Choreographer Joe Goode, based in San Francisco, has been making work for his company for 23 years, and visits New York once in a blue moon. The two pieces at the Joyce (through this past weekend) showed Goode’s ability to forge narrative, camp, identity issues, humor, and oh yeah, dance, into an appealing theatrical style [...]

Robert Wilson traffics in memory, controlling the passage of time and playing around with it—with us—by juxtaposing temporal spheres. In a fascinating tribute to his collaborator, Judson movement alum Suzushi Hanayagi, Wilson created with choreographer Carla Blank KOOL: Dancing in My Mind, which premiered at the Guggenheim’s Works & Process series last weekend. It was [...]

Many of the top dance companies have second troupes that serve as farm teams. They develop young talent, allowing time for technique to deepen and providing invaluable stage experience. This seems to be the New York season for the “twos,” what with runs by ABT II, Ailey II, and NDT II taking place within weeks [...]

Horse, the male troupe from Taiwan presented by Eliot Feld’s Mandance Project, performed two evenings at the Joyce Theater recently. Wedged among eleven shows of Feld repertory, the evenings have in common the dancers Wu-Kang Chen and Wei-Chia Su. The company performed the US premiere of Bones, an austere work that edges away from a [...]

This past week, the two most potent cultural events I’ve seen involve both space travel and music—Wooster Group’s La Didone, and SciFi Network’s Battlestar Galactica. Coincidence? La Didone intertwines tellings of Francesco Cavalli’s opera and Mario Bava’s film, Terrore nello spazio (Planet of the Vampires, 1965). Wooster Group regulars, including Kate Valk, Ari Fliakos, and [...]

There’s something about Ivy Baldwin’s work that’s transporting. It could be the movement, which shifts between childlike play and virtuosity. It might be the attention to detail in every element, from lighting to set to sound, including a settling overture. It might be the five engaging performers, including Baldwin. In all likelihood, it’s everything assembled [...]

New York audiences are most familiar with West Side Story from choreographer Jerome Robbins’ same-titled suite for New York City Ballet, from the 1961 film directed by Robbins and Robert Wise, and the essential story from myriad renditions of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. But it is on Broadway now after nearly 30 years (!), and [...]

Paul Taylor Dance Company is performing 19 works in nearly three weeks at City Center, through March 15. This is both a gift and a curse. The sheer breadth of his work is dazzling, and it is brought into stunning clarity by his amazing company of 16. The downside is choosing which programs to see. [...]

Mark Morris has proven how deft he is with opera, particularly when it includes his wonderful dancers. His productions of Romeo & Juliet: On Motifs of Shakespeare, Orfeo ed Euridice, Platée, King Arthur—and the sublime L’Allegro ed il Penseroso ed il Moderato and Dido and Aeneas for his own company—all integrated his astute sensitivity with [...]

Firefall, John Jesurun’s new work that recently ran at Dance Theater Workshop (with an emphasis on theater), does not lack for either verbal or visual content. In fact there is so much information flying through the air in the work’s 55-minute length that it feels twice that long—at times too dense for normal, somewhat fatigued [...]