By Rachel Straus Pam Tanowitz is an ideal example of why we opted to call this column, which this month celebrates its seventh consecutive year, “New” Artist of the Month rather than “Young” Artist of the Month. We at MusicalAmerica.com believe in equal opportunity. Let’s hear it for late bloomers with unconventional career paths. Unlike […]
    | Published: December 9, 2015 Category: reviewBy Rachel Straus NEW YORK–The long-awaited new work for the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater by Robert Battle, who took the artistic helm of this renowned company in 2011, did not disappoint. Awakenings, which premiered on Dec. 4 at New York City Center, begins as feverishly as it ends. The work’s intensity is typical Ailey. […] Published: November 25, 2015 Category: reviewBy Rachel Straus NEW YORK–Twyla Tharp’s 50th anniversary tour made its final stop at the former New York State Theater, with a set of new works (seen Nov. 17) as performed by 13 fleet-footed, unique, virtuoso dancers. The experience totaled two hours, but it felt like more. The seven males and six females—some who have worked […] Published: October 14, 2015 Category: reviewBy Rachel Straus NEW YORK–New York City Ballet commissioned five ballets this season and four of them are compelling. It’s rare for City Ballet, or for that matter any dance company, to present new works that are overwhelmingly impressive. So there was much to celebrate on October 10 at the former New York State Theater when […] Published: August 27, 2015 Category: historyBy Rachel Straus It is a rare teacher who develops a loyal following among ballet and modern dancers, but such was the case with Maggie Black (1930-2015) who died at age 85 in May on Long Island. This fiercely independent ballet teacher’s transformative effect on dancers’ abilities was famously dubbed “Black Magic” by none other than […] Published: July 29, 2015 Category: profileby Rachel Straus When Loïe Fuller’s Chinese dancers enwound / A shining web, a floating ribbon of cloth, / It seemed that a dragon of air / Had fallen among dancers, had whirled them round / Or hurried them off on its own furious path— William Butler Yeats Like the American-born dance pioneer Loïe Fuller (1862-1928), Jessica […] Published: May 9, 2015 Category: reviewBy Rachel Straus In past seasons, critics have complained that New York City Ballet principal Amar Ramasar’s dancing is too cavalier. (At times that stance is a perfect fit, as in his interpretation of the lead male role in Slaughter on Tenth Avenue.) But on April 30 at the former New York State Theater, there was […] Published: April 23, 2015 Category: reviewBy Rachel Straus NEW YORK -- The Stephen Petronio Company celebrated its 30th-anniversary season April 7-12 at the Joyce Theater. The Newark-born choreographer’s most salient works draw as much from club and fashion culture as from concert dance, but as viewed on April 12, his program took a backward glance as well, with Merce […] Published: March 1, 2015 Category: history By Rachel Straus Editor’s Note: Even though Merce Cunningham’s Biped, which is part of this year’s Spring Dances Repertory,was not created with his longtime collaborator John Cage, the work, made seven years after the composer’s death, is very much “in the spirit of their collaboration,” according to dance faculty member Rachel Straus. “It employs the latest […] |
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