Though May is already in full swing, there are still plenty of options for classical music fans looking for live music. This month’s offerings run the gamut from opera and chamber music to modern dance and ballet. Continue reading What We’re Hearing This Month: Classical Music Picks For May
About her work, Barnes says, “I see a lone wolf pup howling juxtaposed with the most complicated and layered human relationships,” and as strange as that sounds, you can pick that up from her choreography (and Jme Frank’s sci-fi-meets-aborigine costumes with masks by Ret Harrison). Continue reading Lead Bunny, the Pink Door & Modern Dance “devant les gens”
The Paul Taylor Dance Company brings a dazzling kaleidoscope of movement to the University of Washington this weekend with three performances at Meany Hall. The program features the West Coast premiere of “The Uncommitted,” accompanied by live music from the Seattle Modern Orchestra. Continue reading Paul Taylor Dance Company Dazzles at UW’s Meany Hall
Have you ever been tempted to take the leap into contemporary dance, but thought at the last moment, Wait, this costs money? Then do we have six free performances for you, featuring one of the Pacific Northwest’s most viscerally exciting and intellectually daring dance troupes.
Spectrum Dance Theater is taking The Miraculous Mandarin, composer Bela Bartok’s one-act ballet about sex and the Mandarin, to Hing Hay Park (“the park for pleasurable gatherings”) in Chinatown. Continue reading Giving It Away With Spectrum’s Miraculous Mandarin in the ID
No one needs to tell choreographer Olivier Wevers that a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down. On the same bill with his death penalty dance, thrOwn, this weekend at the Intiman, are two lighter works: la langue de l’amour, a “very naughty” solo for Chalnessa Eames; and Flower Festival, with August Bournonville’s flirtatious, teasing pas de deux, Flower Festival in Genzano, re-imagined for two men who begin the dance in suits, but then there arises a “jousting” feeling, says Wevers, promising very “kinetic” movement. Continue reading For Whim W’Him’s Olivier Wevers, A New Dance is Life or Death
I’ve had the relative luxury of digesting the proceedings for a few days, and I can tell you that the complexity doesn’t go away; there’s the idea of examining the “liminal space between action-reaction, cause-effect, and before-after,” and talk of “framing,” but that doesn’t prepare you for your response to the dancer with a red string in her teeth, the extraordinary score from Greg Haines (and sound design by Matt Starritt), or the blasts of light that reset scenes like a circuit breaker. Continue reading Zoe | Juniper Cracks Your Head Open, Non-Linearly
Speaking to an audience after a show, Wevers made a point of emphasizing that he avoids using ballet terms with his dancers, because he’s not choreographing ballet. Puckishly, he provided samples of the new nomenclature: “flying squirrel” or “the dolphin.” But there’s still a depth and boldness in how Wevers tries to speak directly to an audience–not just dance fans–about concerns “extracurricular,” over-consumption, addiction, discrimination. Continue reading Olivier Wevers & Whim W’Him: Dances to a Different Drummer
