Review Roundup: FALL FOR DANCE at New York City Center

FALL FOR DANCE continues through October 14 at New York City Center. From tap to tango and hip-hop to ballet, the 14th annual Fall for Dance Festival brings the best of dance to City Center. Renowned companies from around the world perform alongside bold new artists.

FALL FOR DANCE presents five innovative programs for two weeks at New York City Center. Some choreographers include Kyle Abraham, Mark Morris, Michelle Dorrance, Honji Wang, and Sebastian Ramirez. There are a number of companies also making their FALL FOR DANCE debut, including: Ballet BC (Canada); Cie Art Move Concept (France); Danza Contemporanea de Cuba (Cuba); Gauthier Dance//Dance Company Theaterhaus Stuttgart (Germany); German Cornejo's Tango Fire (Argentina); and Sanjukta Sinha, IceCraft Dance Company (India).

FALL FOR DANCE includes performances by the Miami City Ballet, Vincent Mantsoe, Trisha Brown Dance Company, Dorrance Dance, Pennsylvania Ballet, Cle Art Move Conceot, Stephen Petronio Company, German Cornejo's Tango Fire, Sanjukta Sinha, IceCraft Dance Company, American Ballet Theatre, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre, Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo, Gauthier Dance/Dance Company Theaterhaus Stuttgart, Sara Mearns, Honji Wang, Ballet BC, Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, San Francisco Ballet, David Hallberg, and Danza Contemporanea de Cuba.

Let's see what the critics had to say!

Alastair Macaulay, The New York Times: Program A, which opened on Monday, was a neat example of the formula's eclectic nature: 21st-century ballet; an African dance solo drawing on bird imagery; a classic of New York postmodern dance by Trisha Brown, who died this year; and the world premiere of a big new group work by the tap creator Michelle Dorrance... Ms. Dorrance's own persona, so happily tough, is part of the piece's surprising theatricality. Without changing facial expression, she can seem confrontational, supportive, stern, jubilant.

Michael Popkin, Dance Review Times: Amazingly, given the spread of different performers and styles, everything was top quality, sensitively performed, and registered fully with a packed house completely tuned in to what was happening on stage... As had happened with Vincent Mantsoe, the sincerity and simplicity of Dorrance's straightforward realization disarmed the mind. There was nothing left to do but applaud.

Photo: Nycitycenter.org