Duke Performances: Artery, Indy Week

Some assembly required? Meow Meow in Beyond Glamour at PSI Theatre

Byron Woods — Thu, 14 Feb 2013 14:54:00 -0500

BEYOND GLAMOUR
Meow Meow
3.5 stars (out of 5)
PSI Theatre, Durham Arts Council
Through Feb. 14

It doesn’t always look that way, I know. But critics usually don’t go to a show for the purpose of basking in their own smugness and perceived superiority over the material, the genre, the company or the audience.…

TERMINUS impresses most when its rhymes impress us least

Byron Woods — Sat, 26 Feb 2011 19:03:34 -0500

TERMINUS
3.5 stars (out of 5)
Abbey Theater of Dublin
Duke Performances
Carolina Theatre

If you want to explore some of the outer limits of theatrical discourse this evening, you now have two choices, not one.

For as chance—and producers’ schedules—would have it, less than half a mile away from IN THE HEIGHTS’ amazing musical fusion of slam poetry, rap and meringue-edged songs at DPAC (which earned our latest 5-star review earlier this week), Dublin's Abbey Theatre pursues a different form of verbal gymnastics in a production of Irish dramatist Mark O’Rowe’s latest work, TERMINUS, at the Carolina Theatre.…

A bittersweet homecoming for the Merce Cunningham Dance Company

Marc Maximov — Sat, 05 Feb 2011 01:40:00 -0500

MERCE CUNNINGHAM DANCE COMPANY
Presented by Duke Performances
@Durham Performing Arts Center
Feb. 4-5

The Durham Performing Arts Center was energized Friday night with the North Carolina homecoming of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company. Cunningham founded the company in 1953 at Black Mountain College in western North Carolina; he died a year and a half ago, and his will outlined plans for a final two-year tour for his company, which will disband for good in December.…

From the archives: Merce Cunningham—an interview and review

Byron Woods — Thu, 03 Feb 2011 23:14:00 -0500

Two stories from the archives, before this weekend's performances by the MERCE CUNNINGHAM DANCE COMPANY on its farewell "Legacy Tour," for those seeking further background on his work: a revealing interview from last summer with Cunningham dancer and dance reconstructor JEAN FREEBURY, followed by an earlier critical review from his company's last appearance at the American Dance Festival.

Last summer, ADF belatedly asked Freebury to place his ISLETS 2 on students over six weeks.…

How can you stay in the house... and how can you leave? Ralph Lemon at Duke

Asimina Chremos — Mon, 08 Nov 2010 14:04:01 -0500

Ralph Lemon: How Can You Stay in the House All Day and Not Go Anywhere?
Duke Performances
Reynolds Industries Theater
Nov. 6

“We had a lot more walk-outs last night than usual,” said lighting director and production manager Christopher Kuhl prior to the Saturday night performance of New York-based choreographer Ralph Lemon’s How Can You Stay in the House All Day and Not Go Anywhere? “Ralph is interested in it. He likes to track when people leave, when they start texting.”

The evening began whimsically enough with a video piece featuring 102-year old Walter Carter—Lemon’s muse and mentor, now deceased—wearing a silver spacesuit.…

MoLoRa: The Independent Interview with Yael Farber

Byron Woods — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 12:37:21 -0400

After creating a series of "testimonial plays" based on South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission in the 1990s, playwright Yael Farber approached a group of women from the Xhosa people in 2008, and told them the story of The Oresteia. The Greek tragic trilogy still confronts us with dilemmas our civilization hasn't fully solved.…

Urban Bush Women at Duke

Sam Wardle — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 12:41:02 -0500

The Nov. 12 performance by Urban Bush Women at Duke’s Reynolds Theater began with a lone dancer, her arms and shoulders rippling with muscles, standing under a misty spotlight as someone offstage read the names of African-American leaders and activists from Sojourner Truth to Malcolm X. It set the tone for the evening.

Though Urban Bush Women performances are ostensibly a form of modern dance, they’re more Toni Morrison than Martha Graham.…

Waiting it out: Putting a fine point on Beckett's Waiting for Godot

David Fellerath — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 12:42:30 -0400

Indy freelancer Sam Wardle attended opening night of The Classical Theatre of Harlem's production of Waiting for Godot. Here's his report.…

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