danceviewtimes

Time 2020-11-18 20:08:13

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Smuin Contemporary Ballet 2020/2021 Virtual Fall Season Program A, Nov. 18, 2020. 4:30 pm Program Program B, Nov. 11, 2020. 7.30 pm by Rita Felciano copyright Rita Felciano ©2020Watching 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. “Naked Truth – Viennese Modernism and the Body”by Alys X. GeorgeUniversity of Chicago Press, 2020Reviewed 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. “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, NYOctober 26, 2020by Marianne Adamscopyright © 2020 by Marianne AdamsThere 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 DugganThis book is a cross between an autobiography by dancer, choreographer, dance company director and opera stager Morris and a biography of Morris by novelist and recording artist Stace. I am fairly familiar with Morris s work but had not before encountered any of Stace s. The writing took place when Morris (born 29 August 1956) was 62 years old - mature but, presumably, not at career s end. Lori Belilove and the Isadora Duncan Dance Company Lori Belilove, Artistic Director Hayley Rose, Emily D Angelo, Faith Kimberling, Caroline Yamada Untermyer Gardens, Yonkers NYSeptember 26, 2020By Tom Phillips -- Copyright 2020 by Tom Phillips A flock of Monarch butterflies –- stopping for the night in the Hudson Valley on their way to Mexico -- greeted early arrivals Saturday in Untermyer Park and Gardens, high above the river in Yonkers. Their visit was unscheduled, but no more an accident than the gust of wind which an hour later lifted the silken wings of three dancers to Chopin’s “Butterfly Etude,” nor the shaft of light from the setting sun that illumined Gluck’s “Bacchanal.” Isadora planned it that way. Emily D Angelo, Hayley Rose and Faith Kimberling in Butterfly Etude. Photo: John Link Tags: architecture, butterflies, dance, modern dance, monarch butterflies, nature, outdoor art dance solo choreographed in 1914 by Michio Ito to music composed in 1825 by Franz Schubert performed by Christin Arthur set by Dana Tai Soon Burgess dedicated to the late Ruth Bader Ginsburg of the USA s Supreme CourtIt is a slow dance, mostly for the upper body. Watching it, one is ever more aware of independent motions that belong to the head and face, to the neck, to the shoulders and arms plus hands, and to the rib cage above the waist. Yet one is also certain that these parts of the human anatomy are animated by one soul existing in a sea of light and shade. The camera shows us the dancer s whole body only briefly. She is dressed in blue, as painters have depicted this figure of motherhood, womanhood and humanity. She takes barely more than one step, but that suffices.Christin Arthur dances the solo simply. Ruth Bader Ginsberg (1933 -2020) took the time from her work to attend performances of opera, ballet and drama. These works of art broadened her perspective as a judge.George Jackson(copyright 2020 by George Jackson) Marius Petipa - The Emperor s Ballet Master by Nadine Meisner Oxford University Press, 2019reviewed by George Jacksoncopyright 2020 by George JacksonOur concept of classical ballet stems mostly from the work of Marius Petipa (1818 - 1910), a French choreographer resident principally in Russia at the end of the Czarist era. Until the publication of Meisner s biography, personal information in English about Petipa was somewhat scarce. As a reader of German, I relied on Eberhard Rebling s Marius Petipa, Master of Classical Ballet , printed 1975 in what was East Berlin. Rebling s 430 page collection contains texts by Petipa (his formal memoirs, spontaneous diary, diverse letters etc.) and opinions about him by contemporaries and by important successors (Nijinska, Balanchine, Ashton, Grigorovitch et alia). It is an expansion of a Russian volume, “Marius Petipa, Materiali Wospominanija Stati” printed 1971 by the Leningrad branch of Iskusstwo Publishers. Continue reading "" “piano piano”Nancy Karp + DancersPaul Dresher Sound Studio, Oakland, CAVideo of world premiere February 27, 2020 Filmed by Rapt Productions, Oaklandby Rita Felcianocopyright Rita Felciano 2020Ever since she started making work in the mid 1970s in San Francisco, Nancy Karp has concen-trated her choreo- graphy on dance’s most basic elements—sound and movement. Remarkably, in a Bay Area environment that favors dance theater, social and personal identity issues, she has remained focused on those two ingredients. Rarely has she stepped outside her parameters of choice. The 1995 “Kristallnacht , a haunting contemplation of that insane event, is very much the exception in her oeuvre. It certainly helps that Karp has an acute and sensitive understanding of what these days is often referred to as classical contemporary music. In her latest work, “piano piano” seen in a video version, she follows her by now well-known way of working. The piece derives its name from the Italian expression “take it easy.”Performers: Sonsherée Giles and Chris Black (in the foreground) in piano piano (on stairs: Amy Lewis, Nol Simonse, and Katie Kruger). Photo: John Hefti. The Fascist Turn in the Dance of Serge Lifar by Mark FrankoOxford University Press, UK, 2020by George Jacksoncopyright George Jackson 2020Before tackling this exhaustive and exhausting book about the controversial Serge Lifar by Mark Franko, who is a widely published critic and a professor at the University of California s Santa Cruz campus, I suggest that readers review what is generally known about Lifar (1905 - 1986) as a dancer, choreographer, company director, commentator on dance and as a person. I encountered Lifar directly in 