To access the full versions of the articles below, you need to subscribe. Yearly subscription: $19.95. Yearly subscription with access to archives: $34.95. Group subscription with free 1-year listing on the DI Directory: $99. To order, e-mail us. New! Now incorporating The Stranger: Dispatches from France, Paul Ben-Itzak's new column on French culture, politics, food and lifestyle. To advertise on the Dance Insider or list on the Dance Insider Directory & Summer Study Guide or Hot Classifieds, e-mail publisher Paul Ben-Itzak.

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Part of the multi-genre Russian Imprints season of the Centre National de la Danse in the Paris suburb of Pantin, the exhibition "In the Wake of the Ballets Russes (1929-1959)" runs through April 10 at the CND. Above: Tatiana Riabouchinska as the Ballerina in Michel Fokine's "Petrouchka" to the Stravinsky score. Photo Studio Iris, Ballets Russes de Monte-Carlo, s.l., 1935. Mediatheque du CND, DR.

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"Often he who has chosen the fate of the artist because he felt himself to be different soon realizes that he can maintain neither his art nor his difference unless he admits that he is like the others."

-- Albert Camus, Nobel Prize in Literature, 1957, Banquet Speech.. © 1957 the Nobel Foundation.

Kettly Noel in Kettly Noel and Nelisiwe Xaba's "Correspondences." Eric Boudet photo courtesy the Place.

By Josephine Leask
Copyright 2010 Josephine Leask

LONDON -- "If We Go On," designed and directed by veteran choreographer Charlotte Vincent, is a multi-layered collaboration which draws on the skills of seven performers. Vincent Dance Theatre, seen on October 17 at the Place, interrogated through music, text and dance the uncertainties in making a show, the invented presumption here being that the company is preparing its last. Subscribers click here to read the full Letter. (Not yet a subscriber? Yearly subscription: $19.95. Yearly subscription with access to archives: $34.95. To subscribe, e-mail us.)

LES EYZIES (Dordogne), France -- 50 years ago today, Albert Camus, 46, journalist, novelist, playwright, and Resistance hero, died -- or, as the French say, 'disappeared' -- in what Paris Match called "a banal highway accident." And yet Camus, a bi-cultural symbol of hope and unity in fractious times that pitted the country of his birth, Algeria, against that of his blood, France, is more present than ever in today's France and Europe. Subscribers click here to read the full Dispatch. (Not yet a subscriber? Yearly subscription: $19.95. Yearly subscription with access to archives: $34.95. To subscribe, e-mail us.)

Moira Shearer in Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger's 1948 "The Red Shoes." (1948). Courtesy MGM.

Isabelle Ciaravola, foreground, and the Paris Opéra Ballet in Rudolf Nureyev's version of Tchaikovsky's "The Nutcracker," a scene from Frederick Wiseman's "La Danse: The Paris Opéra Ballet." Courtesy Zipporah Films.

By Harris Green
Copyright 2009 Harris Green

NEW YORK -- Those New Yorkers who immodestly presume they live in the Dance Capital of the World had, for a few weeks this fall at least, good reason to believe they were living in the Dance Movie Capital of the World. Subscribers click here to read the full Review. (Not yet a subscriber? Yearly subscription: $19.95. Yearly subscription with access to archives: $34.95. To subscribe, e-mail us.)

The Trisha Brown company in Brown's "Foray Foret." Photo by and copyright Lois Greenfield, and courtesy Tanzquartier Wien.

The Slovak National Dance Theater (both photos above) in Mario Radacovsky's "Warhol." Photo by and copyright Ctibor Bachratý and courtesy SNDT.

