2019's Notables

David Byrne and friends in American Utopia. Photo: Matthew Murphy 

PERFORMANCE

American Utopia, Hudson Theater
If you're like me, do you avoid Broadway? Loud music? Overly enthusiastic crowds? No matter, do not miss this show if possible. David Byrne’s sui generis music, Annie-B Parson’s joyful movement, and an energetic, dedicated cast produce one of the best shows in memory.

Houston Ballet, New York City Center
Excellent rep choices for New York, including Mark Morris’ crisp and vibrant The Letter V. And a good showcase for a top-notch company that we don’t see enough.

New Goldberg Variations, Joyce Theater
In a breakout year for Pam Tanowitz, New Goldberg Variations finally made it to New York’s Joyce in full, and did not disappoint. A perfect evening of pure movement, with Bach’s music played sublimely by Simone Dinnerstein, gorgeous costumes by Reid Bartelme/Harriet Jung, and creamy/vanilla lighting by Davison Scandrett.

One & One, Baryshnikov Arts Center
Vertigo Dance Company, based in Israel and led by Noa Wertheim, presented this work, in which the theater’s floor gradually became covered in dirt.

Michael Trusnovec in Pam Tanowitz's All at Once. Photo: Paula Lobo 

Michael Trusnovec and PTDC moving on
You’ll finally stop hearing me rave as much about Michael Trusnovec, because he retired from Paul Taylor Dance Company this year. However, he’ll reprise Taylor’s solo by Balanchine from Episodes at New York City Ballet this spring, if you missed it at the PTDC gala program.
     About a half-dozen additional PTDC dancers retired from the company, whose evolution is fast-forwarding more than a year after Taylor’s death. The change is probably overdue but the delay, understandable. A smart, bold departure under Michael Novak's direction—to add New York performance runs in smaller venues—the Bach Festival with Orchestra of St. Luke's at Manhattan School of Music, and this summer, a slate of early crunchy Taylor pieces at the Joyce, danced by a slew of young talent.

ART

Agnes Denes
A deserved museum-level survey of this pioneer, yet ignored, environmental artist’s work. It  also validates The Shed’s visual arts program, which until now seemed a bit like an expensive extension of the Chelsea art scene.

BOOKS

Underland, Robert Macfarlane
It’s a bit too neat to parallel this non-fiction essay collection to last year’s amazing Overstory (by Richard Powers), but it makes you think about everything underground, probably for the first time. Each chapter treats a totally different subtopic. Truly mind expanding.

Ninth Street Women, Mary Gabriel
This tome looks at the undersung careers of women artists connected to, and mostly left out of, the oppressively macho Ab Ex movement starting in the late 1940s, including a few whose careers were subsumed by their male partners. Lee Krasner, Grace Hartigan, Joan Mitchell, Helen Frankenthal, and Elaine de Kooning.

American Woman, Susan Choi
This 2004 novel captures the desperation and loneliness of being a fugitive from the government, and the thrill as well. I read this because Trust Exercise, Choi’s lauded 2019 novel, had such a long wait list at the library, and am grateful. The latter book is worth a read as well; it’s completely different in tone and experimental structure, revolving around a theater company. 

The Power Broker, by Robert Caro

Okay, I finally read this 1974 monster on urban planner Robert Moses, and it was worth it. Now, moving around the city, I think about his negative and positive impact on the metro area constantly, and how extensive and deep his power ran. Scary and enlightening.

TV


Jane the Virgin
There were many series I watched that came to an end this year, but this was the saddest departure. Gina Rodriguez (Jane), luminous, hilarious, and relatable; Jaime Camil (Rogelio), somehow incredibly self-absorbed yet lovable; Ivonne Coll (Alba), the wise and stern moral compass of the show, whose lines were mostly in Spanish. Structuring it after a telenovela gave it license to be completely over the top while giving audiences the head-snapping plot twists, including serious themes and the all-important nucleus of the daughter/mother/grandmother.

SPORTS

New York Mets
Yeah, they didn't make post-season, but it sure was fun to watch the new kids anchoring this team now, especially Pete Alonso, Jacob deGrom, Jeff McNeil, JD Davis, and Michael Conforto. Real reasons to say "Let's go Mets."

