YEAR IN REVIEW 1996: PERFORMING-ARTS

DANCE In 1995 dance in North America mostly looked back to anniversaries or forward to big-scale arts festivals, to an inaugural festival planned for the summer of 1996 at New York City's Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, for example, or to high-profile events that would include dance, such as the 1996 summer Olympic Games. The year began, however, not with a dance event itself but rather with controversy over an essay on dance aesthetics. The New Yorker published critic Arlene Croce's "Discussing the Undiscussable," an analysis of what she called "victim art." The essay was built around Bill T. Jones and his work Still/Here. Croce discussed what she viewed as performances bent on gaining audience responses by way of foregone sympathy for their dying subjects, often graphically portrayed. She concluded that works wielding such emotional blackmail were unreviewable. Partly because she had not seen Jones's work, her essay stirred wide and heated debate, far more than Still/Here ever could have in and of itself. All this helped make Jones even more of a cause clbre and made what some saw as his undistinguished work in dance theatre into a subject of even greater interest during its 1995 tour. American Ballet Theatre's (ABT's) annual New York spring season managed to interweave a focus on its past with a pleasing fix on its present. Besides celebrating the 10th anniversary of ballerina Alessandra Ferri's connection to the troupe and honouring veteran Fernando Bujones with a farewell performance, ABT made a point of showcasing the newest dances of Twyla Tharp. An all-Tharp triple bill made up a gala performance, with one-time-only ballets framing an ABT commission, How Near Heaven, to the music of Benjamin Britten. Tharp's diffuse Britten work stayed in the repertoire without, however, ever really making a satisfactory impression. New ABT dancers Vladimir Malakhov and Angel Corella added to the excitement already in evidence from other company performers. The mature and dragonfly-like Malakhov was riveting in all he did, and the teenage Corella was endearing in the way prodigious youth always is. Dancer Paloma Herrera was amazing, even though, especially opposite the overwrought Julio Bocca, she seemed to be in need of guidance regarding artistic restraint. The most worthy news from New York City Ballet (NYCB) centred around its presentation of Jerome Robbins' West Side Story Suite during the spring season. In the preceding winter season, the company had acquired Robbins' 2 + 3 Part Inventions, made in 1994 for the School of American Ballet. Both works were impeccably presented, although Inventions seemed a little thin on the company's maturer dancers. West Side Story Suite, on the other hand, proved entertaining and moving, with especially touching performances from the Danish-born-and-bred Nikolaj Hbbe, who not only danced the part of a streetwise New Yorker but successfully sang it as well. Adams Violin Concerto by Peter Martins, NYCB's ballet master in chief, was new to the repertoire but seemed overfamiliar to the eye. Dance Theatre of Harlem (DTH) played a season at the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM) in March. Besides unveiling Joplin Dances, a charming showcase for DTH dancers by the company's own Robert Garland, the troupe offered its first staging of The Prodigal Son by George Balanchine. Coached in part by the former Balanchine ballerina Suzanne Farrell, the DTH dancers made the 1929 ballet come to life. Farrell's more wide-ranging guidance helped the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C., begin a yearlong celebration of its 25th anniversary. In October the ballerina-turned-ballet-mistress put on a weeklong season billed as "Suzanne Farrell Stages Balanchine." Producing seven Balanchine works with an ensemble from the Washington Ballet and with handpicked leading dancers from companies familiar to her from staging ballets in the U.S. and elsewhere, Farrell created a luminous season with what looked like a little Balanchine company. In May Helgi Tomasson arranged for his San Francisco Ballet (SFB) to act as host of a festival celebrating the 50th anniversary of the UN. With participants from near and far, though without the participation of most of the world's major ballet companies, the festival was regarded more for its goodwill than for its good works. Modern dance's Mark Morris was generally credited with providing the event, in the form of an SFB premiere, with its most winning work, Pacific (to music of Lou Harrison). At year's end Morris' own troupe gave all-Morris programs in BAM's "Next Wave Festival," offering audiences a look at numerous works the prolific choreographer had made outside New York in the recent past. When SFB played a fall week in New York, the dancers, especially the newly acquired Yury Possokhov, stood out, while the repertoire proved largely disappointing. St. Petersburg's Mariinsky (Kirov) Ballet played a two-week New York summer season that featured the Russian troupe's first stagings of the now-classic Firebird and Schhrezade by its own Michel