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MARIA KOCHETKOVA: CATCH HER IF YOU CAN

Maria Kochetkova prepares for her first independent, contemporary show at the Joyce (photo by Magnus Unnar)

Maria Kochetkova prepares for her first independent show at the Joyce (photo by Magnus Unnar)

The Joyce Theater
175 Eighth Ave. at 19th St.
July 16-21, $56-$96
212-242-0800
www.joyce.org

Ballerina Maria Kochetkova wasn’t kidding when she named her first solo project Catch Her If You Can; several of the shows, running July 16-21 at the Joyce, are already sold out, or nearly so. The thirty-five-year-old Moscow-born star trained at the Bolshoi and was a principal with San Francisco Ballet for eleven years, the last two overlapping as a principal here in New York City with ABT. She has spent the last year traveling the world as a guest dancer with such companies as Norwegian National Ballet, Staatsballett Berlin, and English National Ballet, but she has now teamed up with the Joyce Theater Foundation for the special program Catch Her If You Can, consisting of eight works by seven modern choreographers chosen by Kochetkova, joined by four other dancers. “Ballet can be different, ballet can be contemporary, ballet can be exciting, ballet can be theater. I want to show what ballet is now,” she says in a Joyce promotional video.

The evening consists of Bach Duet (from New Suite) by William Forsythe, danced by Kochetkova and Sebastian Kloborg; Painting Greys by Myles Thatcher, a solo by Carlo Di Lanno; Tué by Marco Goecke, a solo by Drew Jacoby; Degunino by Marcos Morau, a solo by Kochetkova; the Swan Lake Pas de Deux by David Dawson, with Di Lanno and Sofiane Sylve; Rachel, Nevada by Jacoby, with Kochetkova and Jacoby, At the End of the Day by Dawson, with Kochetkova and Kloborg; and Masha Machine, an intimate and personal solo piece by Jérôme Bel that Kochetkova promises will hold surprises. Kochetkova’s immersion into the world of contemporary dance will not bring an end to her ballet career; she’s schedule to perform in the fall with Norwegian National Ballet again and Dresden Semperoper Ballett, but Catch Her If You Can offers what should be an exciting look at what the future holds for this international favorite entering a new phase, eager to push the bounds of her abilities.

MARTHA GRAHAM DANCE COMPANY: THE EVE PROJECT

Martha Graham’s Chronicle is part of “The EVE Project” at the Joyce

The Joyce Theater
175 Eighth Ave. at 19th St.
April 2-14, $10-$60
212-691-9740
www.joyce.org
marthagraham.org

Martha Graham Dance Company honors the centennial of the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment with “The EVE Project,” running April 2-14 at the Joyce. The season consists of three programs that celebrate female empowerment. Program A features Graham’s seldom-performed 1962 Secular Games, her 1944 Herodiade, the world premiere of Maxine Doyle and Bobbi Jene Smith’s Deo, and Annie-B Parson’s I used to love you. Program B includes the men’s section of Secular Games, the New York premiere of Pam Tanowitz’s Untitled (Souvenir), Graham’s 1936 Chronicle and 1941 El Penitente, and Lucinda Childs’s duet Histoire. Program C comprises Deo, Untitled (Souvenir), Chronicle, and Graham’s 1947 Errand into the Maze. “Martha Graham revolutionized the way women are represented onstage. Choreographing the mind and reconfiguring iconic characters, she conjured complex, powerful women acting both inside and outside of society’s expectations,” artistic director Janet Eilber said in a statement. “We hope that ‘The EVE Project’ will offer diverse and evocative ways of considering female power.”

