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Tuesday January 24, 2012 – “The best-laid plans…” I was planning to attend both nights of the annual Dance from the Heart programmes at Cedar Lake Theater but the ominous message “…due to a police investigation” came over the loudspeaker as the train I was on sat in the tunnel just south of 181st Street. Twenty minutes later we pulled into 168th; I should have switched to the #1 there but we quickly proceeded…into the tunnel where we sat for another ten minutes. By the time we reached 145th it was clear I’d never get down to Chelsea by curtain time. Trying to get home then was equally frustrating, due to a “sick passenger”.  Not a good night for the MTA.

But I did get to Cedar Lake for the second night. Mixed-bag dance evenings are not really my cup of tea; there was exciting dancing all evening but from a musical and choreographic standpoint only about half the works on offer were of interest to me.

The opening VIDA from Cecilia Marta Dance Company was jazzy, nicely lit and danced with a suggestive sway. In the duet Falling, of course Misty Copeland and Matthew Prescott looked great dancing together, but the schlocky arrangement of an Elvis Presley classic was not very inspiring. Why not use The King’s own version?

It wasn’t til Clifton Brown and Kana Kimura stepped onstage to dance a duet from Jessica Lang’s i.n.k. that the evening really perked up for me: Clifton and Kana (Kokyat’s studio photo above) look wonderful together and their dancing is compelling and poetic. The Jakub Ciupinski score and the Shinichi Maruyama filmed projection enhanced the choreography and the dancing, making this all of a piece.

Sustaining the high level set by the Lang, four dancers from Paul Taylor Dance Company performed an excerpt from Paul Taylor’s PIAZZOLLA CALDERA: a pair of torridly expressive duets, the first for two men (Jeffrey Smith and Michael Apuzzo) and the second for Michelle Fleet and Michael Trusnovec. This quartet of dance royalty whetted the appetite for the upcoming Taylor season at Lincoln Center, as if further whetting was needed. Bravi!

The evening ended on a festive note with Jeremy McQueen’s CONCERTO NUOVO, a setting of Bach’s music most familiar in its Balanchine incarnation as CONCERTO BAROCCO. The all-women ensemble seemed like vivacious contemporary cygnets in their short ruffled white frocks, and each brought a distinctive personality to Jeremy’s visual polyphony. As this lively finale drew to an end, champagne was served.

Lovely to see Arlene Cooper, Rachel Berman, Jessica Lane, Kanji Segawa, Jeremy McQueen, Lynda Senisi and Caleb Custer among the crowd. How fine it is that Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet put their superb venue and their staff at the disposal of the Dancers Responding to AIDS team for this annual event. One more reason to love Cedar Lake!

Tuesday November 29, 2012 – For the past year, choreographer Andrea Gise (above) has been creating a series of dance solos at a rate of one per month. Tonight at the Red Bean Studios, she unveiled the results of this project. In addition to new choreography, each solo was performed to new music.

Scanning the list of participating dancers and composers I was surprised to see only two familiar names: Christina Ilisije (of Parsons Dance) and composer/performer Marlon Cherry, so there were lots of new movers and music makers to meet. Waiting for the performance to begin, the atmosphere was casual: dancers warmed up or mingled with the composers and audience members, removing the boundary between performer and viewer. A couple of the dancers ran thru their solos. Then everyone settled down to watch.

Two of the solos were presented on film, the rest performed live. The dancers wore simple practice clothes and the lighting was uncomplicated; all focus was on the dance and the music. Certain movement elements ran threadlike thru the various solos; the dancers utilized the space in varying capacities from work to work. One solo flowed into the next as each dancer stepped into the space. This was dance in its most immediate and pure form.

The variety of music was impressive; Andrea spoke later of having made a lot of the choreography without reference to the completed scores. That surprised me since so much of the evening seemed like a happy marriage of movement and sound.

It’s maybe a bit unfair to single out individual performances since everyone participating – both dancers and composers – made fine individual impressions. But I don’t think anyone would begrudge mention of Pat Catterson’s performance of fight v. flight, the longest of the solos. Pat was the only dancer “over 30” among the cast and her solo was both physically demanding and emotionally varied.