BRATISLAVA -- Every time I leave for a trip to Slovakia inevitably someone makes a crack about the former Iron Curtain. The stereotypes are endless: My interloper imagines me lost in a concrete, former Communist jungle with sky-high apartment buildings that span the city. I've also heard with some regularity: The food's not so great, there can't be much to do there, and everyone is poor. Even if these stereotypes were true, I'd argue that the trip would still be worth it. Getting a little outside your comfort zone and seeing the world with your own eyes is highly recommendable, and as my travels on four continents have proven, great dance can be found just about anywhere. In case you're not so good with current events though, I've got news for you, old news. Slovakia entered the European Union in 2004. It has what's considered an "advanced economy," its currency is the euro and in 2006, Slovakia had the highest growth in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), a group of 30 developed countries including the U.S., Canada, France and Germany. In terms of dance, it's not that wealth can always be equated with quality, but I want to replace your image of peasant women waiting in line for bread with one of cozy sidewalk cafes that line immaculate cobblestone streets in the old town of the Slovakian capitol. Subscribers click here to read the full Review. (Not yet a subscriber? Yearly subscription: $19.95. Yearly subscription with access to archives: $34.95. To subscribe, e-mail us.)

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Bill T. Jones / Arnie Zane Company in Jones's "Serenade / The Proposition." Photo by and © Julie Lemberger.

NEW YORK -- The long canon of impressionistic dance docu-dramas in the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company repertory brings us from "Last Supper at Uncle Tom's Cabin/The Promised Land" (1990) to Jones's recent trilogy commemorating the bicentennial of the birth of Abraham Lincoln, of which "Serenade / The Proposition" was the first. Premiered in 2008 and seen November 14 at the Joyce Theater, the work employs alternately cryptic/didactic meta-narrative through sung and spoken text, technical prowess and prosaic grand gesture, and seamless media integration into set and score, all of which are signatures of the company's work. In semblance of form, "Serenade / The Proposition" is not much different from recent others; perhaps to its benefit, the work appears less hard-hitting than previous examples, taking the excellence of its multiple production and performance elements and letting them ride together in a gentler kind of drama. Subscribers click here to read the full Review. (Not yet a subscriber? Yearly subscription: $19.95. Yearly subscription with access to archives: $34.95. To subscribe, e-mail us.)

New! DI publisher Paul Ben-Itzak's new e-mail newsletter, "The Stranger: Dispatches from France," offers an inside perspective on French culture, society, and politics from an American living in France. Charter subscriptions $9.95/year if purchased by December 31. To receive a free sample of the latest newsletter, e-mail Paul.

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Find Donna Scro / Freespace Dance on the Dance Insider Directory. Sign-up for a group subscription to the Dance Insider for $99 and receive a free one-year listing on the Directory. Above: Donna Scro. Photo ©Lois Greenfield.

NEW YORK -- Surrounded by shimmering wings at the sides and a back curtain made of thin string and shredded fabric strips (by Walter Dunderville and Tere O'Connor), five dancers stand, scattered, in silhouette, swaying slowly, rooted to their spots. Gradually, they begin to slouch into space, as Michael O'Connor's lighting bathes them in an incandescent environment. So begins "Wrought Iron Fog," Tere O'Connor's new opus, seen at Dance Theater Workshop on November 12. The dancers' animation escalates until they are flying around with Dionysian abandon. Subscribers click here to read the full Letter. (Not yet a subscriber? Yearly subscription: $19.95. Yearly subscription with access to archives: $34.95. To subscribe, e-mail us.)

LONDON -- Michael Clark's "Come, been and gone," created for this year's Dance Umbrella and seen November 4, was one huge nostalgia trip for Clark's past work. Subscribers click here to read the full Letter. (Not yet a subscriber? Yearly subscription: $19.95. Yearly subscription with access to archives: $34.95. To subscribe, e-mail us.)

Armitage Gone! and Burkina Electric's Megumi Eda, Wende K. Blass (guitar), and Leonides D. Arpon in "Itutu," a collaboration between the two companies. Julieta Cervantes photo courtesy Brooklyn Academy of Music..

NEW YORK -- While conjuring up memories and collecting dreams, Ellen Fisher buoyantly circumnavigated the stage, clad in a white peasant dress which made her resemble a busy shepherd or a solitary gleaner. Subscribers click here to read the full Letter. (Not yet a subscriber? Yearly subscription: $19.95. Yearly subscription with access to archives: $34.95. To subscribe, e-mail us.)

