Dance
From the Lenape to the L Train: Elisa Monte Dance at the Flea Theater, November 21, 2019
Works & Process Rotunda Project at the Guggenheim: Dance Theater of Harlem at 50
Under Siege by Yang Liping Contemporary Dance at Lincoln Center’s Mostly Mozart Festival
Mark Morris Dance Group at Mostly Mozart
Watching Mark Morris’ dancers swoop and soar in V, (the number five, a reference to the number of musicians playing Schumann’s Quintet in E-flat major) was entirely thrilling. There are no stars in the company so the group has to work very hard—they do but it doesn’t show. The work is a pure representation of dance integrity.
Amanda Selwyn Dance Theater: Crossroads at New York Live Arts
Crossroads, the premiere of an evening–length work in three parts with choreography by Amanda Selwyn and company is abstract with a focus on decision-making and what an often disturbing process this is. It was exhilarating to watch the very well-tuned dancers move in solos, duets, trios, and sometimes as a complete group, each showing inner strength while maintaining an essential understanding of personal place and where their bodies fit into the space.
Lydia Johnson Dance at the Ailey Citigroup Theater
It was with relief that I greeted the final number on the program. Undercurrent, set to music by Henryk Gόrecki, woke up, enlivening me, the audience at large and also seemingly the dancers who had previously drifted through a series of works that I found bland and somnolent. Undercurrent raised levels of power and energy with repeated prancing steps, first danced by groups of women and later by the company’s men.
Reid Bartelme and Harriet Jung: Design Dialogues with ISAW’s The Ancient World and the Ballet Russes at the Guggenheim
The evening provided a thoroughly engaging look at the creative process as it concerns choreographers, dancers, costume designers, music and a related exhibit that examines both antiquity and its relationship to the revered Ballets Russes.