In Christina Ilisije’s solo bad cog, the dancer showed her trademark fluency of movement to a percussive/industrial score (with electrc guitar coming in later) by Philip Knowlton. Marlon Cherry’s opening piano theme evolved into moody, jazzy music while the lovely Remi Harris made her moves dovetail to the rhythmic patterns: this was image control. Two solos for men found Andrea Gise’s choreography at its most inventive: a sleep-study called non-disclosure act danced by Joshua Tuason, and a brilliant theatrical vignette entitled slick, performed by Felix Hess. From among the colorful palette of music we were hearing, Kristen Kairos’ work for two flutes was especially evocative as danced by Jennifer Eisenberg in quell. 

The other dancers on the programme were Joanie Johnson and Joey Kipp (both on film), Ryan McNally (who opened the live show with a strong performance), and three distinctively beautiful women: Morgelyn Tarbeth-Ward, Ali Skye Bennett and Zoe Blake.

In a Q & A at the end of the presentation, Andrea spoke of first being influenced by her reactions to the Gulf oil spill when undertaking this project: not just the spill itself but the resulting media coverage and efforts by government agencies to downplay the situation. We who had watched the dancing mentally began to filter back thru the evening to make connections between the dance and the theme. The seemingly abstract danceworks then took on other layers of meaning. She was wise, though, not to reveal too much until we’d seen the performance, thus allowing everyone to find their own reference points among the movement and the music.

Tuesday November 22, 2011 – Soprano Hei-Kyung Hong sang her first Met Mimi in 1987. Tonight, nearly a quarter-century later, she was repeating her classic interpretation. Along with Liu in TURANDOT, Mimi is a role that Ms. Hong has put her very personal stamp upon over the years. Photo by Cory Weaver/Metropolitan Opera.

The Korean soprano’s voice remains a pure lyric instrument; over the years she never attempted to move into spinto territory and so the sound retains its shimmering silvery quality. Those who like big, lush outpourings of tone in Mimi’s music should look elsewhere: Hong’s Mimi is vocally delicate, vulnerable and wistful, as befits the character’s health and situation. She has long-since mastered the art of expressive portamento and of shading the words with emotional demi-tints. Thus in her long Act I narrative ‘Mi chiamano Mimi’ we are drawn into the story of this poignant character whose illness and poverty have not dampened her love of life and her constant hope for rebirth every Springtime. 

“I live alone, quite alone…
There in my little white room
I look out upon the roofs and the Winter sky.
But when the thaw comes
The first sunshine is mine…
The first kiss of April is mine!”

Interrupted by Rodolfo’s friends calling from below, the poet turns to see Mimi standing in the moonlit squalor of the garrett:

“Oh lovely girl, oh sweet face
bathed in the soft moonlight.
In you I recognize
the vision of love I’ve always dreamed of!”

For those of us who still believe in love at first sight, this is the moment. As Mimi and Rodolfo leave arm in arm for the Cafe Momus, Hong’s long high-C floats into the House, and you think it can’t get any better than this.

But it does: Hong’s third act is a masterpiece of vocal and dramatic portraiture. In a wintry setting near the Barriere d’Enfer, Mimi comes in search of her estranged lover, hoping Marcello will know where she can find him. The desperate fragility of Hong’s singing in the duet with Marcello, where her illness and her impending fate tear away at the painter’s kind heart was so moving, surpassed moments later as the soprano sang ‘Addio senza rancor’, her simple and humble farewell to Rodolfo who she thinks she will never see again.

The romance is salvaged though: they will stay together until April comes again. But this will be Mimi’s final Springtime. After further quarrels and another separation, Rodolfo despairs of ever seeing her again. But Mimi comes back to the garret in the end, to die. As the other Bohemians go off to find medicine, a muff for her cold hands, and a doctor, the dying Mimi tenderly comforts her distraught lover. After a final lyric outpouring, Hong’s voice ebbs away to whispers as she falls asleep for the last time.

