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BWW Review: BRIDGMAN|PACKER Pack Sex and Art Into 3-D Renderings
If we've been here before, why aren't the returns diminishing? The sequence repeats itself all night long in continuous loops and yet the eye never wanders. To the contrary one is drawn in deeper with each new repetition. Is it the weather-beaten beauty of the performers and the total investment wit...
BWW Book Review: A CHANCE TO DANCE, by Betsy Bradley
Bradley has written a clear, comprehensive guide to dance education in all its current ramifications including jazz and hip hop. She discusses classes for students of all ages including adults. Her tone is friendly and accessible. She lays out the facts about everything from cost to male dance educa...
BWW Review: GroundWorks Dance Theater Astounding at Cain Park
The indoor-outdoor Alma Theatre was seasonally comfortable with almost all of the seats full on opening night of Groundworks Dance Theater's 14 th annual performance at the Cleveland Heights hilly, tree-covered Cain Park. What the participants didn't know was that the almost always proficient Ground...
BWW Review: TAP TREASURES SHOWCASE Pays Tribute to the History of Tap
According to Artistic Director/Producer Tony Waag, Tap Treasures Showcase "reinvestigates and revisits eight historic locations in Manhattan that contributed to the evolution of tap dance." The hour-long show was performed at The Duke on 42nd Street on Thursday, July 14, 2016....
BWW Review: Twlya Tharp and Three Dances
Seasoned choreographer Twyla Tharp presents two classic pieces and one New York City premier for her 2016 summer season at the Joyce Theatre. Tharp's choreography ranges from intense to silly and playful blending classical ballet and modern lines with pedestrian movement. While at times her chor...
BWW Review: K ARTS BALLET Sets A New Standard for Excellence
The maxim 'Go big or go home' holds. That's one thing that can be said for Korea National University of Art's 'K Arts; Rising Stars of Korea Gala': they dance big; Bolshoi big. The leg extensions were never below 9 o'clock and more often than not floated past 12 o'clock; the pirouettes were never fe...
BWW Review: Cagney Lives On... Off-Broadway
Robert Creighton, embodying the spirit of James Cagney in this energetic, fast-paced, biographical musical, Cagney, playing at the Westside Theater/Upstairs, Off-Broadway, brings the Hollywood icon to life. He has the physical plant of Cagney, as well as a dynamic talent for tap dancing, singing, ...
BWW Dance Review: BALLETX
Sitting through BalletX's 10th anniversary season performance at Philadelphia's Wilma Theater on July 6, 2016, I was struck with some deep pangs of disappointment. It wasn't that the new works presented that evening were bad, quite the contrary. But how does one say that something more was expected,...
BWW Dance Review: Celebrating Diversity in Ballet with THE BLACK IRIS PROJECT
On June 29, 2016, The Black Iris Project, under the direction of the award-winning choreographer Jeremy McQueen, performed their new ballet entitled Black Iris at Central Park as part of SummerStage- the largest free performing arts festival in New York City. It was such a beautiful evening- a perfe...
BWW Review: DUSAN TYNEK Casts Magic at New York Live Arts
Lines of light illuminate the pathway of a woman in flight. Her focus is razor sharp as she surveys men soaring around her in configurations that fluctuate between the flight patterns of birds and planes. Eventually these men hoist and entangle her in a never-ending series of lifts that keep her sus...
BWW Review: ABT's SLEEPING BEAUTY
Alexei Ratmansky's 2015 version of 'Sleeping Beauty,' based on the Stepanov notation of the original 1890 version, as well as Diaghilev's production in 1921, has always posed a problem for me. I saw it last year with a friend, and our reaction was the same: why do we need this new 'Sleeping Beauty?'...
BWW Review: ROMEO & JULIET Ennobles at MetOpera
Sir Kenneth MacMillan silenced the Bard to the wordless storytelling of corporeal movement. His three-act Romeo & Juliet remounted at MetOpera this June 20-25, ennobled by three decades in American Ballet Theatre repertory....
BWW Review: JACK FERVER Mistakes The Kitchen for Camp
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...
