Category: Dance
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Memory in Movement: Bill T. Jones’ in MEMORY PIECE at NYLA
At the opening of Memory Piece: Mr. Ailey, Alvin…the un-Ailey?, we catch glimpses of Bill T. Jones dancing in and out of darkness. His flowing white pants and matching shirt caress his body´s sinewy strength, and he practically prances in and out of the various squares of light that flash on to the floor before…
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The Vivid Luminosity That Words Can’t Carry: Jean-Christophe Maillot’s ROMÉO ET JULIETTE
How does one take a classic literary work shaped by poetry and weave it into movement? How can you craft a physical manifestation of a character’s declarative words and let their psychological complexities dwell in every step? If there was never a tale of more woe than that of Juliet and her Romeo, never…
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La MaMA MOVES MFA Evening and The Gift of Time
For the 20th incarnation of La MaMa Moves! Dance Festival programming director Nicky Paraiso reminded us of the importance of experimental theater in times of political turmoil. Something tells me if he could, Paraiso would remind everyone of this. Having had to defend my belief in dance’s value, in the value of movement as not…
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Plz Just Ask: TIDES by John Jasperse for La Mama Moves! Festival
“I wanted to see the John Jasperse piece at La Mama but didnt have money for a ticket, so I offered to write about it,” I texted Jodi Melnick, performer-collaborator in the piece– who once generously, and perhaps regretfully– gave me her phone number while she was my dance teacher at Barnard College. Given the…
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At La MaMa Moves, a Joint Program Produces States of Grief and Sounds of Pleasure
Shared programs can be tricky. As a dance festival curator, part of the battle is attempting to describe a work of art effectively to the public while predicting their reaction. Putting two different artists together on the same bill may double the work, but if handled deftly, it can forge synchronicity. Even in situations where…
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Piercing the Veil: Jesse Zaritt & Pamela Pietro and Jordan Demetrius Lloyd at La MaMa Moves!
The other day, I watched a subway dancer fall. Backflipping between metal rails, his hand slipped and he crashed back-first to the floor. For a moment, the train was still. No one had a script to follow for what should happen next, and our responsibility as witnesses was immediately called into question. The veil between…
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El Club MEG: La MaMa Goes Post-Postmodern
The vibe was very: here we are in the midst of a fascist coup, what is left to fear? Lots, obviously. But the old obsessions with boundaries and criticism are too much to carry now.
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La Mama Moves: How Do You Feel? While Nature Duels with Technology, Dance Contends with Its History and Future
As artificial intelligence takes over the world, many artists seem primed to abandon their inhibitions and experiment with the latest innovations. Concordance between art and technology is harder to imagine in the field of dance. ChatGPT may now draw Studio Ghibli-style cartoons and draft opinion essays, but just like any hollow robotic entity, it would…
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On This Turnless Page: LOVE ALONE ANTHOLOGY PROJECT at La Mama
Before seeing this performance, I had never heard of gay writer and AIDS activist Paul Monette. Despite living through the AIDS crisis, choreographer Keith A. Thompson hadn’t heard of him either, until 2014, when he learned of Paul’s work. Artistic Director of the danceTactics performance company, Thompson wanted to create a dance that engaged with…
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Dear Kayla Farrish, Burn it Down! At Least the Ashes Will Enrich the Earth
Imagine being told that what you have just experienced did not actually happen the way you experienced it, that it was actually just a collection of dissonant apparitions created by your own strained need to link unrelated events together.
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Miya Shaffer on “I Feel Like You Don’t Trust Me” by TAQ Dance
These haptic qualities enable the audience an imagined point of entry into the onstage sensations, inviting vicarious feeling of the braided hair, the waxiness of plant fronds, the lightness of linen clothing against bare skin.
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In ANGEL VISITS Worship and Communion Traverse The Divine
If we are to honestly appraise the people’s history (those we refer to when we shout “power to the people!”), we must acknowledge the unceasing, if ever-evolving, presence of violence. A sense of scale inspired by looking up into the cavernous arches of St. John the Divine showed me the grandiosity of the human capacity…