Water Music
"Impromptus"
Sasha Waltz, director/choreographer
BAM/Howard Gilman Opera House
Brooklyn Academy of Music
December 6, 2005
by Nancy Dalva
copyright ©2005 by Nancy Dalva
Somewhere in the middle of Sasha Waltz's 70 minute "Impromptus," named for the Schubert piano works to which it is set, several of the six dancers get mixed up, and in, powdered poster paint—orange-ish red and black. Its appearance is one of several theatrical tricks—you don't notice it until it is there, although it must have been imported somehow or other. The source of the water poured onto it is obvious, if strange: it comes from two pairs of boots. These entered on dancers, and being miked for sound, have filled the theater with gentle sloshing. Now, the water mixes with the paint and runs down the floor in rivulets. The stage is streaked with tears.
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Deceptively Casual
David Dorfman Dance
Eugene & Elinor Friend Center for the Arts
Jewish Community Center
San Francisco, California
December 10, 2005
by Rita Felciano
copyright ©2005 by Rita Felciano
At the end, left alone in David Dorfman’s haunting “Lightbulb Theory,” Jennifer Nugent’s formerly energetic flailings and “hep” calls sputtered like a car running out of gas. And I couldn’t sure whether her “hep” had muted into “help” or “hope.” That’s the kind of ambiguity that Dorfman has thrown around for twenty years. The more astounding it is that it took his David Dorfman Dance company two decades to make its Bay Area debut.
Dorfman’s deceptively casual choreography looks as if it had been thrown together by a bunch of hyperactive kids. But this adrenaline-charged physicality is but the cover to lure us into looking at issues of moral complexity that never quite rise to the surface but whose bubbling presence give his work its solid underpinning. The two pieces at this premiere concert, “See Level” in addition to “Lightbulb,” felt like looking at gorgeous facades whose windows hide as much they reveal.
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Astonishing Moment
"The Nutcracker"
American Ballet Theatre
Opera House, The Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts
Washington, DC, USA
December 7, 2005
by George Jackson
copyright ©2005 by George Jackson
So astonishing, surprising, unexpected was her sudden appearance from within a swirl of snowflakes that the ballet's little heroine and hero fell back on their butts. And the public, too, pressed back in its seats. She, the Snow Queen, was tall. As her torso unwound and she attained her full on-pointe height, Veronika Part towered over the snowflakes corps in regal glory. Bourréeing a bit, rotating with her arms out, she was gone all too soon, yet the impression lingered of a long stemmed flower awakened from winter's sleep. Nothing else in ABT's "The Nutcracker" matched this magical moment.
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Celebration of a Legend
"Chita Rivera: The Dancer's Life"
Written by Terrence McNally; original songs by Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty
Directed and choreographed by Graciela Daniele
Gerald Schoenfeld Theater
New York, NY
December 10, 2005 (matinee)
by Susan Reiter
copyright ©2005 by Susan Reiter
Reviewing a now-long-forgotten 1955 Broadway show called "Seventh Heaven," the New York Daily Mirror's critic singled out one of the featured performers: "This long-stemmed miss is a thrilling dancer who struts and slinks like a panther. She is magnetic and catches the eye with her every movement." Today, the dancer he was describing is again (still) on a Broadway stage, and that description still applies—though it would be more appropriate to substitute "dame" for "miss."
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