Posts Tagged ‘ArtPower!’
Ronald K. Brown/EVIDENCE Dances for the Ancestors
In the moment of watching “The Equality of Night and Day,” I found it frustratingly static. But as this piece marinates, it seems to me Brown is doing something remarkable—creating a metaphor for being imprisoned that I experienced viscerally.
Read MoreA.I.M Offers a Bonus: A Performance by Kyle Abraham
Kyle Abraham took us in his arms and invited us in with three intimate pieces danced by his superb A.I.M (Abraham.In.Motion) company at the Balboa Theatre on Thursday. Then, before anyone could get too comfortable, he ignited the stage with the propulsive, hip hop-flavored “Drive.” The program also offered a rare treat: Abraham himself, filling in—in “The Quiet Dance”—for a company member who couldn’t perform that night.
Read MoreLuminous Dance from Aakash Odedra; Sometimes Too Luminous
Spinning on his heels, arms slashing, Aakash Odedra electrified the stage at the David and Dorothea Garfield Theatre on Tuesday. For the other solos on the program, titled “Rising,” he turned to three contemporary choreographers: Khan, Russell Maliphant, and Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui. And it happened that the order of the pieces here marked a progression from breathtaking to meh.
Read MoreEphrat Asherie Dance Explodes with Joyously Playful “Odeon”
Some dances have such wildly inventive movement, and it flashes by so quickly, that the minute the piece ends, I want to see it again. That’s how I felt when I caught the premiere of “Odeon” by Ephrat Asherie Dance at the Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival last summer. I felt that way again when ArtPower presented “Odeon” at the Balboa Theatre last week.
Read MoreBeijing Dance Theater Appears Sans Sets. Sans Much Interest, Either.
Beijing Dance Theater’s spectacular sets were pretty much missing from the stage at the Balboa Theater. Also missing was a compelling artistic vision in three pieces by company director Wang Yuanyuan. And what was with the handsy guy who kept copping feels?
Read MoreDavid Roussève/REALITY Brings 1940s African-American Jazz Clubs to Life
Wonderfully ambitious, if over-reaching, David Roussève/REALITY’s “Halfway to Dawn” is a sort of dance-biography of jazz great Billy Strayhorn. Celebratory, abandoned dancing to Strayhorn tunes evokes the gaiety of African-American jazz clubs in the 1940s; but this complex piece also conveys an underlying loneliness.
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