Lofti Mansouri, 84

Lotfi Mansouri, S.F. Opera director 13 years, dies
by Joshua Kosman, SFGate, August 30, 2013

2009 Bay Area tragedy inspires Black director's feature film debut

A Man’s Death, a Career’s Birth
A Bay Area Killing Inspires ‘Fruitvale Station’
by Joe Rhodes, The New York Times, June 28, 2013

Liberate your soul

Krissy Keefer of Dance Brigade
(photo by Anastacia Powers Cuellar)

San Francisco's feminist troupe

Dance Brigade

presents

THE GREAT LIBERATION UPON HEARING

 

at Dance Theater Workshop 

Thursday-Friday, July 7-8 (7:30pm)

Saturday, July 9 (2pm and 7:30pm)

Writer/director/choreographer Krissy Keefer, called a "rabble-rouser" by the San Francisco Weekly, has turned to the Tibetan Book of the Dead for her unique new work, performed by a group of 12 including a taiko drummer. The Tibetan Book of the Dead, whose actual title is "The Great Liberation upon Hearing in the Intermediate State" or "Bardo Thodol," acts as a guide for the dead during the state that intervenes death and the next rebirth. It is read aloud to the dead while they are in the state between death and reincarnation in order for them to attain liberation.

Founded in 1984, the feminist group Dance Brigade engages diverse communities and artists in their multicultural, multi-media dance/theater works. At home, in San Francisco, they operate the Dance Mission Theater, support the dance company, produce a series of annual events showcasing both emerging and established Bay Area choreographers, and conduct dance programs for adults and youth. For more information, click here.

For reservations, call 212-924-0077 or click here.

Dance Theater Workshop

219 West 19th Street (between 7th & 8th Avenues), Manhattan

(map and directions)

Alonzo King's LINES Ballet

Alonzo King's LINES Ballet, on tour from San Francisco, concludes its Joyce Theater run tomorrow, Sunday evening, with an 8pm show. King's company not only proudly reflects the diversity of today's America, it glories in the beauty of the individual dancer--especially the male of the species--rewarding dancers by doing everything possible to make them look very, very good and spotlighting pliancy and virtuosity. King seems to be more about challenging these marvelously capable performers than truly challenging his audiences. When it comes to us, I think he just wants to love us up. He just straps us in and gives us the ride of a lifetime.

I preferred King's Dust and Light, a suite to music of Corelli and Poulenc, over the program's second piece, Rasa, a suite to Zakir Hussain's tabla music. The latter work has none of the gnarly, fast-twitch complexity found in Dust and Light. It looks like it was made by a very different man, one much less fussy or in more of a rush to finish a big, important piece. And, unlike its predecessor, it feels repetitious and every bit as long as it is, and then some. At best, it makes you want to turn your thinker off and just enjoy the hummingbird bodies of the dancers.

Dust and Light's title, music, milieu and shifting relationships possibly suggest something about being a spiritual being having a physical experience--or something like that, maybe. In this piece, King's inventiveness keeps the viewer on mental alert and highly entertained, and dancers like David Harvey, Ricardo Zayas and Corey Scott-Gilbert dazzle, standing out in a mighty impressive crowd.

The economy...sigh! If today's audience was any indication, you should be able to secure tickets for LINES at the Joyce.

Here's a wonderful video excerpt of a pre-concert talk by Alonzo King at the 2008 Stern Grove Festival.