danceviewtimes

A Kurt Weill Alternative to the “Nutcracker”

“Zaubernacht”
Nina Kurzeja & Ensemble
Theaterhaus
Stuttgart, Germany
September 2, 2010
 
by Horst Koegler
copyright 2010 by Horst Koegler
 
Want to get rid off the prayer wheel litanies of the annual “Nutcracker” ritual? There is some help for you! It is called “Magic Night” and proved to be one of the top events of the recent Stuttgart Music Festival, where it scored an unanimous success. It is of 1922 vintage, when it receivd its first performance under the German title “Zaubernacht”, a couple of days before X-mas at the Berlin Theater am Kurfürstendamm, as a ´Children´s Pantomime in one act´, concocted  by the Russian emigré writer, librettist and theatre-impresario Wladimir Boritsch and the young and hopeful composer Kurt Weill, then a just 22 years old fledgling student with Ferruccio Busoni at the Berlin State Academy of Arts. It was conducted  by George Weller, directed by Franz Ludwig Hörth, the leading man of the Berlin State Opera and regisseur of the forthcoming Alban Berg “Wozzeck”, with choreography  by Mary Zimmermann, performed by dancers from her local school.

Popular Science

"The Matter of Origins"
Liz Lerman Dance Exchange
Kay Theatre & Dance Studios, Clarice Smith  Performing Arts Center
The University  of Maryland
College Park, Maryland
September 10, 2010

by George Jackson
copyright 2010 by George Jackson

The tension felt can be exhilarating. If resolution happens, it may be deeply satisfying. And in the process leading from the one to the other, life is at its most intense. Mathematicians experience this when setting up and trying to solve an equation, scientists when proposing and proving a theory, composers and choreographers when finding and forming a theme. Even animal acts have that aspect when there is self awareness. But in remembering the event, in trying to explain it or even repeat it, a gap appears. It is the incongruity between the Titanic and the tiny,  the Promethean and the personal, the universal and the unique. Did the thunder of Beethoven's sound depend on his hearing loss? Was the care Marie Curie took in the laboratory learned on her bicycle rides through the countryside? It is in several ways, including types of movement and formats, that Liz Lerman and her Dance Exchange team seem aware in their new work, "The Matter of Origins", of the disparity between the infinite and the individual.

A Glimpse of America: Hard at Work and Having Fun

A Tribute to Judith Jamison
First Lady Michelle Obama's White House Dance Series, Event #1
East Room, The White House
Washington, DC
September 7, 2010

by George Jackson
copyright 2010 by George Jackson

Only a part of the 3 PM workshop for students and the 5 PM performance for students and other guests was open to the press - from the workshop's start for about an hour. Standing in a window niche behind the photographers' platform and peering out through spaces between the camera men and their equipment, I caught glimpses of what was happening. It wasn't a bad view at all. The entire event, though, was available to everyone via a webcast. The East Room was already crowded when I entered and although the workshop hadn't  quite started, different groups were trying out the stage. I don't think I was hallucinating but the first sight that met my eyes was the opening of George Balanchine's "Serenade" - the ultimate example of "ballet is woman" - being marked by not only women but men. This group was soon replaced by one doing hiphop. People milled about and among them were, of course, this event's honoree Judith Jamison and some of her Alvin Ailey company colleagues, the afternoon's emcee Damian Woetzel who directs the Vail Festival in Colorado and Heather Watts Woetzel, Washington Ballet's Septime Webre, the Paul Taylor company's Bettie de Jong and John Tomlinson, ballet master Jeff Edwards of the "Billy Elliot" musical and lots of dance students of diverse ages that had come from Delaware, Michigan, New York, Chicago, Philadelphia and DC. Attending press* included The New Yorker's Joan Acocella, The Wall Street Journal's Robert Greskovic, The New York Times' Alastair Macaulay, and Lisa Traiger of the Dance USA publication and The Washington Post's Weekend Section. The First Lady was not , as far as I could see, at the workshop - which, after Woetzel's efficient call to order, began with an amazing lesson led by the Ailey's Nasha Thomas-Schmitt.

Dances at a Swiss Gathering

The Zurich Ballet Opens the New Season with works by Heinz Spoerli and Hans van Manen
Van Manen´s “Solo“ sandwiched between Spoerli´s “Nocturnes” and “Death and the Maiden” The Zurich Ballet
Zurich Opera House
Zurich, Switzerland
August 28, 2010

by Horst Koegler
copyright 2010 by Horst Koegler
 
 
Gradually the balance sheet of Heinz Spoerli´s artistic direction of the ballet at the Zurich opera-house is approaching its end. Together with general manager Alexander Pereira, Spoerli, who last month became 70, will leave the rather small but cosy opera-house at Lake Zurich after the 2011/12 season. He has reigned there for now fifteen years and built the company and its repertory which is today regarded as one of the top of German, Austrian and Swiss opera-based troupes.