post sponsored by the Carpenter Center
Complexions brings dances for ‘now’ to Long Beach
Complexions Contemporary Ballet performing WOKE. photo: Nina Wurtzel Complexions Contemporary Ballet continues to prod, provoke, and entertain. When choreographer Dwight Rhoden and dance-superstar Desmond Richardson co-founded their rainbow coalition of a ballet troupe in 1994, it took hold. Spurred by their mentor Alvin Ailey, the two men staked their claim on the power of dance ...
Millepied’s disjunctive ‘I fall…’ exposes choreographer’s weakness
L.A. Dance Project, disjunctive, disconnected, photo by l.a. dance project A harrowing drive across dark, slick, and unmarked Washington Boulevard in pelting rain went unrewarded by enduring Benjamin Millepied’s “I Fall, I Flow, I Melt,” a 75-minute, intermission-less dance performance by L.A. Dance Project performed in the round at the company’s newish headquarters named for ...
Despondence emerges in choreographic language
The culture is in upheaval; most everyone admits and discusses it. Artists, of course, feel it acutely — as do we all. It’s a conversation that best takes place in communities. One place is with an audience, at a theater. But how to translate these profound feelings, which seem so contingent on verbiage, into a ...
Ticket to dance, courtesy of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater
During the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater‘s winter season in New York, ticketed dancegoers should hang onto their ducats! For 60 days following the Ailey performance you attend, your stub will be good for one free class at the Ailey Extension program. Those classes happen in the company’s glam, window-walled, mid-Manhattan building. You’ll get to ...
Stellar dance company keeps Martha Graham forever young
Apr
20
2015
Wow, Martha Graham. Your excellence, exactitude and relevance entered a new era as the vigorous and beautifully trained dancers of Martha Graham Dance Company simply shined in a well-selected repertory evening, Saturday, at Valley Performing Arts Center. Onto the generous and beautifully lit VPAC stage, before a notably rapt, sold-out audience, paraded the latest crop ...
REVIEW: Ballerina Wendy Whelan, restless for a reason 2
At left, an iconic photograph of George Balanchine partnering Suzanne Farrell in “Don Quixote” for New York City Ballet. Wendy Whelan/Restless Creature, which we enjoyed Saturday evening in Long Beach, brought to mind this historic pairing — a great choreographer dancing with his muse. The four-ballet program, premiered in 2013 at Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival, ...
September’s dance reckoning in Los Angeles
Aug
20
2014
For kids, September means back to school; for Jews, it’s the High Holidays. For dance lovers, an impossible surplus — even a Sophie’s Choice — of hot hot hot dance performances one September weekend. All augur certain fun, and because we’re in southern California each option combines nicely with an outdoor picnic. Nettlesome choices for dance fans! Fri ...
BODYTRAFFIC to share wares at Jacob’s Pillow
Dec
5
2012
Some hugely happy news, we’ve learned that L.A.’s hard-dancing, home-grown repertory dance troupe, BODYTRAFFIC, now in its fifth year, will perform next summer at Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival. The Pillow, whose tony hilltop campus in the Berkshires houses two theaters, a summer dance program, picnicking grounds and a wonderful archives, has hosted a huge swathe ...
MJ dances 2
When Michael Jackson died in June 2009, I was attending a three-week symposium for dance critics run by the National Endowment for the Arts at Duke University — an honor. This so-called dance criticism “Institute,” staged annually at the American Dance Festival, was think-tank focused on dance as an art form — geared for specialists ...
Jack Cole danced in Pittsburgh 1
Rummaging around the Internet, I found this priceless image of a program dating from the Nixon Theatre in my home town of Pittsburgh. [click image for detail] The Nixon Theatre was the top game in town — the place where circa 1971 I saw naked hippies writhe on stage in “Hair.” Not surprisingly, the hard-working ...