Dance
Dancing in the New Year
A new year brings new possibilities. As we enter into the December/January issue, which for the Rail represents the New Year, I am honored to introduce myself as the new editor of this section.
Since I can remember, I have been dancing, and since being introduced to dance criticism and writing over 10 years ago, I have remained an active, passionate participant as a performer, choreographer, writer, and fundraiser. For these reasons, I am thrilled to continue my participation in the field of dance as an editor for the Brooklyn Rail. Dance writing at the Brooklyn Rail has always strongly emphasized the coverage of new and established choreographers alike—something I intend to continue. Moving forward, I want to expand dance criticism in this section, maintain the quality and quantity of features, essays, and personal accounts that have always been written here, while occasionally devoting certain issues to dance photography.
I plan to continue a column tradition established by former editor Vanessa Manko: Dancing on the Rail. I may change the name, but the ideas remain the same. I’ll touch on the unique qualities I see coming forth in dance, and comment on the commonalities among a month’s worth of work, and what I feel are the interesting things to look out for.
If the end of 2006 reflects on the beginning of 2007 in dance performances, then that is an indication we have a great year ahead of us. As we bring in the New Year, the long established favorites in dance and dance theater are stepping forward in numbers.
Pina Bausch @ BAM, Dec. 8 - 16. www.bam.org ♦ Bill T. Jones @ Harlem Stage at the Gatehouse, Dec. 5 - 9. www.harlemstage.org ♦ David Parsons @ The Joyce Theater, Dec. 5 - 17. www.joyce.org ♦ Richard Move @ DTW, Dec. 19 - 23. www.dtw.org ♦ Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo @ The Joyce Theater, Dec.19 - Jan.7 ♦ Susan Marshall @ DTW, Jan. 22 - Feb. 3.
The next two months are not just about established work, but also new artists coming together in festival and in process. We have ample opportunity to witness creations presented one after the other, which alight what is, in fact, going on in our field.
Movement Research Festival @ Danspace Project at St.Marks Church , Dec. 8 - 10. www.movementresearch.org ♦ Dance and Process @ The Kitchen, Dec. 20 - 21. www.thekitchen.org ♦ Draftwork @ Danspace Project at St. Marks Church, Dec. 16. www.danspaceproject.org ♦ Raw Material @ Dance New Amsterdam, Dec. 7 - 9. www.dnadance.org
And finally the Barnard Project at DTW brings it all together. Artists Gabri Christa, Jeanine Durning, David Neumann, and Reggie Wilson meet next generation’s dancers at Barnard College, and work with them on established pieces that are then presented December 7-9.
It all makes for a promising 2007. While I am grateful to have this opportunity to share my vision of dance in New York today, I do hope to hear from you, the readers. In the spirit of the Brooklyn Rail—which seeks to uncover arts, politics, and criticism—I seek out your input. This section is a continuing conversation, and I am hopeful to make the dialogue even more direct. I am eager to hear your thoughts and to further strengthen communication and coverage of the field that I love so much and that we are all a part of—dance.
Here’s to dancing in the New Year! @brooklynrail.org
RECOMMENDED ARTICLES
One year of Dance in Bushwick
By Doug LeCoursOCT 2019 | Dance
Dance in Bushwick (DiB), founded by Joanna Futral, aims to provide a platform for dance and performance artists living or working in the neighborhood. Futral works closely with her husband, Casey Kreher, who serves as technical director.
Editor’s Note
By Will ChancellorNOV 2020 | Fiction
We turn to international fiction for new voices, new worlds, and new perspectives. But beyond the new, there’s another feature that I find myself in dire need of right now: external gravity. This month we publish excerpts from two recent selections in Archipelago Books expansive map of world literature. The first story, “Igifu,” by Rwandan writer Scholastique Mukasonga, makes physical the weight of hunger (igifu) and shows how lack can become the center around which a family orbits. The second selection is an excerpt from Colombian novelist Tomás González’s Difficult Light. The novel consists of thirty three meditations on family and beauty, told by a painter looking up from the gravity well of grief. Both Mukasonga and González write with profound depth and make us question whether the center we’re wheeling around is really so central, so inescapable after all.
The Grand Union: Accidental Anarchists of Downtown Dance
By Aileen DowlingSEPT 2020 | Dance
In what is held to be Banes’s definitive text on postmodern dance, Grand Union serves as almost a coda to a story in which Judson is the protagonist. However, in Wendy Perron’s new book The Grand Union: Accidental Anarchists of Downtown Dance, 1970-1976, the group gets their moment after nearly 50 years.
Dance in the Making
By Anna Yudina , Diana Vishneva, and Olivier BerggruenJUL-AUG 2020 | Critics Page
This conversation between Diana Vishneva, Anna Yudina, and Olivier Berggruen explores the evolution of dance, seen from the perspective of an “art form in the making,” to use William Forsythe’s memorable formulation.
