Stars of American Ballet
Ted Shawn Theater
Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival
Becket, MA
August 26, 2018

New York City Ballet has spent much of 2018 celebrating the centenary of Jerome Robbins, who was long associated with the company as a choreographer and ballet master. It is not surprising, then, that Daniel Ulbricht, a principal NCYB dancer, would want to continue the celebratory mood when he took his concert group, Stars of American Ballet, on the road this summer. The

"Head in the Sand" "Something About A Nightingale" "Giant"
ODC Dance
B Way Theater
San Francisco, CA
July 20, 2018

No question ODC Dance has survived for 47 years with the same three women’s leadership because of their artistic talents and clear vision of the way they see themselves within the ecosystem of local and national dance. One of the smartest events they started over a decade ago is Summer Sampler, two weekends with two different hour-long programs

"There Where She Loved", "Monotones I & II", "La Chatte", "Les Patineurs" (pas de trois), "Méditation from Thaïs", "The Two Pigeons" (final pas de deux)
Sarasota Ballet
Joyce Theater
New York, New York
August 18, 2018 matinee

Sarasota Ballet's Saturday program honored Sir Frederick Ashton on the thirtieth anniversary of his death with an all-British program, beginning with Christopher Wheeldon's "There Where She Loved", and continuing with Ashton's astounding "Monotones I & II", followed by four

"Monotones I & II", "Symphony of Sorrows", "There Where She Loved"
Sarasota Ballet
Joyce Theater
New York, New York
August 14, 2018

The Sarasota Ballet, a small company run by the British dancer Iain Webb, has a rich and varied repertoire and is especially known for its commitment to the works of Sir Frederick Ashton, which they dance with admirable style and elegance.  But a company cannot exist solely on a historical legacy, and Webb has the same issues

“Paramodernities”
NettaYerushalmy
Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival
Jacob’s Pillow, MA
August 11, 2018

Netta Yerushalmy’s “Paramodernities,” presented at Jacob’s Pillow on Saturday,  is a hugely ambitious work, a three-and-a-half-hour marathon of what the Pillow billed as a deconstruction and re-examination of works by six major modernist choreographers: Vaslav Nijinsky, Martha Graham, Merce Cunningham, Alvin Ailey, Bob Fosse, and George Balanchine. Taking on any one of these artists would be challenging, dealing

Mark Morris Dance Group
“Love Song Waltzes, “I Don’t Want to Love,” “The Trout”
Mostly Mozart Festival
Rose Theater, Lincoln Center
New York, New York
August 9, 2018 

Two of the three works being offered this weekend by the Mark Morris Dance Group for the Mostly Mozart Festival have to do with love: “Love Song Waltzes” from 1989 and “I Don’t Want to Love” from 1996. The third work, “The Trout” a world premiere set to Schubert’

"Snake Telegram"
Heart Stück Bernie
Dance Place
Washington, DC
July 22, 2018

When it comes down to performing about feminism, it is tough to get it right. Performances with this heated topic at the forefront can come across as malicious and accusatory, lacking a level of civility that can easily grow uncomfortable in a theatrical setting. Usually, the wants and whims of the spectators are the main concern of a choreographer. Nonetheless, if an artist wishes to successfully tackle the

San Francisco Ethnic Dance Festival
War Memorial Opera House
San Francisco, CA
July 14, 2018

Celebrating its 40^th anniversary, the San Francisco Ethnic Dance Festival performed at the City’s prestigious War Memorial Opera House for the second time. It was a wildly acclaimed occasion with excellent performances from a dozen companies from Mexico to Bolivia, Spain to India and Cuba to the Philippines. The program’s last page announced that next year’s Festival would again take

“Four Quartets” 
Pam Tanowitz
The Fisher Center at Bard College
Annandale-on-Hudson, NY
July 7, 2018 

What comes first, the words or the movement? In a powerful tribute to the skills of choreographer Pam Tanowitz and her troupe, their dance to T.S.Eliot’s masterwork “Four Quartets” feels like a true partnership. In its world premiere at Bard College’s Fisher Center, her dancers interpreted “Four Quartets” Eliot’s elegiac meditation on time, to the poem