Lydia Abarca was born in New York in 1951. She studied ballet at the Juilliard School and the Harkness School before attending Fordham University, where she was discovered by Arthur Mitchell and was invited to join his Dance Theatre of Harlem as one of its founding members. By nineteen, she was dancing principal roles in the company—her signature part was the central pas de deux in George Balanchine’s Agon—and serving as its unofficial spokeswoman. Her beauty, determination, and outstanding clas

To begin her creative process, the legendary German choreographer Pina Bausch often asked her dancers questions. These questions—and further, the thoughts and deeper rumblings they provoked in the dancers—then formed the basis for many of her pieces. Bausch was typically concerned with the emotional and psychological charge of the bodies she choreographed on, and no piece showcases this more than her 1982 masterwork “Nelken.” Premiered eight years before the reunification of Germany, and haunted by other atrocities of that country’s not-so-distant past, “Nelken” does not escape shades of brutality; still, its primary concern seems to lie in the various ways our closest relationships can provide comfort. How, Bausch seems to ask, can we care for each other despite the horrors?

Another exhibit, “Kolyska,” was held this past June—July at the Kurt Muhlenhaupt Museum in Kreuzberg. Curated by UCC member Sofia Golubeva and featuring the work of Anastasiia and other young Ukrainian artists, it played upon the multiple definitions of the Ukrainian word “Колиска” (“Kolyska”). Meaning a swing, a baby’s crib, or “motherland,” the word served as a metaphor for the artists’ current state of mind. Anastasiia explains her “swinging feeling” and the extremes her life has alternated b

George Balanchine’s 1967 ballet “Jewels”—in which each act is inspired by a different semi-precious gem—has proven a touring warhorse. In 2013, the Bolshoi Ballet came to London with the Balanchine classic. In 2017, the Lincoln Center Festival made history by inviting the Paris Opera Ballet, the Bolshoi Ballet, and the New York City Ballet (the company on which the work was originally made) to share the stage and perform an act each. And last Saturday night, it was the Australian Ballet’s turn, dancing “Jewels” at the Royal Opera House on their first tour to London since 1988.

Lily McMenamy is a triple threat: model, actress, and artist. From dancing with Ralph Fiennes as nouveau riche seductress Sylvie in Luca Guadagnino’s A Bigger Splash (2015) to starring in campaigns for everyone from Versace to Chopova Lowena, Lily is no stranger to the spotlight (her mum, 90s supermodel Kristen McMenamy, allegedly carried her down a Chanel runway when she was just an infant). Still, in recent years, the seasoned model has come to attention in yet another role (or two): that of s

What makes a choreographer great? This has been the question plaguing the dance world for the last thirty or so years. Is it their feeling for music, the originality of their combinations, the world they create?

Perhaps it lies in a name. On a screen near the back of the stage at the Royal Opera House’s Linbury Theatre last Thursday was projected, in bold letters, PAM TANOWITZ. Taking my seat, I couldn’t help but think of other similarly four-syllabled choreographers: George Bal-an-chine, Jer-o

“Dancing was about learning to disassociate,” the narrator of Lola Lafon’s 2022 novel Reeling informs us early on. “Feet like daggers, wrists like ribbons. Power and languor. Smiling despite persistent pain, smiling despite nausea.” This declaration, only five or so pages in, strikes as piercingly as the daggers Lafon imagines for feet. What in this compulsion towards violence, I wondered, is so imperative when telling a story about dance? Scarcely a narrative arises that is not characterized by

ALONG THE STORIED HALLS of Russian literature, the call of the name Gaito Gazdanov had, for many decades, elicited little more than a faintly alliterated echo. With the publication of Gazdanov’s 1930 debut novel, An Evening with Claire, Pushkin Press and translator Bryan Karetnyk beckon us closer to that resonant echo, the voice of a haunting and haunted author often compared to Nabokov and Proust but really dwelling in a room entirely his own. Who is this Gazdanov?He answers in spades: bargeman