BWW Dance Review: Celebrating the Diversity of American Dance with PHILADANCO
Performing for the first time in more than a decade, the BRIC Celebrate Brooklyn! Festival welcomed The Philadelphia Dance Company (PHILADANCO) to the Prospect Park Bandshell on Saturday, June 25th 2016. This evening's program tailored specifically for the festival featured cutting edge choreography...
BWW Review: CENTRAL PENNSYLVANIA YOUTH BALLET's 60th Anniversary Celebration
'We're the lucky ones,' said Central Pennsylvania Youth Ballet (CPYB) CEO Nicholas Ade as he introduced the company's 60th Anniversary Celebration at the Sunoco Theater in the Whitaker Center for Science and the Arts in Harrisburg on June 25th, 2016. Ade acknowledged the tremendous accomplishment in...
BWW Review: SUSAN MARSHALL Talks, and Talks, and Talks about Color
You've been here before. Someone is giving a report on something that might have once held interest but through virtue of repetition, perfunctory execution, and obsession with minutiae that thing has become prosaic at best. Prosaic is the optimal description for this extended talkfest that Susan Mar...
BWW Dance Review: American Ballet Theatre's SWAN LAKE
BWW Reviews 'Swan Lake' by ABT starring Maria Kochetkova....
BWW Review: NEW YORK SPECTACULAR Starring the Rockettes
The Radio City Rockettes star in the new summer show at the Radio City Music Hall, 'New York Spectacular,' but don't expect the traditional razor precision ensemble work that you may be accustomed to seeing. This new show has the personalized stamp of popular So You Think You Can Dance choreographer...
BWW Review: RIVERDANCE celebrates its 20th Anniversary at Wolf Trap
Longtime fans are sure to be thrilled to hear their favorites and first timers are sure to be swept up in the river sensation of “Riverdance.” With 20 years of bringing Irish dancing to audiences worldwide, “Riverdance' truly is worth the celebration....
BWW Dance Review: Alessandra Ferri Melts Our Hearts in ROMEO AND JULIET
Halfway through the bedroom scene (Act III, Scene I) I thought to myself, 'They're playing the music too quickly!' I was wrong. The tempo was fine; it simply felt faster than normal because the dancing was so wonderful. It's to be expected. Alessandra Ferri was guest starring in American Ballet Thea...
BWW Review: SHAKESPEARE TRIPLE BILL, Birmingham Royal Ballet, June 2016
The Birmingham Royal Ballet's Shakespeare celebrations continue this week as they conclude their Birmingham season with a Shakespeare Triple Bill, consisting of Jessica Lang's new Wink, José Limon's The Moor's Pavane and David Bintley's The Shakespeare Suite. Three contrasting dance styles and very...
BWW Dance Review: RIOULT DANCE NY Conjures Shades of Valiant Women
Mr. Rioult is a compelling storyteller. In 'Iphigenia' - which begins with a glimpse of the gruesome future - he confronts the tragedy head on by making it clear that the designated sacrifice is unaware of her fate. Watching Clytemnestra - Charis Haines, who handily walks away with the piece - batte...
BWW Dance Review: NEW CHAMBER BALLET Regales with Musical and Choreographic Treasures
Since premiering twelve years ago, Miro Magloire's New Chamber Ballet has commissioned and presented over 100 new works. Fifty of these works have been created by Mr. Magloire himself. In addition to his duties as choreographer and artistic director he is also an award winning composer - and at one ...
BWW Review: JANE COMFORT Dances Tales of The City
A man enters the space and walks the perimeter of The Kitchen's vast stage. Soon the entire arena will be filled with seven bodies locomoting with the purposeful gait of New Yorkers. Patterns form, collisions are narrowly missed, and somehow though it is only walking, we are rapt with anticipation. ...
BWW Review: JESSICA LANG DANCE Paints Nuanced Portraits of Brotherhood
The French make a game of finding the perfect word for a phrase. For choreographer Jessica Lang the word is never in doubt. She is a master builder of choreographic phrases. Attending June 14th's opening of her 5th Anniversary concert at the Joyce was a bit like watching the construction of bridge; ...
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