In one of two programs at The Joyce (April 16 – 28) Ballet Hispanico’s artistic director, Eduardo Vilaro featured works by Spanish choreographers, Jardi Tancat (1983) by Nacho Duato,  Sortijas (world premiere) by Cayetano Soto and the Joyce premiere of A vueltas con los ochenta by Inma García and Meritxell Barberá.  The women of Ballet Hispanico (4/17 – Vanessa Valecillos, Martina Calcagno and Min-Tzu Li) shone in Duato’s fast-paced Jardi Tancat  which demanded crossing technical prowess with deep-seated folklore –  weighted movement that penetrated the floor, but was equally buoyant.   Soto’s Sortijas followed, showcasing Lauren Alzamora who was simply dogged in her command as partner Jamal Rashann Callender manipulated her like a mannequin showing lots of leg, arms and arrested balances and lifts.  García and Barberá’s off-beat “Europop” A vueltas con los
ochenta closed the evening. 

Ballet Hispanico runs until Sunday, April 28 - The second program features Alejandro Cervera's Tango Vitrola (1987), Annabelle Lopez Ochoa’s Nube Blanco (2009), and Vilaro's Danzón (2009), set to live music by Paquito D'Rivera.  For more information visit www.joyce.org

The Cambodian Festival is hot with dance.  Last week (April 18 & 19) at The Abrons Art Center, choreographers
Chey Chankethya and Peter Chin both presented works through Amrita Performing Arts (“…an international NGO based in Phnom Penh, with US nonprofit status…committed to creating Cambodian contemporary dance and theater, responding to the creative drive of a young generation of artrists…” writes the folks at Amrita.  Chankethya, choreographer, performer and sound designer in My Mother And I prompts questions about upholding a longtime tradition and invokes her mother to the stage as she recalls going to dance school to learn
traditional dances with the “Master.”  All the while moving with bent knees ever so articulately, one foot at a
time, led by a heel then through the foot, ending with toes curled way back to towards her ankle, or shape-shifting her arms to end with her wrists bent really far back with fingers nearly touching her wrists.  Her musings and movement though presented through a contemporary vein rang heavy with the tradition.  Chin’s Olden New Golden Blue with Chankethya, Chy Ratana, Chumvan Sodhachivy, Khon Chan Sithyka, Phon Sopheap
and Noun Sovitou was yet another strong contemporary work built on folk tradition.  Chin bravely delivers
traditional movement of the monkey when each of the three male performers masterfully traverse the stage gallantly on all fours articulating the shoulders, hips and torso to move from one area to another, but contrasts with his contemporary movement vocabulary; a twist on articulating the appendages, including a bit of hip hop, for example. The cast delivers story, texts, song and dance with terrific balance. 

See more dance from the Festival here: http://seasonofcambodia.org/event/khmeropedies-iii-2-2/

Souleymane Badolo & Cynthia Oliver at New York Live Arts - April 25 - 27 at 7:30
 
Badolo will present BARACK and Buudou, BADOO, BADOLO.  Buudou, BADOO, BADOLO is inspired by Badolo’s rich family legacy as it traces the journey of his great-great-grandfather; the lessons his father taught him; and the responsibility he feels to his own son about their ancestry.  Oliver's Boom! is an excerpt of a larger work to come, and exposes and manipulates notions of building a life and a relationship - of a woman to herself, her history, her present and future.  For more information visit www.newyorklivearts.org
***********
STREB!  ---  FORCES! The story of action by the people who live it.
April 4 - 28 at SLAM (51 N 1st Street, Brooklyn, NY 11249)
Thursdays & Fridays at 7:30PM - Saturdays at 3 and 7:30PM - Sundays at 3PM

STREB, New York's Own Action Heroes, bring the action back home at SLAM, their Williamsburg playground. Elizabeth Streb and her Extreme Action Company give Action a voice and story in Forces!. It's the theater of flight. Big Ideas, Big Hardware, Big Hearts and Big Muscles in a big show for the whole family.  For more information visit www.streb.org.  See YouTube clip below to get a taste!

