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Dance
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Dance & Music Preview: HUBBARD STREET DANCE CHICAGO & THIRD COAST PERCUSSION (The Wallis)
HUBBA-HUBBA-HUBBARD As one of the world’s most important contemporary dance companies, Hubbard Street Dance Chicago encompasses a vast array of techniques and forms, as well as an understanding of abstract artistry and the emotional nuances of movement. With an exuberant, athletic, and innovative repertoire, Hubbard Street presents performances that inspire, yes, but also challenge how…
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Chicago Dance Review: HUBBARD STREET DANCE CHICAGO (Season 41 Winter Series at the Harris)
GROUP DYNAMICS SURGE AT HUBBARD STREET DANCE CHICAGO Four world premieres, especially crafted by in-house choreographers for the skills and needs of their company colleagues, display a tales-within-tales meld of individuality within synchronicity, a deepening of dance that’s more than conceptual. Hubbard Street Dance Chicago’s current Winter Series, a part of their ongoing dance(e)volve program,…
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Chicago Dance Review: Christopher Wheeldon’s THE NUTCRACKER (The Joffrey Ballet)
TAKING ANOTHER CRACK: AN UPDATE ON MARIE AND THE GREAT IMPRESARIO No matter how many times you see it, you will ALWAYS be amazed by the gorgeous Nutcracker that Christopher Wheeldon imagined in 2015 for the Joffrey Ballet and the Auditorium Theatre. It’s simply impossible to remember how beautiful it is, so each witnessing is transcendently close…
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Dance Preview: GEORGE BALANCHINE’S THE NUTCRACKER (Miami City Ballet at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion)
CRACK AWAY Miami City Ballet’s new redesign of the magical George Balanchine’s The Nutcracker, featuring enchanting new costumes and sets by the Cuban-American artist/designer power couple Isabel and Ruben Toledo, Balanchine’s glorious choreography, and Tchaikovsky’s beloved timeless score, returns to The Music Center, having had its world premiere in Los Angeles last year. Running November 30 through December…
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Dance Review: DON QUIXOTE (Mikhailovsky Ballet)
DANCING AT WINDMILLS It’s surprising for those who have never seen this ballet before, but Don Quixote isn’t really about that legendary knight who is forever battling evil and seeking his Dulcinea. In fact, the Don is only an ancillary character in the ballet, which centers around two young Spanish lovers, Kitri and Basilio, who…
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Theater Review: CIRCOLOMBIA: ACÉLÉRÉ (The Yard at Chicago Shakespeare on Navy Pier)
A COLOSSAL CIRCUS CARAVAN FROM COLOMBIA Three rings do not make a circus, any more than “two boards and a passion” make a play. Sometimes all you need is fifteen performers for sixty power-packed minutes. That’s the fantastic formula working in Chicago Shakespeare Theater’s all-purpose Yard space on Navy Pier. Making its North American debut…
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Dance Preview: SUTRA (Alonzo King LINES Ballet at the Wallis in Beverly Hills)
DANCE & MUSIC ROYALTY: KING/HUSSAIN Widely considered a chief architect of the contemporary world music movement, Indian tabla master Zakir Hussain is drenched in Eastern Classicism, yet looks to Western influences to explore and experiment. Meanwhile, choreographer Alonzo King combines principles of transcendental Eastern thinking with the foundation of Western ballet’s classical forms and techniques. Over the past two…
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Music & Dance Preview: ROMEO AND JULIET (LA Phil and L.A. Dance Project at Disney Hall)
A WHOLE NEW DANCE PROJECT WITH LA PHIL Romeo and Juliet is probably Prokofiev’s best dramatic work (I say “probably” because “hearing” the duck being eaten by the wolf in Peter and the Wolf nearly traumatized my childhood). Arguably, it’s his best orchestral work. Positively, it’s his most lyrical, emotional, and deeply moving work. Yet…
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Concert Preview: GREGORY PORTER AND SAVION GLOVER (with Vince Mendoza at the Hollywood Bowl)
OLDIES AND TAP: YOU’D BE NUTS TO MISS THIS CONCERT Jazz singer Gregory Porter certainly has amassed an impassioned and appreciative audience of all ages and races. But ever since double Grammy-winning composer, actor, and soul, jazz, and gospel song stylist released his latest Blue Note recording, Nat “King” Cole & Me, he cemented himself…
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Dance Preview: ISADORA (Segerstrom in Costa Mesa)
DUNKIN’ INTO THE WORLD OF DUNCAN On September 14, 1927, dancer and San Francisco native Isadora Duncan was strangled in Nice, France, when the enormous silk scarf (“which she had worn since she took up communism,” one newspaper reported) somehow blew into the well of the rear wheel on the passenger side of the sportscar she…
