Fame or Famine

I mentioned a couple of posts ago that there were two shows that I’d been looking forward to that were flailing and not doing too well. While I went on and on about The Times They Are A-Changin’, I didn’t mention the other one.
The writers of Miss Saigon and Les Miserables had teamed up to produce a very eagerly anticipated epic called “the Pirate Queen”. Visions of “Pirates-of-the-Caribbean meets Riverdance” were floating around, and the luscious billboards going up around Chicago almost made you hear the uilean pipes as you floundered through yet another confusing interchange…
Apparently, not so much. Reviews …read more

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That quote from Apollinaire Scherr is part of an interesting dialogue with another dance blogger, Dan Fox. I’m not sure that the mitutiae would be as fascinating to most readers of this blog as it is to me (I was weaned on dance crit and interactive theory, and reading their exchange is like coming home, in a way).
However, one particular part does have some direct relevance to the popular cultural performing arts this blog covers. Dan conveys the idea that watching a dance is a passive activity, and wonders how more "participatory culture" would enhance an audience’s experience. Scherr responds, …read more

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Two events that I was truly looking forward to seem to be sinking fast.
The worse of the two is Twyla Tharp’s interpretation of the songs of Bob Dylan, The Times They are a’Changin’. Aside from what I consider to be far too many apostrophes in the title, this should have been a great work. I’ve loved Twyla since I first was exposed to her choreography set on Mikhail Baryshnikov in White Nights. Her last effort, a performative interpretation of Billy Joel’s body of work entitled Movin’ Out (eek, another apostrophe!) got rave reviews and was generally credited with reviving the …read more

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I am awestruck by the audacity and beauty of the Iraqi National Folklore Group.
From the NYT:

"…each turn of the hip and dip at the waist in their choreographed pieces has become weighted with a dangerous new reality, even as they wait for the chaos around them to subside so they can perform again. In today’s Iraq, with conservative religious parties and radical militias exerting growing influence over every aspect of life, even dancing is an act of bravery."

How many of us have something that they care so passionately about, are so devoted to that we would literally risk our …read more

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