Life as a Modern Dancer

Category: Dance in Review

  • Gestures and Dreams at Queer Date Night

    Octavia Rose Projects in "bodyfabric II" with Jhia Jackson (left), Heidi Cash (center), and Noah James (right). Photo by Kim Anno. Image description: Three dancers pose in close proximity in a space with light wooden flooring and white walls. Two are standing and one is seated in a power wheelchair. Each dancer is frozen in…

  • In “Bacchae Before” the Reveal is in the Subtext

    Silk Worm as Dionysus, center, with Belinda He, left, and Karla Quintero as two Bacchae. Photo by Robbie Sweeny. Image description: A very dark theater space with black background and black marley. Three performers are on stage – one standing in the center dressed all in white, holding a microphone. Two performers flank the center…

  • RAWdance’s Portal into (Un)familiar Space

    Nick Wagner and Jhia Jackson, foreground. Erin Yen, Claire Fisher, ArVejon Jones, and Juliann Witt (upstage). Photo by Hillary Goidell.   RAWdance’s Portal into (Un)familiar Space By Garth Grimball Site-specific dance often prioritizes site over specific. And, as a priority, the site often exists as an absence rather than a presence. This site is not…

  • Juilliard’s “New Dances” Showcases Strings and Socks

    Juilliard’s “New Dances” Showcases Strings and Socks By Garth Grimball Alicia Graf Mack, dean and director of Juilliard Dance, introduced the department’s “New Dances” program with now-familiar caveats: dance rehearsals followed public health guidelines; in-person and Zoom process; casts of no more than 8 dancers; no touching or partnering; lastly, within restrictions creativity flourishes. If…

  • In Batsheva’s YAG, It’s A Family Affair

    Igor Ptashenchuk, Yonatan Simon, Hani Sirois, Londiwe Khosa, Yael Ben Ezer, and Sean Howe in YAG. In Batsheva’s YAG, It’s A Family Affair By Garth Grimball “Once my family loved, really loved, really really loved to dance.” This is the thesis statement of YAG, spoken by each of the six cast members in an exploration…

  • An Afternoon Walk and Dance Through Glen Canyon Park: FACT/SF’s “Diffusion”

    Erin Yen and Emily Hansel (background), Samuel Melecio-Zambrano and Katherine Neumann (foreground). Photo by Robbie Sweeny. An Afternoon Walk and Dance Through Glen Canyon Park: FACT/SF’s "Diffusion" By Molly Rose-Williams It’s been over a year since theaters around the Bay Area shut their doors. Like much of the rest of our lives, art-making and performance…

  • A Moveable Dance from LA Dance Project

      A Moveable Dance from LA Dance ProjectBy Garth Grimball Four bodies appear from the emptiness cast by a building’s corner. They dance in unison. Between them the space stays equal. Faces masked and bodies covered in loose, transparent overcoats, their forms disintegrate before outlines snap into being. The unison ends, the energy diffuses into…

  • Ririe-Woodbury Dance Company and Categorizing Dance on Camera

    Nick Blaylock in Full View. Photo by Marissa Mooney.   Ririe-Woodbury Dance Company and Categorizing Dance on Camera By Garth Grimball   How many categories are there for a dance experienced via screen? Dance film. Screen dance. Live streaming dance event. Previously recorded performance. TikTok. The categories bloom and wilt without capturing the aura of…

  • Virtual Healing with RAWdance

    Photo by Del Medoff Virtual Healing with RAWdance By Garth Grimball The Bay Area is entering the 11th month of quarantine/lockdown/shelter-in-place/life with COVID-19. At the beginning of this week California Governor Gavin Newsom announced the current six weeks of sheltering-in-place was coming to an end and counties can “re-open” to varying degrees. At the end…

  • With Appreciation and Admiration: A Few Musings on “Utopia”

    Screenshot from Utopia, capturing the 9 actors in the production   With Appreciation and Admiration: A Few Musings on Utopia By Jill Randall Eight months into quarantine life as a dancer, I have dabbled in a few online art experiments, as an audience member a handful of times and by producing two projects. We long…