Musical America Blogs

Adam Barruch’s I Had Myself a True Love had my vote as the winner of the DanceNOW Challenge at Joe’s Pub. On September 5, Barruch’s competition was nine other choreographers. Just like a prime-time dance competition, the sold-out audience was invited to judge and pick a favorite. The challenge for the artists was to create a work in under five minutes for the tiny cabaret stage that makes, in the words of producer Sydney Skybetter, “a clear concise artistic statement.” The odds were tipped toward Barruch. He was the only choreographer with two works on the program. Last year he was a DanceNOW winner. This year his new hyper-expressive solos to recorded music sung by Barbara Steisand opened and closed the hour-long evening at the smartly renovated Joe’s Pub.

While the New York Times paints Spain as a country on the verge of collapse, the view from the streets of Madrid and Salamanca is quite different. At Madrid’s Plaza de Toros de Las Ventas on May 27, the stadium was packed. Though the bullfights are a far cry from ballet or experimental dance, the posture of the toreadors (bullfighters) are inescapably similar to the stance of flamenco dancers

In the women’s bathroom of New York Live Arts, each stall sported a small bottle of lower anatomy cleansing solution. Its odd presence must have been care of choreographer John Jasperse whose erogenous zone oriented “Fort Blossom revisited (2000/2012)” held its New York premiere on May 9 in the Chelsea theater.

Have you ever wondered what it would take to partner a female ballet dancer? The May 6 matinee at New York City Ballet was an excellent primer for any one considering that question. In each of the four works from the All (Jerome) Robbins program, at the former New York State Theater, the male lead rarely left the side of his female partner.

Batsheva Dance Company’s March 7 performance of Hora started with a bang. Lots of them—on cans, drums, and the pavement outside of BAM’s Howard Gilman Opera House. Created in 2009 by Batsheva’s artistic director Ohad Naharin, Hora included sounds and ideas beyond the choreographer’s control. Adalah-NY protestors paraded signs: “BOYCOTT ISRAEL!” “DON’T DANCE AROUND APARTEID!”

Ten years later, I saw Crystal Pite’s “Dark Matters.” Her choreography augured a new movement style, a “Matrix”-like sense of physical wonder. On January 24 at Baryshnikov Arts Center (BAC), Pite’s choreography enthralled the audience. At the end of “The You Show,” made in 2010 with her company Kidd Pivot Frankfurt RM, Pite and her eight dancers received a standing ovation.

There is nothing like a good ballet spoof. At New York City Ballet’s January 21 matinee performance, the company danced at Lincoln Center Jerome Robbins’ “The Concert” (1956). Whether you get the inside jokes regarding specific ballets, Robbins’s jabs at ballet traditions—the good, bad and the ugly—directly communicate.

“You just have to get crazier.” These words came from Pina Bausch, the late choreographer, whose dance troupe made the industrial city of Wuppertal, Germany an avant-garde theatrical destination for 36 years. In Wim Wenders’ 3D documentary “Pina,” screened on October 15 at Alice Tully Hall for the New York Film Festival, audiences got a taste of what Bausch’s crazy looks like. In one scene, a Bausch dancer walks through a park in a floor-length dress like a zombie queen. The woman careens to the ground, flat as a board. Right before smashing her face, her suitor scoops her up like a crane lift. Then she falls again, and again. The effect is part amusement ride, part suicide watch.

Forty years is a long time to make dances with just one other person. At the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, the avant-garde dance makers Eiko & Koma present “Residue,” an exhibit tracing their four-decade collaboration. From their beginnings in post-World War II Japan, to their first artistic success in Germany, to their decision in 1977 to become New Yorkers, Eiko & Koma have chosen a path less taken.

It’s not easy tapping aboard a moving vessel. But every year in celebration of Tap City!, the dance festival organized by American Tap Dance Foundation director Tony Waag, one-hundred plus tap dancers and tap enthusiasts board the Circle Line for The Copasetic Boat Ride. On the ship’s main deck on July 5, a circle formed in front of a jazz band, and some of the stars of today’s tap world used the swaying and rocking of the ship as an added challenge while performing their hard hitting styles. Watching Jason Samuels Smith and Tamii Sakurai improvise in these near impossible conditions was as thrilling as seeing Lady Liberty up close and against the setting sun.