The long awaited return of Dance Theatre of Harlem (DTH) began with a soft bang.  On one of the two very eclectic programs was George Balanchine’s 1957 groundbreaking Agon,  first danced by co-founder and artistic director emeritus, Arthur Mitchell with partner Diana Adams for New York City Ballet.  Gabrielle Salvatto who danced the famous duet with Fredrick Davis was simply beautiful. Not only did she prove technically capable of delivering Balanchine’s difficult style, she delivered with abandonment and ease in her artistry.  The much talked about young hopeful Michaela DePrince who with partner Samuel Wilson did well with the challenge that Marius Petipa and Nicholas Sergeyev’s 1895 duet in Swan Lake (Act III Pas de Deux) demands (exacting turns, difficult balances, skilled lifts), but missing is the artistry; the ease.  Certainly a test of bravado for both dancers, it will be curious to see DePrince in another few years.  Far But Close (2012) by John Alleyne showcased the company in a work made just for them, and the evening closed with Robert Garland’s Return (1999) a fun-filled work where Garland expertly melds  social
dance with classical ballet, and the dancers show how well they can handle this special blending.  Kudos to newly appointed artistic director Virginia Johnson for bringing DTH back to New York audiences and to executive director Laveen Naidu and the rest of the DTH family for helping to make this return real.  These young artists have been faced with a challenge that they seem willing to undertake, and though a tentative start, we hope that time will be on their side.  Not a bad beginning at all.

Please see my Dance Magazine preview article on DTH’s return after an eight year hiatus here: 
http://www.dancemagazine.com/issues/February-2013/Dance-Theatre-of-Harlem

E-MOVES 14
Leaping Forward with Radical New Works
Friday, April 19 at 7:30pm
Harlem Stage Gatehouse
$20 General / $16 Members

In a new twist this season nine dance-makers, with sharply contrasting styles, in teams of three perform original 30-minute pieces.




The three teams are:
#1: Nia Love, Germaul Barnes & Maurice Chestnut
#2: Nathan Trice, Marguerite Hemmings & Hattie Mae Williams
#3: Adia Whitaker, Satoshi Haga & Nelida Tirado

E-MOVES 14: THE TAKEOVER - Saturday, April 20 at  7:30pm
Harlem Stage Gatehouse
$20 General / $16 Members / $10 with purchase of ticket to E-Moves 14*

On Saturday, April 20th, each of the nine choreographers have selected an emerging artist for
the closing evening’s Harlem Stage Takeover with adventurous site-specific creations. The evening will be topped off by a DJ dance party spun by DJs Scribe & Ge-ology (I Love Vinyl).

Artists participating in the Takeover:
Rie Fukuzawa, JoiLynn, KCDC (Khristina Cayetano & Daniel Curry), Ursula Kendall, Damani Pompey, Anthony Rodriguez, Veleda Roehl, Christopher Rudd and Aaron R. White

*Call the box office for $10 tickets to the Takeover - 212-281-9240 ext.  19 or 20. 
Or visit www.harlemstage.org

Amsterdam News feature -
Ballet Hispanico
at the Joyce -
April 16 -28 @ The Joyce
http://www.amsterdamnews.com/ballet-hispanico-comes-to-the-joyce/article_a5aedca4-a866-11e2-ad12-0019bb2963f4.html

For more information visit: www.joyce.org

A warm welcome was given to the Nederlands Dans Theater (NDT) on their return to the US after nearly a decade! The Joyce Theater’s Gala on April 10 featured NDT but also some locals: Monica Bill Barnes & Company, Wendy Whelan and Desmond Richardson, and some other out-of-towners, the Lyon Opera Ballet. Barnes’ humor comes to life as the opener with an excerpt of Luster (2012) a hilarious duet danced by Barnes and Anna Bass that shows the travel from The Joyce Theater downtown (a filmed footage of the subway ride transporting a huge replica of the stage at The Joyce), uptown to the David H. Koch Theater at Lincoln Center.  Ahhh the laughs that these ladies garnered as they finally lugged their necessary prop to the stage, and Tina Turner’s funky signature “Rolling on the River” fills the air. The duo, in sparkly dresses matches Turner’s intensity with jabbing, playful and sure-footed
movements. Whelan and Richardson followed with Dwight Rhoden’s Charter (2012), a lovely work that shows Richardson ease and Whelan questioning Rhoden’s style.  Kudos to the Nicholas Payton Quartet for their jazz sharing which accompanied Charter!  The Lyon Opera Ballet followed with more live music (Johann Sebastian
  Bach this time) and Sarabande (2009) a playful quartet for men in seven distinctly different sections.  NDT’s hilarious Sh-Boom!  (2000) choreographed by Sol Leon (resident choreographer) and Paul Lightfoot (artistic directors) with section after section of standout performances by a cast of talented folks, closed the evening.  Confetti with the words “Life Could Be A Dream” (words from the title of the song used for Sh-Boom!)
fell from the ceiling as the dancing finished.   A warm welcome in deed. 

