Random Summer 2025 Reading Trends & Recs

Many of the novels I’ve read lately fall within odd groups. I especially recommend the starred titles:

1. Plots involving characters, nearly all female, being held captive for ideological reasons, either involuntarily or as a way of life.

2. Plots focusing on fraternal pairs whose relationships surpass normal sibling bonds.

3. Characters with the name Louisa.

1:

★ Flashlight, by Susan Choi

Louisa, an American citizen of Korean/Caucasian heritage, and her Korean-born, Japanese-raised father walk on the beach in Japan and are seized by North Koreans; she escapes, but he is held captive in a DPRK prison, made to teach N. Koreans about western ways and languages. 

★ In The Bombshell,  by Darrow Farr

Severine, a rich, spoiled teen, is brutally kidnapped by a Corsican faction. She at first rails against her captors, but eventually sympathizes with their cause. She exploits her appealing persona on social media to gain attention to the cause, and takes radical actions that even her captors aren’t willing to broach. Farr’s style feels akin to Rachel Kushner’s punky, radical tone and how female characters are pushed beyond norms.

In Heartwood, by Amity Gaige 

A hiker, Valerie, is held by militant prepper protesting a radical military training camp in Maine. A search team led by veteran warden Beverly comes up empty, but a retiree seeking friends online happens across the kidnapper in a chat room and provides intel on Valerie’s location.

What Kind of Paradise, Janelle Brown

Jane is being raised, and essentially held captive, by her Ted Kaczynski-like father in a remote cabin in Montana. He’s trying to protect her from the outside world and the downfall of society cause by technology. She escapes after abetting a serious crime for her father, and wrestles with this secret in the aftermath. 

1 & 2:

Our Last Resort, by Clémence Michallon 

Frida and Gabriel, biologically unrelated but basically siblings, escape from the cult where they were raised, committing what they deem necessary crimes to remain loyal to one another—which takes precedence above all.

2:

I’ll Be Right Here, Amy Bloom

Two Algerian siblings escape Paris during the war, and resettle in New York. Their shared challenging upbringing draws them closer than the average filial bond, at least one pair in an unorthodox relationship (and which includes the odious term "throuple.")

3:

Louisa. I suppose that similar to “most popular baby names,” there exists a category of “most popular novel names” at any given moment. It’s time to hear it for Louisa!

★ My Friends, Fredrik Backman

Louisa, a burgeoning artist, unwittingly inherits a masterpiece painting done by an artist whom she runs into in an alley. She makes every attempt at dis-inheriting the artwork, leading up to a clever twist of a resolution.

Gingko Season, Naomi Xu Elegant

Okay, it’s a secondary character who’s named Louisa in this coming-of-age novel revolving around a Philadelphia woman curating an exhibition on bound-foot shoes who seeks love and humanity in unlikely places.

1 & 3: Flashlight, see above

Two Luminous New York City Ballet Premieres

New York City Ballet in Justin Peck’s Mystic Familiar. Photo: Erin Baiano

It’s hard to comprehend that Mystic Familiar: A Ballet by Justin Peck is his 25th work for New York City Ballet, where he is resident choreographer. (The second part of the title reads as an imprimatur for how much clout he has artistically; it echoes “A Piece by Pina Bausch,” which followed each of her work’s titles.) It’s both a huge accomplishment to accrue so many commissions by his home company, which happens to be one of the world’s most significant troupes. On the other hand, it requires a lot of creativity and hard work to differentiate over two dozen dances on the same company.

Certain Peck dances stand out in my memory. The Times Are Racing (2017) tops that list, anchored by a hip-tappy duet originally done by Peck for himself and Robbie Fairchild (and later including women in the roles), and another duet of flashing feet and circular flip-lifts with Tiler Peck levitating up and down. Opening Ceremony’s Humberto Leon designed the playful street/athletic wear costumes worn with sneakers. And Dan Deacon’s score charged the piece with an urgency and daredevilry that Peck rode, full speed ahead. The same synergetic creative team has been gathered together to create Mystic.

