Reviews

A graphic, collage-style event marketing poster for the program Dispatches. The design combines layered textures, torn paper effects, and overlapping images to create a dynamic, handcrafted look. lu and j.e. appear with their names written next to their pictures: lu in a sepia-toned photograph looking at his hands, and j.e. in a blue ink drawing covering her eyes and mouth with her hands.
Graphic: Allison Smith
  • Reviews

The Holy Shebang

Lauren Berlin

The Whole Shebang Presents “Dispatches” - A Performance Grounded in Research & Soul

Ada Fujita lays shirtless on a bed unmade with orange and multicolored blankets. They rest their head on their hand and gaze softly down and to the side. They take up most of the image frame, visible from the waist up, their buzzed head center frame. A polished wood bedside table with potted plants, more blankets, and a stuffed animal are blurry behind them. Ada’s tattoos of leaves and line drawings interplay with the patterns of their bedding.
Photo: Will Stickney
  • Reviews

Lessons from Linda the Dog

Xander Cobb

What becomes of rest when it’s witnessed?

In greyscale photograph, a hand emerges from the dark, fingers shades of white and grey like brushstrokes.
Photo: Rece Komorn
  • Reviews

Excavating the Imprint

E. Wallis Cain Carbonell

Imbued with the qualities of the surroundIngs, they are receivers.

Performers Chloe Marie Newton and Rhonda Moore are in motion against a rippling cloth background, overlaid with purple, silver, and white light wearing soft, shear silks. Rhonda's arms stretch out with a delicate, open palm facing downward, the gaze playfully aimed at Chloe who softly touches her own shoulder with her right hand, her back turned slightly to Rhonda, her gaze reverent and slightly downcast.
Photo: Theo Cote
  • Reviews

The Space Between Us

Caedra Scott-Flaherty

Nichole Canuso’s work-in-progress promises big and beautiful things.

A group of standing performers lean towards one another while gazing intently towards an unknown subject. One performer, wearing a maroon jacket and glasses, grips the body of the jacket of a performer with long hair wearing a baseball cap. Their facial expressions evoke intensity, but their bodies appear to be frozen in time.
Photo: Tiffany Bessire
  • Reviews

Can you keep looking?

Ellen Miller

Faye Driscoll’s "Weathering" provokes intimate introspection.

Three dancers in stand in a narrow diagonal against a stark white background. They all look off in different directions. On the left Annie Peterson wears a red bandana and a red pinnie gazes on a slight downward angle. In the center a Vitche-Boul Ra dons a colorfully patterned shirt, sets his sights up and to his right. On the right Zeze Schorsch in a red tie dye tee with a black vest overlain looks straight up, chin forward toward the camera.
Photo: Melissa Simpson
  • Reviews

Consenting to Play

Nadia Ureña

Sometimes the performance is in fact play.

white person wears an astronaut helmet with the face shield down, though it doesn’t quite cover their chin. They stand with one foot in front of the other and hold up an arm, softly opening their palm to face forward as if waving or saying “hold up”. Turquoise light makes shapes on their open palm and their neck. They’re dressed in textures of blue, glimmering pants and a blue bomber with cinched ruffled seams along the arms. Two stage blocks rest behind them, one with a pair of plush white boots set atop.
Photo: William Frederking
  • Reviews

Calling All Querthlings

Xander Cobb

An extraterrestrial Gospel to absolve you of queer shame and anxiety – no promises.

Two bodies pressed almost into each other, fingertips grazing another’s hand. In front, a dancer in a modest white shirt and long skirt glances behind her through tousled hair. A second dancer dressed in black sackcloth hovers behind her, as if readying to whisper something in her ear.
Photo: Anna Siegel
  • Reviews

Circling with the Dybbuk

Madeline Shuron

Beloved Yiddish play is translated through dance. Madeline Shuron reviews Nell Adkins & Helen Sher’s Within the Fall.

Aylin Bayaz stares fiercely into the camera as her arm whips behind her head, the large red and gold fringed fabric she holds billowing out in front of her, completely hiding her lower body . To her right, Raul Mannola sits in a black suit strumming a guitar, his eyes closed as he listens to the music.
Photo: Richard Clark, Philippe Dedryver
  • Reviews

Flamenco Whenever, Wherever

Caedra Scott-Flaherty

The skillful duet brings to mind a dimly-lit café in Seville.

Abby Donnenfeld appears to have just landed an arabesque leap. She stands on one bent leg, enwrapped in billows of white tool, her other leg abducted, knee bent and toes pointing backward. Her left arm extends to the side, wrist flexed, she holds the opposite end of the billowing tool between her lengthened fingers. Her right arm, extending behind her head, isn’t visible. She looks definitely towards a spot just left of the camera, hair smoothed back, lips red, face relaxed and focused. The background is entirely white and nearly envelopes her white fabric.
Photo: Rob Li
  • Reviews

59th exhale: A night of questions, answers optional.

Xander Cobb

Textured worlds provoke dynamic questionings.