Dance-Enthusiast.com Features

The Dance Enthusiast — Thu, 24 Apr 2025 00:00:00 -0400

“Bring it into who we are in this moment,” said Nicky Paraiso, the beloved curator of the La MaMa Moves! Dance Festival, recalling the AIDS crisis of the 1990s in his opening remarks. Keith A. Thompson’s Love Alone Anthology Project does just that. Drawing from the searing stream-of-consciousness poems of Paul Monette, the work - intimate, embodied, and quietly insistent - is a living elegy to Monette’s late partner, Rog, and to all those who lost their lives to AIDS. - Catherine Tharin, New York

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The Dance Enthusiast — Wed, 23 Apr 2025 00:00:00 -0400

John Jasperse’s transcendent Tides, a work of delicacy and quiet strength, follows five luminous women—three with long, distinguished careers (Vicky Shick, Jodi Melnick, and Cynthia Koppe), and two at the beginning of theirs (Maria Fleischman and Jace Weyant). - Catherine Tharin, New York

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The Dance Enthusiast — Tue, 22 Apr 2025 00:00:00 -0400

"Methinks the lady doth protest just enough: Rocking the house at BAM, Whitney White rips up the script of MacBeth, performing it as a hip-hop, gospel spectacle with Shakepeare’s verse woven in, while alternately protesting the play on behalf of Black, brown, femme and queer folks denied the role of the hero. " Tom Phillips, Brooklyn

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The Dance Enthusiast — Tue, 22 Apr 2025 00:00:00 -0400

"Having danced alongside these particular artists in technical exercises and choreographies, I’ve noted their supreme composure and relaxed precision: they are strong but never tense, direct but never stiff, open and unaffected in their self-presentation. Watching them in rehearsal and on stage in the works of Brown and others, these qualities translate into quiet astonishment." — Sarah Cecilia Bukowski, NYC

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The Dance Enthusiast — Mon, 21 Apr 2025 00:00:00 -0400

"Linda Murray, the fifth curator in the history of the Jerome Robbins Dance Division who manages all aspects of its collections and public service, curated the exhibit to fit in one room. She focuses on the zeitgeist of the 60-90’s, and the collective shift away from the sacred tone of early modern dance to a more irreverent, exploratory mode." — Deirdre Towers, New York

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The Dance Enthusiast — Mon, 21 Apr 2025 00:00:00 -0400

"What I enjoy most about CAVE, which concluded programs A and C this season, is that the dancers do not perform for the audience, but enjoy dancing as part of a group. They seem to perform solo passages for one another. As an audience member, one feels invited to participate rather than being danced at." — Henning Rübsam, New York

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The Dance Enthusiast — Mon, 21 Apr 2025 00:00:00 -0400

"Amber Sloane, a choreographer of fertile whimsy and wit, draws us into the universes of her perfectly peculiar characters, creating awe and delight." — Christine Jowers, Brooklyn, New York

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The Dance Enthusiast — Sun, 20 Apr 2025 00:00:00 -0400

"Eight extraordinary dancers are swept up in the current, gliding smoothly one after the next on feet that patter sideways, backward and forward. They trace a repeating infinity sign in space. Gathering into a group huddle, they leave one dancer, then another standing in stillness for a moment. Yet the overall flow never stops." Ann Moradian, Paris

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The Dance Enthusiast — Sat, 19 Apr 2025 00:00:00 -0400

"Five women actors tell that story of suppression and resistance (from Merlin Stone’s 1976 book When God Was a Woman) each portraying multiple characters from different historical eras in a dizzying overlay. It takes effort to keep everyone straight. More immediately graspable are the four aerialists, whose roles respond to and reflect the grounded ensemble." — Catherine Tharin, New York

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The Dance Enthusiast — Fri, 18 Apr 2025 00:00:00 -0400

"Everybody wants something new, right? If there’s nothing 'new' in a 'new work,' what might we experience instead? [...] Choreographer Chloe London invites these questions into Unstable Sky, a world she opens for herself and four collaborating performers to explore ideas of repurposing and transformation through acts of revision and collage." — Sarah Cecilia Bukowski, Brooklyn, NY

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The Dance Enthusiast — Fri, 18 Apr 2025 00:00:00 -0400

"Janet Eilber, the artistic director of the Martha Graham Dance Company, is a class act. Before the curtain opens at The Joyce Theater, on April 2, she welcomes the audience and shares the exciting news that the country’s oldest dance company (founded in 1926) and school will move to a new home, a six-studio dance center in the heart of New York’s theater district." — Henning Rübsam, New York

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The Dance Enthusiast — Tue, 15 Apr 2025 00:00:00 -0400

