
Bill T. Jones choreographed D-Man in the Waters in 1989, when the mortal danger of AIDS was at a high tide. The work celebrates the buoyant spirit of dancer Demian Acquavella. He had AIDS and died in 1988, but “swimming in its waters” are many others, including Mr. Jones’s partner and company co-founder, Arnie Zane, who had died in 1988. The cast includes Miguel Anaya, Stefanie Batten Bland, Germaul Barnes, Eric Bradley, Catherine Cabeen, Christian Canciani, Rosine Leblanc, Toshiko Oiwa, and Daniel Russel Kubert. Continue reading
Category: Dance Theatre
The World According To Sidra Bell
By Walter Rutledge
Sidra Bell Dance New York presented the New York premiere of garment Thursday May 15 at the Baruch College Performance Arts Center. The work by choreographer Sidra Bell had a running time of 60 minutes without an intermission. In many situations a protracted work of this length would have been an intolerable dirge, whose only redeeming quality was that it allowed the audience a short early evening nap. But this was the world according to Sidra Bell, and in her environmental fantasy fest we were on a non-stop roll coaster ride of subliminal and metaphoric imagery. Continue reading
(Repost) 4/1/14 O&A NYC DANCE: Martha Graham – Appalachian Spring and Rite of Spring
By Walter Rutledge
The recent all too-short season of the Martha Graham Dance Company at New York City Center was a resounding artistic success. The company performed two programs of Graham classics and stunning new works by Nacho Duato and Andonis Foniadakis. The Saturday March 22 evening program included two Graham classics Appalachian Spring (1944) and Rite of Spring (1984). Both works reinforced the fact that Graham was not only as a master craftsman, but also as an artist with a strong sense of classic form, structure and design. Continue reading