1948, when he brought his Paris Opera Ballet to tour the USA. The company was large. Its training seemed admirably uniform. Stylistically, though, many Americans found the dancing mannered . The choreography and dramaturgy, mostly by Lifar, seemed old fashioned compared to Antony Tudor s psychodramas or George Balanchine s neoclassicism. The Legat Legacy edited by Mindy Aloff.University Press of Florida, 2020.by Mary Cargillcopyright © 2020 by Mary CargillWith its rich list of books on dance history, technique and memoirs, The University Press of Florida has become the go to publisher for dance books. This recent work, a reprinting of the 1939 Ballet Russe: Memoirs of Nicolas Legat and the 1977 Heritage of a Ballet Master: Nicolas Legat under the title The Legat Legacy is a welcome addition.Self caricature by Nicolas Legat Ephrat Asherie Works Process at the Guggenheim LivestreamNew York, NYApril 26, 2020by Martha Shermancopyright © 2020 by Martha ShermanEven before the coronavirus crisis closed live performance in New York City, the Guggenheim’s “Works Process” series focused as much on artistic investigation as on finished performances. But artists now have new realms of challenge in their creative processes. Like many, Ephrat Asherie is trying not only to ensure her company can eventually come back to live performance, but also can keep dancing – vibrantly -- right now, even as the dangers of coronavirus demand social distancing. The company’s process of collaborative creation for “UnderScored” (still optimistically scheduled to culminate in a live commissioned performance at the Guggenheim in October 2020) was made transparent in their ZOOM event — and even joyous. Photo: Ephrat Asherie Company in ZOOM Open Rehearsal, UnderScored. Book: Edwin Denby – His Life, His Dance Essays, His PoetryAuthor: William DunasPublication: 2008 in Woodside, NY, USAby George Jackson(copyright 2020 by George Jackson) This home-made book is a proposal for producing a professionally printed book. The proposal consists of many un-numbered pages of text contained in a black 3-ring folder. The text is photocopied only on the frontside of each sheet of firm white paper. On the cover is the basic bibliographic information and a 1964 drawing by Red Grooms of Denby in profile - he is typing. Dunas calls the book a “publishing fellowship proposal manuscript”. It is unlikely that the proposed book will ever become actual, yet the proposal serves as an autobiography of Dunas and a biography of Denby. The Dunas portion is amusing, somewhat confusing and ultimately sad. The Denby part is substantial. Who was Dunas and who was Denby? Continue reading "Dunas's Denby" Everything DancesBook: “Alles tanzt” issued by Andrea AmortPublished in 2019 by Vienna’s Austrian Theater Museum and Berlin’s Hatje CantzThis big, weighty volume (almost 380 pages, 10.7 x 8.5 x 1.7 inches) has a German text with English summaries. In addition to the summaries, its plentiful and plush illustrations are proving to be of interest to those who do not read German. The book served as catalog for the exhibit “Cosmos of Vienna Dance Modernism”. As a self-contained item, “Alles tanzt/(Everything dances)” tackles many aspects of modernism in addition to dance and does so from the late 19th Century to nearly today. There are 3 forewords, 29 chapters and 4 addenda. The main chapters are divided into 3 sections: the structure or anatomy of the modernist scene (Part 1), the rupture of that scene (Part 2) and aftermaths (Part 3). Topics in addition to dance that are especially explored by the book’s diverse authors include women’s emancipation, psychology and psychoanalysis, and the political landscape. Romeo and Juliet The National Ballet of CanadaFour Seasons Centre for the Performing ArtsToronto, CanadaMarch 11, 2020by Denise Sumcopyright © 2020 by Denise SumBefore Toronto (and much of the world) went on lockdown, the National Ballet of Canada gave a spirited performance of Alexei Ratmansky s Romeo and Juliet . The original cast from the world premiere in 2011, Guillaume Côté and Elena Lobsanova, shone as the passionate yet doomed lovers. They were supported by a strong supporting ensemble, as well as by Ratmansky s evocative storytelling and energetic choreography. Two days after opening night, the remainder of the run was cancelled due to COVID-19. Elena Lobsanova and Guillaume Côté in Romeo and Juliet . Photo by Bruce Zinger. Hedi Politzer/Pitt/Pope was born 100 years ago on March 18 in Austria. She was a pupil of Vienna’s waltzing and ballet-based modern dancers (particularly of Ellinor Tordis, Hedy Pfundmayr and the internationally renowned Grete Wiesenthal) and can be seen in the 1937 film “Silhouetten”. She fled from Austria’s 1938 annexation by Nazi Germany to the United States, where she appeared as a leading dancer in “refugee revues” that introduced European cabaret to New York’s Broadway. She was told to forget her earlier dance training and become an American modern dancer. Is it possible, though, for the body to forget what it once danced? Hedi did acquire new skills in America, shortened her last name to Pitt and during World War 2 married an American sailor (William Pope). She founded CODA (Contemporary Dancers of Alexandria, Virginia), making it a prominent studio and company across the Potomac river from Washington, DC and, as Hedi Pope, directed it for decades. Hedi now lives at a retirement home in the mountains of North Carolina, near her daughter’s and son’s families. Happy 100th to you, Hedi! (see also the tribute to Hedi P in the March issue of the on-line Austrian dance publication tanz.at)

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