Dance
Dancing on the Rail
German-born, Berlin-based choreographer Sasha Waltz is often compared to the reigning queen of dance theater, Pina Bausch. But Waltz would rather critics align her with New York’s downtown dance scene. I’ll do both. Waltz’s Körper, performed at BAM in 2002, consisted of dance theater’s requisite fragmented vignettes in the vane of Bausch. Dancers recited monologues on the price of plastic surgery, a man skied down a large black wall, and the work clamored on into an apocalyptic end. Perhaps the most stunning segment of Körper, meaning body in German, came at the start with scantily clad dancers squirming within a large plexi-glass box. Impromptus (BAM, Dec.)signals a slight change of tone for Waltz and here we can better see New York’s influence on her work, particularly in her use of contact improvisation. Set to classical music, this lyrical, ardent work focuses on the duet. The set consists of two large parallelograms, slightly skewed like two tectonic plates colliding. The dancers move from plane to plane, running and twirling. In one duet, a man and woman both fold into each other and unfurl, lunging and leaning, but never quite splitting apart. It’s as if they are struggling to maintain their equilibrium (or their individuality) amidst the intoxicating effects of love.
December 6, 8-10, 7:30 pm.
Tickets: $20, 30, 45, 55,
BAM Howard Gilman Opera House,
www.bam.org
New York City Ballet, Winter Season
After 40 plus performances of the Nutcracker, I can only imagine that the dancers of City Ballet delight at the advent of the company’s Winter Season. Beginning January 3, the tree and trimmings come down, the snow is swept away—almost—that damn snow gets everywhere—and out comes Swan Lake, the stalwart Balanchine leotard ballets, and the new choreographic blood of Christopher Wheeldon. You can get standing room tickets for $12 the day of a performance. Sure, you’ll be in the nose bleed seats, but during intermission sneak down to the orchestra. Or, if you want to try and take in the whole season, join the Fourth Ring Society for $20. As a member, you’ll get tickets for $15 and a pre-performance talk. www.nycballet.com
RECOMMENDED ARTICLES
Adam Pendleton: Who is Queen?
By Folasade OlogunduduFEB 2022 | ArtSeen
Stand still and direct your gaze three stories up into the MoMA’s Marron Family Atrium and prepare to be arrested by the motif of black-and-white in Adam Pendleton’s Who is Queen? The work, monumental in scale, with its three soaring scaffold sculptures, taking up the height of the 60-foot atrium, is his most “autobiographical” to date and considers history not as fixed or static, but rather continuous, alive, and ever-evolving in real time.
52. (New York’s Waterways)
By Raphael RubinsteinMAY 2021 | The Miraculous
Upon graduating from art school, a young artist attends a boat-building school in Northern California. When she moves to New York City a few years later she puts her newly-acquired nautical skills to use by building a small boat capable of circumnavigating Manhattan.
The New York Health Act is Great for the Arts
By Keith GordonJUNE 2021 | Special Report
Universal healthcare has suddenly become a political possibility in New York State, and its implementation would be transformative. The New York Health Act (NYHA) is a bill that will create a universal healthcare system for all New York residents and workers with coverage beyond any private insurance plan and zero premiums, deductibles, or copays.
Frank Bowling: London/New York
By David RhodesMAY 2021 | ArtSeen
For Frank Bowling’s inaugural exhibition with the gallery, paintings from a six-decade career that saw Bowling work between London and New York are presented at both the London and New York locations simultaneously. Works on view span over 50 years of the artist’s career, from 1967 to the present day.
