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See the Music, Smell the Dance

16th Contemporary Dance Showcase: Japan + East Asia
"Traverse" by Shang-chi Sun;  "How to Say" by I-fen Tung and M.O.V.E Theatre;   "Marmont" by Kaori Seki Co. Punctumun;  "Newton" by Nobuyuki Hanabusa/enra;  "Alphard" by Mikiko Kawamura
Japan Society
New York, NY
January 9, 2015

by Tom Phillips
copyright 2015 by Tom Phillips 

Critics sometimes write about a dancer’s “perfume,” but actually to inhale the scent of a dance is something else. The theme of Japan Society's Contemporary Dance Showcase was extending dance into other dimensions, and the most memorable piece began not with a sight or a sound, but a smell. Tokyo choreographer Kaori Seki collaborated with perfumer Toshifumi Yoshitake in "Marmont,"  and together they create a potent atmosphere.    

 

I-fen Tung and Daniel Wang in "How to Say." Photo credit: © Chang-Chih Chen.

Time for the Trocks

“Swan Lake, Act II,” “Go for Barocco,” pas de deux from “Le Corsaire,” “La Naïade et Le Pêcheur”
Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo
The Joyce Theater
New York, NY
December 27, 2014

by Leigh Witchel
copyright © 2015 by Leigh Witchel

Everything is timing. And if there’s one thing the beloved Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo have down after four decades of trooping the globe, it’s timing. Program A in the company’s Joyce season brought more old friends than new faces, but just as you never tire of the beauty and pathos of “Swan Lake,” you never tire of the Trocks sticking pins into it.

Raffaele Morra as Lariska Dumbchenko and Ihaia Miller as Mikhail Mypansarov in “La Naïade et Le Pêcheur” Photo © by Yi-Chun Wu

Summertime Magic

“Nutcracker”
Teatro Colón Ballet
Teatro Colón
Buenos Aires, Argentina
December 23, 2014

by Marianne Adams
copyright © 2014-2015 by Marianne Adams

Outside the theater the streets may have been permeated with the warmth of the early Argentine summer, but for a few hours inside the famous Teatro Colón the ballet troupe enveloped the audience in the wintry magic of the “Nutcracker.”