Modern Dance Hold’em
Lassoing is a surprising through-line for a Martha Graham Dance Company performance. The theme steps generally tend towards the child-birthing variety: contractions and deep squats.
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Detail Oriented
As a dance viewer, it’s easy to get swept up in the grand movements in a piece, glossing over the finer details.
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From Street to Stage
Hubbard Street Dance Chicago was in New York for a two-week run March 12–24 at the Joyce Theater, a venue that consistently programs excellent smaller dance companies in its 472-seat theater.
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Acosta returns to America
The legendary Cuban dancer Carlos Acosta trained relentlessly to come out of retirement last year for a performance of classical works in celebration of his 50th birthday at the Royal Ballet, where he spent most of his professional career.
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A Dancer's Story
The Dance Theater of Harlem returned to City Center this week for the first time under the leadership of Robert Garland, a former company dancer, school director, and resident choreographer. This was the launch of an exciting new beginning, though the troupe was simultaneously celebrating its past.
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Musically Inclined
Despite the fact that dance and music are often regarded as inextricably linked, it remains astonishing to experience the work of a choreographer who channels the score particularly well—or a group of dancers who embody it especially organically. Repertory Dance Theatre’s 58th season closer, “Gamut,” happened to have both.
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Audacity of Dance
If there’s anybody who embodies ‘rizz’—charisma in today’s coolspeak—it’s dancer, choreographer, and filmmaker Benjamin Millepied.
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Dance Downtown
One might easily mistake the prevailing mood as light-hearted, heading into intermission after two premieres by Brenda Way and Kimi Okada for ODC/Dance’s annual Dance Downtown season. Maybe this is just what we need to counter world events, you may think. But there is much more to consider beneath the high production values of this beautifully wrought program. Okada, for instance, folds a dark message into her cartoon inspired “Inkwell.” And KT Nelson’s “Dead Reckoning” from 2015 reminds us the outlook for climate change looms ever large.
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After Trisha Brown
Dance scholars have been remarking on the great Trisha Brown nearly from the day she first stepped into Robert Dunn’s class—the genesis of Judson Dance Theater—in the 1960s.
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The Beat Goes On
The prolific drummer Max Roach would have been 100 years old on January 10, and all around the world, admirers have been celebrating.
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No Fairy Tale
Generally, a production of “Swan Lake” is only as good as its Odette and Odile, symbolic of the duality of nature. So, it’s wonderful to see Sophie Martin back, dancing one of her signature roles. She's predictably brilliant.
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The Point Being?
The Nederlands Dans Theater has been coming to City Center since 1968. The company’s associations with edgy choreographers like Jiri Kylian, Crystal Pite, William Forsythe, and Ohad Naharin have made for some thrilling performances over the years.
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Teenage Angst and Institutions
Watching Matthew Bourne's reworked version of the “star-cross'd lovers,” I was briefly reminded of Veronica, played by Winona Ryder, in the dark 1988 comedy by Daniel Waters and Michael Lehmann, Heathers, and her line, “my teen angst bullshit has a body count.” Yes, this is the darker side of Bourne's repertoire,...
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The Me of Today
The choreographer Alexei Ratmansky reflects on the war in Ukraine, the connection between geopolitics and ballet, and joining the house of Balanchine.
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Beneath blue California skies, manicured trees, and the occasional hum of an overhead airplane, Tamara Rojo took the Frost Amphitheater stage at Stanford University to introduce herself as the new artistic director of San Francisco Ballet.
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America, F**K Yeah
After a week of the well-balanced meal that is “Jewels”—the nutritive, potentially tedious, leafy greens of “Emeralds,” the gamy, carnivorous “Rubies,” and the decadent, shiny white mountains of meringue in “Diamonds”—the New York City Ballet continued its 75th Anniversary All-Balanchine Fall Season with rather more dyspeptic fare.
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Acosta Danza’s Choreographic Soup
An “Ajiaco” is a type of soup common to Colombia, Cuba, and Peru that combines a variety of different vegetables, spices, and meats.
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