“Songs of Bukovina,” “Garden Blue,” “In the Upper Room”
American Ballet Theatre
David H. Koch Theater
New York, New York
October 19, 2018

Under the rubric, “ABT Women’s Movement,” American Ballet Theatre is promoting women choreographers during its current fall season at the Koch Theater. Two were represented in Friday’s program: Jessica Lang and Twyla Tharp. Tharp, of course, has been on the scene for decades, and “In the Upper Room” has been in ABT’s repertory since

"Handel", "Common Ground"
Alonzo King Lines Ballet
Yerba Buena Center for the Arts
San Francisco, CA
October 11, 2018

The Kronos Quartet and Alonzo King’s Lines Ballet call San Francisco home. Both have pioneered new perspectives in their fields, making them core values of their work. The Kronos was established in 1973, Alonzo King Lines Ballet in 1982. So you wonder, what took them so long to finally get together? For “Common Ground”, their first collaboration, King chose five

“Sutra”
White Lights Festival
Rose Theater, Lincoln Center
New York, New York
October 16, 2018

Belgian choreographer Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui’s “Sutra” is a spectacle in the true sense of the word. Created in 2008, it features monks from the Shaolin Temple in China, as well as sculpture by the well-known British artist Antony Gormley and a score, played live, by Polish composer Szymon Brzóska. Cherkaoui also performs the central role, along with child monk, Xing Kaishuo.

“Reclamation Map,” “Balamouk,” “Midnight Raga,” “The Crane Calling (exerpt)”
Fall For Dance Festival – Program 3
Tayeh Dance with Heather Christian, Dance Theatre of Harlem, Nederlands Dans Theater 2, National Ballet of China
New York City Center
New York, NY
October 5, 2018

In the middle of this year’s Fall For Dance Festival, Program 3 was an assembly of all premieres – two of the works were new to the U.S. audience, the other two altogether new creations. It may

"Split"
Lucy Guerin Inc 
Baryshnikov Arts Center
New York 
October 13, 2018 

Two women – one naked, one in a modest blue dress – dance parallel figures to the sound of drums, on a bare stage marked off by a square of white tape. The gestures suggest a range of human activities: play, sport, religious ritual, repetitive work, rest, sex, sleep, and dance itself, ballet and modern and folk. The moves are identical but look different, articulate and sensuous

“Rhapsody” (excerpts), “Canto Ostinato,” Petrushka,” “Rennie Harris Funkedified’ (excerpt)
Fall for Dance, Program 4
New York City Center
New York,  New York
October 11, 2018

Fall for Dance is known for the variety of its programs, but Number Four, seen on Thursday, felt like whiplash as it changed from one offering to the next. Yet when all was said and done, there were relationships to be found among the works, which started with classical ballet and ended with hip

“Ballet,” “Pamplona Stones,” “Working Title”
Trisha Brown Dance Company
BAM Fisher
Brooklyn, New York
October 10-13, 2018

Carolyn Lucas and Diane Madden, who are the directors of the Trisha Brown Dance Company, seem to be making all the right decisions on how to proceed after the founder’s death eighteen months ago. Last year the company presented a splendid concert of late Brown works at Jacob’s Pillow, and at BAM Fisher this week the group showed earlier pieces

"Napoli"
Oregon Ballet Theatre
Keller Auditorium, Portland
October 6, 2018

In 2015 Oregon Ballet Theatre staged the third act of August Bournonville’s 1842 ”Napoli.” It’s the best-known part of this enchanting ballet, often excerpted in mixed programs; the variations have become a staple in competitions and gala events. It turns out that the Oregonians used this last act as a dress rehearsal for the entire “Napoli.” That meant commissioning sets and costumes along the lines of the

“Pitkin Grove”
Beth Gill
Joyce Theater
New York, NY
October 4, 2018

Beth Gill is in no hurry. She has lots to say, but the audience must step up and choose to join her in the complex performance she creates. The world premiere of her latest work, “Pitkin Grove,” has been set on the Joyce’s temporary Quadrille stage; it’s a delicate assemblage, where all the players, boldly color-coded, play their not-quite-solo parts with different energies,

"Six Brandenburg Concertos"
Rosas
Park Avenue Armory
New York NY
October 7, 2018

by Carol Pardo 
copyright © 2018 by Carol Pardo

Why didn't it work? That question hangs over Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker's "Six Brandenburg Concertos". It should have worked. Evidently, De Keersmaeker was listening to the Brandenburgs (or at least no. 5) while choreographing "Fase", to Steve Reich in 1982, the piece that put her on the map. Having made minimalism move exultantly, you'd

“New Work for Goldberg Variations (excerpt),” “Sleep Well Beast,” “Inner Voices,” “Promethean Fire”
Fall For Dance Festival Program 2
Pam Tanowitz Dance, Justin Peck and Patricia Delgado, Gemma Bond Dance, Paul Taylor Dance Company
New York City Center
New York, NY
October 4, 2018

For fifteen years Fall for Dance Festival has taken pride – rightly – in introducing a wide audience to a wide variety of dancers, dances and dance forms on each of its program. So it was surprising to

“Judson Dance Theater: The Work Is Never Done”
Museum of Modern Art
New York, New York
September 16, 2018 – February 3, 2019

The canonic status of the Judson Dance Theater was secured nearly forty years ago with Sally Banes’ two studies, “Terpsichore in Sneakers: Post-modern Dance” and “Democracy’s Body: Judson Dance Theater, 1962-1964.” The handsome exhibition that the Museum of Modern Art has mounted does not question Judson’s place in the canon, although in certain details