Welcome to America, Mr. Trump

Maria Kowroski in Balanchine’s “Mozartiana.” Photo copyright Erin Baiano and courtesy Dances Against Cancer.

Sterling Hyltin and Amar Ramasa in Balanchine’s “Who Cares?” Photo copyright Erin Baiano and courtesy Dances Against Cancer.

Alex Wong in Rachael Poirier’s “747.” Photo copyright Erin Baiano and courtesy Dances Against Cancer.

Juilliard Dance students in Nijinska’s “Les Noces.” Photo copyright Rosalie O’Connor and courtesy Juilliard.

Story Copyright 2011, 2017 Harris Green
New Editor’s Note by & copyright Paul Ben-Itzak

(Editor’s Note, 1-31-2017: This piece, comprising reviews of performances by and of the Juilliard School, the School of American Ballet, American Ballet Theatre’s Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis School, Venti Petrov’s “El Cid” — an epic tale which in part concerns Spain’s Christians *and* Muslims banding together to repel foreign *military* invaders — and a star-studded Dancers Against Cancer benefit with performances by Maria Kowroski, Daniel Ulbricht, Matthew Rushing, Alex Wong, Sterling Hytlin, Amar Ramasa, and others in work by Balanchine and others, was first published on June 24, 2011. Serendipitously re-viewing it this morning for inclusion in the DI Archives, I was struck by how both Harris’s text and the accompanying photographs, while neither written nor shot with this intent, formulate an eloquent aesthetic response to Donald Trump’s attempts to exclude from the United States a myriad of immigrants and refugees, beginning with an executive order last Friday. ((Among many other pictorial and textual elements in this story, following Mr. Trump’s logic, neither Stravinsky nor Balanchine, as citizens of a country besieged by Bolshevik terrorism, would ever have been admitted to France, let alone the United States.)) The new headline above, thus, as this note, are my entire responsibility and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of either the critic or the photographers. For continuing coverage of the national and international political, legal, and community response to Mr. Trump’s efforts, check out the daily broadcasts of Democracy Now.  — PBI)

NEW YORK — Because off-Broadway theater has long proved essential to this city’s artistic life, “off-Broadway dance” should not be considered a patronizing term for what is offered away from City Center and the gilded confines of Lincoln Center when major companies are between seasons. One reason I would hesitate to apply the term to recent spring offerings of the Juilliard School’s Dance Division, however, is that this institution’s renovated home, the Irene Diamond Building, is not only on Broadway but a stunning steel and glass addition to the neighborhood. Another is that the program “Juilliard Dances Repertory” (March 23-27), by including Bronislava Nijinska’s rarely seen but historically essential 1923 setting of the Stravinsky powerhouse “Les Noces,” made a stunning contribution to our artistic life out of all proportion to its occasionally raw, unflaggingly dedicated performance by 34 students. (For more on this ballet as interpreted by the Paris Opera Ballet, see Paul Ben-Itzak’s Flash, elsewhere in these DI Archives.)

To receive the rest of the article, subscribers can contact publisher Paul Ben-Itzak at paulbenitzak@gmail.com. Not a subscriber? Subscribe to the Dance Insider for just $29.95/year ($99 for institutions gets full access for all your teachers, students, dance company members, etc.) and receive full access to our Archive of 2,000 exclusive reviews by 150 leading critics of performances on five continents from 1998 through 2015. Just designate your PayPal payment in that amount to paulbenitzak@gmail.com, or write us at that address to learn how to pay by check or in Euros. You can also purchase a complete copy of the Archives for just $49 (individuals) or $129 (institutions) Purchase before February 14, 2017 and receive a second, free copy for the recipient of your choice. Contact Paul at paulbenitzak@gmail.com .

Love, Art, & Death in the Time of Cholera: Haring fleshed out at Gladstone; Vega’s skin-deep McCullers

Keith Haring’s “Red” (detail), as viewed at the Gladstone Gallery, 1982-1984. Gouache and ink on paper. Complete work 106 3/4 x 274 inches (271.1 x 696 cm). ©Keith Haring Foundation. Courtesy Gladstone Gallery, New York.

By Paul Ben-Itzak
Copyright 2011, 2017 Paul Ben-Itzak

NEW YORK — “These are markers,” Bill T. Jones was telling me. We were at last Wednesday’s opening for the Gladstone Gallery’s ambitious exhibition of the three mammoth works Keith Haring painted in real-time during a series of performances by the Bill T. Jones / Arnie Zane Company in 1982, as well as two long display cases packed with drawings taken from Haring’s notebooks, including a couple of dozen sketches of penises, most poignantly several under which the artist has written, “Drawing penises in front of Tiffany’s.” Jones looked from tableau to tableau, reflected, and added: “I’m a marker.” Only Bill T. Jones can say this without seeming ostentatious or self-important. What he meant is that, like Haring and like the affliction they shared, the one ultimately succumbing and the other surviving, still here, he signified the artistically audacious and personally daring gestalt of a certain New York epoch. Where he was being unfair to himself, though, was that his tone implied the word *was*, and of the three iconic signifiers of the ’80s NY art scene I encountered last Wednesday meandering from Gladstone’s vast Chelsea gallery near the Hudson to the intimate Rattlestick Theater on Waverly Place, where Suzanne Vega was holding court as Carson McCullers, or pretending to, Jones was the only one who was of his time without being trapped in it. That said, with this courageous exhibition, Barbara Gladstone has liberated Haring from the sanitized version that has been passed down to us in the two decades since his death from AIDS-related illnesses in 1990, at the age of 31. If Jones is “Still / Here,” thanks to Gladsone, Haring is here again, in his full unadulterated glory.

