Doris Humphrey

White Wave: 2024 SoloDuo Dance Festival

February 16, 2024

The host company, WHITE WAVE Young Soon Kim Dance Company ended the short, well-run program with the longest work, the three-part “Eternal NOW.” It also had the most complex costumes, geometrically shaped and brightly-colored two-part outfits designed by Sarah Cubbage. Putting her seven dancers through their modern dance paces, Kim displayed skill at handling the cast, pitting soloist against groups and each other as they moved to an alternately slow and fast score by Marco Cappelli. She is someone the other other dancemakers on this lineup could look up to. [more]

The Limón Dance Company (Spring 2022)

April 25, 2022

The final work was the world premiere of “Only One Will Rise,” a work by a new choreographer Olivier Tarpaga to a colorful score he co-wrote with Tim Motzer who was one of the three on stage musicians. Daniel Johnson and Saidou Sangare were the others. “Only One Will Rise” used a large cast that Tarpaga handled adroitly, shooting groups across the stage in interesting patterns, eventually focusing on several soloists who appeared angst-ridden. His movement themes were decidedly Limón influenced with the addition of sensual twists and undulations taken from African ethnic folk dance, movements that the Limón troupe performed beautifully, wringing a myriad of emotions from these departures from their home base technique. [more]

Denishawn: Dances by Ruth St. Denis & Ted Shawn

October 3, 2021

The dances on this program are perfect examples of the Denishawn aesthetic which combined what was then exoticism with impeccable theatricality. The Denishawn troupe was very much of its time, the early twentieth century. The modern dance giants that came out of this artistic sensibility—Martha Graham, Doris Humphrey and Charles Weidman in particular—revolted against the exoticism to find a modern way of expressing themselves through movement, the way that artists who were their contemporaries put distance between them and the Impressionists. These modern dance pioneers learned the ins and outs of dramatic presentation as they forged new dance forms. [more]

Limón Dance Company: Spring 2017 Season

May 16, 2017

“Corvidae,” Colin Connor’s contribution to the program, was staged to the relentless first movement of a Philip Glass Violin Concerto. The title refers to the scientific name of the family of crows and ravens. The six dancers, stylishly dressed in all black outfits by Connor and Keiko Voltaire and moodily lit by DK Kroth, wandered about stylishly, but aimlessly, suddenly bursting into movement, softly leaping, arms held in wing-like positions. The heads of stationary dancers were held high in ornithological awareness as the rest of the cast softly cut through the air in balletic, sweeping steps. The overall mood was dark and sexy. [more]

Sokolow Theatre/Dance Ensemble

March 17, 2016

“Ride the Culture Loop” (1975) to dark, percussion-heavy music by long-time Sokolow colleague, Teo Macero, pitted small groups of dancers against each other, all seemingly trapped in a nightmare of frustration symbolized by jutting elbows, pained expressions and tense pile-ups that led inevitably to one dancer being lifted high and slowly rotated only to be subsumed back into the flailing bodies a second later. Dressed in hippy-ish jeans and colorful tops, they seemed more concerned with their inner turmoil than communicating with each other. The tense movements gave the work a thick, emotional veneer. “Ride the Culture Loop” was staged by Samantha Geracht. [more]

Paul Taylor’s American Modern Dance 2015

April 4, 2015

What became clear over the course of the four performances under review attended were the subtle changes in Mr. Taylor’s work over the years, how his works have become less deep and more oddball. This was a terrific way to see everything from his delightfully lovely “white” ballet, “Aureole” (1962), to his most recent opus, “Death and the Damsel,” a dark, distorted—sadistic, even—view of female sexuality. No matter what period the works come from, and no matter what one thinks of them, they are always models of craftsmanship, design and musicality. [more]