Posts by Janice Steinberg
Dance Rules in “Bob Fosse’s Dancin'”
Not entirely plotless, “Bob Fosse’s Dancin'” proceeds via light story lines created by Cilento and writer Kirsten Childs. They’re a mixed bag. A scene in a swanky night club—to “Sing, Sing, Sing,” played exuberantly by the 14-member orchestra—is a delight. Costumers Reid Bartelme and Harriet Jung put the women in sparkly flapper dresses for Fosse’s signature Erté moves. Other sections, like “Big City Mime,” about a hick encountering the temptations of big bad New York, feel like jokes that go on and on, and they weren’t very funny to begin with.
Read MoreFrom Sublime to Annoying: Litvak Dance’s “Border Stories”
Weinberg is laudably committed to showcasing a range of choreographers. Here, it was a very wide range, from the sublime Lux Boreal to a piece that put the focus on one’s experience as a viewer—in this viewer’s case, an experience of annoyance.
Read More“Bhangin’ It” Brings Big Vision, Exuberant Dance to La Jolla Playhouse
“Bhangin’ It,” the world premiere musical that opened Sunday night, ignites when it brings Indian dance and music styles to the La Jolla Playhouse stage. The story by Mike Lew and Rehana Lew Mirza takes on important themes: Who has the right to represent a culture, and how pure does that representation have to be?
Read MoreRonald K. Brown/EVIDENCE Dances for the Ancestors
In the moment of watching “The Equality of Night and Day,” I found it frustratingly static. But as this piece marinates, it seems to me Brown is doing something remarkable—creating a metaphor for being imprisoned that I experienced viscerally.
Read MoreBackyard Renaissance Delivers Wicked Fun in “Abigail’s Party”
“Abigail’s Party” isn’t just wickedly funny, it’s riveting. The casual drinks party bristles with underlying antagonisms, conveyed by a superb ensemble … and when is something going to detonate?
Read MoreA “My Fair Lady” that Draws Gender Battle Lines
Dripping with sexism and class snobbery, “My Fair Lady” is one of those musicals so grating to 21st century sensibilities, one might feel it should remain on the shelf. Ah, but the Lerner-Loewe tunes are magnificent. And any tale that’s persisted from Greek mythology to Shaw’s “Pygmalion” to “Pretty Woman” clearly touches deep psychological chords.
Enter Bartlett Sher, whose “My Fair Lady” shifts the story’s focus from its Pygmalion, the arrogant Henry Higgins, to Eliza Doolittle as a smart, scrappy woman who insists on dictating the terms of her own life.
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