Something for everyone
By DEBRA CASH | September 12, 2007
Maureen Flemming |
Fall preview 2007
“Happy endings: Bad news begets good tunes.” By Matt Ashare.
“Stage worthies: Fall on the Boston boards.” By Carolyn Clay.
“Basstown nights: The new scene emerges; Halloween preparations.” By David Day.
“Bounty: The best of the season’s roots, world, folk, and blues.” By Ted Drozdowski.
“War, peace, and Robert Pinsky: The season’s fiction, non-fiction, and poetry.” By John Freeman.
“Trane, Joyce Dee Dee, Sco, and more: A jam-packed season of jazz.” By Jon Garelick.
“Turn on the bright lights: Art, women, politics, and food.” By Randi Hopkins.
“War zones: Fall films face terror at home and abroad.” By Peter Keough.
“Locked and loaded: The fall promises a double-barreled blast of gaming greatness.” By Mitch Krpata.
“BBC? America!: The networks put some English on the fall TV season.” By Joyce Millman.
“World music: The BSO goes traveling, and Berlin comes to Boston.” By Lloyd Schwartz.
“Singles scene: Local bands dig in with digital.” By Will Spitz.
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“If you pulled the cord and the chute didn’t open, how would you dance on the way down?” That’s the query behind the Philadelphia-based GREEN CHAIR DANCE GROUP’s athletic For Emergency Use Only, which kicks off the local dance scene this fall at the Dance Complex in Central Square (September 21; 203.247.5723). That there are at least two performances every weekend from early October through Thanksgiving is tribute to the grassroots work of local dancemakers and the expanded options offered by new performance spaces.ROKAFELLA (Anita Garcia) and KWIKSTEP (Gabriel Dionisio) lecture on NYC hip-hop street culture in the afternoon and perform in the evening at MIT’s Kresge Little Theater (September 24; 617.253.2877). Terrific jazz choreographer DANNY BURACZESKI headlines the showcase of dances by BU DANCE FACULTY AND ALUMNI with guest dancers from BOSTON BALLET II at the BU Dance Theatre (September 28-29; 617.358.2500).
October begins with the timeless and eerie BUNRAKU NATIONAL PUPPET THEATER OF JAPAN bringing two traditional plays, Oshichi of the Fire Watch Tower and Miracle at the Tsubosaka Kannon Temple, to the Cutler Majestic Theatre (October 2-3; 800.233.3123).
MARCUS SCHULKIND’s yearly fundraising concert at Central Square’s Green Street Studios features some of the best freelance dancers in town, and this year his choreography will be presented by a cast that includes Harvard-physics-student-turned-William-Forsythe-dancer Elizabeth Waterhouse and 14-year-old wunderkind Nina Brindamour (October 5-6; 617.864.3191). That same weekend, JOSÉ MATEO BALLET THEATRE begins its fall repertory season at the intimate Sanctuary Theatre in Harvard Square (October 5-29; 617.354.7467). CLAIRE PORTER’s Namely, Muscles solo demonstrating the 96 major muscles of the body through 30 poems should give audiences at the Harvard Dance Center the giggles (October 27; tickets free but reservations required; 617.495.8683).
BOSTON BALLET brings out some razzle-dazzle on its return from its Spanish tour in a one-night gala benefit at the Wang Theatre (October 12; 617.456.6246), then follows up with a program that juxtaposes Sorella Englund’s chilling staging of Bournonville’s La Sylphide with the architectural finesse of two short Balanchine/Stravinsky pieces, Monumentum pro Gesualdo and Movements for Piano and Orchestra (October 18-28; 800.447.7400).
Related:
Sizzling frost, Extremities, Terpsichore's delight, More 
- Sizzling frost
The winter dance season starts out promoting international coexistence.
- Extremities
Postmodern dance's conceptual, physical, and metaphysical roots spread far and wide, as four summer festival performances attested last week.
- 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.
- Winged feet
Dance highlights from the fall season.
- Pillow talking
Last summer, Los Angeles Times dance critic Lewis Segal suggested that ballet is dying an ugly, boring death.
- What's left behind
Tap Olé is less a new-fangled bicultural fusion than a return to tap dancing’s foundational swingtime.
- Ebb and flow
The good news is that we still have our own major company, Boston Ballet, and it made its first international tour — to Spain — in more than a decade.
- Conflict and convergence
Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company’s Another Evening: Serenade/The Proposition is an elegant layering of dance, design, music, and words.
- Fusion forms
Modern dancers who aren’t tethered to a specific technique can forage the whole world for useful movement and effects. We saw three completely different examples recently.
- Bad-boy cool
“People look at an oil painting and admire the use of brushstrokes to convey meaning. People look at a graffiti painting and admire the use of a drainpipe to gain access.”
- Seal of approval
Photographer Philip-Lorca diCorcia is a safe, easy choice for the new ICA’s first big artist retrospective.
- Less
Topics:
Dance
, Entertainment, Music, Kelley Donovan, More
, Entertainment, Music, Kelley Donovan, Regional Music, World Music, Jody Weber, Harvard Dance Center, Tommy Neblett, Gregory Hines, Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Less
