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The coming year is a big one for Lucinda Childs, an American choreographer. The 1976 opera that cemented her career—“Einstein on the Beach”, by Philip Glass and Robert Wilson—will be going on a world tour that includes its Britain premiere as part of the London 2012 Festival. And “DANCE”, an hour-long 1979 performance of Ms Childs’s choreography, is now on at the Barbican, remastered for a digital age.

Now 71, Ms Childs recalls the “controversial” premiere of “DANCE”, a collaboration with Sol Le Witt, an artist, and Mr Glass. Many chafed at its minimalist style, viewing it as “possibly something children could do”. People walked out, unaccustomed to Mr Glass’s occasionally unforgiving music or to Ms Childs’s unconventional understanding of movement. 

But the experimental, forward-looking nature of “DANCE” has meant that it has aged fairly well (though Mr LeWitt’s black-and-white projections can feel slightly dated). The three-part performance is composed of few elements—a gauze screen at the front of the stage for Mr LeWitt’s projections and a troupe of dancers clad in white just behind. But the overall effect is dream-like, hallucinogenic, full of repeating moves and sounds. There is no narrative, something Ms Child attributes to her training under Merce Cunningham, who broke new ground in dance by stripping away the “emotional, narrative-based structure” that had previously dominated choreography.    read more »

Paul McCartney is one of the most important figures of 20th-century music. 

Therein lies the dilemma. 

Can the 69-year-old former Beatle pull off writing a ballet? Will he break new ground? How will this addition to his repertoire affect his standing in music history? 

Those were the questions looming in the air on September 22nd as Sir Paul debuted his most recent classical composition, "Ocean’s Kingdom", as part of New York City Ballet’s Fall Gala performance at Lincoln Centre. 

There was some excitement when the curtain lifted and Sara Mearns (“Princess Honorata”), a sumptuous NYCB principal, floated in front of a tourmaline-coloured backdrop wearing a gauzy seafoam creation courtesy of Sir Paul’s daughter Stella. The textures of the sheer fabrics, the undulating light from the video projections, the dancer’s eloquent arm extensions and the lush strings of the NYCB Orchestra spun the elder McCartney’s signature three-note melody into a fleeting moment of ballet-making magic. It wasn’t quite rapturous, but definitively hummable—and a great start. 

Glimpses of that synergy flashed intermittently over the next 50 minutes, but for the most part the elements of “Ocean’s Kingdom” were disjointed, yielding sighs of disappointment at what was expected to be a triumph in the worlds of music, fashion and dance.    read more »

It is hard to think of a more fitting tribute to Pina Bausch’s career than “Vollmond (Full Moon)” (2006), one of the last pieces she choreographed before dying in 2009, aged 68. This is a vital, mesmerising work, at once profound, funny and full of the many ways we hurt each other and ourselves. Also it is a spectacle, with gown-clad, hair-whipping women and jangly men gliding about in the rain—sometimes a trickle, occasionally a torrent, all of it pooling on stage.
 
Bausch’s dance pieces tend to explore the dramatic struggles between men and women. The couples in “Vollmond” are duly compulsive, manic and irrational. They push and pull at each other, testing and teasing. A man dances near a woman and tenderly leans in for a possible kiss; the woman responds by kissing him frantically, violently, pecking him across the stage. Is she conveying desire? Distaste? Another woman, statuesque in a long black gown, delivers an orange to a man sitting in the front row; “I’m so hungry,” she says coyly, a manipulative minx. Bausch choreographed for grown-ups, rich with experience if not always wisdom.
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New York may have the Rockettes, but Washington has ...a big tree in front of the White House?  It’s nice to look at, but hardly makes for an evening’s worth of entertainment. But this year the city unveiled a new holiday tradition of its own. Septime Webre, the artistic director of the Washington Ballet, offered a decidedly local twist on Tchaikovsky’s "The Nutcracker". 

This timeless Christmas ballet has been reimagined many times, but Webre's version strikes a particularly patriotic chord. His Nutcracker Prince was none other than George Washington, ballet tights and all (what would Martha think?), while the dastardly Rat King was a red-coated and rather sinister looking King George III (British expats were left to squirm). Centuries of political tensions aside, the sight of America's powder-wigged first president prancing about the stage was a fantastic one. Indeed, it’s astonishing the parallel hasn’t been made before: both had a knack for saving the day, both saw enormous fashion potential in tight pants and both had wooden teeth.   read more »

One's experience of classical ballet is often distilled into comforting holiday classics, such as "The Nutcracker" and "Swan Lake". They are soothing, reliable, and about as uninspired as your grandmother's menu for Christmas dinner. That is unless these standbys have been reworked by Matthew Bourne, a British choreographer. Bourne's "Nutcracker" takes place in an orphanage, and his production of "Swan Lake" features an all-male cast. Exploring the edges of Tchaikovsky's score, he adds humour, emotional resonance and homo-eroticism to the classic story, and has created a classic in its own right. 

In this audio slideshow from The Economist, Bourne narrates against images that reveal the beauty and theatricality of his work. He describes his inspirations and motivations, and how he feels about his career on the eve of his 50th birthday.

