Plunging in the Fall Dance Season, 9/3/10

-->

Fall Dance Season preview

http://www.thirteen.org/sundayarts/blog/ballet/plunging-into-the-fall-dance-season/871/

In this quieter week, it’s worth taking a deep breath and looking at some notable events approaching in the the next couple of months. The French Institute’s festival, Crossing the Line(Sep 10 – 27) has evolved into one of the fall’s significant resources of cutting edge performance, French or not. One of the keystones, Raimund Hoghe, returns after last year’s lauded Bolero Variations with three events, including a solo by Hoghe on 9/11 in FIAF’s Skyroom which promises touching eloquence. Many of the shows take place at other venues, and on Sep 18 & 19, the Joyce Theater hosts Jérôme Bel’s work for Cédric Andrieux. Partake in Farm City, the foodie element of the festival, with local sustainable agro and artisanal treats (Sep 12), supplemented by three weekends of films, tours, and talk.

Next week at the Chocolate Factory in Long Island City (Sep 8 – 18), Brian Rogers collaborates with Madeline Best on Selective Memory, including a live-time video performance that taps into relationships, memories, and trying to locate the truth. Danspace Project presents the third iteration of its excellent platform series from Sep 22 – Oct 30, curated by Trajal Harrell and titled “certain difficulties, certain joy.” This core sample artist’s point of view is one of those ideas that’s been long overdue in these parts. The Euro-feeling platform comprises several performances, dialogues, and a catalogue. DTW‘s slate, in addition to some of the Crossing the Line events, includes the return of a Faye Driscoll opus, Neil Greenberg, Alain Buffard, and Yanira Castro works.

As DNA battles for survival in the face of a soaring rent hike, it continues to present engaging work, including powerhouse performers Nora Chipaumire, Souleymane Badolo, and Obo Addy (Sep 9 – 12) with a new performance and gallery installation. Katie Workum will be at DNA starting Sep 30, and I can only chicken out and quote the press release to do it justice: “At some point: everyone’s knees give out, you will be forced to give a wedding speech, hopefully will never see the eye of a hurricane, definitely will get all lost and distracted for a while, herd like a cattle dog, hold on forever and rip off your friend’s moves, us too.”

Rounding out this cursory look at the fall, additional events I’ve flagged include Seven Works by Trisha Brown at the Whitney, including Walking on the Wall; Ivy Baldwin and Neal Medlyn at the Chocolate Factory; Cedar Lake, Sankai Juku, and Batsheva at the Joyce; the big Fall for Dance festival at City Center; and New York City Ballet’s first fall season, with welcome reprisals of Ratmansky’s Namouna and Chris Wheeldon’s Estancia, plus a new work by Benjamin Millepied. And there are still hundreds of other events to ponder. Time to get busy!

Image: Faye Driscoll’s company at DTW. Photo by Yi Chun Wu.