"ROBOT"
Blanka Li and Dancers
BAM Howard Gilman Opera House
Brooklyn, NY
June 11, 2015
If you ever wondered what kind of future it would be where robots are ubiquitous, Blanca Li’s “ROBOT” can suggest only one answer: a funny and entertaining one. From the theme-setting opening scene, where a single dancer, Gael Rougegrez, stood on a dark stage with projections of various human and robotic forms making him at times flesh and at times machine, the Spanish-born
“La Bayadère”
American Ballet Theatre
Metropolitan Opera House
New York, NY
June 3, 2015
by Marianne Adams
copyright © 2015 by Marianne Adams
So much can be said in a span of two hours, particularly in the context of “La Bayadère,” that it is sad when the opportunity is wasted. Unfortunately, it was precisely this that became the takeaway from ABT’s performance of the pruned and tired Natalia Makarova's 1980 production of the ballet with Maria Kochetkova, who replaced
“Up and Down”
Eifman Ballet of St. Petersburg
New York City Center
New York, NY
May 22, 2015
How do you put psychology in dance form? For Boris Eifman, the recipe calls for one part of the Roaring Twenties setting, one part of psychological drama loosely based on F. Scott Fitzgerald's "Tender is the Night," several parts of different music ranging from George Gershwin to Frederic Chopin, one part an incredibly limber, tall and expressive dancing cast, one part
“Sarabande,” “Sunshine,” “Steptext”
Lyon Opera Ballet
The Joyce Theater
New York, NY
April 29, 2015
All three of Lyon Opera Ballet’s works on its opening night program focused on reconstructing and extracting from the grammar of the choreographic text varying meanings, and all three conveyed a perspective on modern choreography and a statement about the company.
The all-male “Sarabande,” Benjamin Millepied’s sequential approach to Bach’s music inspired by Jerome Robbins’s “A Suite of Dances,” presented an
“Show.Girl.,” “Conquer,” “El Beso”
Ballet Hispanico
The Joyce Theater
New York, NY
April 14, 2015
Visual, visceral and sublimely delightful, Ballet Hispanico’s opening night delivered a powerful display of liberated movements expressing complex subjects. From the opening presentation of “Show.Girl.,” a 2014 work by the Miami choreographer Rosie Herrera about Latina identity, to the world premiere of Mexico-based Miguel Mancillas’s “Conquer,” exploring the various ways in which humans affect their possession of people and things,
“Intermezzo,” “run-on sentences of I miss you…,” “Salutations,” “World’s Joy,” “Anodynia,” “Quill/t,” “losing farther, losing faster,” “Through the Dust,” “Portrait,” “NOUVEAU”
CounterPointe3 Festival
The Actors Fund Arts Center
Brooklyn, NY
April 11, 2015
An evening of ten works by female choreographers almost exclusively for women is bound to be illuminating; the question is of what, and to what extent. In this third annual installment, Julia Gleich's CounterPointe festival, an important and greatly fascinating endeavor where women create works
“The Sixth Beauty,” “Presto,” “Games,” “The Lottery”
Ballet West
The Joyce Theater
New York, NY
March 26, 2015
With the amount of style, elegance and stature it brought to its first opening night in New York City in over 30 years, Ballet West fit right in. The three New York premieres and the world premiere of Helen Pickett’s “Games” may have been imperfect, but the presentation of each conveyed the unique identity of the Utah company, and did
“Rite of Spring,” “The Word,” “Promethean Fire”
Paul Taylor’s American Modern Dance
David H. Koch Theater
New York, NY
March 17, 2015
A key facet to Paul Taylor’s new vision for his renamed and retooled company was presenting works by other important American choreographers. But the program, featuring two Taylor classics, “The Word” and “Promethean Fire,” and Shen Wei’s 2003 illustration of Stravinsky's "Rite of Spring,” instead of merely showing dance by different American greats also worked
“Beloved Renegade,” “Death and the Damsel,” “Esplanade”
Paul Taylor’s American Modern Dance
David H. Koch Theater
New York, NY
March 13, 2015
Paul Taylor’s American Modern Dance, née Paul Taylor Dance Company, in its opening season under the new name at Lincoln Center managed to preserve its gloried vintage amidst the fresh coloring of its reincarnation and the added texture of live music.
The evening’s main event was the evocative world premiere of “Death and the Damsel,
"Voces, Suite Flamenca"
Ballet Flamenco Sara Baras
New York City Center
New York, NY
March 4, 2015
With a mix of traditional and modern styles, the U.S. premiere of Saras Baras’s new “Voces, Suite Flamenca” paid homage to and quite literally presented the “voces” – “voices” – of flamenco greats who have inspired Baras and transformed flamenco music, songs and dance. In doing so, “Voces” eluded any narrative or interpretation, but instead showed several distinct vignettes introduced by recordings
"m¡longa"
Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui and dancers
New York City Center
New York, NY
February 26, 2015
Tango is said to be a dance of seduction and despair, but Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui’s tango-inspired “m¡longa” delves deeper. Focusing on the myriad of underpinning tensions and connections formed between two (or more, as the case may be) people in the dance, Cherkaoui explores the emotions that are shared, and the function of the intertwining attraction embedded in the dance’s
“Havana Rakatan”
Ballet Rakatan
New York City Center
New York, NY
February 18, 2015
Coming on the heels of the recent thaw in the U.S.- Cuban diplomatic relations (though not as its result), Cuba’s “Havana Rakatan” turned up the heat on the cold February night in New York with its dazzling United States debut. Composed of the Ballet Rakatan dance company and a son cubano music band Turquino which performed live onstage with the