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☆ For 50 Years Ailey II Has Been a Proving Ground, Not Just for Dance
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-01 | by ( Brian Seibert | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Ailey II, the second company of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, turns 50 this year. Since its creation, some things have remained consistent: It has always served as a bridge between student and professional life. “It’s a pressure cooker,” said Francesca Harper, who has been the artistic director of Ailey II since 2021. Between classes, rehearsals and an extensive touring schedule that combines performances with lecture-demonstrations and master classes, those years are tough. “Alvin often called it a kind of finishing school,” said Sylvia Waters, who was the company’s artistic director from the beginning until 2012.

Persons: Ailey, Alvin Ailey, ”, Francesca Harper, Alvin, Sylvia Waters, Harper, Troy Powell Organizations: Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Joyce Theater, Ailey School Locations: Waters

☆ A Second Act for Ballet in Iran?
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-25 | by ( Brian Seibert | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

As the ballet dancers moved through the familiar rituals of their daily class, they tried to ignore the gunshots and explosions outside. It was 1979, and Iran was in the midst of a revolution that would overthrow the ruling Shah and turn the country into an Islamic republic. The dancers were the last few members of the Iranian National Ballet. On a recent video call from her home in Herndon, Va., she recalled what happened next: the National Ballet, which had been founded in 1958 and had grown and flourished, ended. “All of the foreign dancers in the company had already left,” she said.

Persons: Bahareh Sardari, ” Organizations: Iranian National Ballet, National Ballet Locations: Iran, Herndon , Va, Islamic Republic

☆ Review: They Fly. They Spin. They Change How You See the Amazing.
▼ + stars: | 2024-01-24 | by ( Brian Seibert | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Inverted, they spin on one or both hands or on their heads, legs spiraling. Upright, they bound into the air, as if off trampolines, ball up their bodies and rapidly rotate in high-flying arcs. What for other dancers might be show-off steps are integrated into a poetic vision, a different way of being. Like all the works the company has performed in New York, this is very much an ensemble piece. For 75 minutes, its 18 dancers never leave the stage.

Persons: Koubi’s “ Sol Invictus, Van Cleef Organizations: Hervé, New York, Joyce Locations: Koubi’s, New, New York

☆ Bringing a Diversity of Hip-Hop Dance to the Concert Stage
▼ + stars: | 2024-01-16 | by ( Brian Seibert | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Fifty years into the history of hip-hop, street to stage transfers remain tricky. Hip-hop dance is diverse and globally dominant, but when it’s put on concert stages, something often gets lost. Over the past two weekends, the city’s newest theater, the marble cube of the Perelman Performing Arts Center, hosted “Motion/Matter,” a festival of street dance. The four dancers of Supa Rich Kids — from Ivory Coast, Nigeria and Spain, led by Oulouy — began caked in white powder, two inert on the ground, the third dragging the limp body of the fourth. Then they changed into wild outfits, screamed “African party!” and pulled members of the audience into the dance.

Persons: it’s, “, ”, Supa, Oulouy —, James Brown Organizations: Perelman Performing Arts Center, “ Afrikan Party Locations: Africa, Europe, Asia, Ivory Coast, Nigeria, Spain

☆ ‘Buena Vista Social Club,’ a Story of Second Chances, Gets One More
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-22 | by ( Brian Seibert | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

In 1996, a recording session was scheduled in Havana combining Cuban and Malian musicians, but the Africans had visa trouble and didn’t arrive. So instead, an assemblage of veteran Cuban musicians, some coming out of long retirement, recorded a collection of classic Cuban songs. This was “Buena Vista Social Club,” which became not just the best-selling Cuban album ever but also a defining artifact of Cuban culture beloved around the world. And now, almost 30 years later, there is a stage musical: “Buena Vista Social Club,” in previews at the Off Broadway Atlantic Theater Company. This newest project started a few years back, when a producer with the theatrical rights to the album approached the Cuban American playwright Marco Ramirez (“The Royale”).

Persons: didn’t, Wim Wenders, Marco Ramirez, “, ” Ramirez, ’ Organizations: Buena Vista Social, Carnegie Hall, ”, Broadway Atlantic Theater Company Locations: Havana, Cuban, Malian, Buena, Cuban American

☆ At Paul Taylor, a Drum Circle and a Fierce Sisterhood
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-06 | by ( Brian Seibert | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

It’s easy to imagine what Keigwin was after: introducing the noise-making excitation of a percussive score and flaunting its liveness. For a better use of a percussive score, Taylor audiences can look this season to Ulysses Dove’s “Vespers,” which the company debuted on Saturday. It begins with a woman sitting on a cafe chair, and the way that Jada Pearman sits up straight speaks volumes. The six Taylor women — especially Pearman and Madelyn Ho, who are having breakthrough seasons — become one fierce sisterhood. Where “Vespers” shows how a percussive score can be effectively channeled, Lauren Lovette’s new “Echo” shows how sharing focus with live musicians can work.