On April 6 at 2:00, the annual University Partners Showcase presents university and high school dancers performing Graham’s Panorama, Celebration, Chronicle, and excerpts from The Rite of Spring and Appalachian Spring. A portion of the admissions for the Pink Ribbon Program on April 6 will go to the Breast Cancer Research Foundation. On April 9, the Gala Program lineup features Errand into the Maze, an excerpt from Deo, Graham’s 1948 Diversion of Angels, and Graham’s 1933/2017 Ekstasis, with special guest Sara Mearns. There will be a Curtain Chat at the April 10 show. And Women’s Leadership Night on April 13 includes Errand, Untitled (Souvenir), Chronicle, and the talkback “Women CEOs Speak.” The members of the company, which was founded in 1926, are So Young An, Alyssa Cebulski, PeiJu Chien-Pott, Alessio Crognale, Laurel Dalley Smith, Natasha M. Diamond-Walker, Lloyd Knight, Charlotte Landreau, Jacob Larsen, Lloyd Mayor, Cara McManus, Marzia Memoli, Anne O’Donnell, Lorenzo Pagano, Ben Schultz, Anne Souder, Leslie Andrea Williams, and Xin Ying.

HUBBARD STREET DANCE CHICAGO: DECADANCE

Hubbard Street Dance Chicago performs Ohad Naharin’s Anaphase as part of Decadance/Chicago at the Joyce (© Todd Rosenberg Photography)

The Joyce Theater
175 Eighth Ave. at 19th St.
March 6-17, $10-$80
212-242-0800
www.joyce.org
www.hubbardstreetdance.com

Hubbard Street Dance Chicago’s Decadance/Chicago is an exhilarating evening of invigorating motion and sound, energetically performed by the talented Illinois troupe, returning to the Joyce for the first time in four years. The piece consists of excerpts from nine works by Israeli choreographer Ohad Naharin and Batsheva Dance Company, a kind of evolving greatest-hits package. The evening opens with a tall young man in somewhat Hasidic garb, instructing us to turn off our cellphones in a very serious tone of voice. When the second act begins, he asks the audience a series of questions that get rather personal. Both introductions immediately work to create an intimate, quirky, magical space for the performers and audience to inhabit. The sixteen-person company, each one worthy of singling out — Craig D. Black Jr., Jacqueline Burnett, Rena Butler, Alicia Delgadillo, Kellie Epperheimer, Michael Gross, Elliot Hammans, Alysia Johnson, Myles Lavallee, Adrienne Lipson, Florian Lochner, Ana Lopez, Andrew Murdock, David Schultz, Kevin J. Shannon, and Connie Shiau — exhibits Naharin’s Gaga movement language, “which emphasizes the exploration of sensation and availability for movement,” resulting in a unique and identifiable vocabulary that offers dancers chances to improvise amid the complex structures.

Hubbard Street Dance Chicago kicks off Decadance/Chicago at the Joyce with Max (© Todd Rosenberg Photography)

Staged by Ian Robinson and Rachael Osborne so that several of the excerpts flow smoothly into the next, Decadance/Chicago highlights the upper body at the start, particularly the arms and hands, as dancers come together and break off into solos. They rarely slow down as they move to Dick Dale’s “Hava Nagila,” Goldfrapp’s “Train,” Arvo Pärt’s “Fur Alina,” Marusha’s “Somewhere over the Rainbow,” Ali Hassan Kuban’s “Mabrouk Wo Arisna,” Dean Martin’s “Sway,” the Beach Boys’ “You’re Welcome,” and a woman reciting Charles Bukowski’s 1972 poem “making it,” the last with poetic cumulative choreography for five women. The company lines up at the front of the stage as the dancers suddenly burst into brief solos; they break into three groups and play a game of horse as each dancer either copies the previous one or dares the proceeding one to match them; the cast ventures into the audience and grabs partners to dance with onstage; and then they bring out the showstopping Anaphase, in which fifteen performers are arranged in a semicircle of chairs and remove their Hasidic garb (black pants, white shirt, black jacket, and black hat) to Naharin and Tractor’s Revenge’s adaptation of the traditional Passover song “Ehad Mi Yodea,” a dazzling display that leaves the audience breathless.

