets make for a slightly over-long evening (both Episodes and Rodeo are substantial works). But it’s a small price to pay for seeing these rarities back onstage.
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…
New York City Ballet – Voices (new Ratmansky), and New Combinations bill – New York
★★★★✰ There was always something new around the corner, a surprising shape, a witty step, an unlikely transition. It’s clear that Ratmansky felt liberated by the unusual structure and soundscape…
New York City Ballet – All Balanchine: Allegro Brillante, La Source, Firebird – New York
★★★★✰ How is the company looking? …the company looks good so far.
New York City Ballet – Stravinsky & Balanchine bill – New York
★★★★✰ New York City Ballet is off to a fine start when it opens the winter season with a very well-danced all Balanchine, all Stravinsky program.
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.
Gabrielle Revlock – SEX TAPE, Nuptial Blitz – New York
★★★✰✰ Revlock “is a dance-maker whose work often depicts complicated but relatable interpersonal relationships using a vocabulary that embraces the pedestrian, abstracted by degrees.”
DELIRIOUS Dances / Edisa Weeks – 3 RITES: Liberty – New York
★★★★✰ DELIRIOUS Dances / Edisa Weeks’ “3 RITES: Liberty” is a solo that graphically shows why the Declaration of Independence did not, & does not, mean “liberty” for many African Americans…
Faye Driscoll – Thank You For Coming: Space – New York
★★★✰✰ A sense of very controlled chaos accumulates. I’m sometimes reminded of the videos and installations of the artist Bruce Nauman. Her actions and interactions, including snatches of willfully, wonderfully contorted dancing…
Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater – Busk, Ode, Ounce of Faith – New York
★★★★✰ Jamar Roberts’ Ode was the centerpiece and the highlight of the company’s performance, which also included Aszure Barton’s Busk (a company premiere) and Darrell Grand Moultrie’s Ounce of Faith (a premiere).
