Barnett Serchuk - Page 6

Ballet Memphis, under the artistic direction of Dorothy Gunther Pugh, will return to New York City's Joyce Theater (175 Eighth Avenue) for the first time since 2007 for a limited run this October. Performances begin Tuesday,October27th and run through Sunday, November 1st.

That Eryc Taylor is talented is a no-brainer; that he still needs focus is the question that needs addressing, and I think that this is a very pressing problem for his career.

Just when you think you are Sleeping Beautied out, along comes another production. This one however, is being produced on the other side of the world by the Australian Ballet. That's a long way to travel to see something you've already encountered in 500 other productions. On the other hand, why not? I'd never been to Australia and needed a vacation. So a 27-hour flight didn't seem to faze me. Plus, I would see a company that was almost totally unknown to me. I'd seen them on You Tube and was highly impressed. I missed them in New York, so this would be my chance not only to see the company, but Australia! Of course, there were other reasons. Like a great love I had in college 40 years before and had left because he wanted me to move to Melbourne with him. And I was going to meet him again! So if you combine the meeting of a past love and a new Sleeping Beauty, the combination was almost irresistible, at least to me. (I'm told that my brain works in peculiar ways, and this was definitely one of them!) So I booked a flight and in two days I was transported to one of the loveliest cities imaginable. And I could have been there 40 years earlier!

Pearl Buck, the Nobel Prize winning author, once wrote that 'if you want to understand today, you have to search yesterday.' Which is what Australian Ballet Artistic Director David McAllister has attempted with his new production of Tchaikovsky's The Sleeping Beauty, which will premiere in Melbourne, Australia, on September 15 2015, before touring to Perth from October 7-10, and Sydney from November 17-December 16.

Pearl (www.PearlTheShow.com), a new American-Chinese dance-theatre spectacular, inspired by the life of Pearl S. Buck, the first woman to win both the Nobel and the Pulitzer Prizes, will have its world premiere at the David H. Koch Theater at Lincoln Center for 4 performances only, August 27-30th. The story, focusing on the substantial influence Pearl had on both Chinese and Western cultures, will be brought to life through new choreography by Daniel Ezralow (Ezralow Dance Company, MOMIX, Sochi Olympics Opening Ceremony, Academy Awards), a new score composed by Jun Miyake (collaborations with Robert Wilson, Pina Bausch, David Byrne and Oliver Stone) dazzling visuals and a company of 30 American and Chinese dancers.

Fadi J. Khoury, who serves as FJK Dance Company's Artistic Director, choreographer and principal dancer, connects Argentinean tango, Middle Eastern movement, classical ballet and ballroom dance in an innovative contemporary dance setting.

Tony Waag (Producer/Artistic/Executive Director/Teacher) founded the American Tap Dance Foundation (formerly known as the American Tap Dance Orchestra) in 1986, along with Brenda Bufalino and the late Charles 'Honi' Coles. From 1989-1995, he co-created and operated, with Ms. Bufalino, Woodpeckers Tap Dance Center which became a model for numerous tap organizations and tap studios worldwide creating, producing, and presenting various educational programs for adults and children year-round, as well as annual winter tap intensives with master classes, courses and workshops taught by leading International artists and master tap dancers.

When the Sadler's Wells (now the Royal Ballet) first performed "Cinderella" on its triumphant 1949 debut performance at the old Metropolitan Opera, John Martin, the eminent New York Times dance critic, was not engrossed. He wrote that it was difficult to be enthusiastic about it, but "if it were stripped of all its dead wood, both musical and choreographic, it would run considerably less than the two and a half hours it now undertakes to fill."

Ballet NY will present the world premiere of What Ever, choreographed by Medhi Bahiri, as well as works by John Butler, William Forsythe and Stanton Welch, July 9 - 11 at Ailey Citigroup Theater, 405 West 55th Street (at 9th Avenue).

Having visited Poland at least 50 times in my life, you'd think I would have sampled some opera, dance or music recital in the country. I suppose I had to be back on American soil to finally catch up with the Polish National Ballet, now playing at the Joyce Theater, offering two works by Pastor and one by Israeli choreographer Emanuel Gat.

