| Dance Articles |
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Around the World in Eight Days Tajikistan, Senegal, Hungary, Colombia, the Phillipines. Even if you’re a world traveler, it’s unlikely that you’ve trekked through all these terrains, but not to worry. If the globe-trotting budget is tight this summer, simply head on over to the 30th annual San Francisco Ethnic Dance Festival to get your requisite dose of culture. The festival, which has wowed thousands of audience members for three decades now, has challenged the already-permeable boundaries of world dance (despite its “ethnic” moniker), as well as viewers’ understanding of the intersections between dance, tradition, and artistic innovation. |
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Pliés with Ch'i In one of this superb works’ most simple and beautiful moments (and there are many such moments) Alonzo King delivers the goods straight up: two young men share the stage, each masters of radically different disciplines of motion, and the stark aesthetic contrast is as amazing as the joyful way in which they discover and explore the richness of their common ground. Western ballet as practiced by the LINES ballet, and martial arts as practiced by the Shaolin Monks could hardly be more different in their history and purpose, yet in this world premiere work, Mr. King manages to go far beyond a superficial East-meets-West juxtaposition. |
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Inspired Spontaneity I’m at CounterPULSE ten minutes before Renaissance man/theatrical swashbuckler Jess Curtis’ highly anticipated show, "Under the Radar". As I’ve gathered from the website and tight-lipped program material, a kaleidoscopic assortment of dancers and performance artists will be entertaining the audience with genre-liberal food for thought: that includes concepts like beauty, normalcy, and preconceived notions of (dis)ability. All very heady stuff, but at the time being, I’m more interested in what’s going on right now. |
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Margaret Jenkins Dance Company It's 7pm in the East Gardens of the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. The fog is ineluctably rolling in, and the cluster of people all around are wrapping their coats more tightly around their bodies, impatiently awaiting the spectacle promised by a mélange of synthesizers deftly mimicking nature's aural arrangements. Finally, a procession of 15 dancers robed in shades of sand and silver stroll slowly to center stage, taking their positions around individual plots of grass and cement. Vivid tableaux of leisurely movement follow -- ones that vaguely resemble tai chi, yoga, and other ancient salutations to the elements. |
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