Dance
662 results
Page 55
"A.W.A.R.D. Show' at Live Arts Festival
Dancing for dollars
This year's Live Arts Festival went out on a limb by pitting 12 Philadelphia choreographers against each other for a $10,000 first prize. This gimmick boosted attendance and helped raise dance consciousness. But how does a popularity contest affect a collegial and creative community?
Articles
4 minute read
Headlong's "more' at Live Arts Festival (2nd review)
When dancers aren't 'dancing'
Headlong's more juxtaposes the ordinariness of domestic life with the life of the artist. But what makes this dance and choreography— art that BSR's Jim Rutter has questioned— is that these meanings are communicated through bodies in and out of motion, and through movement gestures and movement vocabulary.
Articles
6 minute read
"Mortal Engine' by Chunky Move at Live Arts Festival
Humanity meets technology (successfully, for a change)
Rarely have we seen such a full integration between body and technology as the Australian choreographer Gideon Obarzanek's Mortal Engine achieved at the Wilma.
Articles
2 minute read
Headlong's "more' at Live Arts Festival (1st review)
Is it art, or just movement?
When dancers rearrange furniture and operate a microwave oven, is it choreography? The cumulative experience of Headlong's new and very poignant piece of dance theater left me feeling both invigorated and disturbed.
Articles
4 minute read
Melanie Stewart's "Kill Me Now' at Live Arts Festival
'They Shoot Horses' meets 'The Gong Show'
Choreographer Melanie Stewart and writer John Clancey seize on the pop-culture mania of dance contest shows to examine the sadistic role of competition in our society and in capitalism. To make their point, they enlist the audience as co-conspirators.
Kill Me Now. By John Clancey; choreographed by Melanie Stewart. Melanie Stewart Dance Theatre/ Live Arts Festival production September 4-7, 2009 at Arts Bank, 601 S. Broad St. (at South St.). 215.413.1318 or www.livearts-fringe.org/details.cfm?id=8371.
Articles
4 minute read
Kate Watson-Wallace's "Store' at Live Arts Festival
A gospel for consumers
Kate Watson-Wallace's “anonymous bodies” troupe brought its audience to an abandoned Rite-Aid pharmacy, now transformed into a set for a shopping network's infomercial. The choreographed tight, manic rhythmic dancing contrasted tellingly with the surrounding consumer chaos.
Articles
2 minute read
"Urban Scuba' at Live Arts/Fringe Festival
Urban survival test, in a swimming pool
In an abandoned Center City swimming pool, Brian Sanders's visual assortment of dance theater magic brought the kind of performance energy to the Gershman Y that's been missing there since its salad days in the '60s.
Articles
2 minute read
Merce Cunningham's final challenge
Merce Cunningham confronts the future (from the grave)
The late Merce Cunningham was ferocious about protecting his dry, acerbic, difficult, complicated and often downright incomprehensible work. Now his greatest challenge lies ahead— namely, can a choreographer preserve his vision from the grave?
Articles
4 minute read
In Bosnia: Dance conquers fear
A Bosnian Odyssey: Dance will bring us together
When I arrived in Bosnia-Herzegovina in June for a two-month humanitarian stint as a volunteer dance teacher, the challenge seemed daunting: In this tragic country, torn apart in the ‘90s by ethnic cleansing, could Muslim Bosniaks, Orthodox Serbs and Catholic Croats possibly dance together, much less live peacefully together? Within a few weeks I got my answer.
Articles
5 minute read
90 years of Merce Cunningham
Merce Cunningham remembered: At 90, still taking my breath away
People I know who don't quite respond to Merce Cunningham's dance often complain that it looks too mechanical. Well, if it does, that's what I always loved about it.
Articles
4 minute read