Category: New York City Center

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Balanchine: The City Center Years (Program I)

Program I of “Balanchine: The City Center Years” at New York City Center on Wednesday.

Memorable moments from the opening night include…

Kimin Kim‘s jumps in “Tschaikovsky Pas de Deux”. The crowd collectively gasped when he leaped off for the first time, and stayed in the air forever and ever. Kimin continued to impress throughout the piece, executing some of the best jumps I’ve seen, and owned the spotlight in this duet.

Anna Rose O’Sullivan and Marcelino Sambe were amazing in “Tarantella”. They were playful, technical, and daring. I love the chemistry between them, and look forward to seeing them perform “Tschaikovsky Pas de Deux” tomorrow night!

Tiler Peck, Ashley Bouder, Anthony Huxley, and New York City Ballet were lovely in “Symphony in C”. Miami City Ballet opened the night with a beautiful presentation of “Serenade”.

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Martha Graham at City Center

Martha Graham Dance Company. April 14th at the New York City Center.

My favorites tonight were “Ekstasis” and the “Rite of Spring”. The former is the most incredible articulation of the human hip movement. The latter is an emotional journey constructed as much from body movements as from the sound of bodies impacting the floor.

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Martha Graham at City Center

Martha Graham Dance Company. April 13th at the New York City Center.

My favorites of tonight’s program were “Mosiac” by Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui that mixed various dance genres and “The Legend of Ten” by Lar Lubovitch where the dancers flowed across the stage like ocean waves… gentle yet powerful at once.

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Dance Theatre of Harlem

Throwback to a few shows that I enjoyed this year, but haven’t had a chance to write about…

Dance Theatre of Harlem. My favorite of the night goes to Dougla featuring an elaborate wedding ceremony.

April 7th at the New York City Center

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Encores! Hey, Look Me Over!

Saw excerpts from *nine* Broadway musicals and Vanessa Williams this afternoon at “Encores! Hey, Look Me Over!” presented by the New York City Center.

Some of my favorite moments:

“Look What Happened to Mabel” and “Movies Were Movies” from the musical, Mack and Mabel. Special shoutouts to Alexandra Socha’s singing and ACTING as Mabel. She was energetic yet genuine “as if you could see through her soul” the moment she interrupted the movie scene in “Movies Were Movies”.

Bebe Neuwirth as Mimi in the musical, Sail Away. Looooved her in the closing score “Why Do the Wrong People Travel” where she sang in exasperation about: Why why why do the wrong people travel and why why why do the right the people stay home? She was funny and dramatic, and everything the song was about.

Bob Martin, as the MC of the show, was hilarious yet informative — allowing us to jump from scene to scene, from musical to musical while staying engaged in show and learning tidbits of Broadway history.

The ensemble of the musical, George M! Loved their singing and tap dancing in “Give My Regrets to Broadway”.

The ensemble of the musical, Milk and Honey. Wonderful Israeli dancing in “Independence Day Hora.”

Carolee Carmello and Britney Coleman as Wildy and Janie from the musical, Wildcat, singing “Hey, Look Me Over!” as they proudly drove their fixer-upper car into Centavo City.

Judy Kuhn and Reed Birney as Elizabeth and Fodorski from the musical, All American, singing the lovely yet sad “Once Upon a Time” and reflecting on a time very very long ago, when there was a girl with moonlight in her eyes… when they laughed, were young, and didn’t have a care… but somehow once upon a time never comes again.

Plus more scenes and music from Jamaica, Greenwillow, and Subways are for Sleeping.

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The Red Shoes

Ashley Shaw was amazing in the Red Shoes, with gorgeous techniques and a potent personality that wooed the audience.

I’ve seen snippets of Matthew Bourne’s work online, but it’s a whole difference experience to watch two hours of dance theatre. I especially enjoyed how he created several highly detailed scenes without any spoken words. For example, Lady Neston’s Soiree (portraying boredom and dullness in a theatrical way).