Dmitri Pittas was the evening’s Rodolfo and while he could not match his Mimi in terms of vocal finesse or expressiveness, his appealing portrayal of a passionate young man unsure of himself and his new-found romantic feelings, was touching. The interesting dynamic created by the soprano and tenor tonight was that she was the one with a romantic history and he was the novice, trying to deal in reality with emotions he had previously only expressed in his poetry. Pittas has an appealing, Italianate sound and if he could not match the likes of a Pavarotti, a Corelli or a Tucker in this music, he gave his all in a committed performance that – dove-tailed with Ms. Hong’s tenderness and delicacy – generated an atmosphere of intimate romance.

An outstanding vocal performance tonight from Alexey Markov. As the painter Marcello, the baritone upheld the excellent impression he had made as Chorebus in LES TROYENS at Carnegie Hall in March 2010. The voice is warm, sizeable and speaks well in the big House. We should hear him at the Met more frequently, where is would be most welcome in any number of roles.

The other singers in this evening’s performance all fared well: Susanna Phillips was an engaging Musetta, though I wish she had done more singing and less ‘characterization’ during her famous Waltz where there was too much vocal mugging and winking and not enough sheer voce. She was better in the opera’s last two acts. Basso Matthew Rose, towering over the rest of the cast physically, sang his Coat Aria very well, and Patrick Carfizzi was a good Schaunard. It seemed to me that the philosopher and the musician might be lovers in the current staging though comic hijinx served as a cover for their embraces – until the end. Christian Jeong was a clear-voiced Parpignol; the toy-vendor now has an elaborate horse-drawn cart with which to lure in the kiddies. 

On the podium Louis Langree seemed to favor slowish tempi but that simply served to allow the perfume of certain phrases to linger on the air. Despite moments when he allowed the orchestra to cover his essentially lyric cast of singers, the conductor and his orchestra did much to enhance the poetic atmosphere that the principal couple onstage were generating.

Curtain-rise at Cafe Momus still evokes a big round of applause but the current staging has diluted some of the effectivenes of the scene. Several waiters and customers spent much of their time on the floor, trying to look up Musetta’s skirts. 

Metropolitan Opera House
November 22, 2011

LA BOHÈME
Giacomo Puccini

Mimì....................Hei-Kyung Hong
Rodolfo.................Dimitri Pittas
Musetta.................Susanna Phillips
Marcello................Alexey Markov
Schaunard...............Patrick Carfizzi
Colline.................Matthew Rose
Benoit..................Paul Plishka
Alcindoro...............Paul Plishka
Parpignol...............Christian Jeong
Sergeant................Jason Hendrix
Officer.................Richard Pearson

Conductor...............Louis Langrée

I’ll never forget my first experience with listening to the whole of LA BOHEME in a Metropolitan Opera Texaco radio broadcast in January 1962. Lucine Amara and Barry Morell were Mimi and Rodolfo; my most vivid recollection of that performance was experiencing the opera’s final scene as the winter twilight descended outside. I was alone in the big house, just as I was alone in my life at that time. But I was beginning to get a sense for what was ahead for me: romance, passion, a more expansive world where I could be myself. It took years and many setbacks, but I did eventually find my path.

I don’t look much like a lover these days, but the feelings are all still there. Maybe that’s why I always weep as Mimi awakens briefly from her death-like rest to bid a final farewell to Rodolfo:

Are they gone? I was only pretending to sleep –
because I wanted to be left alone with you.
I have so many things I want to tell you,
but really only thing: as huge as the ocean,
deep and infinite as the sea…
You are my love and my whole life!

Some of my long-time opera friends wonder why I still bother going to performances. It’s for moments like these. And for voices like Hei-Kyung Hong‘s.

Erik Larson’s thought-provoking non-fiction work IN THE GARDEN OF BEASTS reads like a novel. It tells the story of William E Dodd, appointed by President Franklin D Roosevelt as the American ambassador to Berlin in 1933 – at the time when Hitler was consolidating his powers and the Nazi menace was just beginning to get its stranglehold on Germany. Above, the enforced boycotting of Jewish businesses – here the famous Tietz Department Store in Berlin – was an early portent of things to come.