Persons: Taylor, Ulysses Dove’s, Alvin Ailey, Jada Pearman, Mikel Rouse’s, —, Madelyn Ho, Lauren Lovette’s, Kevin Puts’s Organizations: Dayton Contemporary Dance Company, Alvin Ailey American Dance, Orchestra of St Locations: Luke’s

☆ At Ballet Theater, a Thrilling Puck and a Moment to Take Stock
▼ + stars: | 2023-10-30 | by ( Brian Seibert | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

Where “The Dream,” a Ballet Theater staple in recent decades, is a reliable showcase for the company’s theatricality, George Balanchine’s “Ballet Imperial,” on the same program, is good for displaying the troupe’s classical chops across its ranks. Unlike New York City Ballet, which has called the work “Tschaikovsky Piano Concerto No. 2” since the 1970s, Ballet Theater doesn’t downplay the imperial Russian associations, using a backdrop of St. Petersburg. That’s a choice that might disturb some viewers, but Ballet Theater’s rendition also had aesthetic problems. De la Nuez goes for it, too.

Persons: George Balanchine’s, ”, That’s, Skylar Brandt, Isabella Boylston, James Whiteside, Alonzo King’s, Alexei Ratmansky’s “, Jason Moran, Robert Rosenwasser, Jim French, Brandt, Calvin Royal III, King, Michael de la, De la Nuez Organizations: Ballet, New York City Ballet, Dnipro ” Locations: St . Petersburg

☆ Joey Evans Is Back. This Time He’s a Struggling Artist.
▼ + stars: | 2023-10-28 | by ( Brian Seibert | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

Those ancestors appear in the form of extraordinary tap dancers, including Dormeshia and Glover. And they keep reappearing throughout the show to remind Joey of his authentic self. This Joey, played by Ephraim Sykes, has a soul, and that soul expresses itself in the deeply rooted sound of Savion Glover’s tap dancing. Frank Sinatra played Joey for the sanitized 1957 film. Revivals at City Center in the 1960s starred Bob Fosse, years before he directed shows like “Chicago” that made Joey’s sleaze into a dominant style.

Persons: Joey, Ephraim Sykes, ” Beaty, Ossie Davis, Sidney Poitier, Harry Belafonte, Ruby Dee, ’ ” Glover, Jimmy Slyde, Lon Chaney, Chuck Green, Buster Brown, ”, ‘, Glover, Henry LeTang, “, Slyde, Chaney, ” Glover, Gene Kelly, Frank Sinatra, Bob Fosse Organizations: Dormeshia, Hollywood, City Center Locations: Glover, ‘ Da

☆ ‘A disguised welcome …’ Review: Finding Home
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-24 | by ( Brian Seibert | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

The performance is strongest when Kamuyu is dancing. When she asks audience members if they know what it feels like to be othered, the question is merely rhetorical. Instead of reaching out to the people in front of her, she talks back to absent villains of privilege. Responding to the colonialist sound of a documentary about the Kikuyu chief Wangu wa Makeri, Kamuyu asks vital questions about who gets to recount history and who gets to express opinions — vital questions that are commonplace and elementary. She ends with the facts of where she was born and where she now resides, and her dancing body suggests where she is most at home.

Persons: Wangu, Kamuyu, “, Wanjiru Kamuyu Organizations: clarion Locations: France, Africa

☆ Finding ‘Ghost Collaborators’ for an All-American Ballet
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-13 | by ( Brian Seibert | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

The original “Filling Station” was created for Ballet Caravan, a short-lived touring company led by the impresario Lincoln Kirstein, as part of his long effort to establish ballet in the United States. It was a mix of ballet bravura, vaudeville gags and comic-strip aesthetics. (A 1954 television performance by dancers from New York City Ballet, which Kirstein founded with George Balanchine in 1948, can be found on YouTube.) Kirstein described the gas station setting as an invitingly familiar one, a crossroads where different kinds of “recognizable social types” could meet. “There was a lot of difference in the space, and I was working not to collapse us into the same hole,” Jones said.