Taylor Stanley with company in Mystic Familiar. Photo: Erin Baiano

Peck works in a variety of choreographic languages, but the one established in TTAR have distinguished many of his most striking dances. (Moments feel like tips of the hat to his sneaker-ballet predecessors such as Robbins, Childs, and Tharp.) The youthful, athletic vigor; the clustering, pulsing, and exploding of the corps, often singling out a central dancer; the inward, noodling phrases; the dashes of levity and community. The undeniable joie de vivre. 

Many of those elements occur in Mystic Familiar, but the heart of the piece is anomolous: a long solo for Taylor Stanley. His leonine grace and strength have made him a muse for a number of choreographers at NYCB, including Kyle Abraham and Peck. Stanley’s solo is quite expressionistic and emotionally resonant, featuring sculptural shapes that melt into soft looping phrases, or a thrusting sternum, comprising a poignant, poetic section.

Some passages evoke previous Peck dances, as you’d expect. Dancers line the stage’s apron, in silhouette; a column of bodies splits off right and left; a rapid phrase ends in an abruptly held position. Near the end, the performers trade their colorful, translucent streetwear for antiseptic white jumpsuits, adding a chill to the atmosphere. A paranoiac might read them as hazmat suits, a solemn reminder of the not-long-past pandemic. Deacon's music feels melodic and companionable, and less a soundtrack to a revolution.

Peck is now an established Broadway choreographer, with recent productions of Illinoise and Buena Vista Social Club to his credit. It feels as if Broadway has seeped into Mystic in its energetic pacing and the supporting synthesis of Eamon Ore-Giron’s dazzling geometric backdrop, and lighting by Brandon Stirling Baker, which spotlights different points of the mural, like a setting sun descending through the trees. The sum total feels like a solid work that wrings the most out of the resources given, on every production level.

Taylor Stanley and Indiana Woodward in When We Fell. Photo: Erin Baiano

Kyle Abraham also used the totality of the theater. As opposed to the maximalist approach in Mystic, his premiere of When We Fell leans toward elegant, pure, minimalism. Two pianos sat on opposite sides of the stage, which featured a stage-wide horizontal mirror perhaps a yard high, hovering just above the people on stage. The eight dancers wore Karen Young’s stunning unitards in metallic hues of copper, silver, and gold. The distantly-placed pianos (which play Morton Feldman, Jason Moran, and Nico Muhly’s music), the spacious dark void above the mirror, and the small cast in their shimmering suits compounded to create a feeling of infinity and absence, echoing the Covid era.

Abraham originally made this work as a film in the wake of the pandemic, when dances were made over Zoom with participants in far-away locations. or in collective isolation. He uses ballet steps for the most part, with expressionistic tweaks, like rippling torsos, or deeply swooping port de bras. Rapid piques, frenetic battus, and big leaps and sautés punch up the final section; Taylor Stanley and Indiana Woodward dance in a large pool of light but otherwise darkness, counterbalancing one another in an apt metaphor for codependency in a time of isolation. It's gratifying to see these two premieres by artists who are no longer brand-new choreographers at NYCB. Both dances are memorable and should crop up with regularity in seasons to come, with luck.

Some company notes... Megan Fairchild and Andrew Veyette retire from the company this season. And besides seeing the superlative Taylor Stanley in featured premiere roles, KJ Takahashi distinguished himself in crisp, bold solos in both dances, electrifying the stage.

Kyle Abraham Shares the Stage

Year. Photo: Carrie Schneider

Kyle Abraham, one of the most admired and prolific contemporary dancemakers, took a bold step for his company, A.I.M’s, recent Joyce Theater run. Instead of presenting only works he created, he showcased three other choreographers in addition to creating a premiere. While other big-name choreographers have done so (foremost, Alvin Ailey), it’s certainly not standard practice when alive; most understandably want to use the precious stage time as a platform for their own work.

But Abraham has always done things a little differently, often with the larger community in mind. Post-show stage pleas have commonly focused on pleas to donate to Broadway Cares, which supports AIDS/HIV patient services. At the Joyce, he called out by names of all of A.I.M’s dancers, and all the artistic collaborators behind the scenes and sitting in the audience. His gratitude filled the house with genuine appreciation and affection.