One of the main problems facing an American ambassador in Germany at the time was the need to get the German government to start paying back $1.2 billion in loans that the US had extended to them. That’s one of the reasons that some of Roosevelt’s choices for the job had turned it down.

Roosevelt reportedly joked: “It would serve Hitler right if I sent a Jew to Berlin.” The pro-Jewish FDR presidency was sometimes referred to as ‘the Rosenberg administration’. Anti-Semitism was widespread in the USA at the time, though rarely publicly expressed. 40% of the population felt that the Jews “had too much power in the USA” while 20% actually wanted them driven out of the country. The majority of Americans were against raising immigration quotas to accommodate Jews fleeing the signs of impending danger in Europe. 95% of Americans were also opposed to any US involvement in another foreign war.

William Dodd had no diplomatic experience; he was a scholar writing a four-volume book about the Old South when the President – having ticked preferred names off his list – offered Dodd the Berlin post. Dodd had lived and studied in Leipzig and it was thought that his German-language skills would be a plus. Dodd reluctantly accepted Roosevelt’s urgent plea and he embarked for Germany on July 5, 1933 with his wife and his two grown children.

Arriving in Berlin, Dodd and his family installed themselves in rather modest quarters eschewing the more grandiose life style favored by most emissaries to Berlin. They found the city charming, and on the surface saw no signs of the rumored violence and thuggery of the rising Nazi movement.

Martha, Dodd’s daughter (above), was something of a beauty. Her circle of friends in the US included Thornton Wilder and Carl Sandburg; she continued to correspond with them from Berlin. She entered enthusiastically into the city’s social whirl and was soon meeting and even dating prominent Nazis; she had an on-going affair with Rudolf Diels, head of the Gestapo.

But one day, on an holiday excursion to Nuremberg, Martha and her friends observed the upsetting humiliation of a young woman, Anna Rath, being dragged nearly naked and head-shaven, thru the streets by a gang of brown-shirted SA troopers. Around her neck was hung a sign: “I wanted to marry a Jew!”

As an increasing number of such incidents developed, some involving even Americans who were either Jewish or mistaken for Jews, Dodd found himself slowly becoming disillusioned. There were beatings, arrests, people removed into “protective custody” in the dead of night. The rights, privileges and property of Jews were being systematically taken away. If Dodd lodged formal protests, they were met with apologies and promises from government officials that the culprits would be punished. But the downward spiral continued.

Martha meanwhile became more aware of the machinations and graspings for power among the Nazi leaders when her lover Diels was briefly exiled over a conflict with Heinrich Himmler. One prominent Nazi went so far as to suggest that Martha would be “the perfect woman for Hitler” but then went on to say that the Fuhrer was “an absolute neuter, not a man…” 

It was finally the Night of Long Knives in July 1934 that made Dodd realize there was no stopping the Nazi behemoth. The US government was as unhappy with Dodd’s work in Berlin as he was in being so far from his beloved farm in Virginia and his languishing writing project. Twice Dodd had returned to his farm for sabbaticals; as 1937 came to a close it was mutually agreed between him and Roosevelt that the ambassadorship was ill-suited to Dodd. He suddenly ‘retired’, vanishing from the Berlin scene with little fanfare.

Upon hearing of Dodd’s departure, a Nazi official chided “the retiring ambassador’s habitual lack of comprehension of the new Germany.”

In 1938, Dodd summarized his view of the Germany he had experienced as being of a time and place where “all the people who might oppose the regime have been absolutely silenced. The central idea behind it is to make the rising generation worship their chief and get ready to ‘save civilization’ from the Jews, from Communism and from democracy — thus preparing the way for a Nazified world where all freedom of the individual, of education, and of the churches is to be totally suppressed.”

Dodd died in 1940 having finished only one volume of his book, Old South.

Tuesday September 27, 2011 – When I first read that New York City Ballet were going to stage a work “composed”* by Sir Paul McCartney, the notion seemed so yesterday. The famous former Beatle, who created many beloved pop songs decades ago, has never been considered a serious force in the contemporary classic music genre. Alex Ross nails it in this review of the CD of this latest McCartney score.

