CriticalDance Forum

Creating a canon for dance

by PAUL HORSLEY
the Kansas City Star

But ask a young choreographer to dance a passage from early Tharp, and he or she is likely to stare at you blankly.

...

Many find themselves frustrated by the difficulty of knowing even the landmark works of dance. This frustration is part of what motivates Kansas City Ballet artistic director William Whitener to present so many dance classics in creative reconstructions

Some dancers just dance. Others absorb movement into their bodies in ways that allow them later to create their own coherent dance.

Robert Hill is a choreographer of the latter sort. The impact of his “Piano Concerto No. 2” at the Kansas City Ballet's program Thursday derived partly from his imaginative use of what he learned as a principal dancer with the American Ballet Theatre.

This engaging four-section piece, in its world premiere, had the passion of Russian ballet, the deft clarity of Balanchine and a loose, fresh, modern quality.