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Taking Our Time

Boléro Variations
Dance Theater Workshop
New York, NY
September 24, 2009

L’Après-midi
Danspace Project
New York, NY
September 24, 2009

by Leigh Witchel
copyright © 2009 by Leigh Witchel

As with his late colleague Pina Bausch, you’re not going to be neutral about Raimund Hoghe’s work.  You might be excited by the challenge. You might want to run screaming from the theater.  You might find it powerful. You might be bored out of your skull. You might feel all of the above.

Hoghe espouses a European aesthetic that takes its own sweet time in the theater.  And ours. He began his career as a writer for the German weekly Die Zeit and went on to work with Bausch as a dramaturge for a decade.  Since 1989 he’s made his own pieces.

A Night of Love

“Diversion of Angels,” “Romper el Piso,” “Softly as I Leave You,” “Noces”
Fall for Dance Festival
City Center
New York, NY
September 24, 2009

By Martha Sherman
Copyright © 2009 by Martha Sherman

The second program of the 2009 Fall for Dance Festival was unexpectedly all about love, from sweet love as imagined by Martha Graham to sophisticated erotic love in a world premiere tango, on to a dance of tortured separation, and finally the most universal of love’s traditions – the wedding – in a reimagining of “Les Noces.” The evening had more thematic resonance than we’ve come to expect from the eclectic and more episodic Fall for Dance festivals of years past.

Redemption for the Much Maligned Ballet d´action

“Hommage aux Ballets Russes”,  with George Balanchine, “The Prodigal Son”, John Neumeier, “Le Pavillon d´Armide”, and  Vaslav Nijinski/Millicent Hodson/Kenneth Archer, “Le Sacre du printemps”
The Hamburg Ballett
Hamburg State Opera
September 24 and 25, 2009

by Horst Koegler
copyright @ 2009 by Horst Koegler

With "Le Pavillon d´Armide“ sandwiched in between Balanchine´s “The Prodigal Son” of 1929 and “Le Sacre du printemps”  in Millicnt Hodson and Kenneth Archer´s reconstruction of Nijinsky´s 1913 version, John Neumeier opened his 36th Hamburg Ballet Days on June 28, 2009, entitled “Hommage aux Ballets Russes”,  as the climax of his  more than 30 years of concentrated efforts to revitalize the heritage of Diaghilev´s legendary company. Thus the 100th anniversary of the company´s Paris debut – celebrated by many troupes around the globe – meant much more for him than the routine birthday celebration with the usual revivals from the Diaghilev repertory during its twenty years of existence between “Les Sylphides” and “Apollon musagete”.

Dance and the Blue Rider

Blue Rider in Performance
Miller Theater, Columbia University
New York, NY
September 23, 2009

by Carol Pardo
copyright 2009 by Carol Pardo

In recent years the first installment of the seasons of Works & Process at the Guggenheim Museum and of the Miller Theater at Columbia University has been a joint production with dance front and center, including an evening of works by up and coming choreographers including Brian Reeder, and an all-Wheeldon, all-Ligeti program spring immediately to mind. The four dancers from Armitage Gone! did not fare nearly as well. They were on stage for only six minutes of "The Blue Rider in Performance", a two hour long sound and light show, built around Vasily Kandinsky, Arnold Schoenberg, and the Blaue Reiter Almanac.

Comedy Night at Fall for Dance

Basil Twist, "Petrushka Suite"
Monica Bill Barnes & Company, "I feel like"
Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo, "Go for Barocco"
DanceBrazil, "Culture in Motion"

Fall for Dance Festival
City Center, New York
September 26, 2009

by Tom Phillips
copyright 2009 by Tom Phillips

Saturday was comedy night at Fall for Dance. Three out of the four pieces on the bill were spoofs or takeoffs of one kind or another. Still, there was enough pure dance and theatrical magic to satisfy even the most serious-minded dance lover.

The most outright cut-ups, naturally, were the “ladies” of Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo, who performed their Balanchine travesty “Go for Barocco” with great sweep and just the right proportion of slapstick. But a more subtle and satisfying gender-bender was Monica Bill Barnes' “I feel like.” The blank space at the end of that sentence is the puzzle attacked by three women, trying to act out the role of a female in this post-feminist age. Barnes’s humor has long been a staple for hip audiences in small downtown venues, but here she demonstrates that she can rock a big house with a mixed audience just as well.

Fallin'

"Afternoon of a Faun," "Offenbach Overtures," "B/olero," "The StaRz and StRiPes 4EvEr for NoW"

Fall for Dance Festival

New York City Center

New York, NY

September 22, 2009

by Lisa Rinehart

copyright ©  2009 by Lisa Rinehart

It's that time again -- a sixth season of ten dollar tickets, audience pleasing programs and hoards of enthusiastic dance fans lapping up every last jeté. 

Fabulous. 

If only a few challenging works could be slid into the Fall for Dance programs -- you know, the way your mom snuck the chopped spinach into Hamburger Helper -- but, no matter, the festival's opening night program was all about a good time.

Familiar & Free

The Suzanne Farrell Ballet
Family Theater
The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts
Washington, DC
September 19 & 20, 2009

by George Jackson
copyright 2009 by GJ

Suzanne Farrell's company will be dancing on larger Kennedy Center stages later in the 2009-10 season.This intermissionless program of familiar excerpts was intended, no doubt, to let the dancers appear together in public prior to going on tour and also give home audiences a free preview. Of the three items by George Balanchine and the one by Maurice Bejart, it was the former's Mozart "Divertimento No. 15" which needed a more expansive location. Seeing the dancers up close, though, is always instructive and - despite casting being much the same - some individual performances differed significantly on the two evenings.

Unequal Partners

"In-I"
BAM Harvey Theater
Brooklyn, NY
September 12, 2009

by Carol Pardo
copyright © 2009 by Carol Pardo

The chance to see a movie star live rather on screen, in three dimensions rather than two, drew and excited and expectant crowd to the BAM Harvey Theater. "In-I", the hour-long duet and collaborative venture between the Akram Khan,the British choreographer, and the French actress Juliette Binoche, is in fact more her show than his.

Sisters in Synch

"Le Cri"
Compagnie Nacera Belaza
Danspace Project St. Mark’s Church in-the-Bowery
New York, NY
September 17, 2009

By Martha Sherman
Copyright © 2009 by Martha Sherman

Two beautiful women stand side by side and sway. They slowly rotate, then gently twist back and forth, their movement increasing in energy. They do it again. Finally, they break in a brief ecstatic frenzy of movement. If you are looking for the plotline of Nacera Belaza’s “Le Cri”, that’s it. But if you came for the plot, you missed the point.

Fun Fest

American Dance Guild Performance Festival

Manhattan Movement & Arts Center

New York, NY

September 10-13, 2009

by Lisa Rinehart

copyright ©  2009 by Lisa Rinehart

With more than fifty different works packed into five different programs, the 2009 American Dance Guild Performance Festival is a well intentioned rummage sale of an event. I say well intentioned because ADG is essentially an educational organization. It was founded in the 1950's by twelve New York based dance teachers determined to promote dance in America and provides a meeting ground for an esoteric mix of performers, choreographers, historians, writers and even dance therapists -- all with a common love for dance as a means

of self expression.