He’s also full of choreographic surprises and experimentation, both dance-wise and structurally. His premiere, 2x4, from a broad perspective evoked early modern dance creators with its Big Art set and challenging music (I’m thinking Merce Cunningham). Devin B. Johnson’s immense artwork backdrop, in shades of magma, and the baritone sax score by Shelley Washington, played on stage by Guy Dellacave and Thomas Giles, who periodically stomped their feet and framed the quartet of dancers. Abraham’s unique style mixes catwalk sashays, ballet, gestures, and pedestrian behavior, as if he spliced video clips together from a random day. He’s in no danger of being pigeonholed, style-wise. This more formal work, with challenging music, contrasts strongly with recent works such as An Untitled Love for A.I.M, with its quasi-narrative sections set to D’Angelo, and major commissions for New York City Ballet.

Jamaal Bowman and Olivia Wang in Year. Photo: Carrie Schneider

It was performed third and not last, which might be considered the “prime” slot on a bill. Andrea Miller’s Year (2024) took that honor, perhaps in part due to the installation of a largish set of three white walls surrounding the stage, and a craggy sun-like disc. The eight dancers wore Orly Anan Studio’s vivid unitards painted with surreal motifs—facial features and geometrical shapes. Fred Despierre’s percussion score contributed to the tribal feel. Miller trained in Gaga, and while that often percolates beneath the movement, it’s accented with a bit of voguing. The movement is sensuous, powerful, and expressive, and A.I.M’s skilled dancers wring out every drop, clustering and exploding, unspooling solos. Varied duets included one in which the woman skimmed above the stage, supported by her partner as he spun and leveraged her weight.

Paul Singh’s Just Your Two Wrists (2019) is an absorbing solo, here danced by Amari Frazier with an alternating ferocity and tenderness. (David Lang’s haunting music evokes Pam Tanowitz’s later usage in her memorable 2023 Song of Songs.) The program led off with Shell of a Shell of the Shell (2024), choreographed by Rena Butler to music by Darryl J. Hoffman. Butler is skilled with dramatic stagecraft—silhouetted dancers moving elastically, six pinlit performers isolated yet proximate, shows of extreme emotion in spasmodic or reactive moves. Yet it all felt a bit familiar, other than Hogan McLaughlin’s coarse ecru pantaloon and halter top costumes.

Abraham’s 2x4 almost felt like the answer to the question: which one of these is not like the other? His readiness to take risks by using squawking and stamping sax players, and reset his movement vocabulary for this piece, show why he continues to be lauded and watched carefully. But showcasing three contemporaries, and acknowledging all of his collaborators, reveal an uncommon generosity that runs through his body of work.

Dance Then & Now—Ballet at the Stissing Center

Mónica Lima, Elena Zahlmann, Kristina Shaw, Diana Byer, and
Julian Donahue in Private Angels. Photo: Patrick Trettenero

April promises spring, but winter clung on over the weekend; Columbia County got about half a foot of snow on April 12. So going to Stissing Center in Pine Plains for a Sunday afternoon matinee of Dance Then & Now, a program curated by Diana Byer, presented the chance to gather in a welcoming, vibrant venue and take in a varied ballet program. The works ranged from a 1951 duet by Agnes de Mille, Another Autumn (from Paint Your Wagon), to four contemporary pieces including several premieres.

The hour-long program ranged from experimental modern ballet to musical theater to satire. The latter, by Julian Donahue, titled Private Angels, was a site-specific premiere performed primarily on the auditorium floor, and partly on-stage (we were seated along the perimeter and on the mezzanine). It featured Donahue as a posh ballet taskmaster, controlling and effete—prancing, posing, swinging scythe-like arms, shooting icy glares at us, and eliciting guffaws, notably from a few enthusiastic children in the audience whose giggles were infectious.

