dance writer

Live performance always happens within some sort of context, so our response to it can vary depending on such things as where the performance takes place, who is sitting in front of us, what we ate or drank for dinner, or the price of a ticket. In the case of the Batsheva Dance Company’s recent Chicago appearance, the venue could not have been better. The spectacular Auditorium Theatre is as ornate and gorgeous as any concert hall. Just to enter the lobby is to experience time and gravity through its effect on the wavy uneven mosaic marble floor. (As one usher told me, “I’d hesitate to drop a marble on this floor—there’s no telling where it would end up!”) Since 1889, the building has settled considerably, and this floor has been walked on by many. Taking in the grandeur of the theatre from a plush wide velvet seat is worth arriving a bit early. But when the show begins 30 minutes later than scheduled, ones perspective is already colored. The mind goes away from the anticipat...

A contemporary ballet titled “Radio and Juliet”, as in the Edward Clug choreography for Slovenia’s Ballet Maribor, conjures images of the theatrical Shakespeare classic love story. Clug’s 40-minute dance piece indeed alludes to a theatrical story by way of a large-scale, slow-moving black and white video projection (uncredited in the program). Footage of huge close-ups of a solitary woman in an empty apartment interspersed with brief interludes of men performing flashy edgy gestures, sets up an intriguing story, and evokes questions, building hope that the upcoming dance might answer them. Who is this isolated woman? Juliet? Where is she? Why is she alone? What is her relationship to these men? The music of Radiohead begins to pulse and the live company of dancers enter one by one introducing themselves with a simple walk downstage. The piece then erupts into full-on energetic dance, exquisitely performed with great precision by seven strong dancers-six men and one woman. C...

When advertising suggests that a dance concert by two university professors-with excellent support and resources-will be of epic proportions, the expectations are high. In this case, professors Robin Becker of Hofstra University and Jin-Wen Yu of the University of Wisconsin-Madison created dances based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning book "They Marched into Sunlight: War and Peace, Vietnam and America" by David Maraniss. These dances were apparently derived from and inspired by the book's topics of the 1967 bombing of Sterling Hall at UW and the Vietnam war--hefty subject matter, which would have been better served in the hands of master choreographers. In this case, a way-too-long performance (clocking in at 2 hours and 30 minutes) came nowhere near expected hype, and to use the word of the audience member next to me, was "offensive". Becker's piece "Into Sunlight", suffered from dim tiring lighting, designed by Burke Wilmore, and continuous s...

In an evening of four dances, Madison's Kanopy Dance Company forged some new territory and unearthed a few Kanopy relics. The company has been around long enough under the direction of Lisa Andrea Thurrell and Robert E. Cleary to establish a repertoire, and it has been their practice to repeat old dances. In a small dance town like Madison, it can be tiresome to see the same dances year after year and many Madison choreographers suffer this fate by placing quantity of concerts presented over quality. But this time in Kanopy's annual Dark Nights concert, which could have been called "Dark Souls", new dancers tackled lead roles in the old works, and the pieces gained some strength with the new blood. That, combined with the intelligent theatrical Monkey see Monkey do created by guest artists Amit Lahav and Natalie Ayton of Britain's Gecko Theatre Company made for and engaging and diverse evening. The concert likened a dance sandwich--two end pieces with a c...

Pilobolus Dance Theater defies categorization. Known for their physical feats and visual treats, they've created their own brand of modern dance. The company, now in its 39th year, visited Madison, Wisconsin last night and in the vast Overture Hall, they presented an athletic, inventive, diverse and sometimes thought-provoking concert of six works. Upon occasion, Pilobolus dances carry a message. But most often they provide high entertainment value. Their stylistic assortment started off with the rough-and-tumble Redline , made in 2009 in the Pilobolus traditional collaborative spirit---by numerous choreographers. Starting in a stiff straight line, then slowly swinging their heads, then arms, then legs, six dancers progressed downstage. Random hunched over walking patterns evolved into an explosion of hurtling bodies. Dancers sporting red and black wrestling shorts and boxing boots ran at each other at top speed and launched themselves over backwards, airborne, in between...

Alonzo King’s dances don’t depict simple stories. In fact, there was nothing simple about his LINES Ballet performance on Saturday at the Wisconsin Union Theater. King built a rich detailed movement vocabulary brought forth by ten exquisite dancers in the two full-company works presented. A brief hopeful solo opened the first piece, Signs and Wonders , originally created in 1995. The lone dancer rippled his spine and with swirling gestures moved as if he had no skeleton. Yet as others joined energetically fusing the inventive loose contemporary arm gestures with the rigid torso and legs of classical ballet, the piece moved in no clear direction. Throughout the nine sections, an intriguing style of physical juxtaposition emerged and the dancers took this style with ease. Able to create an awkward tension in their bodies through distorted shapes, they flexed their feet, angled their arms, held parallel leg positions and moved through impossible lifting sequences, all with the fl...

The University of Wisconsin-Madison Dance Program showcased its annual faculty concert this week, held for the first time in many years in the Wisconsin Union Theatre. While able to accomodate a larger audience, the ambience at the Union pales in comparison to the made-for-dance comfortable H'Doubler Theatre in Lathrop Hall. Poor sightlines (no rake to the main floor seating), broken seats, chipping paint, and a cumbersome tech table placed in the middle of the audience don't create the inviting, tidy and professional atmosphere of the H'Doubler. But bring the lights down and begin the program, and most of the blemishes fade away. Technically, this concert was huge. Each of the seven multi-media dances necessitated a crucial balance of staging, design, and lighting. Uncredited in the program, lighting designer Claude Heintz sculpted each piece in a meaningful, artful, and in many cases stunningly beautiful way. The stand-out piece of the evening was not by a UW fac...