The many modes of Chita Rivera

Dance
Let’s watch this great dancer/entertainer, Chita Rivera (1933-2024), do her thing in her 2005 show “The Dancer’s Life,” in which she pays homage to her choreographers, Jack Cole, Peter Gennaro, Bob Fosse, and Jerome Robbins. It is a brilliant montage impeccably performed. Rivera found this luminous path to continue to share her gifts well into ...

Death of a dancer: Kenneth Rinker 1

Dance
by 
ed. note: artsmeme wishes to especially thank dance writer Susan Reiter for her humanity in contributing this appreciation of the marvelous modern dancer/choreographer Ken Rinker. You may experience a taste of Kenneth in motion in this film’ed excerpt from “The Bix Pieces.” On a September evening in 1972, I had a dance epiphany that has ...

In loving memory of Emma Lewis Thomas, a champion of Los Angeles dance 6

Dance
ed. note: Emma Lewis Thomas, a beloved dance professional, a university professor, and woman of humor and true grit, died last Thursday at her home in Montana. A few words of loving memory of Lew here. Please feel free to add comments to the post. Please drop me a line if you would like to ...

Long live the leggy Ann Reinking 2

Dance
ann reinking (1949 – 2020) Why oh why couldn’t God make an exception? An exception to the rule that we all must die. Shouldn’t great dancers be exempt? Because it hurts so much when they pass away. In the video that follows, we see Ann Reinking, an Empress of Broadway — she died last week, ...

Death of a dancer: Elyse Borne

Dance
Elyse Borne, after a long battle with cancer, passed away December 16, 2019. After her career as a soloist with New York City Ballet, Ms. Borne further distinguished herself as one of the world’s foremost George Balanchine repetiteurs, and over a period of 20 years from 1996-2016 she staged, with permission of the George Balanchine ...

Death of a dancer: Lawrence Rhodes

Dance
Lawrence Rhodes, Brunilda Ruiz in “Time Out of Mind” – Harkness Ballet 1965 Michael Avedon photo courtesy Finis Jhung I first saw Lawrence Rhodes (1939-2019) dance with the Pennsylvania Ballet. Growing up in Pittsburgh, the company was a point of pride. The below photo is very much how I remember Rhodes’s dancing. His elegance, power, ...

In memoriam: ‘Still trying to get Paul Taylor’s jump right’

Dance
Ed. note: A guest writer, Sean Mahoney, pictured above, submitted this personal reminiscence of his work with the great iconoclastic choreographer Paul Taylor (1930 – 2018). Mahoney, who began his association with the Taylor organization in 1994, has been a member of Paul Taylor Dance Company since 2004. I was in rehearsal and Paul was ...

Death of a dancer: Peter Frame

Dance
Former New York City Ballet principal dancer Peter Frame, a beloved teacher and coach, performs the duet from Balanchine’s AGON with Victor Castelli. Frame, at right, died August 30, 2018 — sadly, the day after the passing away of Paul Taylor.   View this post on Instagram   A post shared by Kurt Froman (@kurtfroman) ...

Dear, departed Donald McKayle

Dance
Touching tribute photos of the beloved DONALD MCKAYLE (1930 – 2018), legendary dancer, choreographer, director and consummate teacher and mentor who perished aged 87 after a lengthy illness, April 7, 2018 — in Irvine, California.

Death of a dancer: Karin von Aroldingen (1941-2018) 3

Dance
If you love ballet … as I do … then it is with choking sadness (it is unbearably sad) to learn that we have lost the magisterial Balanchine ballerina Karin von Aroldingen who passed away at age 77 on January 5, 2018. She should not die. She was so utterly in control, at the same ...