this week in dance

THREE SIDES OF BALANCHINE

Ask la Cour and Sterling Hyltin perform in Stravinsky Violin Concerto, choreographed by George Balanchine for NYCB (photo by Rosalie O’Connor)

THREE SIDES OF BALANCHINE
New York City Ballet online
Through March 18, free
www.nycballet.com

New York City Ballet pays digital tribute to its legendary cofounder and longtime leader, George Balanchine, with the free virtual program “Three Sides of Balanchine,” continuing through March 18. The three-week series, hosted by principal dancer Russell Janzen, consists of “Inside NYCB” on Tuesdays at 8:00 and streams of previously recorded performances on Thursdays at 8:00. Each part will be available on YouTube and the NYCB site for seven to nine days. “Three Sides of Balanchine” kicked off February 23 with an exploration of the Siren from Sergei Prokofiev’s Prodigal Son, with a sneak peek at a rehearsal and a live conversation with principal dancer Maria Kowroski, who has played the role many times, NYCB repertory director Lisa Jackson, and corps de ballet member Christina Clark, who is learning the role. That was coupled with a stream of Prodigal Son with Daniel Ulbricht and Teresa Reichlen.

Through March 11, you can catch a discussion about the male solo from Tschaikovsky’s Theme and Variations, with principal dancers Andrew Veyette and Joseph Gordon and repertory director Kathleen Tracey, paired with a 2015 stream of Theme and Variations starring Veyette and Tiler Peck. On March 9, NYCB will explore one of the female solos from Stravinsky Violin Concerto with a conversation and rehearsal session with principal dancer Sara Mearns, soloist Claire Kretzschmar, and repertory director Rebecca Krohn and, beginning March 11, a filmed performance featuring Sterling Hyltin, Ask la Cour, Mearns, and Taylor Stanley. As Balanchine himself said, “Why are you stingy with yourselves? Why are you holding back? What are you saving for — for another time? There are not other times. There is only now. Right now.”

VIRTUAL HD SCREENING & LIVE TALK — THE PARIS OPERA & BALLET: PLAY

FIAF will fly in the Paris Opera & Ballet’s playful Play this week, with a live talk March 11

Who: The Paris Opera & Ballet
What: Virtual screening and live discussion
Where: French Institute Alliance Française (FIAF) online
When: Thursday, March 11, $15, 12:30 (stream available on demand March 8-14)
Why: Swedish dancer, choreographer, and director Alexander Ekman’s first commission from the Paris Opera & Ballet was the wild and woolly Play, a 2017 work that featured women dressed as deer, a furious rain of green balls, large blocks floating in the air, and other dreamlike scenarios. “We thought of life by analogy with the journey, with a pilgrimage, which had a serious purpose at the end, but the thing was to get to that end, success or whatever it is, or maybe heaven after your death, but we missed the point the whole way along,” a disembodied voice explains. FIAF will be streaming a recorded version of the production, with music composed by the Harlem-based Mikael Karlsson, from March 8 to 14; each $15 ticket also gives you access to a livestreamed Zoom talk with Ekman (Cacti, Tuplet), Karlsson, and theater critic Laura Cappelle on March 11 at 12:30.

KEEP MOVING

WP Theater
Streaming through March 14, pay-what-you-can
wptheater.org/show/keep-moving

For arts institutions now facing a pandemic lockdown that has lasted nearly a year with no immediate end in sight, it helps to have a sense of humor. And that’s precisely what Monica Bill Barnes & Company have plenty of in Keep Moving. Presented by WP Theater, Keep Moving is a ten-chapter series conceived and created by Monica Bill Barnes and company creative producing director and performer Robbie Saenz de Viteri that looks at how a group of women have dealt with the health crisis.

The digital presentation is hosted by Saenz de Viteri with a wry smile as he speaks with Barnes and several of the dancers, mostly via Zoom but a few over the phone, with no visuals. Chapters such as “Get. Ready. To. Go.,” “The Only Tedious Part,” “It Is Super Essential,” “Oh Hey I Do Exist,” and “Then I’m Gonna Fix the World” introduce such participants as Julieta Rodriguez-Cruz, Manuela Agudelo, Nadjie Forte, Kai Chen, Anakeiry Cruz, mentor Wendy Rogers, and others as Saenz de Viteri focuses on how everyone has been surviving the lockdown, with a specific focus on the company’s collaboration with Hunter College on a project called The Running Show. It’s both funny and poignant as the young women talk about what it means to be a dancer and the older ones discuss how that changes over a career. In “Even Though I Was Alone,” Barnes thinks she’s out of shape and Naja Newell, Esther Nozea, and Amanda Konstantine Perlmutter dance in their kitchen or bedroom or out on the street as they keep moving despite all the current limitations. Extended through March 14, Keep Moving offers a tantalizing inside look at the creative process during a time of crisis, stagnation not an option.

RONALD K. BROWN/EVIDENCE: COMPANY HITS FROM THE PAST 35 YEARS

The Joyce Theater
Thursday, February 18, $25, 8:00 (available on demand through March 4 at midnight)
www.joyce.org
www.evidencedance.com

It’s hard for to believe that it was fifteen years ago that I had a lunch interview with Ronald K. Brown, discussing the twentieth anniversary of his Brooklyn-based troupe, EVIDENCE. Brown is now celebrating the company’s thirty-fifth anniversary with a special virtual evening at the Joyce, presented live from the empty theater over the institution’s online portal, JoyceStream. Born and raised in Brooklyn, Brown has been an integral part of the community since the beginning, giving back in numerous ways, strengthening that engagement during these difficult times. “For thirty-five years, the mission of EVIDENCE has been to promote understanding of the human experience in the African Diaspora through dance, music, history, and tradition to remind us of our individual and collective responsibility and liberation,” the company explains on its website. “The fact that art and social justice share a common foundation continues to push us forward in spite of the continuing turmoil of a global pandemic and nationwide protests against police brutality. Now more than ever we need each other and it is beneficial for us to find ways to call one another and see each other virtually, whenever we can. Social distance does not mean social disconnection. EVIDENCE continues to do the work that says: We know what’s right in our heart and we need to keep that front and center.”

Mercy is part of Ronald K. Brown/EVIDENCE anniversary celebration at the Joyce (photo by Julietta Cervantes)

In conjunction with the Joyce Theater Foundation, Northrop, DANCECleveland, and Cuyahoga Community College, EVIDENCE will present an evening of greatest hits, which will stream live from the Joyce stage on February 18 at 8:00 and be available on demand through March 4 at midnight. The program includes an excerpt from Grace, originally choreographed for Alvin Ailey in 1999, an exhilarating, rapturous work, filled with an innate, infectious spirituality, with music by Duke Ellington, Roy Davis Jr., and Fela Anikulapo Kuti, that celebrated its own twentieth anniversary at the Center for the Art of Performance UCLA this past November; 2003’s For You, a solo tribute to the late American Dance Festival codirector Stephanie Reinhart, set to a song by Donny Hathaway; 2016’s She Is Here, a solo for women, honoring teachers and mothers; the “Palo y Machete” introductory multimedia solo from 2007’s One Shot: Rhapsody in Black & White, inspired by the legacy of Pittsburgh photographer Charles “Teenie” Harris; the powerful “March” excerpt from 1995’s Lessons, set to the words of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. (“All I’m saying is simply this: that all life is interrelated. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly. Long as there is extreme poverty in this world, no man can be totally rich even if he has a billion dollars.”); and 2019’s Mercy, an emotional and moving work about justice and compassion set to Meshell Ndegeocello’s version of Oumou Sangare’s “Shirk.” The evening is dedicated to Brown’s longtime booking agent, Pam Green, who is retiring after more than twenty years with the company. In addition, Brown is holding monthly virtual community classes on March 6, April 3, and May 8 at noon; registration is $15 per class.

SHADOW’S WHISPERS

SHADOW’S WHISPERS
Opgenomen in Zuiderstrandtheater, Den Haag
February 15-17, €15,00, 2:00 (streaming begins 1:15)
www.ndt.nl

Following its terrific livestreamed production of Yoann Bourgeois’s I wonder where the dreams I don’t remember go, performed in an empty Opgenomen in Zuiderstrandtheater in its home in Den Haag, Nederlands Dans Theater is back with the two-part program “Shadow’s Whispers,” taking place February 15-17 at 2:00 EST.

London-based Israeli choreographer and composer Hofesh Shechter, who previously created Clowns and Vladimir for NDT, returns with the world premiere of From England with Love, for a team of ten dancers, along with Imre van Opstal and Marne van Opstal’s brand-new Baby don’t hurt me; the pair previously made The Grey for NDT 2 and Take Root for NDT 1.

Tickets are about $18 at the current exchange rate. The seventy-five-minute program will be performed live three times, then be gone, so catch it while you can. And be sure to check in early, as NDT will be streaming special behind-the-scenes goodies, including a live Q&A, starting forty-five minutes before showtime each day.

