News Ticker

Julie Lemberger

Contemporary Dance Festival: Japan + East Asia 2019

January 10, 2019

The four choreographers whose three works were represented at the Japan Society’s Contemporary Dance Festival: Japan + East Asia flung themselves headlong into the modern world of dance with only occasional glances over their shoulders at their ancestors-in-art, preferring what often appeared to be an arbitrary approach to choreography uneasily alternating between coy, fey bits of choreographic fluff and sudden primal screams. Only the final work on this occasionally interesting, but flawed program displayed some understanding of this concept of the inexorable march of time and its effects. [more]

Nihon Buyo Dance by Geimaruza

March 6, 2017

Three musical pieces displayed the instruments on which the music is made. “Nagare (Flow)” was played on two shamisen (stringed instruments) by Touon Minamidani Mai and Touon Sakata Maiko, completing in ever faster, improvised sounding, themes, all based on traditional melodies (kind of like a gentler version of “Dueling Banjos” from Deliverance). “Toki (Japanese Crested Ibis)” featured a long fue (flute) solo by Tosha Suiho, whose passionate musicianship was overwhelming. The third work, “Shishi (Lion)” combined all the different percussion instruments and the flute to great dramatic effect. [more]

17th Contemporary Dance Showcase: Japan + East Asia

January 9, 2017

All the choreographers displayed over-intellectualization and overuse of gimmicks, avoiding dealing directly and honestly with their subjects. Homosexuality raised its head in two of the works but was handled superficially. Perhaps, there’s an “Asian sensibility” that eluded me, but the vocabulary used was decidedly Western and has to be assessed in those terms. [more]

DELIRIOUS Dances: To Begin the World Over Again

July 9, 2016

Edisa Weeks’ DELIRIOUS Dances company presented "To Begin the World Over Again," an ultimately hopeful, informal look at American values filtered through the words of Thomas Paine, the Revolutionary War era philosopher and rebel-rouser—sort of an informal, easy-to-get-into Hamilton. [more]