A highly personal and subjective list of performances and artists we want you to know about:
Leigh says:
For more than half a century, Deborah Jowitt has been the exemplar of the dancer’s voice in dance writing. She began dancing professionally in 1953, presented her own works in 1962 and began reviewing regularly for the Village Voice in 1967.
Deborah’s writing was a beacon for me because we had related career tracks, only she approached from modern dance and I came from ballet. I’ve known Deborah both as a colleague and as someone who reviewed me. She has an eye for detail and the nuances of choreography and performance, but what made her beloved was that she could discuss a work with the empathy of someone who knew what it took to create, produce and sometimes shove that piece onstage. Her tone sets an example: without cruelty, she still has a knack for getting to the kernel of a performance: what it was, what went right and what didn’t.
This week, Deborah will be feted in a unique combination of movement and words; an edition of Tina Croll and Jamie Cunningham’s performance series “From the Horse’s Mouth.” Luminaries including Carmen de Lavallade, Douglas Dunn, Valda Setterfield, Gus Solomons, Jr. and Martine van Hamel spanning generations of dance will speak and perform. Opens Thursday, March 21 at 8 pm. The day before, March 20 at 3 pm, there is a critic’s panel including Jack Anderson, Mindy Aloff and Elizabeth Zimmer. Linda Murray, curator of the dance division of the New York Public Library, Library of the Performing Arts, moderates.
Cover: Deborah Jowitt in Frances Alenikoff’s solo “The One of No Way.”
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