Persons: Lincoln Kirstein, Kirstein, George Balanchine, Lutz, Kinoy, he’s, ”, “, ” Jones, Maxfield Haynes, Mina Nishimura Organizations: Ballet, New York City Ballet, YouTube, Lincoln, Museum of Modern Art Locations: United States, New, Kinoy’s, Kirstein

☆ The Long Life and Long Reach of George Balanchine’s Butterflies
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-09 | by ( Brian Seibert | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

While celebrating its 75th anniversary this fall, New York City Ballet is performing 18 ballets by its founding choreographer, George Balanchine. But to get a sense of the global standing of Balanchine, 40 years after his death, other numbers might be more telling. Last year, for instance, around 50 other ballet companies across the world performed his works, about 75 dances in total. Balanchine likened his ballets to butterflies: “They live for a season.” But they have lasted much longer than that. They have become classics, cornerstones of the international repertory, 20th-century equivalents of 19th-century staples like “Swan Lake,” danced everywhere by all the major ballet companies and most of the minor ones, too.

Persons: George Balanchine, Balanchine, ” Organizations: New York City Ballet, Ballet Locations: New, ”, America

☆ How to Command a Stage Without Great Dance Moves (Taylor’s Version)
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-09 | by ( Brian Seibert | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Since it’s an understatement to call Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour the dominant pop concert of the year, it isn’t surprising that snippets of the show, captured by fans on their phones, have been flooding social media sites for months. At least that’s what I thought before seeing the Eras Tour live. Experiencing it in Los Angeles, at the end of its first United States leg, I changed my mind. As dance, the show is simple and unoriginal — yet exceptionally effective. Be that as it may, body language is crucial to how the three-hour-plus performance works.

Persons: Taylor, Swift, Britney Spears Locations: Los Angeles, United States

☆ Repeat After Her: There Is No Dance Without Dance Education
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-08 | by ( Brian Seibert | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

At the 92nd Street Y, New York, last month, a diverse bunch of dance teachers from around the country played a game called Slow Land/Fast Land. These teachers were all students of the Dance Education Laboratory, and the instructor leading the exercise was Jody Gottfried Arnhold. In dance education circles, her first name is enough. Arnhold’s class was in the newly renovated Buttenweiser Hall, now part of the 92nd Street Y’s Arnhold Center, a dance and performance complex to which she and her husband, John, donated $30 million. The woman who led Slow Land/Fast Land with the firm, kind manner of an exemplary children’s teacher is also chairman of the board of 92NY, as the organization is now also known.

Persons: Jody Gottfried Arnhold, Jody, John Organizations: Dance Education Laboratory, Buttenweiser Hall Locations: New York

☆ Everybody Dance Now! ‘Here Lies Love’ Dictates Your Moves.
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-04 | by ( Brian Seibert | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Like many Broadway musicals, “Here Lies Love” involves a lot of dancing. Imelda Marcos — wife of Ferdinand Marcos, the longtime president of the Philippines — was fond of discothèques. Wheeled platforms and runways are regularly rearranged around the floor area, displacing audience members. The rest of the audience is seated, above the dance floor and back into the depths of the mezzanine. to join the standing folks in a simple line dance, picking up the moves from cast members spread throughout the theater on more platforms and catwalks.

Persons: David Byrne, Fatboy Slim, Imelda Marcos —, Ferdinand Marcos, Philippines — Organizations: Broadway, wranglers Locations: Philippines

☆ A New Spin on Spin: Reviving a Bolognese Folk Dance
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-21 | by ( Brian Seibert | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Two men arrive on the dance floor, holding hands. This is the polka chinata, or crouched polka, a nearly defunct Bolognese folk dance. He had made other works using folk dance, but he had never heard of an Italian couple dance for men. He sought out Giancarlo Stagni, a dance teacher in Castel San Pietro Terme, near Bologna. Stagni told him that the number of people who danced the polka chinata had shrunk to just five.

Persons: ”, Alessandro Sciarroni, Sciarroni, “, Giancarlo Stagni, Stagni Locations: Italian, States, PS21, Chatham , N.Y, Italy, Castel San Pietro Terme, Bologna

☆ Translating Traditional Korean Movement to ‘a Language for Our Time’
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-12 | by ( Brian Seibert | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

Jung, a director-designer who has also worked in film and fashion, collaborated on “One Dance” with three choreographers. Hyejing Jeong, Seoul Metropolitan’s artistic director, is an expert in traditional Korean forms, while Sung Hoon Kim and Jaeduk Kim (who also composed the show’s music) come from contemporary dance. The show begins with a traditional version of il mu, juxtaposes that against a section of contemporary dance, and then finishes with a kind of synthesis, an updated il mu. Even the traditional version has been theatricalized, though. In “One Dance,” it is performed by 24 women whose individual mats, laid out like cards for Concentration, can rise on wires.