~ ARIEL RAMCHANDANI

Deborah Colker leans in close, her elegant hands fluttering emphatically, as she speaks passionately in Portugese-accented English. A Brazilian former psychology student, volleyball player, pianist and dancer turned choreographer has much to be emphatic about--she is the first Brazilian to win a prestigious Olivier theatre award, and is the first woman to write, direct and choreograph a Cirque du Soleil show, "OVO" (egg), a lyrical dance performance about biodiversity now on in Canada.

She is now in New York  with her company Companhia de Dança to present her dance piece "4 Por 4", a four-part show in which each act uses a contemporary Brazilian artwork as a base. Dynamic, musically varied and visually appealing, "4 Por 4" reveals Colker's range and her interest in pushing the boundaries of dance. The four pieces, "Corners" and "Table" "Some People" and "Vases" (above), often deal with the constraints of space, to acrobatic and unusual effects.  read more »

Following on the heels of established Icelandic musicians such as Björk, Sigur Rós, Múm, GusGus and others, Ólafur Arnalds is the latest talent to emerge from this somewhat unlikely North Atlantic sonic hub.

Arnalds’s ambitious and confident debut album, Eulogy For Evolution, was released in 2007 when he was just 21. A mix of classical instrumentation and indie rock, the album garnered widespread acclaim for its savvy blending of influences and Arnalds’s obvious precocity.

After an equally compelling follow-up EP, Variations of Static (2008), Arnalds embarked on a more experimental project, which involved creating a new song every day for a week, and then immediately making it available online at foundsongs.erasedtapes.com. The project, called Found Songs, earned attention by making use of social-networking tools such as Facebook, Twitter and Flickr (on which Arnalds ran a forum/competition for corresponding artwork). Erased Tapes Records , an independent London-based label, recently released a CD, download and 10" Vinyl edition (which features seven photographs chosen from the Flickr group).

While Found Songs lacks some of the depth and coherence of Arnalds’s previous albums, the composer’s trademark influences–-Romantics such as Debussy and Bach; minimal modernists like Max Richter–-combine with contemporary aesthetics to create a mellifluous, if slightly meandering, listen. Here Arnalds talks to us about his beginnings as a jazz drummer, his penchant for romantic piano music and the benefits of imposing limits on his creative process.  read more »

It would be hard to overestimate Merce Cunningham's contribution to the world of dance. As a choreographer he spent a lifetime revolutionising the form and frustrating expectations, designing remarkable, challenging movement up until the very end. He died late on July 26th, aged 90, having choreographed an evening-length piece to celebrate his own 90th birthday earlier this year.

At an event in June to announce the company's Legacy Campaign, a smart and precedent-setting plan for preserving Cunningham's work and supporting his company, I ended up talking to a few of his dancers. We were milling about the Bethune Street studio in New York's West Village and I was quietly marvelling at how mortal they all seemed in their civvies. Having seen them perform--most recently at the final and wonderful Dia "Beacon Event" in May--I knew their trousers and summertime shifts concealed instruments capable of spectacular feats of balance, strength and concentration. Rashaun Mitchell, an especially dazzling member of the troupe who has been with Cunningham since 2004, described what makes dancing for him so unique. "You can just keep trying his moves for years," he explained, addressing Cunningham's aggressive demands on the body. "You may break yourself, but there is always something more difficult to try."  read more »

Alvin Ailey's story is remarkable. Born to a single 17-year-old mother in segregated Texas during the Depression, he went on to found one of the most successful modern dance troupes of all time. The Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater has been very busy celebrating the 50th Anniversary of the company, which Ailey founded in New York in 1958. Following a 26-city American tour, the company returns to Brooklyn this week (June 9th-14th) to perform the works that have made them famous--"Revelations", especially.

"Revelations" remains remarkable nearly 40 years after Ailey created it. This work stands above all others in his repertory, which is known for being uneven. The "truth is that he created one great piece, the 1960 'Revelations' (and it is very great, on a par with the best of Balanchine and Graham), and never again made anything half as interesting," wrote Joan Acocella in 2001. But to see it is to understand Ailey's legacy, his contribution to dance and his gift to African-American self-possession in the arts.

Teresa Wiltz writes movingly about this:  read more »

I suppose I was startled by the patrons I spotted walking into the Park Avenue Armory. They wore bright colours. They had squeaky voices. I was expecting art, but they were kids and they were demanding fun. What we all got was something sublime. In "anthropodino", the Armory's first commissioned art installation, Ernesto Neto, a Brazilian artist, has converted the massive drill hall into a complex of caves and tented passageways suspended by diaphanous fabric. Stretched lycra walls extend upwards into a magnificent nave at the centre. (See a film of its creation here.)

I’m repelled by Neto’s aesthetic, which is equal parts Gaudi, sci-fi and majestic homage to gonads and egg sacs. But his work is a feast for the senses. Interaction is irresistible. The kids went into playground mode, running for the plastic ball-pit and the chamber of bean-bag cushions stuffed with lavender. Adults sniffed quizzically at the dangling and dripping sacs to determine what spice (cumin? turmeric?) was stuffed inside.

And then I got lucky.  read more »