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Dancing Nuns at Joe's Pub

"Fraulein Maria"
Choreographed by Doug Elkins
Music by Richard Rodgers with lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II
Joe's Pub at The Public Theater, New York
December 11, 2008

by Tom Phillips
copyright 2008 by Tom Phillips

“When you know the notes to sing ….You can sing most an-y-thing!” Thus does Fraulein Maria instruct the seven von Trapp children in the original “The Sound of Music,” laying down the basis for an enchanting tale in which music, along with dance, are the keys to love and life. Nearly 50 years later, in “Fraulein Maria,” Doug Elkins uses the same analytic method to deconstruct the tale, but re-affirm its essence – this time with dance on top. “Fraulein Maria” is a joke and a tribute, and among the New York downtown dance set, it promises to become as beloved a staple as the original is for the rest of the world.

New Combinations

"Stacks"
Jonah Bokaer, choreographer; Anne Carson, poet; Peter Cole, sculptor
"Bracko"
Rashaun Mitchell, choreographer; Anne Carson, poet
NYU Skirball Center, New York
December 4, 2008

by Tom Phillips
Copyright 2008 by Tom Phillips

It appears to be chance that a piece about “collapse,” with repeated references to Detroit, goes up in the midst of an economic meltdown and the collapse of the U-S auto industry. But chance is a major element in the aesthetic of Merce Cunningham, to which Jonah Bokaer is an heir apparent, so they should get at least some credit for the coincidence. “Stacks” is a collaboration between Canadian poet Anne Carson, sculptor Peter Cole, and Bokaer. It was the first of a double-bill with “Bracko,” with poetry by Carson and choreography by another Cunningham dancer, Rashaun Mitchell. The collaborations were true to the Cunningham tradition of putting things together and seeing what happens, and sure enough, they had their peculiar effects.

Plum Perfect

"The Nutcracker"
New York City Ballet
Lincoln Center, New York
November 28, 2008

by Tom Phillips
Copyright 2008 by Tom Phillips

Much has been written about the decline of Balanchine style and technique at New York City Ballet over the last generation, and much of it is true. Other companies today show more discipline and taste in presenting the master’s work. However, NYCB can still lay claim to one distinction – the best production anywhere of George Balanchine’s “Nutcracker.” New York is the original and permanent home of this ballet, and only NYCB has the wherewithal to give it the treatment Mr. B intended. Among its advantages: the original costumes and sets, a theater built in part with this very ballet in mind, a school overflowing with talented children, professionally trained and rigorously rehearsed, plus three more generations of NYCB artists steeped in Nutcracker lore – apprentices, company dancers and senior artists in character roles. This "Nutcracker" lights up every holiday season, beginning the day after Thanksgiving, and for some of us, outshines every other splendor of December in New York.

Mavericks, Mavens & Machines

Beyond Boundaries: Genre-bending Mavericks
Takayuki Fujimoto, Takao Kawaguchi, Tsuyoshi Shirai
"True"
Japan Society, New York
November 13, 2008

By Tom Phillips
Copyright 2008 by Tom Phillips

It was many months ago that Japan Society decided to title its fall performance series “Genre-bending Mavericks,” long before the term “maverick” was picked up and pounded to a pulp in this election year. In any case, the guys who put on the latest installment of this series seem more mavens than mavericks: masters of a new form of technological theater that blends sound, lighting and dance into a seamless whole. “True” is an illusion with the force and incomprehensibility of reality.

Balanchine Tudor Tharp ABT

“Ballo Della Regina,” “Tchaikovsky Pas de Deaux,” “Jardin aux Lilas,” “Brief Fling”
American Ballet Theatre
City Center, New York
November 1, 2008

By Tom Phillips
Copyright 2008 by Tom Phillips

It comes as a mixed blessing that American Ballet Theatre will be expanding its Balanchine repertory for next spring’s season – planning revivals of “Prodigal Son” and Mozartiana,” and even an all-Balanchine-Tchaikovsky program. It’s a good thing that America’s national ballet company is more fully acknowledging America’s greatest choreographer. The only problem is that Balanchine has never been, is not, and may never be fully compatible with the company’s style. That’s been my observation for many years, and was reinforced by ABT’s performance of “Ballo Della Regina” and “Tchaikovsky Pas de Deux” at Saturday’s matinee.