Persons: Jung, Hyejing Jeong, Sung Hoon Kim, Jaeduk Kim, There’s, Nightingale Locations: Seoul

☆ At River to River, Dancers Tackle Weighty Topics With a Smile
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-19 | by ( Brian Seibert | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

It happened Sunday evening on Governors Island at the start of “duel c,” a movement piece by Andros Zins-Browne. Along with several other audience members, I was standing inside “Moving Chains,” a large kinetic sculpture by Charles Gaines that is shaped like a ship open at both ends. The subject of “Moving Chains” is weighty: no less than slavery. “Duel c” wrestled with burdensome themes, but in a playful tone. This light approach to heavy subjects proved consistent across the two other dance performances I saw last week as part of River to River, the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council’s free summer arts festival.

Persons: Andros Zins, Browne, Charles Gaines, Maribel Alonso, —, Molly Lieber, Eleanor Smith, ”, Antonio Ramos, Clemente Soto Vélez Organizations: Education Center Locations: of, Manhattan, Lower

☆ Can a Dance Class Free Men’s Bodies in a Place Meant to Contain Them?
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-07 | by ( Brian Seibert | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

“We would take over the world.”That June, Webb told me that he and Gales could now sometimes dance together on the yard. Through 2020 and much of 2021, plans to restart the dance class kept being canceled. In Chino, Webb asked Roy and Chamblas to restart the dance class there. Chamblas recalled doing a trust exercise with a new student, who was supposed to close his eyes as Chamblas took his weight. During a class I visited in September 2022, several men spoke of having been abused and of their discomfort with physical contact.

Persons: Gales, ”, “, Webb, Gina, Chino . Gales, Roy, Chamblas, ” Chamblas, ” Thomas Bolin Organizations: Brotherhood Locations: Los Angeles, Chino ., California, Chino, San Quentin

☆ ‘It’s About Connections’: Alicia Graf Mack Remakes Juilliard Dance
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-02 | by ( Brian Seibert | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

The Juilliard dance department, under her leadership, seems like a happy place. Raised in Columbia, Md., she joined Dance Theater of Harlem at 17 and was an immediate standout: a tall, long-limbed, exceptionally graceful ballerina. Told she was too tall by American Ballet Theater and New York City Ballet, Mack reinvented herself again, becoming a star of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater and greatly expanding her stylistic range into modern, contemporary and hip-hop. Asked back by the Ailey company, she squeezed out a few more years, then moved into teaching dance at Washington University and Webster University in St. Louis. A child of professors, she found her “happy place” at universities, she said, and realized that helping serious students on the cusp of their careers was what she wanted to do.

Persons: Mack, ”, “, Alvin Ailey, St . Louis Organizations: Juilliard, Dance Theater of Harlem, Columbia University, American Ballet Theater, New York City Ballet, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Ailey, Washington University, Webster University Locations: Columbia, Md, St .

☆ For Brian Henry, Finding Krump ‘Felt Like Home, but a Better Version’
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-30 | by ( Brian Seibert | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Henry said he’s had plenty of experiences like that. “Or people try to fit me into a box. And if they don’t fit me into the box, I don’t get to dance.” His work with Miller, though, has been “an actual collaboration.”Miller agreed. Much of what Miller supplied was a concept, an idea about the prehistoric origins of art, a frequent topic for her. Those, he said, were “all they gave of me.” This one is “all of me.”And who is that?

Persons: Henry, he’s, ”, “, Miller, ” Miller, doesn’t, Sharone Halevy Locations: ”

Instead of pure dance, they substitute odd “scenarios,” which are just incomplete stories, excuses to insert classic Fosse bits and preoccupations. It becomes like a dance version of a jukebox musical, with many of the same problems. VINCENTELLI As with scores, I don’t think choreography necessarily needs to move the story or the characters: I’m all in favor of gratuitous moments. So what if there is no justification for a number or a song, as long as it looks or sounds good? My problem with “New York, New York” was basically the opposite: The dance was strong and effective in advancing characters who were otherwise too peripheral to demand it.

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