Posts by Janice Steinberg
What’s Old is New Again: Martha Graham Dance
Fresh. Vital. These are not words I expected to use for the Martha Graham Dance Company’s performance at the Civic Theatre on Wednesday. … What a happy surprise, then, to see the exciting show the Graham company did here, performed by dancers who seemed enraptured by this work.
Read MoreLuminous Dance from Aakash Odedra; Sometimes Too Luminous
Spinning on his heels, arms slashing, Aakash Odedra electrified the stage at the David and Dorothea Garfield Theatre on Tuesday. For the other solos on the program, titled “Rising,” he turned to three contemporary choreographers: Khan, Russell Maliphant, and Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui. And it happened that the order of the pieces here marked a progression from breathtaking to meh.
Read MoreHalf a Great Show: Malashock Dance’s “Without a Net” at WOW
Though the circus artists mostly occupied center-stage in “Without a Net,” the dance smartly complemented them, setting an edgy European-circus mood. I was primed to see something weirder at the midpoint in the 80-minute program, when my half of the audience switched places with folks who’d been at the “Side Show.” Weird, it was.
Read MoreThe “Point Loma Pause” as Art: Ikaros at the WOW Festival
It’s called the Point Loma pause: the 10 or so seconds when a plane roars over Point Loma, and you have to stop mid-sentence. Every time it happened during “Ikaros,” the piece that Third Rail Projects created for the WOW Festival, the three performers went into stillness and looked up. I looked up, too, seeing this everyday occurrence as if with fresh eyes; marveling at the miracle of flight.
Read MoreThe Genius of Ambiguity: Mark Morris at La Jolla Music Society’s Summerfest
The performance by the Mark Morris Dance Group at Summerfest last week was like a loaf of artisan rye bread—dense, complex, chewy. The evening at the Conrad Prebys Performing Arts Center was so packed with dance, music, and ideas, I would have like multiple viewings: once to focus on Morris’s choreography and brilliant movers, once for the world-renowned Summerfest musicians, and a third time to lose myself in the thrilling voice of countertenor John Holiday.
Read More“Small Dances,” Compelling Stories: Litvak Dance at the Vine
Litvak Dance excels at storytelling, turning dances into intimate narratives. And Emily Miller is a gem, not only a powerful mover but a wonderfully mobile-faced actor whose pout could be a weapon. Those were my top takeaways from “Small Dances,” the program Litvak did at the Vine Theater last weekend.
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