Leverage: Tiler Peck and Her Brilliant Friends

By Janice Steinberg | November 8, 2023 |

Tap is percussion, it’s a conversation begun by Dorrance’s feet as the curtain opens, so clean you catch each sharp flap and the shush as she swings a foot to the side. … The piece is subtitled “Subdivisions of Time and Space, and Intersections of Isolation and Community, Longing and Joy.” If that sounds like an everything bagel of a dance, it is.

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BODYTRAFFIC Offers Delectable Food for Thought

By Janice Steinberg | June 10, 2023 |

BODYTRAFFIC explored an intriguing range of music-dance relationships in work by an international roster of choreographers. Two of the Los Angeles company’s pieces were set to feel-good tunes by the likes of Peggy Lee and Oscar Peterson. Another used sappy songs by male crooners as an ironic counterpoint to almost-nude male solos. And one featured James Brown classics, but often edited into distortion. It made for an evening of superb dancing by eight gorgeous movers … and rich food for thought.

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Complexions Ballet Dazzles

By Janice Steinberg | May 23, 2023 |

Propulsive, exuberant, thrilling, Complexions Contemporary Ballet brought dazzling technique and stratospheric energy to the Civic Theatre. And those bodies! Sleek, flesh-toned costumes highlighted exquisitely muscled legs and superb lines.

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What’s Old is New Again: Martha Graham Dance

By Janice Steinberg | January 26, 2020 |

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.

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