Reggie Wilson's Fist & Heel Performance Group in they stood shaking while others began to shout @ Danspace Project

Carmen  de Lavallade in Life of a Legend: Carmen de Lavallade @ Lincoln Center

Miguel Gutierrez with six Latinx performers – Alvaro Gonzalez, John Gutierrez, Xandra Ibarra, Nibia Pastrana Santiago, and Evelyn Sanchez Narvaez in This Bridge Called My Ass  @ The Chocolate Factory

Urban Bush Women in Hair & Other Stories @ BRIC

DELIROUS Dances/Edisa Weeks in her own work Three Rites: Liberty @ Mabou Mines

Okwui Okpokwasili and Peter Born in Adaku's Revolt @ Abrons Arts Center

Netta Yerushalmy's PARAMODERNITIES @ NYLA

Batsheva Dance Company in Venezuela @ BAM

Kota Yamazaki/Fluid Hug-Hug in Darkness Odyssey Part 3: Non-Opera @ NYLA

Stephen Petronio Company @ NYU Skirball

"Night of 100 Solos: A Centennial Event" (Merce Cunningham) @ BAM

Kyle Abraham (Live! The Realist MC) @ Skirball

Jonathan González in Lucifer @ Abrons Arts Center

George Sanchez in XIV @ Dixon Place

The entire lineup of The Clark Center 60th Anniversary Tribute with 5Plus Ensemble, Dyane Harvey-Salaam, Juel D. Lane, Amy Hall Garner Dancers, HSA Dances and Philadanco! @ Summer Stage- Marcus Garvey Park

Ayodele Casel + Arturo O'Farrill @ The Joyce Theater

Streb & CITI Company in Falling & Loving @ Peak Performances
 
Kayla Hamilton and Jerron Herman curated by Alice Sheppard in one of the three "Double Plus" series at Gibney.

Ella Rothschild & Marjani Saunders Forté + Everett Saunders @ BAC Space Showing

Clifton Brown & Danica Paulos of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre in Lar Lubovitch's Fandango @  New York City Center

Jamar Roberts' Ode danced by members of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre  @  New York City Center

This is the last week of the annual five-week season for the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater (AAADT) at City Center; performances will run until January 5. Sadly, there were some special days that won’t be repeated, but must be mentioned, topmost on the list is “Celebrating Chaya: Five Decades of Ailey History,” the evening dedicated Masazumi Chaya who is retiring as Associate Artistic Director after 28 seasons. In two Acts, and then an exceptional rendition of Mr. Ailey’s Revelations, decades of Chaya’s touch on each Ailey dancer was shared.  There were speeches by Artistic Director Robert Battle, Artistic Director Emeritus Judith Jamison, and more.  For sure, the performances by past members of AAADT solely in thanks to Chaya was the highlight of the evening.  The list is long, but there were performances by Sylvia Waters, Sarita Allen, Donna Wood Sanders, Desmond Richardson, Tracy Inman, Amos J. Machanic, Elizabeth Roxas-Dobrish, Troy Powell, Renee Robinson, Guillermo Asca, Aubrey Lynch, Nasha Thomas, Dwana Adiaha Smallwood, Linda-Denise Fisher-Harrell and more. 

Another glorious highlight of the season was Ode by Ailey dancer and newly announced Resident Choreographer Jamar Roberts’ response to gun violence.  Ode is performed by either a cast of male or female dancers.  Danica Paulos, Sarah Daley-Perdomo, Jacqueline Green, Samantha Figgins, Ghrai DeVore-Stokes and Jacquelin Harris danced on Sunday, December 29.  Libby Stadstad’s gigantic backdrop, mostly black with colorful, cascading flowers from top to bottom sets the stage, so too does Don Pullen’s multi-sensory solo piano “Suite (Sweet) Malcolm (Part 1 Memories and Gunshots).” The movement comes from deep quiet places, solos within unison segments meet and glide against ever-evolving tempos. They go, go, go, and stop only to begin again with new breath.  To make the work, say Roberts, it came from a “…lens of love; how we heal,” and we see this in the quiet screams and the many embracing arms that fill the space in circles and lines, then offer support as they fall recover and fall again. Ode is a masterpiece.