DanceNOW at DTW

2008 DanceNOW(NYC) Festival
Base Camp
Dance Theater Workshop
New York, New York
October 30, 2008

by Tom Phillips
copyright 2008 by Tom Phillips

For one who has seen a lot of self-conscious drama at Dance Theater Workshop over the years, it was a pleasure to drop in on a program that focused instead on music and pure movement. Thursday’s DanceNOW(NYC) Base Camp, co-produced with DTW, was a survey of 12 companies in a dozen brief works and excerpts, most of them new. The high points were three solos, three duets and a sexy trio.

Falling for Dance Again

Fall for Dance
“Sweet Fields,” “In the Night,” “Cor Perdut,” “Esplanade”
Aspen Santa Fe Ballet
San Francisco Ballet
Compania Nacional de Danza
Paul Taylor Dance Company
City Center, New York
September 26, 2008

By Tom Phillips
Copyright 2008 by Tom Phillips

The final program of City Center’s Fall for Dance Festival turned out to be a gala of sorts. It opened with the presentation of the 2008 Jerome Robbins Awards, with $100,000 stipends, to Twyla Tharp and the San Francisco Ballet. Tharp and SFB’s Helgi Tomasson accepted graciously in person. Then we saw some of their award-winning best work – Tharp’s “Sweet Fields” performed by the Aspen Santa Fe Ballet, and six dancers from San Francisco Ballet performing Robbins’ “In the Night.”

“Sweet Fields” – as in heaven – was an ideal vehicle for the young, athletic, and nearly angelic Santa Fe dancers. They appear in flowing white costumes, moving in various states of ecstasy, from serene to possessed, to 19th century hymns from the Sacred Harp and Shaker traditions. Tharp here shows why she rates a Robbins award – like him, she understands the spiritual source of America’s energy supply.

Key to the Kiosk

“Kiosk”
Arica Performance Company
Japan Society, New York
September 19, 2008

by Tom Phillips
Copyright 2008 by Tom Phillips

“What do you do?” is the classic New York question, and now I know the follow-up, the corollary that makes it worthwhile.  What do you do, and what do you do with it?   What do you do to make bartending, bus driving, teaching, or toll-collecting a work of art;  how do you take time and space and craft them into dramatic moments and sequences, rises and falls, surges and lapses, intermissions and grand finales?  In other words, how do you turn the tedium of labor into the joy of creation?  (The humbler your job, the more apt the question.)  “Kiosk” is a lesson in how it’s done, and a warning of the woes of our post-industrial age. 

Midwestern Heart, With Feathers

Hubbard Street Dance Chicago
Bardo, Cor Perdut, Extremely Close, Palladio
Joyce Theater, New York
August 9, 2008

By Tom Phillips
Copyright 2008 by Tom Phillips

Hubbard Street Dance Chicago has an international roster of dancers and choreographers, but the troupe’s most winning quality is its Midwestern heart. Dancing is a team sport for this ensemble of ten men and ten women, with no ranks or stars; everyone takes his or her turn in the corps, and everyone pulls together to create a feeling of athletic energy and co-operative derring-do. There’s a bit too much unison in the choreography, and too much regularity in matching the steps to the music, to suit the tastes of some sophisticated New Yorkers. But that may just be the downside of a refreshingly open, unaffected, and sometimes inventive style.

Thus Spake Foofwa

Benjamin de Bouillis
Foofwa d’Imobilite
Baryshnikov Arts Center, New York
June 26, 2008

By Tom Phillips
Copyright 2008 by Tom Phillips

This regional platter, benjamin of bouillis, with a spolish olive to middlepoint its zaynith, was marrying itself (porkograso!)..
James Joyce, Finnegans Wake


Benjamin de Bouillis, like most or all of the millions of names that pop up in Joyce’s final opus, is not a character at all, just an ephemeral bit of language with the power to hang around in the reader’s consciousness, taking on forms like a magician or a mime. Likewise, Foofwa d’Imobilite is just the made-up name of a Swiss dancer/choreographer/mime/clown. And his “Benjamin de Bouillis” uses dance the same way Joyce uses language – as material for a grand illusion, a tour de force of signs and symbols, pointing ultimately at itself, or nothing at all. It’s brilliant.