Yehuda Hyman's 'Mar Vista (Spanish for 'view of the sea') is a presentation of his Mystical Feet Company, a warm and poignant remembrance of his parents, two seemingly mismatched misfits who found each other. I wasn't sure what to expect when I entered the 14th Street Y on Sunday, June 14, 2015, but I came away pleasantly surprised. What I expected to be an over-the-top evening of raw emotions turned out to be a passageway to the heart of one very special individual, namely Yehuda Hyman

Remember history class in high school? The teacher presented a lecture and told us how exciting a certain historical period had been, going on to incessantly bore us because we had no recourse other than to take indecipherable notes we couldn't understand later, finally coming to the conclusion that history was, and always would be, a painstaking bore, better consigned to the college professors we were bound to meet sooner or later on our educational journey to adulthood and, hopefully, a job. That's very much what I thought about the American Ballet Theater's new production of Alexei Ratmansky's 'Sleeping Beauty.' I hate to sound churlish, but so much ink, not to mention so many dollars, have been lavished on this production, that, beyond some more extra performances and, probably, a showing on Great Performances, it will disappear within two years. At least it will be in the archives for future generations to watch.

The Victory Dane Project celebrated its first anniversary on May 11, 2015, with a program that, if not stirring or original, at least caught my interest to see the well trained and very passionately committed young dancers.

On Sunday, June 31, 2015, New York City Ballet offered the sweet, the mundane, and the historical. If I were a lyricist I could write a song about this, but since my iambic pentameter is almost non-existent, and my Stephen Sondheim thesaurus nowhere to be found, I guess I'll have to push forward in everyday prose.

Choreographer Amy Jordan's company, The Victory Dance Project, will celebrate its first anniversary this week with an evening of dance entitled People, Power and Possibility on Wednesday, June 3, 2015 at 7 pm at The Ailey Citigroup Theater, 405 West 55th Street (at 9th Avenue). The evening will honor former Ailey star Principal Dancer Renee Robinson, who will receive the company's First Annual Artist for Peace Award and will feature five works choreographed by Jordan.

So how far does an afternoon of Bournonville go? I would love to say a long way, yet in the performance on Sunday, May 24 at the Koch Theater, the dancers of the New York City Ballet proved that, while soaring high octane is definitely in their blood, the softer sounds and characterizations of Bournonville may be beyond their considerable and powerful techniques.

Jonah Bokaer has cultivated a new form of choreography with a structure that relies on visual art and design. He ultimately aims to transform notions of how the public views and understands dance.

A conversation with Tony Waag, Executive/Artistic Director of the American Tap Dance Foundation, in anticipation of their upcoming 'Rhythm in Motion' contemporary tap dance showcase in New York City, April 22 through April 26. 'Rhythm in Motion' presents forward thinking, groundbreaking tap dance choreography, 'shaking tap dance to its core.' Last year's 'Rhythm in Motion' included tap dance with video, computers, sound manipulating machines and electronically rigged platforms.

Calling all balletomanes, historians, Ph.D. candidates, sociologists, audience members, and just about everyone else interested in dance. Do you want to see Diana Adams, Allegra Kent, Violette Verdy, Jillana, Maria Tallchief, Tanaquil LeClercq, Andre Eglevsky, Suki Schorer, Patricia Neary, Carol Sumner, Todd Bolender, Arthur Mitchell, Francisco Moncion, Nicholas Magallanes and Jacques d'Amboise again in the intimate surrounding of your living room? No, this not a joke, but the first of many VAI DVD releases from Montreal's Radio-Canada archive, encompassing a televised history of Balanchine's many works from 1954 well into the 1970s.

White Road Dance Media, a contemporary dance company based in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, will premiere Marisa Gruneberg's 12th full-length contemporary dance work, Neon Brave, at Triskelion Arts in Brooklyn on February 19, 2015. GoPro cameras will be attached to dancers, i.e. the audience will see 'what the dancers see' via projections, including the nude soloist, for a different type of audience immersion. A quartet of women investigate life's challenges, becoming alternately entangled and inter-reliant, empowered and individualized.