The excerpts range from 1993’s Anaphase — which I have now seen three times, the first by Batsheva, then by Alvin Ailey, in which I was one of the audience members brought onstage, and now by Hubbard Street, with my wife getting chosen to dance, and it has been a joy on each occasion — to 2011’s Sadeh21 and also include Zachacha, Naharin’s Virus, Three, Telophaza, George & Zalman, Max, and Seder. Experiencing Naharin’s choreography performed by this young, high-energy, spectacularly gifted company makes for an electrifying evening that’s not to be missed. Decadance/Chicago continues through March 10, to be followed March 12-17 by HSDC’s versions of a trio of works by Canadian choreographer and Kidd Pivot founder Crystal Pite, A Picture of You Falling, The Other You, and Grace Engine, all with music by Owen Belton. Batsheva fans can catch Naharin’s Venezuela March 27-30 at BAM.

HUBBARD STREET DANCE CHICAGO: OHAD NAHARIN / CRYSTAL PITE

Hubbard Street Dance Chicago will perform works by Ohad Naharin and Crystal Pite during two-week season at the Joyce (© Todd Rosenberg Photography)

The Joyce Theater
175 Eighth Ave. at 19th St.
March 6-17, $10-$80
212-242-0800
www.joyce.org
www.hubbardstreetdance.com

Hubbard Street Dance Chicago returns to the Joyce for the first time in four years with an exciting two-week season of two fab programs. From March 6 to 10, the company, which celebrated its fortieth anniversary last year, will put its own spin on Ohad Naharin’s Batsheva favorite, Decadance, an evolving greatest-hits-like presentation featuring excerpts from multiple works. Decadance/Chicago consists of nearly two hours of sections from such Naharin pieces as Minus 16, Virus, Three, George and Zalman, Max, Anaphase, and Seder. There will be a Curtain Chat at the March 7 performance. From March 12 to 17, HSDC brings a trio of works by Canadian choreographer and Kidd Pivot founder Crystal Pite, A Picture of You Falling, The Other You, and Grace Engine, all with music by Owen Belton. HSDC is led by artistic director Glenn Edgerton; the members of the company are Craig D. Black Jr., Jacqueline Burnett, Rena Butler, Alicia Delgadillo, Kellie Epperheimer, Michael Gross, Elliot Hammans, Alysia Johnson, Myles Lavallee, Adrienne Lipson, Florian Lochner, Ana Lopez, Andrew Murdock, David Schultz, Kevin J. Shannon, and Connie Shiau. Tickets are going fast, so you best not wait if you want to catch this hot troupe in action.

WINTER PERFORMANCE FESTIVALS: AMERICAN DANCE PLATFORM

Stephen Petronios Hardness 10 is part of American Dance Platform at the Joyce (photo by Yi-Chun Wu)

Stephen Petronios Hardness 10 is part of American Dance Platform presentation at the Joyce (photo by Yi-Chun Wu)

The Joyce Theater
175 Eighth Ave. at 19th St.
January 3-7, $10-$40
212-242-0800
www.joyce.org

The Joyce welcomes in 2019 with American Dance Platform, a five-day program consisting of works by six exciting companies. On January 3 and 7, the bold and always entertaining Stephen Petronio Company will present 2018’s Hardness 10, with music by Nico Muhly and costumes by Patricia Field, and Steve Paxton’s 1986 Excerpt from Goldberg Variations. Also on the double bill is Martha Graham Dance Company, performing Steps in the Street and Prelude to Action from 1936’s antiwar Chronicle and Pontus Lidberg’s 2016 Woodland. On January 4 and 6, Philly’s Ballet X takes the stage with Trey McIntyre’s 2018 The Boogeyman, featuring music by Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye, Gilbert O’Sullivan, and Earth, Wind & Fire, Matthew Neenan’s 2014 Increasing, set to the first movement of Franz Schubert’s Quintet in C Major, and a surprise premiere; the company is sharing the bill with another Philadelphian, Rafael Xavier, making his Joyce debut with Point of Interest. And on January 5 and 6, Ephrat Asherie Dance presents the new Nazareth Suite #1 and 2016’s Riff This, Riff That, the latter a collaboration between Bessie winner Ephrat and her brother, jazz pianist Ehud Asherie, with an all-star lineup, while the inimitable Ronald K. Brown/Evidence teams up with Arturo O’Farrill and Resist for this year’s New Conversations: Iron Meets Water, inspired by the huntress spirit Oxossi; Evidence will also perform Upside Down, an excerpt from 1998’s Destiny.

THE ’60s: THE YEARS THAT CHANGED AMERICA

You Say You Want a Revolution exhibition at NYPL is part of Carnegie Halls festival

“You Say You Want a Revolution: Remembering the Sixties” exhibition at NYPL is part of wide-ranging Carnegie Hall festival

Multiple locations
January 14 – March 24
www.carnegiehall.org

America came of age in the 1960s, from the assassinations of JFK, RFK, MLK, and Malcolm X to Vietnam and the Summer of Love. Carnegie Hall is paying tribute to the turbulent decade with the two-month series “The ’60s: The Years that Changed America,” inspired by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Robert A. Caro. The native New Yorker, who turned eighty-two this past October, is the author of such books as The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York and the four-part The Years of Lyndon Johnson, with a fifth tome on the way. “Luther King gave people ‘the feeling that they could be bigger and stronger and more courageous than they thought they could be,’ Bayard Rustin said — in part because of the powerful new weapon, non-violent resistance, that had been forged on the Montgomery battlefield,’” Caro wrote in Master of the Senate, a quote obviously apt for MLK Day. Running January 14 through March 24 all across the city, the festival features concerts, panel discussions, film screenings, dance, art exhibitions, and more. Below are only some of the many highlights; keep watching this space for more additions.

Sunday, January 14
through
Saturday, March 24
“Max’s Kansas City,” photos and writings, Mark Borghi Gallery, free

Friday, January 19
“You Say You Want a Revolution: Remembering the Sixties,” Library After Hours opening night program with experimental films, album-cover workshop, games and puzzles, curator tour led by Isaac Gewirtz, dance party with Felix Hernandez, and more, exhibit continues through September 1, the New York Public Library, Stephen A. Schwarzman Building, free, 7:00

Kronos Quartet, works by Stacy Garrop (world premiere inspired by “I Have a Dream” speech), Zachary J. Watkins (world premiere inspired by Studs Terkel), Terry Riley, John Cage, and Janis Joplin, Zankel Hall at Carnegie Hall, $62-$72, 9:00

Tuesday, January 23
through
Friday, May 18
“The Global Interconnections of 1968,” Kempner Exhibition Gallery, Butler Library (sixth floor), Columbia University, free

Thursday, January 25
Snarky Puppy with David Crosby and Friends, including Chris Thile and Laura Mvula, Stern/Perelman at Carnegie Hall, $26-$100, 8:00

Friday, January 26
Bernard and Irene Schwartz Classic Film Series: Coming Home (Hal Ashby, 1978), Justice in Film presentation introduced by Susan Lacy, New-York Historical Society, free with pay-what-you-wish museum admission, 7:00

Tuesday, February 6
through
Sunday, February 11
March, duet from Lessons inspired by civil rights movement, part of winter season program by Ronald K. Brown / Evidence, a Dance Company, the Joyce Theater, $26-$46

Friday, February 16
“Philip Glass Ensemble: Music with Changing Parts,” Stern/Perelman at Carnegie Hall, $14.50 – $95, 8:00

Wednesday, February 21
“The Summer of Law and Disorder: Harlem Riot of 1964,” panel discussion, the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, free with advance registration beginning February 7, 6:30

Tuesday, March 13
Bernard and Irene Schwartz Distinguished Speakers Series: “The ’60s from Both Sides Now: An Evening with Judy Collins,” in conversation with historian Harold Holzer, New-York Historical Society, $38, 6:30

Saturday, March 24
“The Vietnam War: At Home and Abroad,” multimedia presentation with Friction Quartet performing George Crumb’s “Black Angels” and more groups to be announced, narrated by John Monsky, Zankel at Carnegie Hall, $35-$45, 2:00

L.A. DANCE PROJECT AT THE JOYCE: PROGRAM B

Tyler Peck’s Murder Ballades teems with energy in L.A. Dance Project production (photo by Rose Eichenbaum)

The Joyce Theater
175 Eighth Ave. at 19th St.
June 13-25, $26-$66
212-242-0800
www.joyce.org
www.ladanceproject.com