"Often he who has chosen the fate of the artist because he felt himself to be different soon realizes that he can maintain neither his art nor his difference unless he admits that he is like the others."

-- Albert Camus, Nobel Prize in Literature, 1957, Banquet Speech.. © 1957 the Nobel Foundation.

Alina Cojocaru and Johan Kobborg in the Royal Ballet's "Sleeping Beauty." Bill Cooper photo courtesy Royal Opera House.

LONDON -- I mean this in the best possible way: Monica Mason and Christopher Newton's 2006 Royal Ballet production of Petipa's "The Sleeping Beauty" is a pantomime for posh people. Keep your Nutcrackers -- this is the Christmas ballet for me. (Subscribers click here to read the full Review. Click here to subscribe, for $19.95/year, $34.95 with access to archives.) (Not yet a subscriber? Yearly subscription: $19.95. Yearly subscription with access to archives: $34.95. To subscribe, e-mail us.)

NEW YORK -- Merce Cunningham's legacy of breaking apart space, both on proscenium stages and in the many other venues in which his company has performed, is paid a loving tribute in Tacita Dean's two-hour film "Craneway Event." (Subscribers click here to read the full Review. Click here to subscribe, for $19.95/year, $34.95 with access to archives.)

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And the wall came tumbling down: On November 9, 1989, the Berlin Wall was deconstructed. From the Dance Insider archives, we re-print below three stories about three essential German choreographers whose work continues to tear down the walls with universal messages.

The Dance Insider Interview, 11-9: Uwe Scholz
'I am interested in dance which makes my heart rotate'
(Subscribers click here to read the full Interview. Click here to subscribe, for $19.95/year, $34.95 with access to archives.)
By Paul Ben-Itzak
Copyright 2007, 2009 Paul Ben-Itzak

SAN FRANCISCO -- "When this wall fell in Germany," recalls Uwe Scholz, "it was very clear I had to go to Leipzig, to bring into this gray world a little bit of color, and to build up something." (Subscribers click here to read the full Interview. Click here to subscribe, for $19.95/year, $34.95 with access to archives.)

NEW YORK -- Sasha Waltz's "Korper" -- which traveled from its home theater, Berlin's Schaubuhne am Lehniner Platz, to the Brooklyn Academy of Music's 20th Next Wave Festival last week -- really does feel like something new, or rather, something neo. This is what German expressionism looks like in the 21st century: a fusion form, as much deconstructed as constructed, but reliant on the German past for its root images and its ur-meanings, as I intuit them. (Subscribers click here to read the full Review. Click here to subscribe, for $19.95/year, $34.95 with access to archives.)

ANTWERP -- "In the beginning I had dancers who were busy with the way they looked and were afraid of losing something onstage," Pina Bausch told the New York Times in 1985. "Then I found dancers who had less to lose and they were not afraid to go somewhere further." (Subscribers click here to read the full Review. Click here to subscribe, for $19.95/year, $34.95 with access to archives.)

Workshop Ad: Free Introduction to Movement Direction Workshop in New York (at the Ripley-Grier Studios) 2- 5 p.m., Friday, Nov. 20, hosted by the University of London's Central School of Speech and Drama. Ayse Tashkiran, co-course leader of the Master's course in Movement Studies at Central leads a practical workshop introducing the work of the movement director, including practical exercises in preparation, composition, and generation of movement material for production. To find out more or book your place at the workshop please e-mail Ayse Tashkiran. To find out more about the MA in Movement Studies visit www.cssd.ac.uk

Merce Cunningham, photographed by Julie Lemberger. Photo ©Julie Lemberger.

When Merce died, Ingrid said my generation is dying out. (Subscribers click here to read the full Letter. Click here to subscribe, for $19.95/year, $34.95 with access to archives.)

This article from the Jill Johnston archive on the Dance Insider was first published on the DI in July 2005.

The most famous dance review of all time was a blank space about six inches long, perhaps three wide, circa 1958. (Subscribers click here to read the full Letter. Click here to subscribe, for $19.95/year, $34.95 with access to archives.)

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