Our Brazilian dance-friends, GRUPO CORPO, hit the Music Center stage
May
9
2025
It was a thrilling sight as a string of dancers in yellow unitards filtered onto the stage of the Ahmanson Theater, in a veritable chorus line. The work, “21,” by veteran choreographer Rodrigo Pederneiras, created in 1992 has become the international calling card of the wonderfully athletic Brazilian dance company, GRUPO CORPO. In a fitting ...
Get off that couch! Come celebrate Grupo Corpo at ‘Dance at the Music Center’
Most of us can relate. Last Saturday night, April 5, as the clock ticked toward curtain time for Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, I was wavering. A cloud of despair over the state of our nation weighed me down. The couch looked good. A glass of rose wine beckoned. Hell, I had half a bottle! ...
This week! Ailey Company in two rich, vital programs at The Music Center
Apr
1
2025
sacred songs, matthew rushingphoto: paul kolnik We’re spoiled rotten! Springtime at the Los Angeles Music Center brings an annual visit of our resident dance company, no less than Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. “Gorgeous,” “stellar” and body-beautiful” does not begin to describe the dancers of this historically important dance company, a beacon of Black excellence ...
Doubling down: MOMO, major Naharin work for Batsheva Dance Company, soon at Music Center
Jan
7
2025
“Sorrow and beauty” forms a bittersweet promise augured in Batsheva Dance Company‘s upcoming performances at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, February 14-16, in which a challenging-looking full-evening work dating to 2022 by choreographer Ohad Naharin, MOMO, will have its North American premiere. It is the first time the groundbreaking and influential national dance company of Israel ...
Dance of death and renewal by Pina Bausch at The Music Center
Jan
22
2024
How would you dance, if you knew you were going to die? This is the central question the late choreographer Pina Bausch (1940-2009) asked of her dancers in 1975 when she created her seminal work The Rite of Spring. The work examines an unyielding ritual in which the sacrifice of a “chosen one” changes the ...
Dancing with deer & birds: Dutch National Ballet’s ‘Frida’ at The Music Center reviewed
The deep fascination with the art and wrenching personal mythology of the great Mexican artist Frida Kahlo (1907- 54) found no better evidence than the fashion worn by the women of Los Angeles at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion this weekend for “Frida,” the bio-ballet choreographed by Annabelle Lopez Ochoa for the Dutch National Ballet. Donning ...
REVIEW: Paul Taylor repertory a miss in Music Center dance-season opener 2
Who signed off on the venerable Paul Taylor Dance Company’s repertory-mix shared with fans at the Los Angeles Music Center this weekend? What should have been a joyous Los Angeles reunion with one of the nation’s longest-lasting dance companies (it dates from 1954!) felt like modern-dance homework. This show, in its totality, did not connect. ...
REVIEW: Go to ‘Royal’ hell, in Wayne McGregor ballet
edward watson & artists of the royal ballet, photo: cheryl mann In the first of my two viewings of choreographer Wayne McGregor‘s explosive and brilliant dance collaboration with composer Thomas Ades and the Los Angeles Philharmonic, “The Dante Project Part 1 [Inferno]” danced by The Royal Ballet as a world premiere for Glorya Kaufman Presents ...
REVIEW: ‘Mayerling”s tornado at the Chandler
Kiss of Death: Natalia Osipova as Mary Vetsera, Ryoichi Hirano as Rudolf in Mayerling at the Royal Opera House. Photograph: Helen Maybanks Last night, at 8:20 pm, most of Los Angeles experienced a 7.1-magnitude earthquake. But those viewing Kenneth McMillan‘s sprawling historic dance-drama, Mayerling, performed by the Royal Ballet at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion of ...
Pick: Diavolo at the Music Center
There’s a dizzying amount of dance going on the next few weekends, as it is the height of the fall season. But if you really want to travel to dizzying heights, consider the upcoming offering of Glorya Kaufman Presents Dance at the Music Center, Diavolo | Architecture in Motion at the Ahmanson Theatre. Diavolo Artistic ...