“Must Come Down by Cameron Barnett and Fiona Schlegel opened as musician and songwriter Bernadette Bradley emerged through a white door, shuffled her sheet music, plugged in her guitar, and began to sing, her voice vibrant and clear. As makers, Barnett and Schlegel orchestrated moments that instructed the audience on how to engage with the work. The work unfolded as a series of vignettes that varied in mood and complexity but did not appear continuous; each formed a complete thought of its own." — Hannah Lieberman, Brooklyn, NY

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The Dance Enthusiast — Mon, 14 Apr 2025 00:00:00 -0400

"According to program notes, the 60-minute ensemble piece for seven dancers is inspired by Wilson's desire to reclaim foundational ideas from his early work and discover how, or if, they continue to resonate today." — Lisa Jo Sagolla, New York

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The Dance Enthusiast — Mon, 14 Apr 2025 00:00:00 -0400

"Curran has the ability to create spaces of deep respect, lightheartedness, and genuine appreciation for others that makes work feel like play." — Cecly Placenti, New York

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The Dance Enthusiast — Thu, 10 Apr 2025 00:00:00 -0400

"Miller expands the original work into a 40-minute dance-essay for five sensitive, daring dancers: Bria Bacon, Jasmine Hearn, Shayla-Vie Jenkins, Chloe London, and Stacy Matthew Spence. They move in constant conversation with Miller, whose presence lingers in overlapping projections of looped clips from the original video; she also appears on stage, moving and speaking both alone and among the group." — Sarah Cecilia Bukowski, New York

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The Dance Enthusiast — Thu, 10 Apr 2025 00:00:00 -0400

"Lisa Fagan and Lena Engelstein’s Friday Night Rat Catchers functions with a kindred spirit; its youthful irreverence and penchant for comedic chaos a pleasure to behold. The work interrogates and unearths the confusing truths of adulthood through their satiric dance lens." — Hannah Lipman, New York

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The Dance Enthusiast — Thu, 10 Apr 2025 00:00:00 -0400

"Across gulfs of time, space, and subjectivity, Silvers and her tribe find grounding in their divine feminines to echo through a world of their own making." — Sarah Cecilia Bukowski, Brooklyn, New York

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The Dance Enthusiast — Thu, 10 Apr 2025 00:00:00 -0400

"I applaud that each piece in the program so far has featured a different composer, often favoring another instrument. This thoughtfulness in programming elevates the musical accompaniment to a truly equal partner with the dance. " — Henning Rübsam, Brooklyn, New York

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The Dance Enthusiast — Tue, 08 Apr 2025 00:00:00 -0400

"Choreographer Ohad Naharin’s MOMO sneaks up on you [...] Not every image is powerful, or evokes a reference, but the bounty of imagery overwhelms and comforts me at the same time. This dance is grander than I can process, just as life presents more riches than anyone could cherish." — Henning Rübsam, New York

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The Dance Enthusiast — Tue, 08 Apr 2025 00:00:00 -0400

"Thomas Lebrun’s new work for young audiences, d’amour (Love), is quirky, full of clichés, and ultimately impactful." — Ann Moradian

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The Dance Enthusiast — Tue, 08 Apr 2025 00:00:00 -0400

"Precise, syncopated steps charge, burst, and reverberate through Boy Blue’s electrifying cast. Asante’s pulsating electronic score surges through the space, its driving beats embodied by the dancers." — Kristen Hedberg, New York

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The Dance Enthusiast — Tue, 08 Apr 2025 00:00:00 -0400

"DOOM revolves around William Shakespeare’s 16th-century tragedy Romeo and Juliet. The subtitle, 'House of Hope,' refers to the houses of Montague and Capulet. However, in DOOM’s dystopian world, the play travels backward. Romeo and Juliet commit suicide at the beginning of the performance, as if to say, get the death out of the way, and then we can live in happiness." — Catherine Tharin, New York

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The Dance Enthusiast — Fri, 04 Apr 2025 00:00:00 -0400

"In this ritualistic work for a cast of 11, male bodies were partially dressed, naked below and clothed atop, or naked beneath long, swirling cords hanging from a neckpiece. Makini’s obscure writings speak of myths and fables “told in tongue,” and belie a singular view of the world." — Catherine Tharin, New York

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The Dance Enthusiast — Thu, 03 Apr 2025 00:00:00 -0400

"Purportedly a talk-show interview with a celebrity author whose misogynist plays notoriously belittle and abuse their female characters, Masterclass is ruefully hilarious." — Robert Johnson, New York

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The Dance Enthusiast — Wed, 02 Apr 2025 00:00:00 -0400

Caravan, choreographed and performed by Laura Donaldson, Veronica Simpson, and Elisa McGrenera [...] offered an unexpected and mesmerizing concept: for much of the piece, they stayed physically connected [...] I had never seen anything quite like it in tap [...] as if the dancers were not just exchanging rhythms but also channeling and sustaining each other’s energy in a continuous, rebounding flow." — Kristen Hedberg, New York

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