Who needs another story ballet in this day and age? Boy meets girl…again? (How about boy meets boy?)  I suppose it can still work: Christopher Wheeldon’s ESTANCIA had a fresh telling of the boy/girl story but it was far more succinctly told – and with better sets and costumes and far better music – than in  OCEAN’S KINGDOM.

Peter Martins is frequently maligned as being a second-rate choreographer; working in the house that Balanchine built, it’s unlikely that any current choreographer could succeed to the mantle of Mr B without coming in for heavy criticism. Myself, I like a lot of Peter’s ballets and I never dismiss them out of hand. However, a key element in the success of a Martins ballet is always the music that he chooses. His best works (in my estimation) – MORGEN, BURLESKE, OCTET, TALA GAISMA, HALLELUJAH JUNCTION, FRIANDISES, FEARFUL SYMMETRIES, BARBER VIOLIN CONCERTO, JEU DE CARTES, MIRAGE, LES GENTILHOMMES, CHICHESTER PSALMS – all have one thing in common: they are set to great or at least very interesting music. I’m always happy to see these works being programmed at NYCB.

So here’s the lethal combination that sinks OCEAN’S KINGDOM: too much middling music is applied to a banal plot which leaves the choreographer with the stick end of the lollipop. The score starts off quite beautifully, actually. But it soon becomes evident that there is way too much music that is repetitive or goes nowhere. Each of the ballet’s four scenes is about 5 minutes too long. This requires the choreographer to make too much ‘filler’ dancing and stage business. Gorgeous as Sara Mearns and Robert Fairchild are, we get tired of their long, swoony duets because they go on and on. OK, we know they love each other…how much embrace/lift/swoon do we need to see? But what else can you do to ‘their’ music?  I feel certain Peter would have wanted to avoid asking Sir Paul to make cuts, so he’s strapped with the task of creating movement to faceless, ambling music. No wonder his choreography for this piece is coming in for so much criticism. 

The contrived plot hinges on the character Scala (superb dancing and acting from Georgina Pazcoguin) who betrays her mistress, allowing the princess to be kidnapped. Since we don’t really know Scala’s motivation, we are puzzled; then just as inexplicably, Scala turns remorseful and tries to undo what she’s done. What choreographer could makes sense out of this, especially with such vapid music to work with?  

Then there are the costumes, by Sir Paul’s daughter Stella. They are, in a word, ugly. And extremely unflattering to the dancers. The lighting is quite good, especially the beams of light that create Princess Honorata’s prison cell. The rising of the moon is pretty nice.  

Tonight, it seemed a very long and winding road to get to the end of Ocean’s Kingdom. If I fell for any aspect of the ballet, it was the dancing. But the dancers – some of the greatest movers on Earth – needed far more help from composer and choreographer than they received. But: let it be…they did their best under the circumstances.

As the 50-minute ballet crawled to a close I felt like a fool for having devoted my time to watching it. My basic reaction to Ocean’s Kingdom was: I don’t want to see it again. The bottom line is – as I have so often said – you cannot make a really good dancework to mediocre music. While the house seemed nearly full there was no enthusiasm to speak of; the dancers took one set of bows to dutiful applause. A lone voice yelled bravas for Sara and Gina. And Amar Ramasar was an audience favorite, understandably. After the show, I wanted to buy Amar, Christian Tworzyanski, Daniel Ulbricht, Megan LeCrone, Craig Hall, Savannah Lowery and Emily Kikta each a beer for them to cry in. Then there were Anthony Huxley, Allen Peiffer and David Prottas as the Drunken Lords (“drunk as lords”…get it?)…what a waste of three handsome, talented guys.  

Most reviews of the piece have seemed to state that the music is OK or better than OK and that the choreography is uninspired. I would say: the music is as uninspired as the scenario and thus, so is the ballet. I really do not think any choreographer could craft something truly impressive to this score; it might make decent background music for a documentary film about the sinking of the Achille Lauro or some such nautical disaster.