Fokine. Financial constraints prevented the troupe from returning in the fall for a multiple-city conclusion to its U.S. tour. After formalizing the appointment of Roy Kaiser as its artistic director, Pennsylvania Ballet spent the year mostly shoring up its organization and presenting fairly standard and familiar repertoire. Pacific Northwest Ballet continued to present its mix of homegrown works and those of Balanchine, a solid sampling of which made up the troupe's appearances in Australia's Melbourne International Festival of the Arts. Peter Anastos continued to set his stamp on the Cincinnati (Ohio) Ballet, with a mix of original choreographies and Balanchine favourites. Edward Villella marked the 10th season of his Miami (Fla.) City Ballet with a debut presentation of Balanchine's Jewels at the Kennedy Center. Boston Ballet's Bruce Marks put together a triple bill, entitled "Happily Ever After," that featured works based on fairy tales. Ballet Concierto de Puerto Rico played a successful weeklong season in New York. In January, with a pickup ensemble of her own, Tharp gave a successful week of work-in-progress performances at BAM. In September the Joffrey Ballet, which had spent most of the year trying to hold itself together, announced a move out of New York to Chicago. New York's experimental Dance Theater Workshop celebrated its 30th anniversary in the spring, and in the fall, after a year's hiatus, it reinstated its Bessie awards for outstanding performance in dance and performance. Among the Bessie awardees was Tina Ramirez, whose Ballet Hispanico marked its 25th anniversary in 1995. Bocca's Ballet Argentino made its U.S. debut in November. The Merce Cunningham Dance Company gave a two-week season that featured two new works by the maestro of innovation, who was still performing. Paul Taylor also gave a two-week season, to taped music, featuring Offenbach Overtures, a wicked and witty look at oompah dances. The Martha Graham Dance Company presented the world premiere of its Robert Wilson commission, Snow on the Mesa, at the Kennedy Center. The vital Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater celebrated associate artistic director Masazumi Chaya during its year-end season in New York. The Japanese-born husband and wife team Eiko & Koma performed River, a powerful site-specific work, in the Delaware River before celebrating their 20th anniversary with performances at the Japan Society. Toronto Dance Theater made a good New York showing under the guidance of its newly appointed artistic director, Christopher House. Les Grands Ballets Canadiens commissioned a new ballet from the American Kevin O'Day, whom NYCB also commissioned for two works. Montreal's Festival International de Nouvelle Danse included the participation of international troupes. The most anticipated was William Forsythe's Frankfurt (Germany) Ballet, but even some of the choreographer's most avid admirers found the presentation, Eidos: Telos, to be shapeless and uneven. Artistic director Reid Anderson of the National Ballet of Canada (NBC) was given the John Cranko award from the Stuttgart (Germany) Ballet, while his company ended its year with a new production of The Nutcracker by James Kudelka. Because of illness the U.S. ballerina Marie Jeanne was unable to work with NBC dancers on a videotape project about Balanchine's Concerto Barocco for the Interpreter's Archive of the George Balanchine Foundation. Earlier in the year, ballerina Maria Tallchief had worked on a related project. Other video and film projects appeared during the year. Nonesuch Records released five videocassettes of The Balanchine Library, an ongoing series of releases of recordings of Balanchine's dances and dance technique. Five more were scheduled for release in 1996. Frederick Wiseman's 170-minute documentary about ABT, called Ballet, was released and aired on public television. The 33rd New York Film Festival screened Carlos Saura's Flamenco. Dance publications of note included Massine: A Biography by Vicente Garca-Mrquez, Costumes by Karinska by Toni Bentley, and Following Balanchine by Robert Garis. Modern dance veteran Anna Sokolow was given a stellar 85th birthday celebration in 1995, with Robbins and Taylor among those paying tribute. Repertory seasons, touring, and symposia marked the 100th anniversary of the birth of the late modern dance pioneer Doris Humphrey. Two years after his death, to benefit the Rudolf Nureyev Foundation, the longtime superstar recaptured the public's and the media's attention when his contested estate was finally auctioned amid some frenzy by Christie's (in January in New York; November in London). Deaths in 1995 included the Russian dancer and Hollywood actor Alexander Godunov and the dancers Francisco Moncion and James Truitte. (See OBITUARIES.) Among others who died were dancer Keith McDaniel, choreographer Loyce Houlton, dancer Jean-Louis Morin, dance journalist Joseph Mazo, dance photographer Fred Fehl, Dance Films Association founder Susan Braun, dancer and teacher Salvatore Aiello, and dancer and dance educator Martha Hill. (ROBERT J. GRESKOVIC) This updates the article dance, history of.