Houston Ballet, Distinguished by Solid Rep

The Letter V. Photo: Amitava Sarkar

October holds such an embarrassment of dance riches in New York that it might be easy to overlook a run by the Houston Ballet, which is in the city if not often, then at least with some regularity. But the company’s recent City Center run comprised excellent repertory by choreographers whose works are staples in NYC.

Mark Morris’ The Letter V shows his facility with ballet, but perhaps the revelation in this dance is how simple and pure the phrases are. A dancer leaning forward, arms back like wings, opens the ballet; this passage recurs until it’s familiar. Then it’s done with the men lifting the women who do basically the same phrase, but in the air. Arms straight, swinging rapidly front to back like pendulums, look jarring at first, but once you get used to them they visually amplify the music. The amiable Haydn Symphony No. 88 in G Major, played live by Orchestra of St. Luke’s, provides a satisfying structure for the movement, and Maile Okamura’s chiffon tunics layered over leotards boost the overall sunny disposition.

Some Old Things Are New Again at FFD; NYCB's Stylish Premieres

Michael Trusnovec and company in Paul Taylor's Brandenburgs. Photo: Paul B. Goode 

Has Fall for Dance lost its steam? Or has the novelty worn off after a dozen years of mixing and matching divergent troupes?

The program I caught featured Compania Urbana de Dança of Brazil, Fang-Yi Sheu and Herman Cornejo, Houston Ballet, and Paul Taylor Dance Company. Part of the attraction of the festival is being exposed to types of dance you might not see very often. CUD's louche, fluid style (choreographed by Sonia Destri Lie) derived from street dance is at first a refreshing change from canonical techniques, as seen in Eu Danço—8 Solos No Geral. Performing against the exposed upstage wall, with striking raked lighting, emphasized the urban atmosphere. It was when the dancers began making movements most often associated with, say, ballet—a leap with spreading arms—when the vocabulary felt like a foreign language for the performers.

I'd seen Sheu and Cornejo do a beta version of her Pheromones at Works & Process last year. In its more fully fleshed out version, it carried a little more heft, but had shed some of the hungry experimental feel. If it made little lasting impact, how can one complain about seeing two of the most magnetic dancers perform together? Houston Ballet brought 10 dancers, rather than the two or three often employed by large companies at FFD as a way to participate, yet keep down costs. They performed Stanton Welch’s Maninyas (1996), to music by Ross Edwards. The dancers entered from upstage, passing under hanging fabric panels which skimmed over their upthrust fingertips. The couples, sorted by costume colors (the women, on point, notably wore split skirts which they flung about their legs like can-can dancers) performed a variety of duets, from romantic to confrontational. The movement hewed closely to the music’s rhythms to the point of predictability. But it was a substantial glimpse of a company with accomplished dancers.

Ballet Up Close and Personal at the Joyce, 10/21/11

Ballet Up Close and Personal at the Joyce: Houston Ballet, Suzanne Farrell Ballet

http://www.thirteen.org/sundayarts/blog/ballet/ballet-up-close-and-personal-at-the-joyce/1876/

Houston Ballet's Karina Gonzalez and Connor Walsh in ONE/end/ONE. Photo: Amitava Sarkar.

In New York, we see a lot of ballet of all shapes and sizes. Seeing two of the country’s laureled companies—Houston Ballet last week, and The Suzanne Farrell Ballet(through Oct 23), from DC—at the Joyce Theater, from a relatively close distance, raises issues that continually simmer on the back burner. Here are a few.

Proximity. Seeing Balanchine close up doesn’t seem to work as well as from a distance, as when watching New York City Ballet at Koch Theater. It’s like the veil of mystery drops, and the difficulty of what they’re doing is far more apparent. Sometimes that’s not a bad thing, and can even be a choreographer’s goal—to reveal the intense physicality of dancing—as it did in Jorma Elo’sONE/end/ONE, performed by Houston Ballet. At other times, the magnification of being human, shaking muscles, hands grappling, feet slipping, detracts from the illusion of perfection, as it did at times during the Farrell program. Which leads to…