New York Highlights
Our Fall Dance Preview, in the New Yorker: Okwui Okpokwasili, Monotones (and a new Mark Morris) at ABT, and Twyla.
ABT fall season Oct 21-Nov 21
ABT has announced its fall season at the Koch. It will include:
An NYC premiere by Mark Morris and company premieres of Frederick Ashton’s Monotones I and II, Balanchine’s “Valse-Fantaisie,” and Marcelo Gomes’s “Aftereffect,” as well as revivals of Twyla Tharp’s The Brahms-Haydn Variations, Michel Fokine’s Le Spectre de la Rose & Kurt Jooss’ The Green Table.
Here is a link to the full press release.
Aaron Loux, on dancing for Mark Morris
When I interviewed the dancer Aaron Loux for my Times feature on the Mark Morris Dance Group’s BAM season, he reflected on what it’s like to dance for Mark Morris. What he said has stuck with me:
“I had to unlearn a way of thinking about dance that was too complicated. I came in trying to think about everything I was doing before and even while I did it….Mark’s approach is really simple, it’s really all about action. A lot of his corrections are just ‘do this, and don’t think about it.’ It’s about learning to do really simple things like seeing someone do something and copying what they’re doing, and the way they’re doing it. I think it’s about opening yourself and quieting down the thinking part and trusting your instincts. You can usually get a better result that way, and faster.
Morristown
The Mark Morris Dance Group is back at BAM after three years, with two mixed bills consisting, for the most part, of new works. You can read my review for DanceTabs here.
A New York Triple
On April 22, the Mark Morris Dance Group returns to BAM with two programs of new works, including Morris’s take on The Rite of Spring, which he calls Spring, Spring, Spring. If you want to know why, check out my preview feature for the Times:
Christopher Wheeldon’s new musical An American in Paris opens on Broadway on April 12. I spoke with him about the challenges of adapting the movie for the stage for this piece, and also to Robert Fairchild and Leanne Cope. Curious?
And finally, a review of two flamenco shows, Soledad Barrio and Olga Pericet, at Joe’s Pub and the Repertorio Español. About as different as two flamenco shows can be.
Laurel Lynch of Mark Morris Dance Group…
…is on the cover of Dance Magazine, accompanied by a profile written by yours truly. You can link to it here.
Coming soon to Dance Magazine…
…a profile of the formidable Mark Morris dancer Laurel Lynch (Feb. issue).
Wandering Man
Last week, the choreographer Jessica Lang presented her new, fully-staged version of Shubert’s song-cycle Die Schöne Müllerin at BAM’s intimate Fishman Space. In it, she takes on the the lyricism of Schubert and the poetry of Wilhelm Müller and gives it physical form. Her eight dancers fill the roles of protagonist, miller’s daughter, huntsman, and, more intriguingly, of the forces of nature and the brook in which the protagonist eventually drowns himself. Lang made a valiant effort; her approach is sensitive, well-informed, and consistently engaging. But the two languages—dance and son—only occasionally spoke to each other with eloquence, bringing about something more than the sum of various parts. Here’s my review, for DanceTabs.
And a longer a piece I wrote for The Nation, on the difficulty of combining vocal music and dance.
Happy Nymphs and Happy Swains
As part of the Mostly Mozart Festival, the Mark Morris Dance Group is performing Morris’s production of Handel’s opera “Acis and Galatea,” in which dancers and singers share the same sylvan world onstage. In the pit, Nicholas McGegan conducts the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra and Chorale. Here’s my review of last night’s performance, for DanceTabs.
A short excerpt:
“Unlike his Dido and Aeneas (1989) and L’Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato (1988), in Acis Morris places the four soloists…onstage among the dancers. The chorus is down below, with the players. (Morris also took this approach in his delightfully zany staging of Purcell’s King Arthur, staged at New York City Opera in 2008.) Here, the singers and dancers share the same world, in relative harmony.”
And a couple of images from the production:
Conductors Make the World Go ‘Round
Ever wonder what goes on in the pit while ballerinas leap and spin upon the stage? Well, now you’ll know. I wrote an article about conducting for dance, a subject that has always fascinated me, for the Times. It will appear on Sunday, Aug. 3, in the Arts and Leisure section. (If you receive the weekend paper, you’ll get in on Saturday). Meanwhile, it’s already online.
Dancing Around 