The Cambodian Festival began with a beautiful evening of dance, design, music and words in Sophiline Cheam Shapiro’s A Bend InThe River performed by the Khmer Arts Ensemble at The Joyce Theater.  The team of scenic designers (Kong Vollak, Chheng Kimhong, Prom Putvisal, Son Chanty and Uhorn Rachana), lighting designer (Robert W. Henderson, Jr.), and costume designer (San Vannary) all deserve numerous rounds of applause for such a picturesque beginning of an evening that would only be complimented by Khmer Arts Ensemble’s breathtaking  evening of dance-theatre.  The sheer, connecting circles of what looked like rattan that make up the panels from ceiling to stage, flanked stage right and spilled across the front, on center was a three-tiered platform, and behind, from one side of the stage to the other, were the musicians and their instruments seated low to the ground. Soon the story of family, bravery and love began as we are taken on a journey to the bend in the river.  This was folklore told through dance.  Each dancer spoke through countless gestures with their eyes, hands, knees and feet that were ever so articulate, flexing and undulating with every emotion.  Not to be forgotten are the crocodiles, in five pieces and danced by five dancers.  Ever so subtly in large or small groups, gliding as crocodiles, family members, people in love or people in the community, these performers, would begin a unison dance where they would stomp out their intentions, or shift from one engulfing shape to another, in close embrace, most time ending with a stunning balance, one bent leg with super-flexed feet, lifted high behind them and an arm and super-flexed wrist would match.  What a beginning.  There is a great deal more to see of the Festival. 

For more information on dance go here: http://seasonofcambodia.org/events/category/dance/
For more information on the "Season of Cambodia" go here: http://seasonofcambodia.org/about-soc/

In Camille A. Brown’s Mr. TOL E. RAncE at The Kitchen, there was a bit of time travel to a place in the history of African Americans when what they did was indeed tolerate—Minstrelsy.  Camille A. Brown & Dancers did a fine job in bringing the many faces of Minstrelsy then, and Minstrelsy now to light.  The stage was set at curtain. Against the white backdrop, names of famous characters (Moms Mabley, Diane Carroll, Flip Wilson, Whoppie Goldberg and more) came and went introducing the cast, plus there were vintage clips of African Americans dancing the cakewalk, or in vaudeville or minstrel shows.  All the while, Scott Patterson, the pianist whose genius radiated the entire evening, kept time with ragtime and other classics suited to the time.  The dancers, also suited up for the time in high-waisted pants, suspenders, jackets, caps, and saddle shoes, took the stage with long, sharp and far reaching arms, plus feet that stomped out fancy footwork, matched by Patterson’s excellent timing.  Also included were the over-the-top gestures and the toothy grins which was the norm of Minstrels like Bert Williams and William Henry Lane, aka, “Master Juba.”  Back then, these men took this derogatory stereotype and made it into an art form, and now Brown broached on challenging herself and her audience.  More reminders of the derogatory stereotype came with the section titled “Scheduled Programming” when snippets of TV show tunes (“Good Times,” “Fresh Prince,” “Amen” and others) were sung or danced, especially noted was Brown’s chorus of the flicking wrist done by Jimmy Walker of “Good Times” when he intoned “DYNOMITE.”  The work gets a bit gritty in Act II when hyper-sexual, and ethnic coding realisms of today were offered, loudly.  Standout of the evening was Brown’s solo against Patterson rendition of Louis Armstrong’s “What a Wonderful World,” so elegant and so smooth.  Where will Mr. TOL E. RAncE
go next?  Kudos to the entire team: dancers, Juel D. Lane, Mayte Natalio, Waldean Nelson, Mora-Amina Parker, Wille “Tre” Smith III, Keon Thoulouis, and Brown; lighting, Burke Wilmore; set, Philip Trevino; costumes, Carolyn Meckha Cherry; dramaturgs, Talvin Wilks and Kamilah Forbes; and animation, Isabela Dos Santos.