To receive the rest of the article, originally published May 9, 2011, including additional art by Keith Haring, subscribers can contact publisher Paul Ben-Itzak at paulbenitzak@gmail.com. Not a subscriber? Subscribe to the Dance Insider and Arts Voyager for just $29.95/year ($99 for institutions gets full access for all your teachers, students, dance company members, etc.) and receive full access to our Archive of 2,000 exclusive reviews by 150 leading critics of performances on five continents from 1998 through 2015. Just designate your PayPal payment in that amount to paulbenitzak@gmail.com, or write us at that address to learn how to pay by check or in Euros. You can also purchase a complete copy of the Archives for just $49 (individuals) or $129 (institutions) Purchase before February 14, 2017 and receive a second, free copy for the recipient of your choice. Contact Paul at paulbenitzak@gmail.com .

Protected: A Tale of Two Shrews

This content is password protected. To view it please enter your password below:

Password:

Protected: Ballet showdown: Peter Martins versus Paul Mejia

This content is password protected. To view it please enter your password below:

Password:

Protected: Flash Flashback, 1-18: Galvan’s Apocalpyse — Dances with and against Death

This content is password protected. To view it please enter your password below:

Password:

Protected: American Ballet Theatre’s Fall Season: Perennials & Novelties from Balanchine, Ashton, Tharp, Ratmansky, Millepid, & Lang / by Harris Green, DI Senior Critic

This content is password protected. To view it please enter your password below:

Password:

(Advertisement) Founded in 1969 by Sharon E. Dante, the Nutmeg Ballet Conservatory (above, in Petipa’s “Don Quixote”) is committed to providing professional-level ballet training to aspiring young dance artists. Under the watchful eye of artistic director Victoria Mazzarelli, the Nutmeg Ballet is recognized as a leading professional ballet training organization and is accredited by the National Association of Schools of Dance. Residential and Day Student high school and post high school year-round training. Onsite accredited high school academic program available. Three rigorous summer intensive programs. Start your Nutmeg Ballet journey today! Visit www.NutmegConservatory.org . (To advertise your Ballet, Modern, College, or University dance programs with the Dance Insider, e-mail Paul at artsvoyager@gmail.com by pasting that e-mail address into your browser.)

Protected: Flash Flashback, 1-11: Shock Treatment Vandekeybus in Alaska with all the angry young men and women

This content is password protected. To view it please enter your password below:

Password:

The Johnston Letter: Merce, Historical –‘The whole man is in it every time’

By Jill Johnston
Copyright Jill Johnston 2009, 2017

(Editor’s Note. January 9, 2017: By the majesty of her writing, perspicacity of her insight, and scope of her perspective, which transcended the typically insular universe of most of her contemporaries in post-Denby, pre-Dohse dance criticism, Jill Johnston elevated post-modern dance to a position of equal footing with larger modern and post-modern movements with observations like, here: “Cunningham belongs to that great shift of focus — from representation to the concentration on materials — which is so central to the revolution in art in this century….” Originally published in the Village Voice and Art in America and first reprinted on the DI, by permission of the author, in May 2009.)
It is not easy to see. Outside the theater, living as we do, most of us see very little with our eyes wide open…. It is rare to see more than a general outline. Or to see more and still enter. That is the crucial transition, from seeing to entering. Not only crucial but mysterious, so I won’t say any more except to note that I think most people who go to dance concerts don’t see very well, not even dancers, sometimes dancers especially, and most often critics, who must attend special classes in becoming blind.

To get the rest of the article, subscribers can contact publisher Paul Ben-Itzak at paulbenitzak@gmail.com. Not a subscriber? Subscribe to the Dance Insider for just $29.95/year ($99 for institutions gets full access for all your teachers, students, dance company members, etc.) and receive full access to our Dance Insider Archive of 2,000 exclusive reviews by 150 leading dance critics of performances on five continents from 1998 through 2015, as well as five years of the Jill Johnston Letter. To subscribe via PayPal, just designate your payment to paulbenitzak@gmail.com, or write us at that address to learn how to pay by check, Euros, or British pounds. You can also purchase a complete copy of the Archives for just $49 (individuals) or $129 (institutions). Purchase before January 15 and receive a second, free copy for the recipient of your choice. Contact Paul at paulbenitzak@gmail.com .

Protected: Flash Flashback, 1-5: Beneath the Shell –Exploring the Beauty Myth with Jeanne Mordoj, Kataline Patkai, Isabelle Esposito & Marie Chouinard

This content is password protected. To view it please enter your password below:

Password: