Is it just us, or has the fall season gotten even busier? Among the multitude of attention-grabbing performances, here are the ones our contributors are most looking forward to this month.
Visceral Haunting
Kimberly Bartosik’s Blur. Photo by Maria Baranova, Courtesy Bartosik.
NEW YORK CITY Kimberly Bartosik/daela plumbs the aftermath of witnessing trauma—its indelible impact on the body and psyche—in bLUr, a powerful 50-minute offering of rigorous physicality, poignant vulnerability, and expressive tenderness. Rawness and urgency are enhanced by a pulsing sound score and fluid lighting design for a piece the choreographer admits might make audiences uncomfortable: “It’s the most intense work I’ve made.” Co-presented by L’Alliance New York’s Crossing the Line Festival and New York Live Arts, the National Dance Project funded bLUr premieres Oct. 2–4. newyorklivearts.org. —Karen Dacko
Pride and Protest
Saharla Vetsch of Flyaway Productions’ Down on the Corner. Photo by RJ Muna, courtesy John Hill PR.
SAN FRANCISCO The 1966 Compton’s Cafeteria Riot was one of the first documented protests of police violence against queer people in the U.S., but since 2004, the building where it took place has been operated as a for-profit halfway house by a private prison corporation. Jo Kreiter’s Flyaway Productions draws attention to this disparity with Down on the Corner, a new public-art project featuring a cast of queer, transgender, and female performers; a commissioned score by Melanie DeMore inspired by interviews with individuals formerly incarcerated at the site; and a film by Leila Weefur. Oct. 3–11. flyawayproductions.com. —Courtney Escoyne
Gather as We Go
Yaa Samar! Dance Theatre’s Gathering. Photo by Jeenah Moon, courtesy Yaa Samar! Dance Theatre.
ON TOUR Yaa Samar! Dance Theatre takes its evening-length Gathering on the road for its European premiere this fall. Artistic director Samar Haddad King’s multidisciplinary and audience-interactive work of fiction follows a woman’s attempts to reconcile her fragmented memories while living in a village that is under siege. The multinational cast is joined by French-speaking European artists in this work that asks them to speak, sing, use puppets, and move fluently between dance genres. Gathering visits eight cities in France Oct. 3–14 and Nov. 14–27 before returning stateside for performances in Berkeley Feb. 27–March 1. ysdt.org. —CE
Good Trouble
Nora is on the conflict. Photo by guto in Niiz, Courtesy Bam.
NEW YORK CITY In Dambudzo, named for a multifaceted Shona word meaning “trouble,” nora chipaumire transforms the performance space into a Zimbabwean shabini, where gathering awakens the possibilities of resistance and insurrection, invoking the ‘80s before communism or apartheid fell. Confronting the legacy of colonialism, the “anti-genre” immersive work will be presented at Roulette as part of Brooklyn Academy of Music’s Next Wave festival. Oct. 8–9. bam.org. —CE
Like a Bird
Pioneer Winter and Lisa Nalven rehearsing Isadora Duncan’s Nocturne. Photo by Passion Ward, courtesy Pioneer Winter Collective/O, Miami Poetry Festival.
MIAMI A path of memory led choreographer Pioneer Winter from the loss of his mother to Isadora Duncan for In the Belly of the Bird/Godmother. As a 9-year-old, Winter imagined that his mother’s pet parrot had carried away her voice after she died. But the artist has come to realize he’s found an equally comforting sound in the voices of the women who’ve nurtured his dance all along. In this new work, three female elders and Winter weave together his own choreography with Duncan-drawn moves (taught to him by specialist Andrea Mantell). Sound collaborators reference Scriabin and Chopin to support Winter’s embrace of both the mourned mother and the mourning child, of his personal wound and the reward of art. Miami Beach Regional Library Auditorium, Oct. 9. pioneerwinter.com. —Guillermo Perez
A Little Old, A Little New
Limón Dance Company. Photo by Kelly Puleio, courtesy Michelle Tabnick PR.
NEW YORK CITY Limón Dance Company kicks off its 80th-anniversary season with a mix of the old and the new. Artistic director Dante Puleio dusts off José Limón’s 1956 The Emperor Jones, an adaptation of the Eugene O’Neill play, utilizing a mixed-gender corps for the first time. The Limón solo Chaconne is restaged as well, for a multigenerational ensemble of current and former company members. And Mexican choreographer Diego Vega Solorza meditates on Limón’s oeuvre and the legacies of his home culture’s interpretation of gender roles for the newly commissioned Jamelgos, premiering as part of the company’s Joyce Theater engagement. Oct. 14–19. joyce.org. —CE
Who Gets to Be Gorgeous?
Ninoshka De Leon Gill and Gina Bonati rehearsing Drop Dead…Gorgeous. Photo by Harvey Wang, courtesy Tamar Rogoff.
NEW YORK CITY What would you do to have a “perfect” body? Tamar Rogoff’s Drop Dead…Gorgeous invites audiences to become the live studio audience of a fictional TV game show that offers contestants—an aspiring ballet dancer, an elderly woman, a plus-sized dance artist—the chance to win their dream body. Pointing to the range of forms body dysmorphia can take, the multimedia performance piece takes to task how narrowly beauty has been defined in our culture and challenges viewers to embrace all bodies as worthy. Oct. 17–Nov. 2. lamama.org. —CE
Reconstructing, Reimagining
Wally Cardona and Molly Lieber with an archival image of David Gordon and Valda Setterfield. Photo by Babette Mangolte (archival image) and Daqi Fang, courtesy New York Live Arts.
NEW YORK CITY Shortly before David Gordon’s death, the choreographer spoke with Wally Cardona about excavating Times Four, a duet for Gordon and his wife, Valda Setterfield, they had premiered in 1975 but that had not been seen in its entirety since the ‘70s. Now, Cardona and Molly Lieber will present TIMES FOUR / David Gordon: 1975/2025, reconstructed and built upon the fragments of the work documented in a rehearsal video and Setterfield’s handwritten notes, in the same SoHo loft space where it originally debuted. Oct. 22–Nov. 1. newyorklivearts.org. —CE
Celebrating South Africa
Joburg Ballet in Hannah Ma’s The Void. Photo by Lauge Sorensen, courtesy RBO.
LONDON Joburg Ballet brings Communion of Light, a program celebrating South Africa’s 30th year of democracy, to the UK for its debut at The Royal Opera House’s Linbury Theatre. The Johannesburg-based company offers Jorge Pérez Martínez’s Azul, Veronica Paeper’s Concierto, artistic director Dane Hurst’s recent Resonance, and the late Dada Masilo’s adaptation of Oscar Wilde’s Salomé. Oct. 30–Nov. 2. rbo.org.uk. —CE
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