Review of VN dance troupe in today's New Yorl Times

Dan Duffy dduffy at email.unc.edu

Sat Mar 17 09:28:06 PDT 2007

Gia Kourlas in today's NYT has a short but serious review of Le Vu

Long/Together Higher at Dance Theater Workshop in NY.

It's a detailed review supporting the conclusion that the work is what

most serious dance performances are like for me: derivative and sententious.

Seems unlikely, since I've never seen anything like that at Dance

Theater Workshop, and one of the paths out of the modernist vocabulary

is social work, what this troupe does with deaf dancers about AIDS.

Wish I could go see for myself -

Dan

DiGregorio, Michael M.DiGregorio at fordfound.org

Sun Mar 18 00:42:40 PDT 2007

Dan,

Stories of Us was the most remarkable dance performance I have ever seen

in Vietnam. The music and dance were spectacular, and the performers

intent clear but undidactic.

Long had to re-do the staging and music for his US tour, and that may

have reduced the quality. I confess I haven't seen the US performances.

But those in Vietnam were great. Performances in Hanoi, Nha Trang,

Danang, and HCMC drew out thousands and ticket sales added about $4500

to an AIDS fund.

Mike

Judith Henchy judithh at u.washington.edu

Mon Mar 19 09:39:23 PDT 2007

Mike,

I agree. I saw this performance in Seattle and thought it was more

adventurous and thoughtful than anything I could have imagined seeing in

Viet Nam. The staging in Seattle was fabulous. Perhaps it was even better

in Viet Nam. The use of light and sound gave a special depth and atmosphere

to the performance. I was for some reason thinking that the dancers were

blind, not deaf. I'm not sure if I found the performance more or less

amazing having realized my mistake.

Judith Henchy