Debra Cash
By Debra Cash Blame Alicia Alonso for reinforcing her own senseless Cuban embargo. The famed (and literally blind) dramatic ballerina who is the fountainhead of Cuban ballet and an official Friend of Fidel seems to have felt that although she made her own performing career in the United States the Cuban “dance drain” of ballet…
Read MoreBy Debra Cash Ella Baff, executive director of the Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival, recently shared the revision of an article she wrote for Arts Manager International Magazine last year. Her first tip for audience members: “Relax. Remember that when you travel to a foreign country, you may not know the language, but this does not…
Read MoreThe critically acclaimed documentary “Rize” claims to be about a new form of hip hop dancing, called “krumping,” that transcends commercialism. By Debra Cash The commercial calculation of MTV, smoggy and as near at hand as central LA, lurks in the margins of the new critically admired hip hop dance documentary, “Rize.” The film examines…
Read MoreA festival dedicated to 19th century choreographer August Bournonville packed a wallop.
Read MoreBy Debra Cash Tap superstar Savion Glover effortlessly bridges the jazz and rap generations. Improvography is a word coined by the late Gregory Hines. Neologisms are about grabbing the power to make definitions; they assert that language is not specific or expressive enough to make your meaning clear. When tap dancer Savion Glover uses “Improvography”…
Read MoreUrban Bush Women go back to the past in the name of a more communal and compassionate future. By Debra Cash View Gallery The names of Sojourner Truth, W.E.B. Dubois, Shirley Chishom and Ossie Davis roll down like a mighty stream. On stage, Amara Tabor-Smith of the Urban Bush Women reaches across space, at turns…
Read MoreThe challenge of building a new dance audience lies in presenting, and contextualizing, thought-provoking work
Read MoreDance icon Bill T. Jones confounds expectations about race and the power of stereotypes in two new dance pieces. “Reading, Mercy and the Artificial Nigger” and “Mercy 10×8 On a Circle” by Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company By Debra Cash Bill T. Jones would no doubt take umbrage at being compared to the white…
Read MoreA new dance show by Rennie Harris serves as a valuable response to MTV’s commercialization of hip hop.
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Dance Commentary: Trust Art, Not Theory
By Debra Cash A retrospective chronicles the four-decade career of radical dance giant Yvonne Rainer. Yvonne Rainer: Radical Juxtapositions 1961-2002 at the Carpenter Center for Visual Arts in Cambridge, MA What Rainer has been doing isn’t hard to see, as long as it isn’t theorized into academic incomprehensibility. Over time she has been called a…
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