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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

☆ Fighting Through Art: A Kurdish Dancer’s Journey to New York Stages
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-05 | by ( Brian Schaefer | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

When Hussein Smko was 9, the American military arrived in his hometown, Erbil, the capital of Iraq’s Kurdish region. It was 2003, and Smko, already a survivor of the Kurdish civil war, would chase the American Humvees with other kids. One day a soldier beckoned him over and demonstrated a simple, beguiling gesture: He held out a straight arm then made it ripple like water, a classic hip-hop move. “I thought it was like a big sparkle,” Smko, 30, said in an interview. The dance they were preparing, “On the Nature of Rabbits,” opens Wednesday at the Joyce Theater in Manhattan.

Persons: Hussein Smko, Smko, Pontus Lidberg, ” Organizations: American, Joyce Theater Locations: Erbil, Iraq’s Kurdish, Tarrytown, N.Y, Swedish, Manhattan

☆ Review: Twyla Tharp From Three Sides Now
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-14 | by ( Siobhan Burke | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Twyla Tharp takes making dances very seriously but, at 82, she appears to be having some fun with it — and even poking fun at herself, lightly, in the process. That boisterous ballet closes a program that shows three sides of Tharp, beginning with the punchy “Ocean’s Motion” (1975) and continuing with “Brel,” an introspective new solo for the American Ballet Theater principal Herman Cornejo. (The New York City Ballet principal Daniel Ulbricht performs it on alternate nights.) While “The Ballet Master” concerns itself with the choreographer’s inner world, “Brel” zooms in on the dancer’s. Before any contemporary self-reflection, though, Tharp takes us back to where she’s been.

Persons: Twyla Tharp, Tharp, “ Brel, Herman Cornejo, Daniel Ulbricht, Brel, she’s, Chuck Berry, quintessentially Tharp, —, Miriam Gittens sassily, Jake Tribus Organizations: Joyce, American Ballet Theater, New York City Ballet

☆ 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

☆ Dance Performances, Festivals and More Coming This Fall
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-04 | by ( Margaret Fuhrer | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

Anniversary celebrations abound this year, in a dance season that seems conspicuously preoccupied with the past. September2023 CROSSING THE LINE FESTIVAL The dance offerings at the French Institute Alliance Française’s annual festival range from celebratory to contemplative. The choreographer Tatiana Desardouin’s “Les 5 Sens,” a collaboration with the artist Nubian Néné, offers an all-night hip-hop dance party at the Standard Hotel’s Boom Boom Room (Sept. 14). And Olivier Tarpaga’s “Once the dust settles, flowers bloom” considers the plight of refugees from Burkina Faso (Oct. 3-8, the Joyce Theater). The multidisciplinary artist Matthew Lutz-Kinoy’s “Filling Station,” a world premiere presented by The Kitchen, reimagines that work for a different America.

Persons: Agnes de Mille, Tatiana Desardouin’s “, ”, “, FIAF Florence Gould, Olivier Tarpaga’s “, MATTHEW LUTZ, KINOY, Lincoln, Lew Christensen’s, Matthew Lutz, serpentwithfeet, Raja Feather Kelly, Wu Tsang Organizations: Russes, French Institute Alliance, FIAF Florence Gould Hall, Ballet, Horatio, Gas, Dia Locations: U.S, Burkina Faso, ”, America

☆ Review: Delayed by the Pandemic, Pilobolus Celebrates Its 50th
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-12 | by ( Gia Kourlas | More About Gia Kourlas | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

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, “

☆ It’s the Perelman Performing Arts Center, But Bloomberg Gave More
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-07 | by ( Robin Pogrebin | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Year after year, plans to build a cultural institution on the World Trade Center site percolated, only to then fizzle out. The International Freedom Center, the Joyce Theater, the Drawing Center, the Signature Theater, New York City Opera, a design by Frank Gehry — all were discussed as possibilities, but none went anywhere. Now, two decades after the 2003 master plan for ground zero called for a cultural component, a performing arts center is finally preparing to open there in September. The center, which will ultimately cost $500 million — more than twice what was projected in 2016 — is now on track to have a ribbon cutting on Sept. 13. “I can afford it,” Mr. Bloomberg said of his largess during a recent hard hat tour of the center.

Persons: Frank Gehry —, Ronald O, Perelman, Michael R, Barbra Streisand, —, “, ” Mr, Bloomberg, ” Organizations: World Trade, Freedom Center, Joyce Theater, New York City Opera, Bloomberg Locations: New York

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