Wade, American-born but living now in Berlin, graduated from Amsterdam’s School for New Dance Development in 2000, and ever since has been experimenting not simply with the hoary notion of “audience participation,” but with what amounts to live choreography. That is, there’s not a dance event that the audience, on the periphery, participates in; the audience performs the event. Continue reading Dance a Shamanic Dance, this Weekend at Velocity
Unfolding in 14 scenes, the work’s music samples liberally from the period (New Order, Love & Rockets) and Gray, the Holman/Basquiat collaboration. DASSdance is notable for its fashion-world associations, and while the program doesn’t mention a costume designer, it’s replete with hot pants, legwarmers, neon tube tops and bottoms, pedal-pushers, tutus, “Like A Virgin” lace-and-jean, even a tutu. Continue reading DASSdance Returns to 1982’s NYC Loft Scene
Catherine Cabeen is, at what seems to me a young age, a significant choreographer and, colloquially, a smartypants. Her MFA from the University of Washington centered on 20th century history and feminist theory, and locally, she belongs in that group of dance makers (other names jumping to mind are Spectrum’s Donald Byrd, Whim W’Him’s Olivier Wevers, Salthorse’s Beth Graczyk and Corrie Befort) whose works tend to engage their audiences in a battle of wits. Continue reading Catherine Cabeen’s Hyphen Will Leave You Breathless
There are many affecting moments onstage in Donald Byrd’s remount of The Beast (at Spectrum Dance Theater’s studio theater through October 16), but a good number also arise offstage: Rarely does an audience feel so implicated in a work, as in this dance of domestic violence that had its premiere in 1996.
The New York Times review of the original work, which featured a glowing rectangle and dancers spattering stage blood, called out Byrd’s eclectic blend of Brechtian alienation and overheated German Expressionism. Continue reading Byrd’s Beast Dares You To Sit and Watch
