Martha Graham News

Malpaso Dance Company returns in 2016 to the scene of their overwhelming, standing- room-only triumph in the 2015 YARD ARTS season with two (2) new and different programs - 1) a sparkling repertory of Cuban and American works on Tuesday, August 16th at the MVPAC in Oak Bluffs (at 7 PM); and 2) a work in progress, Dreaming of Lions, based on Hemingway's "The Old Man and the Sea," developed in part in a Yard 2016 Offshore Creation Residency, on Thursday, August 18th, at The Yard's Patricia Nanon Theater (2 performances, at 11 AM and 8 PM).

The New York International Fringe Festival (FringeNYC) a production of The Present Company presents HELD: A Musical Fantasy, a poignant story of childhood friends growing apart in a world where reality is fluid and time can stand still, with book and lyrics by Kelly Maxwell and music by Meghan Rose.

New York City Center presents Vail Dance Festival: ReMix NYC, November 3 through 6, celebrating Damian Woetzel's tenth year as artistic director of the Vail International Dance Festival. Channeling the spirit of the summer dance happening in the Rocky Mountains with three programs and an UpClose event, Vail Dance Festival: ReMix NYC brings the unique collaborative sensibility of Woetzel's festival to New York City, featuring dancers and musicians from many genres.

Three men engage in acrobatic entanglements that transform from free-moving sculptural configurations to crumpled masses of bodies that roll all over the floor of a darkly lit fog filled stage. Resembling an improv-ed floor-work exercise full of incongruously musical acrobatic manipulations, this indulgent routine - replete with lingering touches and mashing of bodies into each other - revealed little about its performers and even less about itself the longer it went on.

Instead of the usual gala fare -- bits of firecracker variations and pieces of ballet classics -- Sergei Danilian's 'Ardani 25 Dance Gala' at New York City Center, August 19 and 20, is classic Danilian. The intrepid impresario, who has never side-stepped risk, will celebrate Ardani Artists's quarter century of producing in the United States and abroad with a trio of U.S. premieres, two by young, unknown, but up-and-coming Russian choreographers, and one by American Ballet Theatre principal Marcelo Gomes.

Though it was hot and muggy on the evening of July 24th, 2016, the jam-packed audience at Manhattan Movement & Arts Center was grinning agog like newly minted parents infatuated with their brood. The cause: a troupe of adorable bambine from Staten Island Ballet performing Ellen Tharp's 'Tarantella'. Though only one of these girls was delivering the movement nel modo Italiano, they were all so lively with their tambourine strikes and hops that even the most curmudgeonly of audience members applauded with gusto.

Seven choreographers/companies will present world premieres. Bessie Award-winning performer Caleb Teicher will premiere his full-length Variations, set to Glenn Gould's iconic recording of Bach's "Goldberg Variations." Gabrielle Lamb will present a new group work inspired by artist Soghra Khurasani's woodblock prints, Chloe Arnold's Apartment 33 debuts, and Dzul Dance's new work, presented during Hispanic Heritage Month, explores the idea of ritual as a transformative experience via pre-Hispanic rites of passage. The fall season also includes premieres and performances by CDI artists Azul Dance Theatre, Lauren Cox/Humans Collective andMAWU, and showings by mwest dances, luciana achugar, and Urban Bush Women. Program details and schedule follow.

Antonio Fini, dancer/choreographer/producer presents the third annual Fini Dance Festival, featuring guest companies from Milan and Naples, appearing with U.S.-based companies with an 'Italian connection.'

THE SERIES: VOL. 1, presented by Ballet Inc. Saturday July 23 at 7:30 PM. Reservations: www.ballet-inc.org. FINI DANCE FESTIVAL Sunday, July 24 at 7:30 PM. Reservations: www.ticketsfly.com.

Following the critically acclaimed "reaccession" of pioneering modernist choreographer Ted Shawn at The Museum of Modern Art, and recent performances at Tate Modern Museum as part of "20 Dancers of the 20th Century", Adam H Weinert returns with MONUMENT, an imaginative and dynamic new dance piece exploring legacy and identity. While others seek to turn museums into theatrical spaces, Weinert transforms the proscenium stage into an archive with stunning scenic design by Paul Tate dePoo III and lighting by JAX Messenger . The program includes historic choreography by Ted Shawn, Doris Humphrey and Jose Limon dating back to the early 20th century as well as creative re-imaginings of these events by Weinert and others - effectively transfiguring the site into a living archive, investigating ideas of mediation, memory and space.

