Versatility, attack, imagination, authority: These virtues stamped performances by British dance artist Julia Farron over a remarkably enduring career, beginning in the 1930s when she was a teenager.
NEW YORK — Researchers have found that over half the world’s “Nutcracker” productions take place in the United States. What matters, though, is that a high proportion of U.S. “Nutcrackers” are good. I’ve seen many European versions of the ballet — British and Russian included — and remember the early onset of “Nutcracker” fatigue. Here, however, I’ve found myself hungry to keep seeking more productions and to revisit the best ones. Nutcrackering became for me — a British dance critic working ...
The cavalier expansively offers his hand in a descending arc through the air. As the ballerina places her hand in his, she steps onto point and extends one leg behind her.
NEW YORK — For more than 50 years, some spark of divine fire has kept touching dancer-choreographer Steve Paxton. In the 1960s, he performed with the Merce Cunningham Dance Company and Judson Dance Theater. He created roles in epoch-making dances in both; his collaborations with artist Robert Rauschenberg were among the bold experiments of the decade.
NEW YORK — For more than 50 years, some spark of divine fire has kept touching dancer-choreographer Steve Paxton. In the 1960s, he performed with the Merce Cunningham Dance Company and Judson Dance Theater. He created roles in epoch-making dances in both; his collaborations with artist Robert Rauschenberg were among the bold experiments of the decade.
In modern dance, even more than in most art genres, each generation of practitioners has rebelled against the one before. By 1960, a canon of top-tier American modern dance choreographers was widely acknowledged: Martha Graham, Doris Humphrey, José Limón.
NEW YORK — Suzanne Farrell, the sublime ballerina and creator of many lead roles for the choreographer George Balanchine, was back in the studio where he made many of his masterworks for New York City Ballet. On this mid-April afternoon, she was coaching Sara Mearns and Russell Janzen in Balanchine’s “Diamonds.”
When choreographer Martha Graham added men to her company, it struck many as a contradiction in terms. Her all-female troupe, founded in 1926, had powerfully demonstrated women’s independence.
Jowitt, who has been reviewing since 1964, has probably vexed fewer choreographers than most other leading critics. She speaks of Taylor tenderly (“a genius”), and with gratitude.
For many dance devotees who live elsewhere, a visit to New York has to include time on the third floor of that library, located at Lincoln Center, to view its dance films.
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