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Dance Preview: MOVES AFTER DARK (Disney Hall)
GET YOUR MOVES ON It had to happen one day: L.A. is truly becoming a metropolis, with incredible events difficult to find anywhere else. To wit, the dance world is springing to new heights, and while site-specific dance has been going on for years, The Music Center goes a step further by selecting three L.A.-based…
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Theater/Dance Preview: THE COLLECTIVE MEMORY PROJECT (The Big Show Co. at the Ford Amphitheatre)
“The worst part of holding the memories is not the pain. It’s the loneliness of it. Memories need to be shared.” Author Lois Lowry On June 28 & 29, Ford Theatres, in association with choreographer/director Arianne MacBean and The Big Show Co., will present the world premiere of The Collective Memory Project — an original dance-theatre piece inspired by…
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Dance Preview: LULA WASHINGTON DANCE THEATRE (Ford Amphitheatre)
LULA’S BACK IN TOWN The Ford Theatres presents Lula Washington Dance Theatre (LWDT) on Friday, June 8 at 8:30pm, as part of its IGNITE @ the FORD! series. For this joyous evening of dance, three renowned choreographers — Kyle Abraham (“Hallowed”), Rennie Harris (“Reign”) and David Roussève (“Enough”) — will have their work performed by…
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Dance Preview: SPECTACULAR BALANCHINE! (American Contemporary Ballet in Los Angeles)
HAVING A BALL WITH BALANCHINE By the time of his death on April 30, 1983, George Balanchine had created over 400 works and was recognized as a 20th-century master alongside Picasso and Stravinsky. American Contemporary Ballet’s Artistic Director Lincoln Jones has already shown a profound ken for all things Balanchine with his original works that…
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Dance Preview: BODYTRAFFIC (The Wallis)
FIVE NOT-SO-EASY PIECES BODYTRAFFIC, the contemporary dance outfit headquartered right here in Los Angeles, has smartly scheduled three performances of this weekend’s upcoming showcase of exciting works — including a Company Premiere and a World Premiere — at The Wallis in Beverly Hills. The last four times I saw this exciting company (three at the Broad,…
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Chicago Dance Review: MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM (Joffrey Ballet at the Auditorium Theatre)
JOFFREY STEPS OUT OF A DREAM, OR DELUSIONS OF A SCANDINAVIAN SOLSTICE First, a necessary clarification for A Midsummer Night’s Dream: The title and the setting could easily confuse lovers of, respectively, William Shakespeare and Ingmar Bergman. A Midsummer Night’s Dream is not a ballet version of the former’s quicksilver 1595 comedy of rearranged lovers and quarreling fairies….
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Los Angeles Dance Preview: STARDUST (Complexions Contemporary Ballet at The Music Center)
BOWIE’S BACK … AND FORTH Founded in 1994 by a pair of former Alvin Ailey dancers and frequent contributors to the hit TV show So You Think You Can Dance, New York-based Complexions Contemporary Ballet has wowed critics and audiences alike with their boundary-breaking style of ballet. Now Desmond Richardson and Dwight Rhoden bring their acclaimed…
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Music and Dance Preview: TAO: DRUM HEART (International Tour)
TAIKO ME AWAY Ever since man could bang a stick on a rock, percussion has been a way for humans to express themselves. From the battlefield to the theater to your teenager’s bedroom, percussion has evolved from communicative and ritualistic purposes into an art form. We take for granted the use of percussion — primitive,…
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Dance Review: GISELLE (Dada Masilo & The Dance Factory at The Wallis in Beverly Hills)
WILIS AT THE WALLIS First staged in 1841, Giselle is one of the oldest surviving ballets still in the international repertory, especially because the lead role is a showcase for the world’s leading prima ballerinas. Since its inception, the Romantic story ballet has had several revisions, but most companies follow Marius Petipa’s fin de siècle version. Now, South African…
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Dance Preview: ASPEN SANTA FE BALLET (on tour at The Soraya in Northridge)
NOW YOU KNOW THE WAY TO SANTA FE Aspen Santa Fe Ballet (ASFB) celebrates the third year of its four-year residency at The Soraya with a program of three works that celebrate the company’s commitment to creating new contemporary dance. The entire evening, which plays only once — this Saturday April 7, 2018 at 8…
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