Upon entering the Joyce on Saturday night, June 17, to see Benjamin Millepied’s L.A. Dance Project, we were sad to hear that the performance of the brand-new duet In Silence We Speak had been canceled due to an injury. However, the three pieces that remained, all very different, made up a program that still worked extremely well. First was New York City Ballet wunderkind Justin Peck’s 2013 Murder Ballades, his debut as a contemporary dance choreographer. The curtain is raised, revealing six pairs of sneakers onstage, in front of Sterling Ruby’s colorful abstract backdrop of vertical and horizontal bars. Stephanie Amurao, Aaron Carr, Julia Eichten, Nathan Makolandra, Robbie Moore, and Rachelle Rafailedes, all in casual modern-day dress (Peck did the costume design), enter, lace on the sneakers, and proceed to run around the stage, the buzz of sudden freedom in the air, as if Peck is breaking free of ballet en pointe, at least momentarily. (He continues to dance and choreograph for NYCB.) Over the course of six sections, the dancers appear to be having a great time as they divide into solos and duets, including a lovely pas de deux between Makolandra and Rafailedes, and intersect in fluid trios and a variety of lines and patterns. At one point, Carr actually pauses to look at Ruby’s painting, making sure we all acknowledge its grandeur. Peck displays an infectious glee with his vigorous movement language, although it can get repetitive and a little too showy, but it works breathlessly with Bryce Dessner’s energetic score and Brandon Stirling Baker’s pinpoint lighting.

L.A. Dance Project performance of Merce Cunninghams MinEvent is exquisite (photo by James Welling)

L.A. Dance Project performance of Merce Cunningham’s MinEvent is exquisitely rendered (photo by James Welling)

Next was Merce Cunningham’s MinEvent, a 2006 majestic collage that is like a Mondrian canvas brought to glorious life. Arranged and staged by Silas Riener, it’s performed by Amurao, Carr, Eichten, Makolandra, Moore, David Adrian Freeland Jr., and Lilja Rúriksdóttir, wearing tight black costumes, designed by Millepied, marked with spare, rectilinear thin stripes of color, the women’s and men’s costumes mirror images of each other. The often staccato, almost mechanical abstract movement, sudden stops and starts that seem to presage voguing but with blank facial expressions, form Mondrian-esque geometric patterns, not just with the shapes of the bodies, but with how the lines on the costumes merge. John Cage’s “Music for Piano” is performed live by Adam Tendler, who is like a seventh dancer, having to stand so he can pluck the strings inside of the instrument in addition to playing the regular keys, the minimalist score balancing sound with silence.

Benjamin Millipied mixes live action with cinema in world premiere of Orpheus Highway at the Joyce (photo by Erin Baiano)

The evening concluded with Millepied’s adventurous, multimedia Orpheus Highway, making its world premiere at the Joyce. The piece is set to Steve Reich’s stirring “Triple Quartet,” played live by PUBLIQuartet, featuring Curtis Stewart and Jannina Norpoth on violin, Nick Revel on viola, and Amanda Gookin on cello. Wearing contemporary clothing and sneakers (the costumes were designed by Millepied), Morgan Lugo, Amurao, Carr, Eichten, Freeland Jr., Makolandra, Moore, Rúriksdóttir, and Janie Taylor (replacing Rafailedes) dance in front of a film of themselves (but with Rafailedes instead of Taylor) that Millepied shot in Marfa, Texas, on the local streets, down a narrow alley, and on an endless highway in the middle of nowhere. Freeland Jr. and Taylor reenact the tragic myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, as all the live dancers move in opposition to, in unison with, and completely differently from their screen doppelgängers. There’s a lot going on, so you’re not always sure where to look, and your mind can’t help but try to make sense of how the filmed images relate to the live ones, but just let it unfold without thinking too hard about it. In some ways, it’s an innovative combination of the two works that preceded it. The two-week Joyce run continues through June 25; Program A consists of Millepied’s Hearts & Arrows, Ohad Naharin’s Yag, and In Silence We Speak if Carla Korbës has recovered.