REVIEW: Back to New York City Ballet — with sets and intermissions!

isabella lafreniere, jovani furlan christopher wheeldon’s DGV: danse à grande vitesse Scenery! Intermissions! One takes these for granted – or used to. But experiencing them as part of New York City Ballet‘s opening night marked another step toward normalcy, after the company’s fall repertory season consisted of intermissionless programs featuring ballets that require no time-consuming ...
Tanowitz observed: critic’s notes on ‘Four Quartets’ at CAP UCLA

An artsy crowd showed up at Royce Hall Sunday afternoon to see Four Quartets, no doubt because of the rapturous reviews it got in London and New York and because of its heady combination of the arts: literature (TS Eliot’s poem of the title read with earthy finesse by Kathleen Chalfant); modernist painter Brice Marden’s ...
Be with Merce — in books, films & classes

498 Third Avenue, photo courtesy of James Klosty, “Merce Cunningham Redux“ Looking in the rear view mirror, it appears that no artist in our great century of American dance — the 20th — had a more revolutionary impact on the art form as did Merce Cunningham. His genius (it long endured; he lived and worked ...
Merce’s marvelous movie

Seen yesterday in Cunningham, the new Merce Cunningham documentary shot in 3-D by writer/director Alla Kovgan: imagery and brief excepts from “Summerspace,” the choreographer’s legendary ‘no-center’ ballet dating from 1958 and performed in Robert Rauschenberg’s pointillist costumes/decor to music by Morton Feldman. The film, which may bring the rarefied artist his most widespread exposure with ...
Merce & Co as beautiful museum pieces @ LACMA

They don’t make ’em like Merce Cunningham (1919 – 2009) anymore. And the dance world is the poorer for it. For those who did not have the distinct honor of face time with the great dancer/choreographer (I studied modern dance with ‘Merce’ as he was ubiquitously known in the dance world, and attended concerts by ...
Rauschenberg dance contributions recognized in live MoMA performance

Who’s going to New York? Oh, you already live there? Then get thee to MoMA on Wednesday, September 6, for a curated performance of mid-century dance masterworks at the vaunted MoMA Sculpture Garden twice that day. The dance program accompanies Robert Rauschenberg: Among Friends, the exhibit now on at the Museum through September 17. Rauschenberg ...
Rebecca Bruno’s walk around time at the Norton Simon Museum

I like costumes and coifed hair on dancers. Big thumbs up. That’s only one reason I so enjoyed dancer/choreographer Rebecca Bruno’s solo outing, “Unfinished” at the Norton Simon Museum last Saturday afternoon. The intriguing hour-long work set to cool music by Sam Widaman and atmospheric scenic design and lighting by Yann Novak also came equipped with ...
Merce at Black Mountain, revisited by L.A. Dance Project @ the Hammer

The Hammer Museum took on a Merce-ish mood, February 20, when L..A. Dance Project revitalized a classic Cunningham event to mark the opening of a new exhibition, Leap Before You Look: Black Mountain College 1933 – 1957. [In the photos, “Project” dancers Anthony Bryant and Lilja Rúriksdóttir.] Cunningham, along with artistic collaborator and life partner ...