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More Revelations

"Arden Court", "Cry", "The Hunt", "Revelations"
Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater
City Center
New York, NY
December 24, 2011

by Mary Cargill
copyright © 2011 by Mary Cargill

Robert Battle's first season as the director of the Alvin Ailey Company began with a complete triumph, as he acquired Paul Taylor's sublime "Arden Court".  The Ailey dancers attacked the quick, difficult, and witty choreography with their unique physicality, and captured the uplifting, joyful spirit of the Taylor Company.  It was like watching champagne bubbles do an aerobic class.  The dancers did seem to tire a bit towards the end, but more experience will surely help their pacing.  It was an inspired choice for the company.

One May Smile and Be a Villain

"newyou: I think you might be in deep denial"
Johannes Wieland
Merce Cunningham Studio
New York, NY
December 21, 2011

By Martha Sherman
Copyright © 2011 by Martha Sherman

Don’t trust these smiles. As if to claim a new day, the johannes wieland company brought back a 2008 work “newyou” to the Merce Cunningham Studio, but the work was still filled with the same old cynicism. More a performance piece than a dance, Wieland told the tale with five dancers and a score of walk-on redheads, all grinning enthusiastically. It’s all lies; not a smile – or a statement – is true. This is a lonely, flashy crowd of performers, hoping to con yet another audience, or maybe to fool themselves for a little while.

A Last Tango in Brooklyn

“Roaratorio”
Merce Cunningham Dance Company:  The Legacy Tour
The Brooklyn Academy of Music
Brooklyn, New York
December 7, 2011

By Michael Popkin
Copyright ©2011 by Michael Popkin

Cunningham’s “Roaratorio,” based on John Cage’s “Roaratorio:  An Irish Circus on Finnegan’s Wake,” took Joyce’s nearly unintelligible and completely unrestrained prose and turned it into lucidly beautiful, orderly and restrained theater.  Cage, reciting the 2,500 (or so) place names in Joyce’s novel over a sound track of roaring of water, street sounds, babbling voices and background noises all shot through with the faint melody of a fiddle playing a Celtic reel, first made Joyce’s words audible.  Cunningham made them flesh.

Battle of the Nutcrackers: the Subway Series

The Nutcracker

American Ballet Theater

Brooklyn Academy of Music, New York

December 14, 2011

by Tom Phillips

Like many New Yorkers, I grew up with George Balanchine's The Nutcracker, and have seen it so many times that it defines the ballet for me. So it came as something of a revelation to take the subway to Brooklyn and find a different conception of Tchaikovsky's classic. American Ballet Theater's new version, choreographed by Alexei Ratmansky, is settling into its second Christmas season at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, a worthy rival -- and a sharp contrast -- to Balanchine's Nutcracker at Lincoln Center.

Basically there are two kinds of Nutcrackers. In form, Balanchine's is an old-fashioned "suite ballet," a string of set pieces attached to a story that's not taken too seriously, and never resolved. It ends with the heroine still dreaming. Ratmansky's is more of a symphonic drama -- the story of a girl's awakening to romance and sexuality, with all its anxiety and danger. Here the story never goes away, and it ends in a literal awakening, back to adolescent angst and anticipation.

All the Pretty Boys

"Cover Boy"
Tere O’Connor
Danspace Project
St. Mark’s Church
New York, NY
December 11, 2011

By Martha Sherman
Copyright © 2011 by Martha Sherman

Who would have thought the old man had so much tender in him? Tender isn’t the first adjective that comes to mind about the work of Tere O’Connor. But in the world premiere of “Cover Boy,” at Danspace Project, the sharp edges were softened, and the loveliness and vulnerability of four young men was both haunting and enlightening.

As Time Goes By

""Nutcracker"
San Francisco Ballet
War Memorial Opera House
San Francisco, CA
December 9, 2011

by Rita Felciano
Copyright © Rita Felciano, 2011

Helgi Tomasson choreographed San Francisco Ballet's current "Nutcracker" in 2004; it took the place of a much beloved and tinkered with version that went back to Willam Christensen's 1944 first full-length American version. The "new" classic was elegant, exquisitely designed but also felt cool; the first act refined but mannered, the second act's divertissements having a preserved-under glass unsularity about them.

December Flurry: In & Around DC

> Maryland Dance Ensemble
> Flamenco Men
> Eureka
> Imperfect Dancers of Italy
> Dakshina

by George Jackson
copyright 2011 by George Jackson

Maryland Dance Ensemble, a student-faculty performance company, allowed its educational obligations to dominate this program. There was no escaping the "Movement Poetry Project", an exercise that turned up on both halves of the bill and during the intermission. Motion phrases and words were paired, but instead of winged verse and daring dance what emerged were Western Union messages and Boy Scout signals. Predictably, one of the words used was "ululation". "No" and "talent" also were on the exercise's list of terms, but no one had the guts to link them. A few minutes of this game might have looked cute on a kindergarten class but for college students? Adriane Fang was tagged as culpable. 

What Will He Think of Next?

“Rite of Spring,” “Folding,” “Undivided Divided”
Shen Wei Dance Arts
Park Avenue Armory
New York, New York
December 2, 2011

By Michael Popkin
Copyright © 2011 by Michael Popkin

Shen Wei’s Armory show combined dance with installation and performance art within the spectrum of New York’s trendy contemporary art scene. The three works in different genres - modern dance, multi-cultural spectacle and finally an installation of semi-nude dancers that had the audience wandering among the performers – were as diverse as what you’ll see in the downtown galleries, but were compromised by exactly the major weakness of those shows – the facile substitution of clever ideas for creativity.   Shen is a talented dance-maker and dramatist but dance and drama need to be meaningful in order to be good.

Of Mice and Manners

“The Nutcracker” (Alexei Ratmansky)
American Ballet Theatre
Opera House
John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts
Washington, DC
Thursday, December 8, 2011

by Alexandra Tomalonis
copyright 2011 by Alexandra Tomalonis

Perhaps the most magical thing about Alexei Ratmansky’s very magical “The Nutcracker,” which American Ballet Theatre has brought to D.C. for a long weekend’s worth of performances, is that it has been so refreshed and reimagined that it feels brand new. You never know what is going to happen next, and there were delighted laughs as well as happy gasps of surprise throughout the evening on opening night. There is plenty of comedy and charm in this production, but there is serious dancing, too, including two absolutely gorgeous pas de deux, and there isn’t a cliché in sight. 

John Neumeier's new "Liliom"

December 4, 2011
“Liliom” (John Neumeier)
Hamburg Ballet
Hamburg State Opera
Hamburg, Germany
December 4

by Horst Koegler
copyright 2011 by Horst Koegler

Originally billed  a ´suburban legend´ when it was first performed in Budapest in 1909,  Ferenc Molnar´s “Liliom” became a world hit when it was taken up by many theatres around the globe. In 1945 its stage version was adapted by Richard Rodgers and Oskar Hammerstein as a musical under the title “Carousel”, contiuing its success story in various stage and film versions. As a ballet it materialized when Christopher Wheeldon choreographed it as “Carousel (A Dance)” for a New York City Ballet gala in 20002, scoring  an instant hit which was taken into the company´s regular repertory, with stellar performances by Alexandra Ansanelli and Benjamin Millepied.