Fame or Famine

It’s only a preview, but it’s a breath of great things to come: the review of the premiere of “Another Evening: Serenade/The Proposition,” by Bill T. Jones seems to hint at a magnificent work to come. Commissioned to create a work celebrating the bicentennial of Lincoln’s birth, it’s a pretty tall order for anyone but Mr. Jones.
He assembled, along with his usual fantastically talented company, an amazing creative team: Janet Wong on video, singer Lisa Komara, score by Jerome Begin and Christopher Antonio William Lancaster, Liz Prince’s amazing costume design and a set consisting of moveable columns by …read more

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Milia comments: I’m 18 turning 19 and I feel so behind in dancing. I do know I’m not up to date in movements nor technique. But you will see me again – from today on I will practice, practice, and practice.
I feel that – it warms my heart, actually. At age 18 I started on what I thought was going to be a career in musical theatre, but got a bit sidetracked, and didn’t end up getting my degree in dance until the venerable age of 29. Ten years later, I have taught ballet to three year olds and the …read more

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If I owe my career choices to anyone, I owe it to authors Spider & Jeanne Robinson and their novel Stardance. In fact, one of the most life-changing events in my life was spending a weekend with them on Gambier Island in Vancouver. Jeanne, who is both a dancer, a choreographer, and a zen roshi, was a vibrant and dynamic woman. And the idea of blending dance with technology, put forth in their novel, is literally what caused me to decide to major, in college, in Dance/Interarts Technology.
Making the Dream Real
Much to my joy, I find that Jeanne is making …read more

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What better way to kick off the start of So You Think You Can Dance tonight but with an announcement of another opportunity to dance with some stars?
Li Chiao-Ping is a choreographer and dancer originally from San Francisco, now living in Wisconsin. Her dance company has toured all over the world, and she has dedicated her company to “offering programs of emotionally charged and athletic works, with striking visual design and the music of contemporary composers.” She has been the chair of several dance departments and is the wife of award-winning video artist Douglas Rosenberg.
The auditions will be held June …read more

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John Henry was a self-described “performing artist/educator” who realized he was dying of AIDS and decided to turn his preparation for death into a performance piece. With the collaborative help of Douglas Rosenberg and Ellen Bromberg, a dance/technology piece was born.
A large part of that piece dealt with John Henry’s experiences as a combat soldier in Vietnam. He integrated those experiences into the piece, combining video of combat footage with live onstage dancing. You can see several videos of the stage performance here; as the piece toured, however, the performance was required to change to accommodate John Henry’s declining health …read more

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“
Why not up close and personal? Why not a special show, every now and then, when we could get to watch one or two Ailey marvels dancing something small and intimate in a setting where we might actually be able to track the thoughts crossing their brows, the nerve synapses firing in their muscles, the divine flow of their breathing?” This quote by Eva Yaa Asantewaa got my brain working today.
She was talking about the unfortunate necessity of dance companies such as Alvin Ailey to book large venues to get huge audiences in – to then see the tiny ants …read more

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AAADT: NEWS FROM THE ROAD AS 50TH ANNIVERSARY YEAR IS SET TO LAUNCH: On a 27-city tour, the company has critics raving “The Ailey troupe is one of few companies constantly capable of attracting viewers new to dance, and making converts of them.” Click for the AAADT North American Tour Schedule.
AILEY II GEARS UP FOR PERFORMANCES AT THE JOYCE THEATER: April 30-May 8, 2008, the Ailey II company program will include four New York City premieres including Fragile by French choreographer Stephane Boko, The External Knot by Ailey II’s Associate Artistic Director Troy Powell, Christopher Huggins’ …read more

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“At the moment you see the movement occur, you hear the voice of that dancer talking about what’s in their head or what images are going on for them.” – Elam in the Village Voice
Chris Elam is continuing to make waves with his ideas for the Misnomer Dance Co. After winning the IdeaBlob Contest, his plans to use the internet as a vehicle to deepen the understanding and involvement of the audience are just bubbling.
I’m very excited to see this – most of all because he seems, to me, to be the perfect person to make it actually happen. In …read more

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I’ve referred several times to my favorite dancer I’ve never met, Shan, in this blog. Aside from being a funny, intelligent, and delightfully snarky writer, she’s also an excellent dancer, and like me, stubbornly hanging onto her love of dance past the time that most dance hobbyists retreat to the joys of scrapbooking.
She wrote a very encouraging review of the On the Move festival in Toronto, which include this cofee-spitting reference:
“After the warm up exercises, the instructor (Alex Cilic) said, “I feel a grungity.”
“Grungity?” I thought, bewildered.
And then she leaped in the air, and all was revealed. Ah. A …read more

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The general consensus seems to be that DanceWar is a bust. Swan Lake Samba Girl put it this way
“…I’ve never in my life seen more people with less dance training seeking to become “stars.” They sang their hearts out and wiggled their butts and seemed in all honesty to have no clue that ass wiggling did not constitute dance…and so looked like monkeys.”
I don’t know that I’d go that far – again, this is a show not about dancers but about what kind of team Bruno and Carrie can craft. But I actually came to the review via Natalia of …read more

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