Two years ago, in a fresh and gutsy program, the audiences at the Duncan Theatre in Lake Worth got to experience BodyTraffic, an upwardly-mobile contemporary dance company that hails from Los Angeles. Earlier this month, the company returned and presented a program of new works by different choreographers that was perhaps less fresh but equally gutsy. Founded in 2007, … [Read more...]
Tharp evening needed more highlights of her work
I imagine that I was not the only one who went to the Kravis Center to see the Twyla Tharp 50th Anniversary Tour show on Feb. 17 with the expectation that I would see an array — a sampler — of her best hits. But instead, there were just two works on the program: Preludes and Fugues, which was created especially for the tour, and Nine Sinatra Songs (1982) which is probably … [Read more...]
Audience samba is joyful postscript to energetic Brazilian dance show
The 24 performers of Balé Folclórico da Bahia entered the Rinker Playhouse — as we did — from the outside and stood right next to us as they sang. Bathed in a warm, reddish light and dressed in the traditional white clothes and head wraps of the Northeast of Brazil, they sang with a gentle fervor and we felt their presence intimately. Presenting Bahia Of All Colors, … [Read more...]
Brilliant Barton work makes Malpaso appearance something special
When one sees a great deal of dance, it’s always thrilling to experience a work that is richly unique in its movement vocabulary and is performed by a group of dancers who move in an exceptional way. I always hope to be totally caught up — delightfully submerged — in the artistry and creativity onstage, but it just doesn’t happen that often. But then unexpectedly, and for … [Read more...]
French dance troupe’s acrobatics astonishing
What do you get when you put a young French pharmacist and an old faded faded photograph together? In this case, an evening-length work called What The Day Owes The Night, which unleashed more than an hour of reality-defying, non-stop action performed by 12 bare-chested, muscular men. Intense, personal and physical, Compagnie Hervé Koubi (after finally resolving some visa … [Read more...]
MCB’s new repertory pieces fall shy of troupe’s fresh commissions
Under the enterprising leadership of Artistic Director Lourdes Lopez, Miami City Ballet has pressed forward by adding three company premieres to the 2017 season. But the program at the Kravis Center for the Performing Arts on Friday night made one wonder if adding these old works — albeit new to the company — has merit, especially when Miami City Ballet unequivocally excels … [Read more...]
Stamina, style of Philadanco wows Duncan audience
With unabashed energy and brazen athleticism, The Philadelphia Dance Company, better known as Philadanco, launched the popular and highly respected Duncan Theatre’s Dance Series at Palm Beach State College in Lake Worth on Friday night. Presenting four works by four choreographers that drew upon African-American culture, classical ballet, and modern/contemporary dance, the … [Read more...]
Pilobolus, at Duncan, continues to redefine dance, astonish
Mike Tyus, Shawn Fitzgerald Ahern and Jordan Kriston in On the Nature of Things. (Photo by Grant Halverson) They did it again. This oddball dance company has delighted us with another dynamite performance. Started four decades ago by four gymnasts from Dartmouth College who, after wandering into a dance class, developed an idiosyncratic style of dance (which they named after … [Read more...]
Harid marks 25 years with three celebratory programs
Reared in the orphanages of rural southwest Brazil, Gleidson Vasconcelos found his future one day as he looked into a window he was passing, and saw a girl dancing to the sound of a music box. “’She must be having a really great time doing what she is doing. She is so beautiful and free,’” Vasconcelos remembers thinking. Seen at the window by a dance teacher, the 10-year-old … [Read more...]
Hula show at Duncan: Good for you, but needs rethinking
First, get rid of any preconceived notions that you might have of Hawaiian dance and the hula. You won’t see any of that in this performance by Halau Hula Ka No’eau. You will see a more historic and anthropological hula, one that was highly influenced by the missionaries and American and European culture. The women are covered from neck to ankle in granny-like Victorian … [Read more...]