ADF 2008: Artery, Indy Week

The Load Out (Part II): Suggested ADF Acts for 2009?

Byron Woods — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 09:56:58 -0400

Cue the credits: This is our last scheduled post for 2008. We'll still be around to screen, post and reply to your comments -- to me and to each other -- in the days and weeks ahead, so keep 'em coming.…

The Independent Review: ADF Season 2008: Split Stages, Split Decisions (Part I)

Byron Woods — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 23:03:51 -0400

What threatened to be "a year-long Festival of the Feet" when it was announced in March turned out better than we'd feared.

For the most part.

With some exceptions.…

The Independent Review: ADF Season 2008: Split stages, split decisions (part II)

Byron Woods — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 23:02:42 -0400

Part II of the 2008 Season Review is here.

In this section: Reconstructions: Donald McKayle's Games and Past/Forward's showings of Laura Dean, Hanya Holm and Erick Hawkins; a girlchild education of a different sort by Jiri Kylian; Maguy Marin's umwelt; plus the new stuff -- good, bad and ugly -- by Mark Dendy, Larry Keigwin, Robert Battle.…

The Independent Review: ADF Season 2008: Split stages, split decisions (part III)

Byron Woods — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 23:01:04 -0400

The chilling finale of the 2008 Season Review is here.

Considered in this section: Japanese Festival performances by Natural Dance Theatre and Dance Theatre LUDENS; strong work by ADF dance students; the Acts to Follow series devoted to North Carolina dance artists; and that jump to the left, coming up -- when ADF moves some of its performances to the Durham Performing Arts Center in 2009.…

Actually, visiting choreographer Amanda Miller wasn't part of that ADF MFA thesis performance...

Byron Woods — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 10:17:37 -0400

. until her unprofessional conduct made her its momentary focal point.…

The Independent Review: ADF Season 2008 Coming Monday

Byron Woods — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 08:46:29 -0400

Our final views -- for now -- on the ADF 2008 Season will run in next week's print edition of the Independent Weekly.

But if you just can't wait that long.

. . .…

Exclusive footage: two Butoh world premieres Kochuten's "gosh, I am alive..." Dai Rakuda Kan's "Secrets of Mankind"

Byron Woods — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 13:59:33 -0400

The headline says it all: exclusive footage of the new world premieres by Muramatsu's Kochuten and Maro's Dai Rakuda Kan at the American Dance Festival. Their final performance here: Thursday, July 17.…

Exclusive footage: Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company'sAnother Evening: Serenade/The Proposition

Byron Woods — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 12:45:39 -0400

Exclusive video footage from the world premiere of Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company's Another Evening: Serenade/The Proposition, at the 2008 American Dance Festival.

Video produced for www.indyweek.com by Noreen Fagan.…

The Load Out (Part I)

Byron Woods — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 10:22:04 -0400

Okay, let's take stock for a moment. We've seen dozens of works by hundreds of performers over seven full weeks of modern dance.…

Butoh night in Page Auditorium: your first responses to two world premieres

Byron Woods — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 22:35:09 -0400

One by one, the bodies fell down those three platforms to earth at the start of gosh, I am alive... Then Butoh gradually infested a stageful of people in the opening to Secrets of Mankind.

But what did you make of the two world premieres from Dai Rakuda Kan and Kochuten at Page Auditorium?…

The Independent Review: Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company's"Another Evening: Serenade/The Proposition"

Byron Woods — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 12:09:00 -0400

This time out, Janet Wong's striking video designs provide an appropriate metaphor for Bill T. Jones' new work, which "searches deeply for connections" through our individual histories and American history, as it parses the tensions between the ideals of inclusion and unity and the social, cultural and political realities of identity. These in a work in progress containing both flaws and "abundant energy and lyricism."

Read the rest of critic Byron Woods' analysis of Another Evening: Serenade/The Proposition, taken from this week's print edition of The Independent Weekly.…

What do you know about Abraham Lincoln?

Byron Woods — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 07:39:40 -0400

...after seeing Another Evening: Serenade/The Proposition?

Bill T. Jones' latest work lets us look in on his deliberative process for an upcoming piece (with the working title A Good Man!/A Good Man? ) that will deal with issues in American history and culture touching on the life and legacy of Abraham Lincoln.

The thematic landscape is large enough to get lost in.…

Wanted: Audiovisual Rosetta Stone. Must decrypt possibly significant movements and sounds from a lost -- and therefore avant-garde -- culture. Rush to: The Audience, Education of the Girlchild, ADF

Byron Woods — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 07:10:00 -0400

Feel like taking out the want ad above after seeing last night's performance of Meredith Monk's Solo from Education of the Girlchild ? Or are you one of the ones who have it all figured out now?