Four women (Elena Zahlman, Kristina Shaw, Mónica Lima, and Byer) descended from the space’s four corners, facing one another and performing courtly, contained steps. Each woman took turns being partnered by Donahue, each duet progressing with different dynamics. It built to Lima’s section, when Donahue handled her with vigor, bordering on violence. Occasional piano music by Handel, played by Matteo Mangialetti, accompanied this slightly long but entertaining suite.

The bill led off with the premiere of Calandrelle, choreographed by William Whitener with music by Olivier Messiaen, in which Kristina Shaw hit crisp geometric shapes, bounced, tilted, pet her tutu, and spun with a knee bent. These jottings felt playful even while grounded in ballet. An Agnes de Mille duet from Paint Your Wagon was danced by Zahlmann and Donahue, with Mangialetti playing Frederick Loewe’s music. Though brief, we saw de Mille’s knack for distilling a burgeoning romance into a few key moments—the chaste wooing, and ensuing blossoming into affection and a side-by-side partnership. 

Stephen Pier’s premiere of A Conversation with Keyboard featured Lima and Shaw in elegant short black dresses trading ballet phrases in a rhythmic ebb and flow, and checking in with Mangialetti, playing music by Domenico Cimarosa. Lima and Donahue partnered in Isle of Skye, by Amanda Treiber, with recorded music by Mondrian Villega. Appropriately clad in sky blue costumes, they stretched into elongated lines and tossed in phrases of celebratory social dancing that evoked Scottish reels, perhaps a nod to the title.

All of these dances fit snugly and efficiently into the brief run time, a pleasing sampling of modern ballet that demonstrates the form’s continuing relevance and artistry. The dance programming, selected by Catherine Tharin, is just one genre among many featured at Stissing Center, which mounts a surprisingly robust season in the quietly simmering town of Pine Plains.

Martha Graham Dance Company at 100—Strong Dancers, Dwindling Graham

Xin Ying in Letter to Nobody. Photo: Brian Pollock

Martha Graham Dance Company performed its annual New York run at the Joyce this year, part of the troupe’s 100th anniversary celebration. It was another step in its evolution, a balance of Graham and contemporary choreography. Program A offered just a short bit of Martha, Act 2 of Clytemnestra (1958), which has all the hallmarks of high Graham—fantastic sets by Isamu Noguchi, fabulous costumes by Graham and Helen McGehee, unharmonious music by Halim El-Dabh—but tilts toward kitsch in the absence of the larger context. As Artistic Director Janet Eilber had informed us in her by now habitual, concise, pre-show comments, Agamemnon’s Ghost (Jai Perez) wears high gold platform shoes to indicate he’s in the afterworld, but it still feels like drag. We do get a solid sampling of Graham in the womens’ dancing—the yearning diagonal stretches and twists with cupped hands—and in the final solo by Lloyd Knight, with his repeated, self-flagellating hinges to the shoulder.

 Xin Ying in Clytemnestra. Photo: Isabella Pagano

Baye & Asa choreographed the world premiere of Cortege, to music by Jack Grabow. Eight dancers are hidden beneath a tarp, which slides off them. We hear a voiceover, including, “In times of extreme violence…” The dancers hit vignettes, evoking postures and gestures of torture and incarceration. They cluster, spasming, moving in bursts, giving animalistic Gaga vibes. A woman melts to the floor. Some don burlap vests; are they members or exiles? The movement is hyper controlled and precise, disturbing in its relentless, underlying terror, and undeniably beautiful.

Graham appears on film in the premiere of Letter to Nobody, by Xin Ying, who co-choreographed it with Mimi Yin. Ying, solo, channels Martha in front of a film segment of Graham’s Letter to the World, projected on a giant screen. Shot at an angle from above, it includes segments of social dance, and feels lighthearted; Graham is heard in a voiceover. Ying dances elegantly in flowing and graceful phrases, at one point kicking, swirling, and spinning repeatedly in her circle skirt. The film cuts to Graham fixing her enormous signature bun in front of a vanity. As she turns toward the camera, her face morphs into Ying’s. The effect is chilling, a demonstration of what AI can bring to dance theater, and a reminder that Graham’s heirs must carry on her legacy while always increasing the distance to her.

