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Another Opening, Another Show

“Barber Violin Concerto,” “Fancy Free,”“Who Cares?”
New York City Ballet
David H. Koch Theater
New York, NY
January 19, 2016

by Leigh Witchel
© 2016 by Leigh Witchel

For the opening night of New York City Ballet, the company threw the spotlight into the pit, with a welcome to the company’s new music director, Andrew Litton. Before the curtain rose the orchestra did: brought up to stage level as Litton and the musicians tore through the bright rhythms of Bernstein’s Overture to “Candide.”

Tiler Peck in “Who Cares?” Photo © Paul Kolnik.

Beatitude

“The Sleeping Beauty”

American Ballet Theatre

Opera House

The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts

Washington, DC

January 27, 2016

 

by George Jackson

© 2016 by George Jackson

 

Attempts to perform a perfect, a true version of “The Sleeping Beauty” are like quests for the holy grail. Currently, two top individuals at American ballet Theatre have caught the fever. One is the company’s resident choreographer Alexei Ratmansky, who has sublimated his own inspiration in order to serve an 1890 idea by the then Russian czar’s French ballet master Marius Petipa. The other seeker is Kevin McKenzie, ABT’s artistic director who has put the company’s considerable resources at Ratmansky’s disposal. The excitement of their search was felt Wednesday night by a Washington audience that had battled post-blizzard obstacles to get to the theater on time.

 

American Ballet Theatre's Isabella Boylston and Joseph Gorak in Alexei Ratmansky's production of "The Sleeping Beauty." Photo: MIRA.

 

Digging for Treasure

“Michael Kliën’s Excavation Site: Martha Graham U.S.A.”
Martha Graham Studios
COIL 2016 Festival
New York, NY
January 16, 2016

by Martha Sherman
copyright © 2016 by Martha Sherman

Martha Graham’s mythic status was reverenced throughout “Michael Kliën’s Excavation Site,” part of the COIL 2016 Festival. With what Steve Valk, the dramaturge of the event, calls “social choreography,” the creators of this event used movement, film, and conversation across generations of devotees (both dancers and the community,) to probe and appreciate Graham’s legacy. Actual performance of Graham’s work was limited to grainy film clips of her own performances, in work starting in the 1930’s, and moving through her career; but the influence of her choreography and style were explored as accessible treasures. The extended afternoon was filled with gentle surprises.

Photo: Participants (Current and past members of Martha Graham Dance Company, joined by students, administrators, and others affiliated with the company, as well as audience members) in "Michael Kliën’s Excavation Site: Martha Graham U.S.A." Photo © Brigid Pierce.

Craftsmen's Chances

“The Winter’s Tale”

The National Ballet of Canada

Opera House

The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts

Washington, DC

January 19, 2016

 

by George Jackson

© 2016 by George Jackson

 

The choreographer Christopher Wheeldon has chosen an ornery story to tell! Once committed, like the captain of a ship, he encounters the likes of icebergs and blizzards in navigating the plot. There are improbabilities of action, monstrous flaws of character, social conventions as inscrutable as the Sphinx plus a moral code. Wheeldon and his chief helmsmen – composer Joby Talbot and designer Bob Crowley – use skill yet also take chances in transforming William Shakespeare’s word text into moving, living theater. I’ve now seen this version of “The Winter’s Tale” twice: Tuesday night’s American premiere in Washington, and about a year ago the cinema videocast from London by Britain’s Royal Ballet. Despite differences, both renditions touched emotions deep within. 

 

Harrison James, Hannah Fischer and Piotr Stanczyk in "The Winter's Tale." Photo by Karolina Kuras, courtesy of the National Ballet of Canada.

 

In My Dead Brother's Shoes

“#negrophobia”
Jaamil Olawale Kosovo

American Realness Festival
Abrons Arts
New York, NY 
January 11, 2016

by Martha Sherman
copyright © 2016 by Martha Sherman

It’s not a little ironic that, in its seventh season, American Realness, the bad boy of dance and performance art festivals, has gotten sort of predictable in its iconaclasm. That’s not necessarily a bad thing – the choices that curator Ben Pryor has now made for seven years have been the dance and performance art equivalents of exclamation points. This year was no exception, although a bit darker than in years past. The festival artists each had a message to share, usually an angry one about the flagrant injustice visited on those outside the pale of a still white, heterosexual power structure. Jaamil Olawale Kosovo's "#negrophobia" had good cause for darkness.

