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“Roy’s Joys,” set to recordings by Roy Eldridge, is abundant with layers of vernacular dance, ballet and modern — everything to grow a company of dancers, and grow they did under Battle. That mix of new and the unexpected old was also important in the bigger picture of dance — “Roy’s Joys” (1997) was granted a second, much-needed life at Ailey. Alvin Ailey studied with Martha Graham; Taylor was in her company. I’ll never forget the invigorating sight of Ailey dancers performing Taylor’s “Arden Court,” a bold, crisp example of showing them, as he said, in new ways. But Battle branched out, and as he dusted off the Ailey company, he led it into the 21st century with a public persona that was as fresh as his artistic agenda.
Persons: Lazarus, , Rennie Harris, Twyla Tharp, Roy Eldridge, Ailey, Carolyn Adams, Paul Taylor, Alvin Ailey, Martha Graham, Taylor, I’ll, Taylor’s “ Organizations: Ailey, Center Locations: Taylor’s “ Arden
All the while Eliza Babinska charged along, energy spilling out of her body like sparks of electricity. “Eliza hates this,” Vasilisa, her older sister, said with a giggle. When Vasilisa first saw her perform, she said: “I was like, that’s my sister? I saw her face, and I was like, whoa.”Even the way Eliza holds her head in class is imposingly regal. On the subway, her chin started to droop, almost as heavily as her eyelids.
Persons: Pati, Eliza Babinska, , “ Eliza, ” Vasilisa, Eliza, Julia, Vasilisa, Organizations: New York City Ballet, School, American Ballet Locations: Queens, Manhattan, barre, droop
The ghosts of “takemehome” are embodied by his dancers, dressed in streetwear separates, as they dip in and out of manic states, sometimes clawing at the air as their audible breath echoes across the gloomy stage. When the dancers in “takemehome” do get going, their energetic shifts lead to quick sprints, rapid fire jumps, far-flung limbs, but there is also much slow motion, in which bodies lean back and drag forward as if suspended by strings. Lately it seems that European contemporary dance, at least from France, has a thing for slow motion. Sometimes I wonder if it’s a subconscious way of willing those in the world to take a much-needed pause. When five of the performers, some standing on the amps, pick up guitars and start to strum — they do so vigorously, their arms moving up and down to create a sheet of sound — the zeppelin turns an angry red.
Persons: Chamblas —, , Yves Godin, Virginie Mira, strum Locations: California, France
It’s not a race, but Lauren Lovette seems to be running, not walking, to create a body of work for the Paul Taylor Dance Company. Last year, after becoming Taylor’s resident choreographer, she presented two new works; this week, as part of the Taylor season at Lincoln Center, she added two more, including the world premiere of “Echo” on Thursday. Dancers, all men, mainly bare chested, began a gliding procession toward the stage, migrating along all the pathways of the theater — the sides, the aisles. This kind of offbeat entrance isn’t exactly new to dance, but Lovette used it in a meaningful way: It was almost primal, as if the music were calling for the dance. One couldn’t exist without the other in this artistic reverberation or, as she named it, echo.
Persons: It’s, Lauren Lovette, Paul Taylor, , David H, Shawn Lesniak, Kevin Puts’s Organizations: Paul Taylor Dance Company, Lincoln Center, Koch, “ Fame, , Orchestra of St Locations: , Luke’s
American Ballet Theater opened its fall season on a high note: Alexei Ratmansky’s “Piano Concerto No. The program, part of the first New York season created by the company’s artistic director, Susan Jaffe, gradually lost steam. “Petite Mort” (1991) is flimsier than ever. Devon Teuscher’s clean, classical elegance lent the overlong work a boost of grace and energy, but the ballet, created in 1948, is hardly a good time capsule. In a program note, Lander describes his ballet as “an expression of myself, and of my thoughts on dance.
Persons: Alexei Ratmansky’s “, Mort ”, Jiri Kylian, Harald Lander, Susan Jaffe, Devon Teuscher’s, George Balanchine’s, Frederick Ashton’s “, , , Lander Organizations: Ballet Theater, New, Lincoln Center Locations: New York
George Balanchine, by his own admission, always admired jewels, a quality he attributed to his Georgian roots. “I like the color of gems, the beauty of stones,” he wrote in “101 Stories of the Great Ballets.”When, in 1967, the curtain rose at New York City Ballet on his opulent triptych, known as the first full-length plotless ballet, it had no unifying title. “Emeralds” possesses the fragrant earthiness and secrecy of nature; “Rubies” is heat and playfulness, with the games and posturing of a summer scape in New York City; and “Diamonds” casts a dazzling spell of cool refinement that wavers between soft and hard. “Jewels,” as it came to be called, is an occasion as well as a ballet. (The music was performed live, though before the show, members of the New York City Ballet Orchestra held a rally in front of Lincoln Center’s plaza to protest delays in contract negotiations.)
Persons: George Balanchine, , Balanchine, Lincoln Kirstein, Suzanne Farrell, Allegra Kent, Patricia McBride, Edward Villella — Organizations: New York City Ballet, City, Lincoln Center, New York City Ballet Orchestra Locations: New, New York City, Lincoln
While Brutti generally does the talking for (La)Horde — Harel and Debrouwer understand English, but aren’t as comfortable communicating — they speak as one. “He was like, ‘You’re young, you’re hot at the moment — if not now, when?’” the group said. It made them think — not about the job, but about how applying for it could serve (La)Horde, in a deeper way. They decided that they would create a manifesto about what contemporary dance could be today. Contemporary dance is something.