Cortege. Photo: Isabella Pagano

The program ended with Hofesh Schechter’s crowd pleaser, Cave (2022). In murky light, to a pulsing beat, 14 dancers move subtly at first, like a sea anemone. The dynamic builds, the group peels apart, still beating in sync, throwing in some Irish step dancing for good measure. Golden light hits them from the side, and they continue a trance-like surrender to the beat. It ends in a highly-controlled frenzy, the dancers writhing and throbbing in ecstasy. 

It’s yet another manifestation of the versatile and technically limitless group of dancers that comprise the Martha Graham Company, and that Graham’s elemental technique serves as a foundation for nearly all genres of dance. (That said, Ohad Naharin's Gaga felt more present in Cortege and Cave than Graham style.) The company performed two other programs which both offered proportionately more Graham to other choreographers' work, so the program I saw was an outlier. Graham's mythology-based repertory can now read as melodramatic and campy, but the company must continue to present this canon, along with her formal work, to share its primacy and essence.

Riding the Amazonian Whitewaters

Marzia Memoli, Oliver Greene-Cramer, Daisy Jacobson, Miriam Gittens,
Renan Cerdeiro, and Nicole Morris in Diabelli. Photo by Christopher Duggan

New York dance audiences are truly spoiled with a panoply of genres, the best dancers and choreographers, and incredible choice pretty much year-round. Resident companies such as New York City Ballet, ABT, Alvin Ailey, Paul Taylor, Dance Theater of Harlem, Martha Graham, and many more give annual seasons that are by now a given, and to some extent taken for granted. That’s not to say that it’s ever easy to mount a season, especially with the high costs associated with developing and producing a run. These steadfast beacons have become the tentpoles of an environment absolutely rich with dance; you have to wonder how much of the available pool of resources they absorb, along the way possibly attracting dollars that might go to less-known groups. Always debatable.

I speak of the impermanent groups led by legends of modern dance, prominent among them Twyla Tharp, who has been a semi-regular on New York City Center’s calendar over the years. This year’s program felt particularly robust and lush: Diabelli (1998) in its NY premiere, and this year’s Slacktide, with Philip Glass’ mesmerizing score played live by Third Coast Percussion. There were no featured big-name guest dancers, only gifted and hard-working individuals (some Tharp veterans) with peak technique and presence, and the flexibility to rehearse sufficiently to meet the rigorous demands of the performances.

It is surprising at first that New York has never seen Diabelli, but consider the heavy lift—it’s one hour long, with 10 dancers flying on and offstage in myriad combinations of Tharp’s demanding modern ballet and partnering sections. It’s a prime showcase of dancers’ superb intellects and the ability to memorize the material: the counts, musical sections, and the steps in three dimensions and countless recombinants of all body parts. Geoffrey Beene’s clever, unisex tuxedo tank unitards lend an air of sporty formality, and Diabelli’s 33 Variations on a Waltz provide a lively sonic background, played live by Vladimir Rumyantsev.

The dance feels organized around societal structures—military-like strides, social engagements observed by others, goading and friendly interactions. There’s a perpetual showiness about the dance, a tacit understanding that the performers will entertain the audience, which in turn must pay attention and dispense kudos. It’s Tharp at her finest, demanding balletic finesse, with dashes of ease and humor, all set in a crystalline structure supported by well-chosen music.

Alexander Peters and Miriam Gittens in Slacktide. Photo by Christopher Duggan

Slacktide is meant in part as a coda to In the Upper Room, one of Tharp’s masterworks. At the start, a fist is spotlit, connecting it to the finale of Upper Room. But in contrast to that work’s heavenly allusions, with its blazing lighting and cumulus fog, Slacktide swims in murky depths, all inky blues and blacks, with Victoria Bek’s sly, black, naval side-buttoned duds outfitting the cast of a dozen.

