Byron Woods ·
20 Jul 2008, 10:17 AM ·
1 Comment
. . . until her unprofessional conduct made her its momentary focal point.
You know, I really prefer reviewing dance to reviewing members of the audience. Unfortunately, Miller’s left me little choice, given her own poorly improvised solo during an ADF MFA student’s thesis performance last Friday afternoon.
A dance professional should have known — and done — better. Contretemps ahoy, after the break.
Click ‘more’ for the lowdown.
Continue reading »
Dance Chelyabinsk Contemporary Dance Theater
Byron Woods ·
26 Jun 2008, 11:09 PM ·
Comment
It is an easy — and a thoroughly useless — thing to be intimidated into silence or critical complicity by a “masterpiece.”
New audiences and critics may be mindful of the meanings an artwork has been given in the past. But if they’re encouraged, by anyone, to stop there — if someone convinces them that they have nothing new of value to say to a masterpiece, or no right to say it (without the appropriate advanced academic degrees) — they are swindled of their birthright, which is this: to determine, for themselves, what meanings an artwork has to them, now.
Why is this a birthright? Meanings — and aesthetics — change in a culture, over time.
Let’s consider the theater for a moment. In a space far less than the 72 years since the premiere of Martha Graham’s Chronicle, a bombastic, declamatory aesthetic once considered the apex of live theater was replaced by something very different. What’s now viewed as the artifice of the elocutionary movement was once valued as something else.
At some tipping point, a gesture on stage that once conveyed the height of drama is read by new audiences as communicating melodrama instead.
Where does the tipping point occur? The dance and theater historians don’t decide. The audiences do, at every single performance. They did it last evening in Page Auditorium. They’re doing it again, tonight.
Martha Graham’s work has said much to many people over the years. But the all too avoidable question under the circumstances also happens to be the primary critical question:
” What does this work say to us, now ? “
Could we have identified Steps in the Streets‘ “clear political message” without Janet Eilber’s pre-show explication ? ( Come to think of it, can we identify it even with it? ) Would we have known anything of what the work was “about” without those words?
What, if anything, does this suggest about the artwork’s current ability to communicate on its own terms — without someone having to speak for it?
Were there actually three couples – or just three female leads — in Diversions of Angels ? What characterizations differentiated the three women from one another, and just how deep did those characterizations go?
Now, apply the same questions to their male partners — if, that is, we can actually remember them. Weren’t they merely universal donors — interchangeable ciphers? What, if anything, is suggested by the fact that none of the men’s costumes were different — and that the one non-couple male was dressed the same as the others?
What do the qualities of movement in these works communicate to us — not 60 or 70 years ago, but now?
The floor is yours. Take the stand, and respond in comments. We have to moderate responses, due to spam, but all non-spam comments will be posted.
Dance ADF Students, Chelyabinsk Contemporary Dance Theater, Critics, Martha Graham Dance Company
Sarah Lupton ·
15 Jun 2007, 9:49 AM ·
Comment
Olga Pona’s robotic marionettes—er, dancers—took the stage last night in Reynolds Theater for the U.S. premiere of The Other Side of the River. And if there was any question about what Russian modern dance looks like, this performance cleared it up.
“Russian life is very rough,” she explained during the post-performance discussion. “It’s not polite.” Continue reading »
Dance Chelyabinsk Contemporary Dance Theater
Byron Woods ·
14 Jun 2007, 10:09 PM ·
Comment
…there’s the opening night of Olga Pona’s Chelyabinsk Contemporary Dance Theater.
Gotta ask. What did you see as you gazed through the haze? Smoke ‘em if you got ‘em—but share your responses first, in Comments, below.
Dance Chelyabinsk Contemporary Dance Theater
Byron Woods ·
13 Jun 2007, 5:00 PM ·
Comment
Chelyabinsk Contemporary Dance Theater isn’t having the kind of week you want to have when your company’s performing at ADF.
First the injury, then the insult: Since performer Maria Greyf injured her hand in Prague, scratch one needed dancer for their replay of A Little Bit of Nostalgia. At last word, choreographer Olga Pona is trying to reset the work on the nine dancers she has left.
Of course, that won’t be so easy now, after the FAA’s air travel computer crisis and reported bad weather delayed her company’s plane from Madrid to New York, and a subsequent flight to North Carolina.
Greyf also had minor roles in Waiting and The Other Side of the River, the other two works the company will perform. She’ll be replaced in the Durham performances of those works by dancer Svetlana Lvova.
Dance Chelyabinsk Contemporary Dance Theater
