Dance in New York

I went on holidays to NYC last week. It was fantastic, as ever with New York. Here are some dance highlights in pictures, words and videos.

I took a short pilgrimage to the Westbeth Artists' Housing on 55 Bethune Street, the home of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company for many years. I was going to the High Line, and it's only a short walk from there, I thought I had to see the place where the legendary choreographer worked from for many years. There is a photograph hanging in the lobby, signed by Cunningham. I tried to go up to the 11th floor, where the studios were, but unfortunately it was closed and the receptionist did his job pretty well!

Photo 1

Einstein on the Beach world premiere in Montpellier (France)

I was extremely fortunate to get to go to Montpellier in the south of France this Friday to attend the world premiere of the 2012 production of Robert Wilson and Philip Glass's iconic opera, Einstein on the Beach (I am working for the London venue that is presenting it in May).

Keith Haring exhibition at Brooklyn Museum

Believe it or not, my blog post with the most traffic ever, and pretty much consistently being the most visited every month since I wrote it, is the one about the Pop Life exhibition at Tate Modern in 2009, which includes a picture of choreographer Bill T.Jones body painted by American visual artist Keith Haring.

No need to say I am super excited that an exhibition focusing on Haring's early works is about to open at Brooklyn Museum in New York. I will definitely be making my way there when I head to the Big Apple next month. Find out more.

Dance quote

Check out my Dance quotes board on Pinterest and pass on any good ones!

A film I've made

I have a Flip camera and tend to film the most random things on it. I've created a short abstract film with those rushes. It's about the small details around us, London, snow, white noise. Hope you like it!

It's called 'That sign is completely white.' (If you watch until the end you will know why!)

Pinterest for theatre and dance

Today I decided it was time to explore what Pinterest was about, as it's been all over my twitter feed and marketing news. I had a good go at filling up some my boards, but still need to find more people to follow and decide on what exactly I want to put on there: check out my profile. I am a marketeer, so my first thought is 'what would work on this platform?'


Pinterest lets you organize and share stuff (images mostly) you find on the web. People use pinboards to organise their images around themes. You can follow people and specific pinboards. It's a pretty neat way of sharing what you like and discover new stuff.

As I was pinning away, I realised that this would very much be a cool new channel for venues. Any company that is already on instagram (eg the London's Royal Opera House) or flickr (eg London's Southbank Centre) could easily create boards based on their existing images.

Flamenco Gala @ Sadler's Wells - review

I wasn't really planning to write a review for this, but I got a bit excited about this show commenting on Webcowgirl's review of it, so I thought I should write one after all.

The Flamenco Gala is always one my highlights of the annual Flamenco Festival: three great dancers sharing the stage, all for the price of one ticket? I'm in!

This year's gala probably didn't have as many wow moments as the previous ones, but I still really enjoyed it, with a line-up showcasing the different flamenco perspectives of Rafaela Carrasco, Olga Pericet and Carmen Cortes. Just a few notes on each of them...

Merce Cunningham's BIPED

Following our look at Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker's Fase, we're continuing our tour of contemporary dance classics with this cheat sheet about Merce Cunningham's BIPED.

As a clear example of Merce Cunningham's choreography, philosophy and originality, I think it deserves a place in the list.

Background

John Cage, Merce Cunningham, Robert Rauschenberg, London 1964. Photo: Douglas H. Jeffrey

Merce Cunningham is one of the greatest choreographers of the 20th century, and one of the major names in the history of contemporary dance. He transformed dance not only with his choreography but also with his philosophy about the creation of choreography and about the relationship between dance, music and the other stage elements.

Manuela Carrasco @ Sadler's Wells review

Yesterday I joined a few of my flamenco class friends to go to see dancer Manuela Carrasco's show at Sadler's Wells, as part of ther annual Flamenco Festival.