Third Coast Percussion plays Glass’ haunting Aguas da Amazonia live in the pit. Glass may be a household name, but he’s still underappreciated. This score brings many gifts to the table—of course, the driving rhythms, a contained ferocity, but also a witchy breathiness in the flutes and xylophones, and a jam-like looseness to the melodies. Tharp relies on her modern ballet lexicon, veering into lush organic ovals and swooping limbs. In a passage toward the end, six dancers, arranged in two vees, slip, fold, and eddy through hypnotic variations to a kindred musical passage—like rapids running the Amazon. I wanted it to go on and on.

Tharp has been briefly affiliated with large companies, notably with ABT, where she created a number of iconic dances. Her restless intellect and curiosity in exploring myriad other forms have led her to some remarkable milestones, including on Broadway, film, books, TV, and more. But she continually returns to the proscenium stage with her ambitious dances, and we must pay well-deserved attention.

Forces of Nature—Huppert, and One-Upping Nature's Wintry Sky

Isabelle Huppert in Mary Said What She Said. Photo: Lucie Jansch

In Robert Wilson’s production of Mary Said What She Said at NYU Skirball, Isabelle Huppert commands the stage with a 90-minute monologue in French, spoken so rapidly at times that I could barely read the projected English titles. The text (by Darryl Pinckney) recounts Mary Queen of Scots’ life's musings on betrothal, marriage, arrest, imprisonment and exile, and her relationships to the other Marys and men in general. Huppert’s stamina and focus are superhuman and essential to draw us in and hold tight, no simple task in this minimalistic production.

That said, “minimalistic” is misleading when referring to Wilson’s work. We’ve seen him go maximalist in epics such as Einstein on the Beach, Black Rider, Time Rocker, and other ambitious operas with songs, large casts, and multiple dream-like sets. Mary Said is a historically-based, stream-of-consciousness monologue to showcase a 71-year-old star deploying all her powers (plus a silhouette double, seen briefly). Letter to a Man, about Nijinsky’s descent into madness, was a similar tour-de-force featuring another star, Mikhail Baryshnikov, with a blazing lighting scheme and a few striking props, but mainly driven by the physical presence and loaded personality of the performer.

As I write, it's early March, and in the Hudson Valley, a pale pewter cloud bank sits heavily over a luminous white horizon; the sun battling with the remnants of an icy winter. It resembles a version of Wilson's lighting scheme for parts of Mary Said, if dialed way down. Mary Said carries many of the elements that unmistakably mark a Wilson show: the otherworldly Arctic lighting that sears your eyeballs. The hyper formal poses and white pancake makeup. Costumes, often evoking a past (or future) era, immaculately tailored to carve dramatic silhouettes against the light. The frozen, awkwardly articulated poses held for long spells, alternating with frenetic gestures and repetitive pacing. A lone sculpted white shoe popping up on its own little platform, and disappearing just as mysteriously. These all amount to a crash course in Wilson’s microcosm.

Isabelle Huppert in Mary Said What She Said. Photo: Lucie Jansch

At the start, Mary stands stock still in shadow, arms locked in rigid poses, while she begins her recitation. She is a tired soul trapped in a life not of her own choosing, and yet she’s made to bear the consequences of actions she may or may not have caused, including murdering her second husband, Henry Stuart. Outwardly, she appears perfectly poised and groomed. She was as loaded a symbol as could be, Queen of Scots, briefly Queen of France, and yet in the end, simply a woman.

As the monologue unspools, Huppert moves more broadly, venturing downstage in small increments, sussing out her true self buried beneath layers of stiff brocade and make-up. As if possessed, in the denouement she spits out repeated phrases while briskly walking downstage and retracing her steps backward, again and again, in a cathartic rant. (After this frenetic scene, Huppert’s breathing is barely visible—a display of her remarkable training and ability.) Nearing death, her soul is freed from the confines of societal expectations, and yet bound within Jacques Reynaud’s rigid gown and Wilson’s inescapable spotlight, which she can never truly escape.

Mary Said is part of NYU Skirball’s Winter/Spring season under the direction of Jay Wegman. It’s a notably strong, dance-heavy lineup with many participants from abroad. The production has support from Dance Reflections by Van Cleef & Arpels, which has become a major benefactor of the arts in recent seasons.