Weigh in with your decryptions, translations, speculative anthropology and just plain opinions in Comments, below. We'll screen all responses -- have to, due to spam -- but we will publish every non-spam reply.…

"We didn't want you preoccupied by real identities."

Byron Woods — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 07:11:05 -0400

It was the only reason associate artistic director Janet Wong mentioned in a March post-show talkback in Durham when asked why Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company's production of Chapel/Chapter gave the gruesome details of real-life murder victims -- while it changed or deleted all mention of their names on stage.

Though the piece was built on the murders of the Otero Family in Kansas and Nixzmary Brown in New York City, the company erased the victims' identities -- from the show on stage, the program notes and discussion about the work.…

On the Record: Earlier reviews/interviews Doug Varone, Ronald K. Brown

Byron Woods — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 09:21:17 -0400

We've seen -- and reviewed and interviewed -- them before. If you missed our coverage and analysis of previous major regional and ADF performances by Doug Varone and Dancers and Ronald K. Brown/ EVIDENCE, here's a list with links -- all on the record -- below.…

The Independent Review: Paul Taylor's "Changes" and Twyla Tharp's "Sweet Fields"

Byron Woods — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 09:25:12 -0400

"Intentionally or otherwise, it was this season’s clearest example thus far of curation as critique—in which one dance work magnified the shortcomings in another simply by being placed next to it in a concert setting."

Uh-oh. Who's getting drubbed in critic Byron Woods' review from this week's print edition of The Independent Weekly? Read on, and respond in Comments.…

The Independent Season Preview (Part II): Who, by dance alone...

Byron Woods — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 13:13:39 -0400

The other (pointe) shoe droppeth:

In whose dance theatre piece do city kid games constitute their rehearsals for being adults?

Whose overt orientalism is most likely to offend the artists now visiting from that part of the world?

Whose character-driven dance appears to be channeling Raymond Carver?

And who's likeliest to give the season's next room-clearing performance?

For the answers to these and others, the last part of our 2008 Season Preview lurks below.

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So, danced any good jokes lately?

Byron Woods — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 06:48:33 -0400

Right. So these two choreographers walk into a barre...

You were there.…

The Independent Review: Aydin Teker's aKabi

Byron Woods — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 06:45:14 -0400

"While three choreographers lured us into their dystopias last week," writes critic Byron Woods, "one—Aydin Teker’s aKabi—was so overtly like [Kurt] Vonnegut['s work] that the title of a specific short story came to mind in the middle of the performance."

Could this possibly be a good sign? Read on to find out: the pre-publication of the dance review from this week's Independent Weekly follows.…

Battleworks World Premiere: Reel Time

Byron Woods — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 06:12:40 -0400

Exclusive footage of the world premiere of Robert Battle's Reel Time, as performed by Battleworks Dance Company, this week at ADF.

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Paradigm World Premiere: Two Redux

Byron Woods — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 05:29:10 -0400

[ Editor's note: Paradigm Dance Company gave us permission to post this video only during their performance dates at the 2008 ADF, June 30-July 2.

After their performance dates, the video was removed.…

SUNDAY: Doug Varone's "Orpheus and Euridice" in Chapel Hill

Byron Woods — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 13:14:57 -0400

You heard about the Doug Varone performance -- this weekend, in Chapel Hill -- right? [Editor's note: This performance closed Sunday, June 29.…

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Martha Graham's "Steps in the Streets" Introduction by Janet Eilber

Byron Woods — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 12:53:34 -0400

Excerpts in this video preview from Martha Graham Dance Company's performance of Steps in the Streets at the 2008 ADF. The opening introduction is by the company's artistic director, Janet Eilber.…
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So, how do you critically talk about a "masterpiece"?

Byron Woods — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 23:09:35 -0400

It is an easy -- and a thoroughly useless -- thing to be intimidated into silence or critical complicity by a "masterpiece."

New audiences and critics may be mindful of the meanings an artwork has been given in the past. But if they're encouraged, by anyone, to stop there -- if someone convinces them that they have nothing new of value to say to a masterpiece, or no right to say it (without the appropriate advanced academic degrees) -- they are swindled of their birthright, which is this: to determine, for themselves, what meanings an artwork has to them, now.…
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Yeats’ prophecy made manifest

David Fellerath — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 14:14:54 -0400

[Ed. note: Brian Howe, a widely ranging culture critic and reporter, writes frequently for the Independent Weekly and other publications.…
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