A few things about her show, Suspiro Flamenco, left me perplexed (mainly the almost random lighting) and I would have liked to see a little bit more of both her and her fantastic male dancers. But overall, it was a good evening of very pure flamenco.

Flamenco class 31 Jan 2012

Tuesdays are always good days because I have my weekly flamenco class.

This week was particularly good, even though for a moment everyone in the class got majorly worried. Our brilliant teacher was ill so another teacher was to take over for the hour and a half we had. The worry was for three reasons:

Read more...

Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker's Fase

Contemporary dance has problems with old works: choreographers always present new pieces, and quite often older, great works becomes the stuff of legend that us newbie to the artform can never enjoy live. So I thought it would be good to start a series of fact sheets about some contemporary dance classics, a bit like the brilliant cheat sheets the Ballet Bag does, or the Guardian's Step by Step guides to dance.

Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker's Fase is one of my favourite pieces of contemporary dance. I have the DVD and saw it as part of a retrospective of her early works at Sadler's Wells in 2011. Since I am going to Paris in March to see it again (at the Centre Pompidou), I decided to start the series with it.

Piano Phase. Still from the DVD Fase, a film by Thierry de Mey

Being surprised.

Yesterday I went to the premiere of Ivan Putrov's Men in Motion at Sadler's Wells. I had bought a ticket a while ago, enticed by 'the beauty of the male form in ballet' - if you know what I mean.

It turned out to be a good buy as one of the stars of the evening, Sergei Polunin, resigned from the Royal Ballet only a few days before these performances, giving them a 'you have to be there', special dimension. No matter when or why we had bought the ticket, seeing him perform had become the main reason we were there. It must have been a stressful week for him - how would he perform? Would he even be there? Of course he was there, and he was astounding.

I was very impressed by his performance in the solo ballet Narcisse, originally created by Kasyan Goleizovsky for the great dancer Vladimir Vasiliev (check out this video) - some big jumps and seemingly never-ending turns showed off his style, and the ending, with Narcisse dancing in front of a big spotlight projecting a large shadow at the back of the stage, felt quite relevant and symbolic. 'You want to see me? Here I am!' But also, in the original Narcissus way, 'I am so beautiful, so good, it will be the end of me.' Good, if lucky, bit of programming! (Check out some pics over on Ballet News)

The other good bit of programming was to include a tid bit of contemporary dance in the mixed bill. Last night, a lot of ballet fans discovered the beauty of Russell Maliphant's AfterLight (Part One). With stunning lighting by Michael Hulls and a gorgeous performance by Daniel Proietto, the solo was the big winner of the evening. I was sat next to a real ballet fan who had never seen the piece, and all he could say at the end was 'What artistry! What artistry!'. It surprised part of the audience, who probably had no expectation about this piece, and completely blew them away.

Most of my most memorable moments as a dance spectator have been at performances I knew nothing or very little about: I went to see Rosas danst Rosas based on the advice of a friend or I bought a ticket for William Forsythe's Impressing the Czar because of a cheap deal, for example.

So here's to being surprised!

The Frite of Spring

I love Cheryl! Cheryl is a video art collective that also puts on fantastic parties (gotta pay the rent somewhat!), mainly in New York, but sometimes in London too.

'Through themes ranging from topical to bizarre, the CHERYLs revel in the joyous power of dance-induced psychosis/euphoria'. That's the kind of talk I respond to!

Their last party in London was only last week, and on the screen projecting their videos, I noticed this funny and low-prod take on the Rite of Spring: The Frite of Spring. Fav moment: the maypole dancing sacrifice at the end. Check it out!



THE FRITE OF SPRING from CHERYL on Vimeo.

On a more serious note, 2013 will mark the 100th anniversary of the original premiere of Le Sacre du Printemps. Expect to hear a lot more about it!

Israel Galvan

I have been taking flamenco lessons for nearly five years. I absolutely love losing myself in the music every Tuesday night in class, learning complex rhythmic patterns, trying to free myself and get some flamenco attitude and fire within my performance style, and searching (in vain so far) for the duende.

