Category: Outside the midwest
Even a pandemic can’t stop Joy Johnson’s beat
OWENSBORO, Ky. — Parents, siblings and family friends filed into the RiverPark Center last March for In Concert, Owensboro Dance Theatre’s annual spring production. Masked patrons with bouquets tucked under their arms navigated through the rows of Cannon Hall, half of which were draped with caution tape to encourage social distancing. The first half of In Concert read like most…
Dancing with a stranger on Zoom was something I didn’t think I needed until I was doing it: Nichole Canuso’s ‘Being/With’
SHEBOYGAN, Wis. — To describe what happened last Tuesday evening feels a little like a betrayal of trust. I was one of two audience members for an episode of Nichole Canuso Dance Company’s Being/With: Home — available through March 14 via limited digital engagements presented by the John Michael Kohler Arts Center and the Bates Dance Festival (Lewiston, Maine). That…
Film review: ‘TFW No GF’ mines quasi-empathy for bored and ignored millennial trolls
TFW No GF was released on Valentine’s Day. As a cruel joke? Or in ironic solidarity with the film’s subjects? Both, I hope. Alex Lee Moyer’s documentary film, premiered at the digital edition of SXSW in 2020, tells the stories of five men. More specifically, they are white, millennial internet trolls identified only by their first names or handles: Sean,…
Thirteen Days in Durban
*Note: This piece appears in the JOMBA! Khuluma Digital, a magazine summarizing the 20th annual JOMBA! Contemporary Dance Experience. Five students at the University of Kwazulu-Natal participated in a Dance Writing Residency, engaging with dance writing and criticism in conjunction with the festival. Re-published with permission. DURBAN, KZN, SOUTH AFRICA — …and so begins my journey home. It’s hard to…
Blame it on the rain: Three dances impacted, though not inspired by a spring rain in Durban
*Note this review originally appeared on the JOMBA! Khuluma Blog, as part of the JOMBA! Contemporary Dance Experience Dance Writing Residency and is re-published with permission. DURBAN, KZN, SOUTH AFRICA — A day of rain did not keep Ioannis Mandafounis and Emilia Giudicelli from dancing in the driveway outside the Elizabeth Sneddon Theatre for the finale to the 20th season…
‘Udodana’ lays bare personal and political identities of Musa Hlatshwayo
*Note this review originally appeared on the JOMBA! Khuluma Blog, as part of the JOMBA! Contemporary Dance Experience Dance Writing Residency and is re-published with permission. DURBAN, KZN, SOUTH AFRICA — In the opening tableau of Musa Hlatshwayo’s “Udodana,” Hlatshwayo revolves around himself at mid-stage. A hooded figure, made moody by top light with gobos, Hlatshwayo carries a legless chair…
‘You Don’t Own Me’ more than just a soundtrack at JOMBA! On the Edge
*Note this review originally appeared on the JOMBA! Khuluma Blog, as part of the JOMBA! Contemporary Dance Experience Dance Writing Residency and is re-published with permission. DURBAN, KZN, SOUTH AFRICA — Eleven days ago, I dipped my toes into the Indian Ocean for the first time. Standing on the edge of a continent that’s not mine, I felt a long…
Legends and Legacy: Anita Ratnam’s take on a Hindu goddess locates women here and now
*Note this review originally appeared on the JOMBA! Khuluma Blog, as part of the JOMBA! Contemporary Dance Experience Dance Writing Residency and is re-published with permission. DURBAN, KZN, SOUTH AFRICA — I had just heard the news that Paul Taylor died as I left for the Sneddon Theatre to view Anita Ratnam’s “A Million Sitas,” the second program of the…
Highs and lows of the human condition in MIDM JOMBA! opening
20th year of JOMBA! kicks off with a dance about human trafficking, and a journey to the moon and back
Making Visible: An interview with Okwui Okpokwasili
NEW YORK / CHICAGO — I saw Okwui Okpokwasili’s piece Poor People’s TV Room when it premiered at New York Lives Arts last spring and was struck by its richly layered and complex rendering of the lives of four black women. Weaving dance, song, text, video, and stage design, this work draws from African and American contexts to consider the legacies of…
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