More could be said but, what’s the point? The reviews (example) have been ho-hum at best, negative at worst. What annoys me more than anything else about OCEAN’S KINGDOM is all the time and effort the dancers had to put into getting this ballet onstage. NYCB have now had two high-profile flops in a row: SEVEN DEADLY SINS and OCEAN’S KINGDOM. No matter how many tickets were sold to these ballets, or how much money the respective galas raised, artistically there were lacklustre in everything but the dancing. Perhaps it’s time to stop trying to haul in the pop/rock crowd or the Broadway audience (largely tourist trade anyway) and concentrate on what NYC Ballet are famous for: neo-classical ballet.

* I use the word “composed” generously; like many pop music writers, McCartney reportedly cannot read or write music in the sense of a Stravinsky or a Brahms. The Playbill shows that Sir Paul had the help of both an arranger (John Wilson) and an orchestrator (Andrew Cottee); in those circumstances anyone with a sense of rhythm and melody could be deemed a composer. Elgar and Britten must be shaking their heads, somewhere in Heaven.

DISPLACED is a dancer-portrait series being created by photographer Matthew Murphy. Above: Matt’s image of one of the participating dancers, New York City Ballet‘s Wendy Whelan, a great favorite of both Matthew and myself. (I have an especially fond memory of the day Matt came with me to photograph Wendy teaching class at MMAC.) 

David Hallberg, danseur supreme and very much in the news of late, is another of Matt’s subjects in this series.

I asked Matt to tell us a bit about this project:

Matt is presently raising money via Kickstarter to fund the Dance New Amsterdam exhibit. You can make a donation to the project here.

Update: Although Matt has already reached his Kickstarter goal, you can continute to donate. And I hope you will!

Saturday August 20, 2011 – Kokyat and I dropped in at City Center studios this afternoon where TAKE Dance were wrapping up their 2011 Summer Intensive with a showcase performance for friends and fans of the Company. Above: student ensemble in Jill Echo’s latest creation, photo by Kokyat.

Above: Kaitlin Accetta, one of thirty-three young dancers who participated in the Intensive program; all of them performed at the showcase today. Three groups of eleven dancers each danced the fast-paced and demanding Breaking News segment from Take’s recent evening-length work SALARYMAN. The Company’s assistant director Jill Echo and dancer Kile Hotchkiss each presented excerpts from works-in-progress.

The dancers kept up with the extraordinary demands of Breaking News, each cast winning strong applause for their energy and commitment. Jill and Kile divided the students (Lynda Senisi of the Company stepping into Jill’s piece to even things out) for the works they were creating.

Music from The Glitch Mob sets the scene for the Kile Hotchkiss piece (above) which explores the state of lucid dreaming. I’ve been reading about this phenomenon since seeing Ja’ Malik’s work on the same subject. Interestingly, lucid dreams can often follow periods of intense physical activity which is perhaps why dancers are fascinated with the concept.

Jill Echo’s work, which opens with a slow ‘awakening’ motif (above), is set to music by Damian Eckstein. It’s good to see both Jill and Kile working with large groups, developing structural patterns  and responding clearly to the music. I hope they will each continue to develop the works shown today.

More of Kokyat’s images from today’s presentation:

Angel Rodriguez, Alison Kimmel

Breaking News ensemble

Breaking News

Yuki Fukui (center) in Breaking News

Emily McDaniel

Brynt Beitman, Emily McDaniel

Emily & Brynt

Tyler DuBoys

All together at the end of the presentation

So nice to see the TAKE Dancers again: Jill, Kile, Kristin Arnold, Gina Ianni, Nana Tsuda Misko and Milan Misko, John Eirich, Lynda Senisi and of course The Man himself: Take – who stayed behind the video camera the whole time.

Upcoming on TAKE Dance‘s New York City calendar is a second collaboration with PULSE, with performances at the Cunningham Studio December 15th thru 17th. More details will be forthcoming,

Saturday July 23, 2011 – Choreographer Laura Ward (Kokyat’s portrait, above) is creating a new work for the FringeNYC Festival 2011. Entitled THE DREAMING, the work could be viewed as a sequel to Laura’s Echoes and Dreams, with which it shares certain motifs. Echoes and Dreams was presented by her Company (Octavia Cup) in May 2010 at The Secret Theater.