Catch the other works:  Greenwood by Donald Byrd and Ode by Ailey dancer and newly announced Resident Choreographer Jamar Roberts; company premieres of BUSK by Aszure Barton and City of Rain by Camille A. Brown; new productions of Divining (1984) by Judith Jamison and Fandango (1995) Lar Lubovitch; plus repertory favorites including Ailey’s Memoria and Revelations. Find out more here

A repertory-based full-time company, Gibney Dance Company invites choreographers to create original works or remount older ones on them.  This year’s guest choreographers were Stefanie Batten Bland and Peter Chu (November 14-16) in the evening titled: “BOTH/AND.” In both works, the Company (Amy Miller, Nigel Campbell, Zultari Gomez, Jesse Obremski, Jacob Thoman and Leal Zielińska) looks good. Chu’s less strong work, jam packed with repeating canons, lines and unison movements, Forming Out, closed the program.  The highlight of the evening was Batten Bland’s 5 St. Fifperhanway Place Apt. 2A wherein the Company really show as “collaborators.”  Batten Bland often includes prop(s) in her works, here it was a large bed.  With a bed on wheels, and six very active bodies as an equal partner, anything could happen and the collaborators allow for this.  So, in 5 St. Fifperhanway Place… they invite everyone in during their bedtime frolicking.  Costumed in pajamas, the dance happens on and off the bed in many groupings.  All five are sometimes tucked under the sheets, feet poked out, they feign pillow fights, and move from sequence to sequence that envelope the space, and their luscious dance is non-stop from start to finish. 

5 St. Fifperhanway Place Apt 2A is the second work in a new series.  The original score is by Grant Cutler, and costumes are by Shane Ballard.

At Martha Graham Company performances, Artistic Director Janet Eilber bring audiences closer to Graham.  Her informal welcome at the top of the show gives a breakdown of the masterwork to be performed, and then she makes connections to newer works and why, or how they may, or may not relate to Graham’s dance-making legacy. For the Company’s recent season (November 14-17 at Peak Performances), part of their conversation series, the Graham masterwork was Appalachian Spring (1944), celebrating its 75th anniversary, and the work in response to Appalachian Spring was Troy Schumacher’s The Auditions.  To be clear, any attempt to be aligned with a Graham masterwork is a bit unfair, but Schumacher went boldly into creating this contemporary conversation.  As Graham did with Aaron Copeland, Schumacher called on the composer Augusta Read Thomas to make an original score.  Also, as Graham did, Schumacher dared to hope for normalcy in a complicated world, like then, now. Graham’s slower-moving work echoes the vicissitudes of wartime (think World War II and Japanese internment camps) and a need for the comfort of family. Time is given to hold hands in prayer, or support the back of the preacher, gently rock an imagined baby, unite through unison movement across the stage, or bowing heads in agreement while seated closely on a high-back bench.  Conversely, Schumacher’s present-day world is fast-paced, and driven by a dogged competition to exist.  Schumacher’s ethereal response steps into the now and takes the dancers on an all-out, current–day-chorus-line competition (audition) to get to a sought after place. A light, center stage that came and went, was the marker. In sneakers, colorful contemporary wear, hair flying, feet moving fast, there is barely time to breathe, but they do as they dart through their real and imagined space, vying to outdo each other.  Schumacher version is definitely a good try, but maybe too ephemeral.  

The Graham dancers are: Lloyd Knight, Ben Schultz, Xin Ying, Lloyd Mayor, Natasha M. Diamond-Walker, Lorenzo Pagano, Charlotte Landreau, Anne O’Donnell, Leslie Andrea Williams, Anne Souder, Laurel Dalley Smith, So Young An, Marzia Memoli, Jacob Larsen and Alessio Crognale.

ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF DANCE: TEACHER/CHOREOGRAPHER - Binghamton University seeks a full-time, tenure track Assistant Professor to teach classical ballet and modern dance technique, beginning in the 2020-2021 academic year.

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Assistant Manager, Dance Education - The Kennedy Center - Washington, Dist. Columbia 20566
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Full Time Faculty Instructor - San Francisco Ballet  (through IABD)
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CPR Presents: Spring Movement 2020

Performance Dates: April 9, 10, and 11, 2020

CPR - Center for Performance Research in Brooklyn, New York is pleased to accept applications for Spring Movement 2020. Spring Movement is a three night festival of dance and performance, featuring finished works from 6 choreographers.
All applications must be received by January 26, 2020 by 11:59pm EST.

more info/apply here