Persons: — Harel, Debrouwer, Childs, , Dimitri Chamblas —, Arts —, Chamblas, , , Horde Organizations: Ballet National, Marseille, California Institute of, Arts Locations: Los Angeles, Marseille
Let her dance.’”She was short, her turnout was nonexistent and her feet needed a lot of work. She is firm about one thing: If her young self were to audition for the School of American Ballet today, she wouldn’t get in — much less into the company. And I think that was the main thing he respected about me. And I think he saw that I loved to dance.”Walczak was also a sharp observer. (With the dancer Una Kai, she wrote “Balanchine the Teacher,” a jewel of a book examining the fundamentals that shaped the company’s first generation.)
Persons: , , “ ‘ We’ve, wouldn’t, Mia Slavenska, Slavenska, , ” Walczak, I’d, Una Kai, “ Balanchine, Suzanne Farrell’s Organizations: School of American Ballet, Ballet Russe, Carlo, Radio City Music Hall, Ballet Society Locations: Balanchine’s
With outstretched arms, dancers skimmed across the sand like gliding birds, soundless against the pressing wind and somehow soaring without actual wings. Surveying the shoreline of Rockaway Beach on a recent morning, Patricia Lent, from the Merce Cunningham Trust, was elated. “This is a dream come true,” she said, adding: “It’s someone else’s dream — but it is a dream come true.”Cunningham’s “Beach Birds” has finally made its way to the beach. An adaptation of this 1991 dance is part of this year’s Beach Sessions Dance Series, at Rockaway Beach on Saturday. Staged by Lent and Rashaun Mitchell — both former company members and trustees — “Beach Birds” comes to life in a setting where the sand, the sea and real birds create, along with 11 dancers, a humming summer landscape.
Persons: Patricia Lent, Merce Cunningham, Lent, Rashaun Mitchell —, , Cunningham, John Cage Organizations: Merce Cunningham Trust Locations: Rockaway
Robert Garland, the artistic director of Dance Theater of Harlem who, like Sibley, is from Philadelphia, recently presented a ballet at Lincoln Center. “O’Shae put his body on the line,” Garland said in an interview. “And his expression was turned into resistance. He was just being who he was.”Because of the way he died — and the way that he was dancing when he died — Sibley’s body is now an act of resistance. That has much to do with vogue, a language that grew out of the Harlem ballroom scene of the 1960s.
Persons: Robert Garland, Sibley, John Carlos, “ O’Shae, ” Garland, , , Joan Myers Brown, remembrances, Jason Rodriguez Organizations: Dance Theater of Harlem, Lincoln Center, Philadelphia Dance Company, Ailey, Gliding, Adidas Locations: Philadelphia, Mexico City, Sibley, Harlem
The lyrics that stand out during Lee’s dance, “Nothing here to care about,” are deceptive — to dance this dance is to show that you do care, that you aren’t going down without a fight. The Pinegrove Shuffle is an antithesis to the pink — albeit fun — universe of Barbie. And I feel like that’s contributed a lot to my dance moves. I put a lot of hips into it.”It also helps that he is a snowboarder. “All my hobbies,” he said, “kind of correlate back to this Pinegrove video.”
Persons: Lee, Barbie, , Shakira, ” Lee, that’s, Locations: Maryland, Salisbury, Mass
There’s a gorgeous scene in “Barbie” that isn’t painted the usual pink. It’s a dream ballet, stylish and clean, with steps so sleek it lets bodies — Kens, Kens and more Kens — sing. Unofficially known as the Ken dance, it’s like entering a portal to another world, where moving bodies etch trails of rotating circles and diamonds onto a gleaming surface. But the jazzy gist of the “I’m Just Ken” dance isn’t just about staggering patterns or nostalgia for old Hollywood. Plopped into Greta Gerwig’s Barbie universe, the dance is more than a dance: It’s an emotional release.
Persons: “ Barbie, , Ken, Busby Berkeley, Ken ”, Plopped, Greta Gerwig’s, Gene Kelly, Margot Robbie, Barbie Organizations: Hollywood
Pilobolus has been pushing bodies to their limits in unusual shapes and precarious balances since 1971, when its founding members met at Dartmouth College. The company’s leadership has shifted and changed over the years, but what remains is the group’s collaborative approach. The group also possesses commercial appeal despite the origins of its name: Pilobolus is a genus of fungi that grows on herbivore dung. Now under the leadership of Renée Jaworski and Matt Kent — two former company members — Pilobolus, after a pandemic delay, concludes its 50th anniversary tour with a three-week season at the Joyce Theater. Its title, the “Big Five-OH!,” has much in common with aspects of the group’s choreography, which can veer into the painfully cute.
Persons: Pilobolus, Renée Jaworski, Matt Kent —, — Pilobolus, , Derion Loman, Madison Olandt, Jaworski, Jad, “ Mary Poppins, Marlon Feliz, Hannah Klinkman Organizations: Dartmouth College, Joyce Theater, Kent Locations: York,
There was a point, during Cassandra Trenary’s debut as Juliet last summer at American Ballet Theater, when it became easy to forget that she was performing the role at all. She just was Juliet: furious, despondent, at her wit’s end. It was wildly raw and vulnerably human. Typically, in Kenneth MacMillan’s production of “Romeo and Juliet,” that moment is drawn out, with Juliet deeply arching her back in a cambré derrière over the tomb. Trenary, a 29-year-old principal dancer with Ballet Theater, is on a mission to be authentic — to make it seem as though, as she said, “life is unfolding in front of you through this vocabulary that is very not humanlike.”
Persons: Cassandra Trenary’s, Juliet, Kenneth MacMillan’s, Romeo, Trenary, Organizations: Ballet Theater, Ballet
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