Anna Rogovoy is a Brooklyn-based dancer, writer, and arts administrator. She is a member of Daniel Roberts and Dancers and the company manager of Dorrance Dance. She holds a B.A. with concentrations in dance and literature from Bennington College.
It’s a sad catch-22: the fact that dancers, whose bodies undergo some of the most intense physical stress of any members of the population, often don’t have the resources to give those bodies the specialized care they need. The army of freelance or “project” dancers who make up the majority…
Still from "All That Jazz" | Directed by Bob Fosse | 1979
As dance flits from the stage to the street, the museum, the abandoned building, and even the iPad, an enduring trend is the Dance on Camera festival at Lincoln Center (a co-presentation with Dance Films Association). The 43rd edition of this series opens January 30 and runs through February 3, with…
Neil Greenberg's "This" at NYLA | Photo Frank Mullaney
In discussing This, the work which premiered at New York Live Arts last week, Neil Greenberg makes it clear that the dancers were a very integral and very early part of the creative process. We, too, will start with them: Omagbitse Omagbemi: resolute, inquisitive, confident; Molly Lieber: frank and sculptural,…
Batsheva Dance Company's Sadeh21 at BAM | Photo Stephanie Berger
To be a Batsheva dancer, “you have to disappear.” Those were Bobbi Smith’s instructions to a room of students on Friday morning, as she led us through a section of a 2007 work called Max. Smith, a stunning dancer about as capable of disappearing as an elephant carved from rubies,…
Pina Bausch's "Kontakthof" at BAM | Photo Theatre de la Ville
Pina Bausch has a gift for holding up a beautiful mirror and gently showing us how ridiculous we look. In Kontakthof, scenes unfold wildly out of proportion, with hysterical shrieks meeting compulsive preening meeting a fake mouse corpse. “There are dancers onstage,” Anna Wehsarg comments at one point: “do you…
Lar Lubovitch's "Black Rose" | Photo NYC Dance Project
Midway through The Black Rose, the second work on Lar Lubovitch Dance Company’s program at the Joyce, the thought surfaced: I really miss Trey McIntyre. When McIntyre shuttered his company this past June, optimists chirped about what bright new adventures the dancers would go on to, each one more talented…
RoseAnne Spradlin at New York Live Arts | Photo Ian Douglas
G-h-o-s-t c-r-o-w-n (working title) begins like a ballet gone wrong—Rebecca Warner and Natalie Green repeat classical vocabulary interminably, as though possessed or as though they have forgotten the next step and are desperately trying to summon it via muscle memory. A live (exceptional) musical trio pipes in, led by an…
Jodi Melnick's "Moment Marigold" at BAM | Photo Ian Douglas
In Moment Marigold, currently in its world premiere at BAM Fisher, Jodi Melnick presents a contagious investigation of the myriad curves and lines our 206 bones are capable of producing. This is a dance that studies the human body so thoroughly that a heightened physical awareness drifts off the stage…
Reggie Wilson's "Moses(es)" at BAM | Photo Julieta Cervantes
Reggie Wilson is certain of himself. This confidence shows in his hands, crossed in front of his body as he stands onstage at the BAM Harvey Theater, gazing out at the audience. They are strong, durable hands, and minutes later when they are rapidly packing masses of tinsel into a…
Leslie Kraus in "Dark Lark"
Kate Weare is afraid of theatricality. She said it herself in a discussion following Friday evening’s performance of Dark Lark, her latest work for her eponymous company, which is currently in residence at the BAM Fisher (the first company to hold this place). Perhaps, then, Dark Lark enacts a fantasy…
