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Moves Like Jagger

8/27/2015

Summer vacation is over and I have started back to work. Someone asked me today: “what was the best dance performance you saw this summer?” After thinking about it for a while—because I saw a lot of excellent dance this summer—I realized it was Mick Jagger! Yes his moves are legendary, as various SNL spoofs and the Maroon 5 song attest. But I was completely unprepared for how truly vibrant a mover he is in the flesh. And I certainly did not expect to be so dazzled by the dancing at a rock concert.

I went to see the Rolling Stones play at Heinz Field in Pittsburgh at the end of June. My parents generously organized it as a family trip. (Keith Richards is sort of a deity to my dad.) I was excited about the concert, for I grew up on the Stones and I love them. But I expected the show to be a watered-down, nostalgic victory lap; after all, the bandmates are mostly septuagenarians now. And though Charlie Watts, Ronnie Wood, and yes, even Keith seemed a little worn at times, about Mick Jagger I couldn’t have been more wrong!

The man is a kinetic force. At 72 years old he was able to sing in a clear strong voice while dancing more than any frontman I’ve ever seen. He danced the whole show straight through, taking only

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8/17/2015

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Anthony Huxley, me, Bramwell Tovey, Rebecca Krohn, and Ask la Cour

Christmas in August anyone? I had what was probably the first Nutcracker gig of the year over the weekend, when I returned to Saratoga Springs to perform with renowned British maestro Bramwell Tovey and the incredible Philadelphia Orchestra. On a sunny 90 degree day, with some bonus humidity in the form of an evening drizzle, the PO and the NYCB teamed up for a program called “Winter Tales.” The orchestra performed Rimsky-Korsakov’s suite of The Snow Maiden, Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf, and Waldteufel’s Skater’s Waltz before Rebecca Krohn, Ask la Cour, Anthony Huxley, and I came out for a visual assist on selections from Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker. Anthony danced the Hoops trepak, I performed the Arabian solo, and Rebecca danced the Sugarplum Fairy solo and then the grand pas de deux with Ask. The orchestra played other excerpts from the Nutcracker Suite including the Act I March, Marzipan, the Pine Forest Scene, and the Waltz of the Flowers as a stirring finale.

It felt bizarre to perform the Nutcracker in the summer, but it was somehow fitting—for my role at least. After all, the skirted Arabian bikini is infinitely more appropriate attire for August than it is for December. It was the first time I wasn’t shivering backstage beforehand! I also had a decent tan from a recent trip to Grand Cayman, so I didn’t feel like such a vampire for once. But even more fun was dancing such a sultry piece in the lazy days of summer.

Balanchine’s Arabian choreography is a bizarre mix of heavy grand allegro jumps and sustained, adagio développés. Sometimes there are quick steps for every note in a triplet—like in the opening stage crossings which always make me think of Tina Turner in Proud Mary. But sometimes there is

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On the Beamish Bandwagon

8/5/2015

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Joshua Beamish, photo by David Cooper

I went to a performance of Joshua Beamish/Move: The Company at the Joyce last night first and foremost to support my friend Janie Taylor’s budding costume designing career, but I was also curious about Beamish’s choreography. Prior to yesterday I had only seen online snippets of his work with Wendy Whelan’s Restless Creature project, but at the Joyce he presented three full pieces of his choreography (one a world premiere, and one a US premiere) plus one excerpt. It was a Beamish crash course and I very much enjoyed it. It seems to me that his ethos borrows from jazz, modern, and ballet. He seems really interested in turned out vs turned in positions, and he incorporates floorwork often. Gaze appeared to be an important factor, as did undulating spinal articulation.

Most distinct to me was his use of funny little gestures. Many choreographers—like Christopher Wheeldon and Jorma Elo—play with flexed hands and fidgety, non-balletic port de bras. But Beamish used these tics as linguistics, not just aesthetics. His dancers seemed to be conversing with each other, like they had some odd sign language that only they understood. But the more I watched, the more I realized that it was actually easy to understand what they meant. The gestures were unconventional but legible. These were not the abstract semiotics of Bournonville, these were universally human gesticulations. A fist to the mouth, an elbow stabbing into a

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Moves Like Jagger

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On the Beamish Bandwagon

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