What conditions does an artist need to make anything worthwhile? Aside from such craft-specific tools as paintbrushes or actors, the basic resources for invention are: time and attention, and freedom from the scramble to find time and attention.

I wanted to include the letter on the next page, in part to acknowledge an artist’s response to current dance criticism generally, but also because the writing about Bill T. Jones’s work has a specific context that I think deserves more discussion than is usually granted.

“That was the most sex, drugs and rock’n’roll I’ve ever seen…without music.” Never mind music—choreographer Melinda Ring’s new work, X, barely used any sound. My friend’s remark about the dance referred to the carnal inner forces driving each moment, not the bright colors or loud sounds that serve as markers for youthful abandon.

After the opening performance of STREB’s Run Up Walls (continuing weekends through May 23) at her action lab in Williamsburg, much of the audience stuck around to celebrate the publication of Elizabeth Streb’s How to Become an Extreme Action Hero (The Feminist Press, 2010).

In the circles I run in, there was a lot of excitement over this year’s Fresh Tracks roster. Dance Theater Workshop’s emerging artist series has sometimes been scrutinized for a liberal interpretation of “emerging,” including artists with relatively high visibility despite the array of choreographers in New York clamoring to be seen.

New York is full of special finds—the perfect cup of coffee, vintage clothing steal, or niche bookstore is often tucked into some unsuspecting nook in the city. One of my favorite examples is The Tank.

When moving forward, it helps to consider where one has been. On the cusp of a new decade, in my new role as Dance Editor for the Brooklyn Rail, I revisited great dance writers’ thoughts on their professions.

I entered a room with chairs grouped together like vector fields. Clustered in triangles and rows, each group faced a different direction. Where to sit?

Over a week has passed since I saw American Ballet Theater’s three world premieres at Avery Fisher Hall, and I’m still not sure what to make of them. Most pleasurable, for me, was seeing the company in a new venue.

“Sustainability” is the word on everyone’s lips these days. Our financial practices, healthcare system, our agriculture and energy use, nearly all facets of our infrastructure are on the table for reform. Invigorated by economic pressures, environmental protection has emerged as a popular campaign not so much out of concern for ecological health, but because it is increasingly framed as financially sound and even patriotic.

On July 1, 2009, the Guardian printed the following poem by Wim Wenders: Pina Bausch is dead...

“Get out! Get out get out! GET OUT!” He’s yelling this right next to me, in a bathroom at full capacity with a just handful of people inside.

Jeremy Bloom follows Walt Whitman’s declaration literally. His “Leaves of Grass,” a nude staging of “Song of Myself,” received an invite-only viewing at the Cell Theater in May, with future engagements for the public to be announced.

If you’re going to demand three hours from your audience, you had better give them something good. The Golden Legend, a new work by Christopher Williams, pulled out all the stops May 12–16 at Dance Theater Workshop.

For their spring 2009 season, American Ballet Theatre will spruce up its roster of world-renowned ballerinas when they welcome Natalia Osipova, 23-year-old shooting star from the Bolshoi Ballet, as a guest artist.

Merce Cunningham’s new Nearly Ninety opened at the Brooklyn Academy of Music’s Spring Gala like a rock show through a kaleidoscope.

This March saw the New York premiere of The Desire Line, from San Francisco-based Deborah Slater Dance Theater. Inspired by the subtle tensions in Alan Feltus’s paintings, depicting subjects—often in pairs—caught in quiet moments, The Desire Line expands these tableax into high intensity dance dramas.

Spring is finally here, and with it, loose clothing, sandals, and frolicking in the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. A nice time to channel the memory of Isadora Duncan, barefoot “Mother of Modern Dance,” champion of free love and unbound expression, and yes, dress reformer.

There is a moment in jill sigman/thinkdance’s ZsaZsaLand when the audience must participate. “Take out your equipment,” performer Mary Suk instructs us via megaphone, opening her cell phone and holding it up.

In his 101 Stories of the Great Ballets, co-written with Francis Mason, George Balanchine remarked, “Just as Giselle is ballet’s great tragedy, so Coppelia is its great comedy.”

Everyone is watching TV. Three performers sit in the front row of the audience, monitors on their laps, staring into the glowing screens.

Once again, Dance Films Association and The Film Society of Lincoln Center are ushering in a new year of dance with the annual Dance On Camera Festival.