“Sky to Hold,” “Suspended Animation,” “Western Symphony”
David Koch Theater, Lincoln Center
New York, New York
October 2, 2021

Last week, New York City Ballet premiered two works that pointed toward an expanding reach into the twenty-first century. It is a healthy sign in a company that often seems to have settled into a narrow repertory that looks to the past in works dominated by Robbins and Balanchine, and choreographers influenced by Balanchine or the Russian school.

Denishawn
Dances by Ruth St. Denis & Ted Shawn 
The Theatre at St. Jean's, New York  
October 2, 2021

Ted Shawn and Ruth St. Denis are known as the "mother and father of American Modern Dance,"  but the works they choreographed and performed have been lost for years.  All that remained were dusty photographs and flickering, black-and-white films.  It was a case study in the ephemeral nature of dance--- until it

“Amaria,” “Opus 19/The Dreamer,” “Russian Seasons”
David Koch Theater, Lincoln Center
New York, New York
September 25, 2021

New York City Ballet is at last back at Lincoln Center, and a cause for celebration it is, after eighteen months of virus induced absence. The fall season, which began September 21, continues through October 17. Yet, it seems no gain can come without loss these days, and so we learn that by the end of May six senior principal dancers

Kyle Marshall Choreography
"Stellar" 
Baryshnikov Arts Center, New York
June 7-21, 2021 (online) 

Which comes first, music or dance?  In Kyle Marshall's choreography, it's neither.  Music and dance are two sides of one art form, improvising against each other.  Friction, ignition, liftoff, jazz.  Marshall's new  "Stellar" knits together city streets with the loneliness of deep space, and grounds them in the earth of Mother Africa.  All in

Shared Program: LaMama Moves! Dance Festival 2021
Jasmine Hearn/ Songs from Pleasure Memory
Sugar Vendil/ Test Sites
Outdoors at Downtown Art/Alpha Omega, New York City
May 23, 2021

Sixty years after the Sixties, The East Village can still feel like the most sensuous part of New York.  Like their spiritual forebears, people in this low-rise, low-rent district live for pleasure – erotic, psychedelic and aesthetic.  So it felt right that a graffiti-scarred vacant

Kolonial 
Stefanie Batten Bland, choreographer 
Baryshnikov Arts Center, New York (online) 
May 3-17, 2021

America is starting to emerge from 14 months of viral living, but like all traumas, this pandemic year will live on in mind and body. Reams of research and acres of art will record how we lived and died with the coronavirus, and how it changed us.  Ahead of the game, the Baryshnikov Arts Center of New York is already out

April 29, 2021
Washington, DC
by Alexandra Tomalonis

When I posted George Jackson's most recent review, I noticed how many pieces he has written for DVT — not to mention its predecessors, Washington DanceView and DanceView. (He also has written regularly for the Washington Post, Dance Magazine, Dance Now, the German magazine  Ballett, and other publications.) 365 reviews – 365!! just for this site! – of ballet, modern dance, ethnic dance, and books as

Jewels 
San Francisco Ballet
April 6, 2021
Streamed  

I only vaguely remember my first encounter with Jewels, Balanchine’s 1967 masterful triptych, supposedly influenced by the respective precious stones. Karinska’s costumes, most certainly, glittered and shimmered, almost excessively. I wish I could credit the company-it was not SFB that I saw it on. I recall being puzzled by “Emeralds”, almost laughing in delight at “Rubies” and taken aback by “Diamonds.” All were beautifully danced,

"Plastic Harvest" Jody Sperling/Time Lapse Dance
"healing/trying" jillsigman/thinkdance
"Wake up and Smell the Coffee" Vangeline Theater 
Earth Day, New York City 
April 24, 2021

One problem in dealing with the world’s environ- mental crisis is that it’s composed of so many separate problems, most of them difficult to picture. Science does a lousy job of dramatizing climate change – so by the time people are forced to recognize it, their homes may be gone