Misty Copeland had her long-awaited New York début in Swan Lake on June 24, with ABT. How did she do? Here’s my review, for DanceTabs.
And here’s my review of the Royal Ballet—visiting New York for the first time in 11 years— in a double-bill at the Koch. The two works were Ashton’s The Dream and Kenneth MacMillan’s Song of the Earth.
Here is my review of the program of new works by Bill T Jones at the Joyce, in the company’s thirtieth anniversary season. Both works are set to “important” chamber music (Ravel’s String Quartet in F Major and Schubert’s Death and the Maiden), performed here by the excellent Orion String Quartet.
And here is a short excerpt: “Mr. Jones holds his own, in part by not attempting to follow the music in any literal way. The choreography, which is described in the program as being made in collaboration with Janet Wong (Associate Artistic Director) and the dancers, has a pleasingly free, earthy, all-over-the-place quality. Each dancer has a story to tell and is allowed to do so; the stories, in turn, are artfully subdivided into smaller units (phrases) and re-distributed across the stage, thereby becoming themes, patterns, motifs…. The repeated phrases act as signposts, giving a sense of structure, much as the repeats do in a piece of music.”
I’m eager to hear what other people thought of the program…
Last Friday’s mixed bill of John Jasperse and Eiko and Koma at Focus Dance stayed close to the body. Naked bodies, bodies barely dressed, bodies well covered. All of it was meant to make us look closely at what they were doing, at the effects of bare or partly covered flesh on our perception of movement. At the vulnerability and strength of its sinews and articulations, at the ways it can become abstracted and suddenly snap into focus. You can read the review here.
And here is a short excerpt:
“Practitioners of ballet often speak of a dancer’s “line” and the way two dancers complement each other’s lines in space. Here, “line” takes on quite different meaning: the line dividing the buttocks is the constant reference point, the home base for Jasperse’s explorations of the many ways two male bodies fit together.”
Dancing Around 