By Tara Mitton Catao Miami City Ballet took a big artistic bite out of some new repertoire in its second of four programs this season, and it paid off. On Friday night at the Kravis Center, the Miami City Ballet dancers, ignited by an exciting range of music, danced with command and purpose in an aptly named program entitled See the Music. Revisiting old works and introducing … [Read more...]
Paul Taylor show competent but earthbound
By Tara Mitton Catao The Paul Taylor Company returned to the Duncan Theatre in Lake Worth on Friday night, presenting three works that encompassed the range and variety of the great master choreographer who founded the troupe. From dark to light, from humorous interpretation to pure dance movement, the program was drawn from Taylor’s repertory of the 139 dances he has created … [Read more...]
Troupe shows the lasting influence of Martha Graham
By Tara Mitton Catao It is a tall order for a dance company to perform, side by side on a single program, the works of an iconic artist such as Martha Graham (who is responsible for shaping and redirecting a whole art form) together with new works by contemporary choreographers who may or may not have been influenced by Martha Graham’s genius. But that is exactly what the … [Read more...]
Ayikodans exhilarating in Rinker show
By Tara Mitton Catao Is there anything more thrilling than entering a dark theater, not knowing what to expect, and to be pulled, like a magnetic force, into the performance and then, when the lights come up, to feel both exhilarated and satisfied? Ayikodans has that magnetic effect. Under the artistic vision and leadership of Jeanguy Saintus, this group of outstanding … [Read more...]
Community dance: A brace of Nutcrackers
As aficionados are happy to point out, The Nutcracker is a most unusual classical ballet in that it doesn’t really have a central character. What it does have is a first half in which mime is crucial to telling the story, and a collection of widely varied dances for the second. It’s a strange story, too, drawn from a tale by the German Romantic writer E.T.A. Hoffmann, and no … [Read more...]
MCB opens first program in impeccable style
By Tara Mitton Catao Miami City Ballet’s Friday evening program began with George Balanchine’s Ballo Della Regina. Within just a few seconds, it was clear that this was a perfect opener to not only this evening’s program and the first of four programs to be presented at the Kravis, but also to the first season that is fully under the leadership and vision of Artistic Director … [Read more...]
Glover’s exuberant ‘StepZ’ revitalizes the art of tap
By Tara Mitton Catao Simple clothing and straightforward staging, bathed in vibrant lighting, set the mood Thursday at the Kravis Center for an exuberant foray into the world of Savion Glover and his virtuosic tap dancing. At the ripe age of 39 (and after having performed professionally for almost three decades), Glover is recognized as one of the most famous tap dancers in … [Read more...]
2013-14 arts preview: The season in dance
The South Florida dance season for 2013-14 looks a good deal like it has been since the demise of Palm Beach County’s own Ballet Florida: One major company, a host of excellent touring out-of-towners, and many smaller troupes. The difference in the past couple years has been that some of the smaller companies are creating a lot of original dances, so fans of this athletic art … [Read more...]
A bounty of premieres at Reach/O Dance summer show
The world of dance is famously tough on physiques, not just in the sheer wear and tear on bones and ligaments incurred by practitioners of this most athletic of the arts, but perhaps even more so in psychological ways. The pressure to be thin and to be in top physical shape is rarely relenting, and a new work of dance that tackles this idea head-on had its premiere Sunday … [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...]