XIValentine: A VIRTUAL VARIETY SHOW

Company XIV
Premieres Sunday, February 14, $125-$325, 8:00
companyxiv.com

For fifteen years, Brooklyn-based baroque burlesque troupe Company XIV has been dazzling audiences with sexy dance, music, and acrobatics in dramatic, fabulous costumes, re-creating fairy tales and other stories (Cinderella, Snow White, Queen of Hearts, Seven Sins) with an unabashed joy. During the presentation, the cast members make their way through the crowd, interacting with blissful guests who are sitting on lush couches, classy chairs, and intimate booths, eating and drinking as the performers spin from the ceiling, swirl on poles, reinterpret familiar standards, and dance in glittery, revealing outfits. It’s more of a happening than a mere show. So what to do during a pandemic lockdown, when Company XIV is unable to welcome audiences to its fashionable home on Troutman Ave. in Bushwick?

Founder and artistic director Austin McCormick has moved things online with XIValentine, a virtual holiday extravaganza premiering February 14 at 8:00 and available on demand for thirty days. Joining in on the raunchy reverie are aerialist, pole dancer, and soprano Marcy Richardson, aerialist, musician, and dancer Nolan McKew, powerhouse singer Storm Marrero, magician Matthew Holtzclaw, dancer and acrobat Nicholas Katen, actor and singer Brandon Looney, juggler Sam Urdang, dancer and choreographer Nicole von Arx, singer and specialty performer Syrena, and dancers Lilin, Scott Schneider, and Melissa Anderson, along with an appearance by canine cutie Macaron McCormick. The scenic design and costumes are by the amazing Zane Pihlström, who has never met a swath of red velvet and sequins he couldn’t turn into something fabulous.

Nolan McKew and Company XIV are preparing a special experience for Valentine’s Day

At its in-person productions, Company XIV offers different levels of ticketing; the more you pay, the more you get, including greater interaction with the cast and better food and drink. The troupe is attempting to recapture that feeling by offering four ways to experience the fifty-minute XIValentine. The thirty-day streaming pass is $125; the Be Mine package comes with chocolate truffles, The Male Nude or 1000 Pin-Up Girls book, and a canvas tote for $160; the Champagne Package features glasses, candles, bar soap, a bath bomb, and a quilted tote for $195; and the Lust Package consists of a rabbit mask, a gold riding crop, black nipple covers, a black beeswax corset candle, passionfruit CBD gummies, a chocolate fondue set, and both a quilted and canvas tote, for $325. Did we point out that things can get pretty kinky with Company XIV, both on- and offstage? In addition, if you live in New York City, you can get Champagne and cocktails delivered to your building. It’s always an expensive night out with Company XIV, and now it’s an expensive night in, but there’s nothing else like it.

If it’s all a bit much, you can go for the virtual edition of the seasonal favorite Nutcracker Rouge, where a $50 ticket provides you with a twenty-four-hour streaming pass to access eight acts (performed by Richardson, Lilin & LEXXE, Troy Lingelbach, Katen & McKew, Demi Remick, Christine Flores, Làszlò Major & Looney, and Jourdan Epstein, Pretty Lamé & Jacoby Pruitt), while $75 extends the pass to fourteen days and adds two weeks of bespoke cocktail lessons.

THE NOURISH PROJECT

THE NOURISH PROJECT
WP Theater
January 28 – February 7, free, 7:30
wptheater.org

New York City’s WP (formerly Women’s Project) Theater seeks to soothe and feed your soul with The Nourish Project, an interactive virtual presentation continuing through February 7. Conceived and directed by associate artistic director Rebecca Martínez, who was part of the team that took us on an audio tour through the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine community in Sanctuary and helmed one of the microplays in the sensational Here We Are series, The Nourish Project is a multidisciplinary production featuring dance, music, storytelling, poetry, food, and more from a collective of BIPOC creators. Admission is free, but there are three levels of suggested donations if you can afford it, from $10 to $100; when you register, you have to select an element — water, earth, fire, or air — that will determine which breakout room you go to about halfway through the show.

Natalie Benally is one of several BIPOC creators participating in The Nourish Project (photo courtesy WP Theater)

The seventy-minute experience includes songs by Edna Vazquez, opening and closing words written by Jaisey Bates, a cooking demonstration and song from Joaquin Lopez, poems by Latrelle Bright and Camryn Bruno, element hostings by Natalie Benally, Nikiko Masumoto, Jono Eiland, and Bright, dance by Brittany Grier, Megan J. Minturn, and Joya Powell, and other contributions from Siobhan Juanita Brown, Sage Chanell, Madeline Sayet, Dr. Michelle Tom, and Meghan “Sigvanna” Topkok. Along the way, you will be asked intimate questions in the chat, and you are encouraged to turn your camera on at several points to share a few objects visually. You will also hear such lines as “I, the spirit in constant motion, wafting across the planet ever present, holding everything that ever was” and “We are storied bodies, made of stars.” The Nourish Project is earnest, New Agey, reverential, and crunchy, with flourishes of organic spirituality and ASMR, but if that’s your thing, give it a shot. These days, you gotta find comfort and community wherever you can.