Nutrition for a Dancer’s Soul
New Works at Houston Ballet A pensive Mireille Hassenboehler sits in the corner waving her hands in quick patterns while counting and glancing down at her notes. Completely absorbed in the process, Hassenboehler navigates her way though the new passages she has just learned from [...]
Emancipating the Soul
Urban Souls Dance Company A line of Congolese villagers dance for healing as their spines undulate while they pass magic from palm to palm. Three figures in trench coats stand underneath an umbrella, waiting for rain, or a bus, or a cue to move. A mass of black limbs in a sheeted tent lift a [...]
Review: La Bayadère
If it be true that “ballet thy name is woman” (so says Balanchine), then in Houston her name is Karina Gonzalez, a dancer of such extraordinary power that she assumes the center of any stage where she finds herself. So, it made perfect sense for her to be the on cover of Dance Magazine in [...]
Review: Erin Reck
Knowing When To Come Up for Air Recked Productions, Drive by Theater at the Photobooth on Montrose It’s not that often that the choreographer hugs you during the show, but that’s what happened to me when Erin Reck snaked through the audience at Drive by Theater [...]
Review: Ballet Austin
It has taken me 25 years to get to Ballet Austin. Although I’ve toured their stunning building, located in the heart of Austin’s bustling warehouse district, this was my first time seeing the company. Just about everything about the experience felt fresh, from the slick-yet-welcoming video [...]
Elementally Earthen
Hands reach into the air, imitating the motions of field laborers in daily fruit gathering work. The movement then morphs into joyous exuberance as they are liberated from the toils of unfair working conditions. This rousing ballet is Si Se Puede, an homage to Cesar Chavez and the Latino American experience. It’s one of the [...]
Grace + Power
Houston Ballet’s Stand-Out Principals Joseph Walsh and Connor Walsh Blade-like limbs sliced through the air exactly in unison, mastering the fierce architecture of Aszure Barton’s Angular Momentum. The stage was jam-packed with dancers, blazing white lights and a striking linear set, yet Joseph [...]
Response: Performance Response to Tony Feher Free Fall
Performance installation puts people in a state of unease, possibly because they don’t know where they are on the continuum observer and participant. Most people got there early enough to have some fun with Tony Feher’s hanging tiny water bottles, warming up the space, getting [...]
After the flood
SPA Brings Motionhouse to Houston Motionhouse makes their Houston premiere with Scattered, a collaboration between artistic director Kevin Finnan with digital artists Logela Multimedia. Kinnan discusses his process, the dire subject of water and his highly physical brand of dance theater with A + C editor Nancy Wozny. A + C: What drew you to [...]
Preview: Dance Month 2013
ERJCC Scratches A Niche: The 33rd Annual Dance Month at the Kaplan Theatre Find a need and fill it.She didn’t directly quote this old success adage, but it’s a precept Maxine Silberstein, Dance Director of the Evelyn Rubenstein Jewish Community Center of Houston (ERJCC), puts into practice when coordinating the organization’s Dance Month series, which [...]
La Bayadère: Ballet Meets Bollywood
La Bayadère, recreated for Houston Ballet’s 40th anniversary, allowed artistic director Stanton Welch to do what he does best, looking back and forward, all within one beloved ballet. After re-creating Swan Lake in 2006, another 19th century classic, Welch was ready for the challenge. La Bayadère is one of those behemoth ballets that contains just [...]
Company E & More
JCC’s Annual Feast of Dance Every year Houston dance maven Maxine Silberstein scours the nation to find the right company to headline Dance Month, which takes over Kaplan Theatre at The Evelyn Rubenstein Jewish Community Center of Houston, January 10 – February 9, 2013. This year, the Washington, D. C. based Company E earned this [...]
