Dance
“Dance/Draw” at the ICA is a major exhibit about how moving bodies leave traces, what curator Helen Molesworth, not particularly originally, calls the “afterlife of dance.” To a lesser extent, it’s also about how visual artists think about motion when they’re not focused on particular bodies.
Read More“People often ask what is the biggest change in the arts in Boston over 30 years, and it all has to do with technology. Diminished funding, economic downturns, and 9/11 all changed things. But what’s really driven change is technology.”
Read MoreWhich suppests the quandary at the heart of choreographer Lemi Ponifasio’s work. Can sophisticated political critique be made outside the bounds of narrative? Can a poetic work without directionality enacted in a setting designed to be beyond specific time and place create an environment for redress, for action, for change?
Read MoreLike the Dance Exchange’s staged and site-specific productions, Liz Lerman’s “Hiking the Horizontal” is pieced like a quilt. Like Liz, it’s a little rumpled and gives the reader a lot of permission to go her own way.
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Two rescheduled events—a celebration of Haiti and Mango Blue’s CD release—highlight the first half of February, along with a not-to-be-missed visit by Wayne Shorter and his Quartet.
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UPDATE: The Mango Blue CD release event scheduled for tonight (January 26) has been cancelled due to the impending snowstorm; check back here for announcements concerning rescheduling.
Read MoreNew York Times dance critic Alastair Macaulay is on solid ground when he critiques the shape of the dancers, but why his insulting tone? How do we, as readers, judge a critic who describes a dancer’s body in a demeaning way? By Megan Trombino While sitting at the Boston Ballet‘s production of The Nutcracker (through…
Read MoreBlack Swan isn’t about surpassing ordinary limits. It’s a film about a masochist seen through the eyes of a sadist. The film could be a textbook demonstration of what academics refer to as the male gaze—with a pretty young thing poked and dismembered under a misogynist lens. By Debra Cash Darren Aronofsky has said that…
Read MoreUltimately, Basil Twist’s Petrushka is a meditation on the tension between the animate and inanimate, a story that lets a puppet explain what it’s like to be a puppet, a fable that argues that to be alive is to recognize causality and suffering—and that the ability to suffer is paradoxically a precious gift. Basil Twist’s…
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Arts Commentary: Can Criticism Be Too Positive Too Often?
How much do you really know about a critic if all you have on record is what he or she likes and why? At some point staying mum about the negative looks less like tenderhearted support or good manners and more like cowardice or a lack of seriousness. By Bill Marx The news that veteran,…
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