ArtsSF

BERKELEY, CA—-Always count on the dean of US modern-dance choreographers, Mark Morris, 67, to pull rabbits out of the hat. The company director has lost none of his mojo. The Mark Morris Dance Group did a rarity at Zellerbach Hall. Not only was MM’s “Via Dolorosa” a world premiere, but it was the first time in memory that the veteran ever tackled a sacred-religious theme in dance with his troupe. His dancers—nine of them here, all stellar interchangeable parts—are exquisitely…

Read More Read More

BERKELEY—Was it Santa Claus arrived early? A closer look revealed it was actually choreographer Mark Morris with the big bushy beard in a new role: Singer, accompanying his light entertainments up on the dance stage. Over the years, with his Dance Group he has carried out at least four roles, previously as dancer and actor as well. The next time he turns up here, he might well be lighting designer, usher, tour-bus driver, phys-therapist and chancellor too if he has…

Read More Read More

A highly anticipated centenary commemoration of dancer-choreographer Merce Cunningham branched out and went far, far afield with new creations. The grabbag also boasted a whip-cracking specialist, a radio soap opera, improvisation and even a vintage Ohlone Indian singer. To boot, a live performance artist straight out of some contemporary art display spent the time on stage untangling a spaghetti of tangled wires—and doing nothing else. Oh Merce, where are you now that we really need you? When he died a…

Read More Read More

BERKELEY—The amazing Mark Morris dancers, 17 strong, are learning to veto the law of gravity as they glide almost weightlessly through a night of Mozart. Mark Morris, that master hybrid of ballet/modern dance and its middle ground, showed off his timeless evening-long “Mozart Dances” with sublime poetry and musical sensitivity. Is there any choreographer alive comparable? His light-footed ensemble of 17 dancers seemed to levitate and float through the air. Meantime his dance moves—sometimes modern ballet, sometimes innovative modern dance—explore…

Read More Read More

The Fresh Festival, which plays at the Joe Goode Annex in San Francisco every Friday and Saturday evening in January, proposes a series of performances that show a “bold, wild, vulnerable willingness to try something new in front of your eyes, have the power to change your mind, your day, your life,” according Kathleen Hermesdorf, the Festival curator. The Festival is celebrating its tenth anniversary around the theme of “Reckoning,” a political ambition, in which “we are . . ….

Read More Read More

Dance concerts in which dancing is incidental or secondary to some larger idea of dance performance have become common in postmodern dance culture. Bill T. Jones (b. 1952) has become one of the most successful advocates of this aesthetic. But one can trace the origin of the aesthetic back to the Judson Dance Group, a collection of dancers associated with experimental performers like Yvonne Rainer, Steve Paxton, and John Cage, which in New York City, between 1962-1964, explored the potential…

Read More Read More

  The Biggest-Little Show, Complete with Singers, Musicians By Paul Hertelendy  artssf.com, the independent observer of San Francisco Bay Area music and dance  Week of July 29, 2016 Vol. 18, No. 80 The dance group Garrett + Moulton puts on an admirable spectacle, bringing forth yet another local ensemble investing heavily in multi-dimensional live dance theater. G&M’s “Speak, Angels” spotlights six dancers, seven instrumentalists, five singers, plus a unique 18-member “movement group” in a tightly organized, fast-flying, hour-long concert. The…

Read More Read More

By Paul Hertelendy  artssf.com, the independent observer of San Francisco Bay Area music and dance  Week of July 13-20, 2016 Vol. 18, No. 77 Dismayed by the sameness of too many dance performances? Amy Seiwert’s new thrusts show great promise to break out of the mold, via her Imagery company’s “Sketch 6” series of July 8-10. This was bold, invigorating innovation by four choreographers, each working to stretch the envelope of movement, performing in an intimate theater (Cowell, on the…

Read More Read More