Kokyat and I dropped in at the wonderful Gibney Dance Center this afternoon to see what Laura has been working on. It was a swelteringly hot day but the studio was surprisingly comfortable. The dancers (all women) were just about to do a complete run-thru of the piece which, with typically subtle Laura Ward wit, runs the gamut from toe shoes to hooker heels. 

Michel Ayello’s score allows for a range of moods from pensive, sisterly partnering to high-kicking chorus line. As in any dream, the fragments of various strands of memory entwine and evolve without rhyme or reason – the girls change swiftly from pointe to pumps – but the overall impression is cohesive.

We knew some of the dancers from previous performances and it was nice seeing them again. Jen Barrer-Gall (above), who we’ve met thru her work with Columbia Ballet Collaborative and with choreographer Emery LeCrone at PS-1.

Jen, Laura, Cassie Roberts, Natalia Wodnicka

Cindy Bernier, Jen Barrer-Gall, Georgina Aragon, Laura Ward, Nana Hitomi, Cassie Roberts

Jann Barrer-Gall

Nana Hitomi

All photos by Kokyat.

Performance Information:

The Dreaming
Laura Ward/Octavia Cup Dance Theatre
Writer: Sheila Ward and Octavia Cup, Music by Michel Ayello
Choreographer: Laura Ward
High heels and pointe shoes cloud stomp through the subconscious borderlands between waking and sleeping in The Dreaming, an expressionistic trip on a mare of the night.   
www.octaviacup.org   
VENUE #12: 4th Street Theatre
Sat 13 @ 5:45  Thu 18 @ 8:15  Fri 19 @ 10  Sun 21 @ 8:30  Mon 22 @ 3:15  Wed 24 @ 2 

Jaume Plensa’s ECHO is currently on display at Madison Square Park. The giant sculpture strikes me as a contemporary take on the ancient stoneworks on Easter Island. Read about the artist here.

Saturday May 28, 2011 – After watching Roman Baca’s HOMECOMING aboard the USS Intrepid, Kokyat and I went over to the DANY Studios where dancers from 360° Dance Company were in rehearsal for their upcoming performances at Dance Theater Workshop. The Company will present five works including a New York premiere entitled What was Still Is choreographed by Martin Lofsnes. Choreographers from Mexico, Norway and Italy will be represented. The performances are June 2nd – 4th. Information here.

New York is a city filled with beautiful dancers and today we had the pleasure of meeting two of them, Martin Lofsnes and Danelle Morgan, for the first time. Martin Lofnes has danced with the Martha Graham Company from 1993 to 2006 dancing principal roles in the Graham classics; he has also worked with Pearl Lang, Matthew Bourne and Maurice Bejart, and he serves on the faculty of The Ailey School.

Martin spoke to me briefly about choreographer Jane Dudley and then launched immediately into a solo created by Ms. Dudley in 1934 entitled Time is Money. Set to a spoken text, the solo looks as fresh and meaningful as if it were just choreographed this morning. Martin’s spacious and fluid style seizes the imagination at once.

Martin Lofsnes rehearsing Jane Dudley’s Time Is Money.

In the duet Que Color Tiene El Amor (What Is The Colour of Love?), choreographed by Ricardo Flores, the strikingly attractive Danelle Morgan was a splendid match for Martin in terms of vivid lyricism and dramatic nuance. I’ve seen an awful lot of wonderful dancers at close range in their studios these past couple of years but Martin and Danelle really had something to say to me today. Their dancing continually gave me those little rushes of emotion that make my quest of pursuing the city’s best movers and shapers so rewarding.

The programme for 360° Dance Company’s performances at Dance Theater Workshop further includes a second work by Jane Dudley: Cante Flamenco, and Alessandra Prosperi’s Satsang. The new Lofsnes work, What Was Still Is, is set for six dancers to a score compiled from Middle Eastern, Mexican, Spanish and American works.

Rehearsal photos by Kokyat.