Several times on April 28, Benoit-Swan Pouffer, the French-born artistic director of Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet, walked through the lobby of Royce Hall looking like he was nervous. He made eye contact with passersby, stopped to chat with other young, stylishly dressed people, but mostly, he looked as if he couldn’t sit still. That evening’s [...]
Savion Glover is the best tap dancer alive. His mentor Gregory Hines thought so. On Saturday night, Glover, Marshall Davis and Robyn Watson performed “Bare Soundz” on three mini, square platforms in the form of a triangle on the stage at the Valley Performing Arts Center on the campus of California State University, Northridge. It [...]
I often wonder, which is harder: exhibiting refined technique accrued from years of study, or grooving effortlessly to a beat with natural grace and impeccable rhythm? The answer depends on whom you ask. As I watched Ronald K. Brown’s “Evidence, A Dance Company” on March 9 at the Ahmanson Theatre, this question popped into my [...]
Sitting a few rows back from the stage at Barnsdall Gallery Theatre watching the Fountain Theatre’s monthly showcase of “Forever Flamenco!” this past Sunday, I was reminded of krump dancing. Let me explain. Since September I have been attending a krump session — a circle of dancers who congregate every Wednesday at midnight in a [...]
About three-quarters of the way in, the musical “Fela!” delivers the emotional impact of a bellyflop. It’s the all-too-familiar horror story heard around the world: Big guys take advantage of little ones. Woman raped, man beaten, man killed, woman harassed and intimidated. It could be Laos, Lagos or Los Angeles. The rich and powerful bully [...]
John Pennington began Saturday night’s show, “Across Connections” at ARC Pasadena, by introducing the dances in the program as nonlinear and without narrative. He was only partly correct. The statement appeared to be true for his company’s piece, “Yield of Vision,” and “Overlay,” its collaboration with the United Kingdom’s Yorke Dance Project. But from “City [...]
Every aspect of Tecnologia Filosofica’s Friday night performance felt surreal, from the venue – Theatre Raymond Kabbaz, which is attached to Le Lycée Français de Los Angeles – to the absence of English and the musical presence of a duo that resembled a tacky Las Vegas nightclub act. It was as if the price of [...]
Magno Rubio is small; both the man and the play titled “The Romance of Magno Rubio.” As the cast yells out in unison at the start of the show, “Magno Rubio, four feet six inches tall. Magno Rubio, dark as a coconut ball/With a head small/And limbs like a turtle.” The belittling words set the [...]
It may come as a surprise to some people, but Boise, Idaho, is a blossoming arts community. That’s where Trey McIntyre Project is based, and as dancer Brett Perry says, “It’s a really cool city, and we’re thrilled to be a part of it. It’s a community where we can get out and make a [...]
Los Angeles, we have liftoff. The dancers in Twyla Tharp’s “Come Fly Away” spend more time in the air, at different levels, in varying positions, than on any part of the stage at the Pantages Theatre. Before I saw this production, which first hit Atlanta in 2009, Broadway in 2010 and most recently Las Vegas [...]
