Martha Sherman

“Verklärte Nacht”
Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker
Baryshnikov Arts Center
New York, NY
January 30, 2019

in Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker’s “Verklärte Nacht,” Cynthia Loemij crashed elegantly to the floor in tumble after tumble, a wave of relentless feeling and pain. Set to Arnold Schönberg’s dramatic early string sextet, both the score and the choreography told the story in Richard Dehmel’s 19C poem about love and forgiveness. With a crisp and beautifully danced duet, De Keersmaeker, like Schönberg,

“The Call,” “Shelter,” “In/Side ” “Revelations”
Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater
New York City Center
New York, NY
December 4, 2018

Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater continued its long-running tradition of beautifully choreographed and danced gems, with the addition of an homage to its founder. Ronald K. Brown’s “The Call,” premiering at Ailey’s winter season at New York City Center, was a soulful addition to a program that packed power from beginning to end — what Brown called a

“Minimalism and Me,” “Eight Jelly Rolls,”
Twyla Tharp Dance
Joyce Theater
New York, NY
November 15, 2018

In a charming two-part evening at the Joyce Theater, Twyla Tharp has joined the parade of excellent retrospectives of post-modern giants who are being heralded at MoMA’s current Judson Dance exhibition. Although she took a turn at Judson, Tharp’s path was different than the Judson group (including Yvonne Rainer, Deborah Hay, Trisha Brown and others,) but, like them, she has quite

“I hunger for you”
Kimberly Bartosik/daela
BAM Fisher (Fishman Space)
Brooklyn, NY
November 3, 2018

Like the zone inhabited by whirling dervishes, Kimberly Bartosik’s passionate “I hunger for you” reaches for moments of mystical power through relentless motion. In its New York premiere in the capacious black box of BAM Fisher, her work for five dancers (plus a brief observer) offers passion and intensity that often finds that ecstatic zone; even the act of reaching offers many of