CHICAGO (July 14, 2016) – The Chicago Dancing Festival, the nation's largest dance festival, proudly announces repertoire for its 10th annual series with George Balanchine's Concerto Barocco (performed byPennsylvania Ballet in its Chicago Dancing Festival debut), Alexander Ekman's Episode 31 (The Joffrey Ballet, originally commissioned in 2013), Christopher Wheeldon's After the Rain (The Joffrey Ballet) and a new work by world-renowned choreographer Randy Duncan set to an original score by five-time Emmy Award-winning, Chicago-based composer Andy Mitranas as part of Chicago Dancing Festival's first-time collaboration with Chicago Dancers United, among program highlights. This year's event will present five unique programs in five days across Chicago's top downtown venues - the Harris Theater for Music and Dance, the Museum of Contemporary Art, the Jay Pritzker Pavilion at Millennium Park, the highly anticipated return to the Auditorium Theatre, and for the first time at Navy Pier in celebration of the Festival's 10th anniversary - August 23-27, 2016.

' I walk into a large white room. It's a dance studio in midtown Manhattan. To some people, this empty room symbolizes something profound, mysterious, and terrifying: the task of starting with nothing and working your way toward creating something whole and beautiful and satisfying.' This passionate verse from Twyla Tharp's book 'The Creative Habit' initially spawned the idea for the concept of Manhattan's annual event, The Choreographers Canvas. Now itn its ninth year, The Canvas is a platform for emerging and established choreographers to showcase their work Off-Broadway to industry professionals and the general public. This year Canvas will perform in one of New York's most prestigious venues for dance, the 92nd Street Y.

Luciole International Theatre continues their inaugural season with passion, risk and awe. Houston has been named one of the most diverse cities in the United States.

Jesse Obremski, a Juilliard graduate, has been selected the 2016 Jadin Wong Dance Fellow in Dance. This is the third year the Asian American Arts Alliance has administered this award on behalf of the New York Community Trust. The fellowship goes to an Asian American dancer/choreographer who is age 30 or under and is based in New York City. Mr. Obremski was selected in an open application process by a high-level review panel.

Motown the Musical returns to Broadway tonight, Tuesday, July 12 at The Nederlander Theatre (208 West 41Street) for a strictly limited 18-week-only engagement through Sunday, November 13, 2016. Scroll down to learn more about the company and watch highlights from the original production below!

On February 12, 1915, the Abrons Arts Center's Henry Street Settlement Playhouse opened its doors on the Lower East Side. Since that day, it has remained a vital cultural resource, providing audiences with artistically bold work while offering artists opportunities to dynamically grow. Since becoming Artistic Director in 2006, Jay Wegman has done much more than maintain "one of the last standing locations for avant-garde performance downtown" (The New York Times, 2009). He has created an arts venue that is unique to the city's cultural landscape, presenting an international mix of cutting-edge performing and visual artists, both established and emerging, from across the country and around the world, as well as from New York City. In a 2015 New York Times profile, Wegman says Abrons is "a place for people to succeed or fail or land somewhere in between."

The Joyce Theater Foundation, Inc. will present one of the world's hottest dance companies, in its Joyce Theater debut, L.A. Dance Project, from July 26 to 30 at The Joyce Theater.

Philadelphia, PA - From global phenomenon to highly sought-after "secret," Diner en Blanc returns to Philadelphia on Thursday, August 18, 2016 for an unforgettable evening filled with food, wine, fashion, culture and music.

Jack Ferver never let up on his drag delivery. Switching arbitrarily from bad French to English or from danse to dance passed for plot in this cabaret act. The scantily clad men in the audience - I attended the June 30th, 2016 performance - lapped it up before they even had a chance to hear the next line. It was all good fun, though if there is an art to telegraphing intention it was not on display here. That was 'I Want You to Want Me': a surrealistic B movie romp ruled by a character with mystical abilities for no other reason than 'just because'. File it under lazy craftsmanship. The world that Mr. Ferver inhabited was self referential, sassy, and imbued with magic, not unlike a gay lounge.