The show has some nifty fusion of social and concert dance — combining “real world” swing and jazz-era movements with the beautiful lines of concert jazz dances.

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Fall for Dance: Day Ten

Still love the beautiful “Solo Echo” choreographed by Crystal Pite and performed by Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, after seeing tonight’s program for a second time.

Immensely enjoyed the powerful aerials by the men of San Francisco Ballet in “Concerto Grosso.” Bravos to Max Cauthorn, Diego Cruz, Esteban Hernandez, Wei Wang, and Lonnie Weeks.

Also, finally met up with fellow dancer and enthusiastic supporter of dance, @dea_dance, after first meeting on instagram. Here’s to a great upcoming season of dance! 😃

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Fall for Dance: Day Nine

Tonight’s program opened with a bang! Absolutely stunning performance of “Solo Echo” by Hubbard Street Dance Chicago. Choreographed by Crystal Pite. Flawlessly executed by the seven amazing dancers with impeccable techniques: Jacqueline Burnett, Kellie Epperheimer, Michael Gross, Elliot Hammans, Alice Klock, Kevin Shannon, and Florian Lochner (replaced Andrew Murdock).

Beautiful combination of contemporary, modern, jazz, and ballet. So much power and emotion in the individual dancers. What’s more, I love how the group moves and flows as one. Definitely one of my favorite pieces, out of all five programs in this year’s festival.

San Francisco Ballet came out flying (figuratively and literally) with “Concerto Grosso” choreographed by Helgi Tomasson that showcased their five gorgeous male dancers.

Danza Contemporanea de Cuba capped the night with energetic formations of 24 dancers.

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Fall for Dance: Day Seven

Finally saw Abraham.In.Motion (and Connie Shiau) perform at the NY City Center. Tonight’s world premier of “Drive” didn’t have (at least to me) the charged political statements or the emotional pains that I had read much about in Kyle Abraham’s work. Artistically, I loved the style, the body language of the dancers, the sharpness of the movements, and the responsiveness to the music. I felt connected to the dancers and the scene — set through lighting, movements, and music — that reflects New York.

Abraham.In.Motion is presenting “Dearest Home” in Purchase on Oct 20-21. Should I go see it???

Also loved Gauthier Dance//Dance Company Theaterhaus Stuttgart’s US premier of “Streams” choreographed by Andonis Foniadakis. Smooth flowing movements with sharp emphases. Like ocean waves approaching a beach. Something is always happening. Something is always building up. You never know what to expect, when the waves would collide, or how the waves would break. The dancers could be going in 13 different directions and, BOOM, they were suddenly in unison creating a big splash on stage. Everything then fades away, and we await the next wave of approaching dancers.

This contemporary-themed evening closed with Ballet BC’s “Bill” choreographed by Sharon Eyal and Gai Behar. 16 dancers in nude full body suits with their hair dyed in white. There was nothing to focus on except for the 16 bodies. And boy were they gorgeous! Incredible movement quality from each of the dancers, but it’s the group’s synergy, slight contrasts between the dancers, and interactions that made this piece so mesmorizing.

Finally, saw Sara Mearns in yet another dance genre… learning to hip hop with Honji Wang!

p.s. Had a serendipitous conversation with former MOMIX dancer Taz Loft tonight. Meeting interesting people and fellow dance lovers: That’s why we live in this city! Also, MOMIX!! 😍

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Fall for Dance: Day Six

Learnt a little more about classical Indian dance tonight from a Czech Indian dancer.

Still love Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo. The ballerina chest bump before the finale (what a way to end a ballet parody, right?) actually reminded me of a personal story… but let’s leave that offline!

ABT’s Souvenir d’un lieu cher is also lovely. On this fourth occasion seeing the performance, I interpreted the choreography differently. I always thought the dance was the stories of the two couples. Tonight, I had the strange feeling perhaps it’s actually the dream/desire of one of the girls?