I can’t say much more than that about the performance Saturday night, except that McCusker uses a gamut of performers of all ages, body types, and degrees of dance training. Perhaps for this reason his movement is quite simple. It seems to be made of discreet actions — the dancer takes a few steps, stands in place, bends or squats down, sweeps the arms up or makes an angular gesture, takes a few steps. The deliberateness of each change seems to work against developing a longer flow or phrase of movement, or a build-up of dynamics. In one little piece, three people in a line-up gestured together while another danced a solo close to the ground. I saw some duet material, with gentle touching and supportive ideas, but nothing really risky or engaged. Again, it would have been hard for any deep contacts to develop over the two or three minutes of the encounter.
In the middle of my last site visit, in Studio 2, someone turned on a slide projector and flashed several panels with what might have been the instructions from which the dancers had worked out their material. Before I could read the words and process them, a new slide would be slipped into place.
Related:
Happy feet, Sweet tooth, Bytes, More 
- Happy feet
The architectural team of Diller Scofidio + Renfro designed the Barbara Lee Family Foundation Theater at the new Institute for Contemporary Art as a 325-seat jewel box, its transparent walls allowing the Boston harbor and skyline to serve as a scenic backdrop or turn opaque as the performance requires.
- Sweet tooth
I hope the estate of Leonard Bernstein is collecting royalties for The Little Prince . Rachel Portman’s unremittingly sweet and relentlessly lilting score for this children’s opera based on Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s famous story borrows heavily from Bernstein’s Candide and West Side Story .
- Bytes
The notion of confining entries to 10 minutes seems arbitrary — why not four choreographers doing 20-minute dances?
- Requiem detexted
Mozart's Requiem is one of the most controversial works in the classical repertory. Mozart had completed only parts of it and sketched other parts when he died, unexpectedly at age 35, in 1791. His death ignited immediate speculation and myth.
- Glenn Beck's Mormon ties
Thank you for carefully illustrating the intellectual dishonesty of the right wing’s number-one glory boy.
- Finding inspiration
The newly formed Portland Chamber Orchestra will perform in Gorham, showcasing chamber music ranging from the Baroque period to the 20th century.
- Terpsichore's delight
There's no end to variety to the fall's dance season, from a Boston Ballet classic to Hawaiian hula and "extreme action" acrobatics.
- Prodigies old and new
Tharp’s dances almost invariably have a euphoric effect on their first audiences, even when they miss their mark and don’t hold up over the long run.
- Broadway's Best at Pops
This DVD represents some of the best of public broadcasting and a bit of the worst.
- The people's choice?
Gustavo Dudamel, in case you hadn’t heard, is the 26-year-old Venezuelan conductor who’s going to save classical music.
- Teasers and tidbits
The puppeteer’s face and body reflect what the puppet is going through, as if the puppet were giving life to him instead of the other way around.
- Less
Topics:
Dance
, Entertainment, Harvard University, Office for the Arts, More
, Entertainment, Harvard University, Office for the Arts, Adolph Green, Sergei Prokofiev, Dance, Performing Arts, Elvis Costello, Igor Fyodorovitch Stravinsky, Boston Ballet, Less