One of my favourite flamenco dancers is Israel Galvan. Galvan 'is a dancer ahead of his time, as no one has ever danced this way' says El Pais: 'nothing he does is orthodox, but you can't question his flamencura (flamenco attitude)', and it's a fair description.

His poses, the angle of his arms, his footwork are different from your traditional flamenco, but at the same time they are not imports from other forms of dance: they are still flamenco.

Tendu TV's 10 things the dance field should be talking about in 2012... thoughts

Every year Tendu TV writes its subjective list of what the dance world should be talking about. It's always entertaining, interesting and thought-provoking. The 2012 doesn't break the rule: read it here. Here are my thoughts on a couple of the points raised by this year's list.

Trisha Brown's Man Walking Down the Side of a Building

I still remember going to see this, back in 2006 at Tate Modern. We went up to the balcony on level 2 and saw the man slowly come to our level, facing the ground. It was terrific!

Of course it isn't dance per se, but it is choreography - designed movement. Here is a video of that day from the Tate Channel.

 

First contemporary dance class

I had my first contemporary dance class this week, and really enjoyed it - as I expected!

There are about twenty people taking class with me, from a wide range of backgrounds, from budding actors wanting to work on their movements, to a 67-year-old who decided to start dancing six years ago and ballroom dancers looking for something else.

Our very friendly teacher started by explaining what release technique is: it is basically the most relaxing of contemporary dance techniques: 'it doesn't mean we won't be making any efforts, but it means we will move in an efficient way that is good for our bodies', she added.

I definitely felt a connection with meditation and relaxation - the idea of being in the body and thinking about your breathing. From the start, we worked on feeling the space and the others around us, walking around in different directions, making eye contact but not crashing into one another. We repeated that exercise, this time all breathing together: pausing to inhale, and moving about when exhaling. It felt great to simply remember to breathe!

Apart from a short bit of choreography (already!), here are a couple of things I have learnt: to use the inside of my thights to keep my balance, and to walk tall, with my shoulders relaxed, feeling some wind behind my neck, carrying me (love that image! how can you not feel good thinking this?).

The only little negative would be that all the floorwork we did, involving lots of turning around, was pretty painful on the knees, the class having wood flooring. The class ended with some travelling exercise, jumping side by side with a partner, trying to keep the same speed - cue bursts of laughters from everyone!

Can't wait for next week.

Jerome Bel at the Tate Modern

Some exciting news on page 35 of the Tate Guide for February & March 2012:

'BMW Tate Live launches Performance Room, a series of live commissions, created specifically to be broadcast online. Acclaimed French choreographer Jerome Bel presents the first performance, continuing his exploration of the relationship between choreography and popular culture, alongside that of the dancer and audience.'

It is part of the BMW Tate Live series, whose launch back in October totally passed me by. There is more info on the Tate blog.

This performance goes live on Friday 23 March at 7pm apparently [update: this event is now on Thursday 22 March at 8pm]. I have always found Jerome Bel's work fun and engaging - check out videos his works Veronique Doisneau, Cedric Andrieux and The Show Must Go On. Can't wait to see what he is going to come up with!

Anselm Kiefer at White Cube Bermondsey

If you haven't been already, I highly recommend you take the walk down to White Cube's recently opened gallery in Bermondsey to see the exhibition Il Mistero delle Catedralli by German artist Anselm Kiefer.

Kiefer works on a large-scale: the painting above, Dat rosa miel apibus, is over 17 metres wide, taking the entire wall of one of the galleries. Cast of sunflowers feature in many works, along with wings and big books made of metal. The paintings and sculpture look as though they have weathered by the elements (rusty, elemental colours tend to dominate).

I was very taken by the scale of the work, and couldn't help but picturing some Wayne McGregor choreography being performed in front of it. Go and let me know what you think.

Anselm Kiefer's exhibition runs until 26 February.