Photo: Jaamil Olawale Kosovo in “#negrophobia.” Photo ©Ian Douglas.

Le déjeuner sur l’herbe

“Mira El!”
Antonio Ramos and the Gang Bangers

American Realness Festival
Abrons Arts
New York, NY
January 15, 2016

by Martha Sherman
copyright © 2016 by Martha Sherman

 “Look at this!” Antonio Ramos demands, in his naked, lewd, and extravagantly danced “Mira El!” Ramos’s work trains the spotlight on his – and others’ – bodies. An artist whose facebook page has been removed more than once for its resemblance to a porn page, his offering with the Gang Bangers wasn’t surprising, and it certainly commanded attention.

Photo: Antonio Ramos in "Mira El!" ©by Ian Douglas.

All from Scratch

“Star Crap Method”
Larissa Velez-Jackson

American Realness Festival
Abrons Arts Center
New York, NY
January 15, 2016

by Martha Sherman
copyright © 2016 by Martha Sherman

Larissa Velez-Jackson unabashedly claims “Star Crap Method” as the summation of her life’s work and philosophy. In “Star Crap,” Velez-Jackson improvises around a few set movements (“problematic unison dance phrases,”) with her excellent dancers, Tyler Ashley and Talya Epstein. Their goal is to be entirely real and in the moment. In this version, they were also shadowed by a masked wraith who hugged the walls, and was later introduced in the head-scratching role of “Cisgender Illuminatrix,” Kathy Kaufman. As in many American Realness presentations, Velez-Jackson's work is projected through a lens of humor (much of it dark) with the audience invited in as co-conspirators. 

 

Photo: Talya Epstein, Tyler Ashley, and Larissa Velez-Jackson in “Star Crap Method.” Photo ©Ian Douglas.

Exhuming Messages

 “Score for a Lecture”
The Bureau for the Future of Choreography

American Realness Festival
Abrons Arts
New York, NY
January 15, 2016 

by Martha Sherman
copyright © 2016 by Martha Sherman

In the American Realness Festival, the building itself is often an essential element of the works, not just the particular theater, but corridors, courtyards, and stairwells. The greetings among audience members, and the conversations before and after each show in the in-between spaces also suggest that many viewers are members of the downtown dance and performance community (or presenters, seeing work as part of APAP, the Association of Performing Arts Presenters, in New York for its annual bash.) It can be a hard world to enter as an audience member if you don’t already belong – and that’s an issue that artists must grapple with, if they want their work seen and experienced. The Bureau for the Future of Choreography has taken matters into its own hands, and made the building of community the central object of its art.

Photo: Audience and presenters in “Score for a Lecture.” Photo ©Ian Douglas.

Beasts Within

“Durch Nacht Und Nebel”
Yvonne Meier

American Realness Festival
Abrons Arts
New York, NY
January 15, 2016

Still kicking, Yvonne Meier must now be considered the Grandma of edgy, contemporary dance. A founding artist of PS 122, Meier has been creating and dancing for more decades than her avid dance fans have been alive (one was seen literally kneeling at her feet in the Realness Café, after this performance.) Her body is an expressive, dense fireplug, and her hair close-cropped. She continues to be unfettered by any expectation except, perhaps, to shock.

Yvonne Meier in “Durch Nacht Und Nebel.” Photo ©Ian Douglas.

Looking Through a Glass Darkly

Raisa Punkki Dance
"Salve Regina"
NOHspace
San Francisco, CA
January 17, 2016

by Rita Felciano
copyright © Rita Felciano 2016

Finnish American choreo- grapher Raisa Punkki borrowed the name for her latest choreography, "Salve Regina," from a medieval Christian prayer to the mother of Jesus. Since Islam also expresses great reverence for the one it calls Miriam, the reference makes sense. "Salve" is a mysterious one-hour, six-scene meditation on womanhood. Its subtext purports to consider why some cultures insist on hiding the female body, while others expose it. I am not sure whether that aspect was all that clearly realized. But Pukki deserves a Salve of her own because of the pristine use of her dancers, veiled or not. "Salve" suggested a quasi-mythic female power intimately connected to creation. The trajectory -- slim as it is -- could be tightened though Mark Hertenstein's billowing score gives the work a solid, much needed foundation.

Fanny Miettinen and Megan Hertensteiner in "Salve Regina"
Photo © Pak Han