Book Review: Where Snowflakes Dance and Swear
reviewed by Dean Speer
For those who secretly wish for carte blanche access to shadow and observe all of the inner and outer workings of a major ballet company, then Stephen Manes’ new volume, “Where Snowflakes Dance and Swear: Inside the Land of Ballet” is for you. Author Manes was allowed full access for one year (2007-08) to Pacific Northwest Ballet’s inner circle, including board meetings, Company and School classes, rehearsals, staff meetings and performances. He also took a couple of excursions to other founts of ballet...

Lucinda Childs Dance Company: 'Dance'
by David Mead
October 18, 2011: Barbican Theatre, London, UK
Made in 1979, “Dance” was the first of Lucinda Childs’ large-scale collaborations with noted composers and designers, in this case Philip Glass and visual artist Sol Le Witt. Revived in 2009, it remains incredibly beautiful and, given that it relies on little more than half a dozen basic phrases, for the most part quite spellbinding.

Those phrases are repeated, built upon and varied as the dancers weave patterns behind a gauze onto which is projected Sol Le Wit’s film of the original cast from 1979. The opening “Dance I” is lively while exuding a sense of innocence and purity. Pairs of dancers, all dressed in tight fitting white tops and flowing white trousers skit and gambol playfully across the stage from side to side, devouring the space.

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Merce Cunningham Dance Company: Farewell Tour

by Charlotte Kasner

"Harlequin pied legs, adage that betrays the Cecchetti legacy, surround soundscape, a movement and aural stream of consciousness, Irish heritage…Cunningham and John Cage's tribute to Joyce's “Finnegan's Wake”, “Roaratorio” has it all.

The movement is seamlessly, technically accomplished and appears effortlessly light, effortlessly strong. Poses are rock solid, terre a terre work precise and fleet. This is one occasion where the fusion of ballet and modern technique provides a perfect synthesis to accomplish physically this most literary of works.  It truly is Joyce in 3D, the costumes an artful creation of crafted rehearsal leotards, t-shirts and leg warmers, beautifully lit by Mark Lancaster and Christine Shallenberg with a suggestion of the contrasts of a sunny Dublin day. It literally provides light and shade to the movement that so beautifully matches Cage's sound scenario..."

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