danceviewtimes

Live--Almost but not Quite

Smuin Contemporary Ballet
2020/2021 Virtual Fall Season                  
Program Program A, Nov. 18, 2020. 4:30 pm  
Program Program B, Nov. 11, 2020. 7.30 pm  
                                                         
by Rita Felciano
copyright Rita Felciano ©2020

Watching dance on screen is not exactly new, but it took a global catastrophe for those of us who cherish live performance to realize that sitting in front of a screen might become the new normal. There may be hundreds of dancers who have created works on themselves in the kitchen, a balcony or, as Alonzo King Lines dancers did, in the wilds of nature. Each one worked on her or himself but, surely, often wished for a partnerIn the last six months, I have seen my share of these brave efforts to keep bodies in tune and spirits alive.

Undressed or Corseted

“Naked Truth – Viennese Modernism and the Body”
by Alys X. George
University of Chicago Press, 2020

Reviewed by: George Jackson
(copyright 2020 by George Jackson)

Look carefully at the picture on the cover of this book. It shows a naked woman dancing. Her face is turned away so that only part of her profile appears. Her torso seems somewhat flattened, like that of an ancient Egyptian image. The arms and hands are held lightly away from  the body’s center of gravity. The lines of the long legs are bent slightly at the knees. She gives the impression of moving forward, to our left. Oddly, this woman is not even Viennese, but the German dancer Claire Bauroff (1895-1984). Still, the author is trying to make a point: that the body in its totalities was focal in Vienna from ca. 1870 to 1938. Bodies included cadavers that were being dissected at Vienna’s famous medical school and lively ones dancing at the city’s ballrooms and cafes. Vienna’s professional ballet dancers elegantly arched their feet, the women wearing pointe shoes and, for classwork, transparent white socks over the toe shoes so that the teacher could readily spot and correct cramped stances. Under their costumes or practice garb, the ballet women wore corsets or girdles. Bauroff is barefoot on the book’s cover, yet my guess is that her delicate toes have had pointework training. The imprint of such instruments as corsets and toe shoes isn’t easily erased from the flesh.  

To Feast, Perchance to Dream

“Who Cares?” (excerpts), “to be seen,” “Concerto Six Twenty-Two” (duet), “Lady Swings the Blues”
Fall for Dance Festival – Program 2
New York City Center (Pre-recorded Digital Broadcast)
New York, NY
October 26, 2020

by Marianne Adams
copyright © 2020 by Marianne Adams

There may not have been many good news for the dance world this year, but the enduring holding of the Fall for Dance Festival, even if in an abbreviated, digital format, was certainly one of them.  Admittedly, in these trying times the starved audience would have been content with mere fresh performances of old works on a real stage (not that all those recordings of dancers in non-conventional places have been unwelcome!), but the Festival did one better. Rather than taking some old faithfuls out of the refrigerator and reheating them for our delights, it presented some brand new concoctions, and those dishes, along with their execution and presentation, were of the finest flavor.

Photo of Calvin Royal III in “to be seen.”  Photo © by by Christopher Duggan