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I reviewed the SF Hip Hop Dance Fest for today's Chronicle:

"The idea of a hip-hop dance festival may seem gratuitous in an age when everyone from Justin Timberlake to a squeaky puppet named Elmo is doing it. But there was no festival dedicated exclusively to the form in 1999, when San Francisco dancer Micaya created the SF Hip Hop DanceFest.

Do we still need a hip-hop dance festival? Absolutely. You'd have to do more than surf through countless music videos to come up with a survey of hip-hop dancing as wide ranging, fresh and -- oh, yes -- roof raising as the two programs that kept the beats pounding and the bodies shaking over the weekend at the Palace of Fine Arts Theatre.

Friday's opening night was a party. It was also eye-opening exposure to hip-hop gone global. Who knew that in Montreal, a sextet of women calling themselves Extreme freak furiously while wearing '80s-esque acid-washed jeans and flinging Jon Bon Jovi-worthy feathered hair? And who could imagine a talent as sui generis as Japan's Takahiro Ueno, a skinny, Chaplin-esque fellow who krumps and pops -- hilariously -- to everything from Richard Rodgers to Verdi."

Click here for the full review.

November 20, 2006  ·  12:55 PM   ·  Dance   ·  Comments (0)

I felt both dazzled and skeptical about Sankai Juku's recent visit, which I reviewed for the Chronicle yesterday, and I can't say I've yet resolved my ambivalence:

"It's not hard to see why Sankai Juku is the leading popularizer of Japanese butoh, so wildly loved that co-presenters San Francisco Performances and the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts counted themselves lucky to book a sold-out, two-night midweek run at the YBCA Theater.

Bald and covered in white body paint per now-standard butoh cliche, these dancers look like eerily wise, ancient tortoises.

And yet they have the alabaster allure of mannequins in a Neiman Marcus window, so bathed is their every deliberate movement in brilliant light.

In "Kagemi," the 2000 work now on national tour, they also have a stunning set: a ceiling of giant white lotus leaves that hover as though floating on water. Choreographer and founder Ushio Amagatsu has subtitled his work "Beyond the Metaphors of Mirrors," and apparently he intends us to see the dancers as though peered through the reflection of a lake, swimming in some primordial subconscious state. But whether you see "Kagemi" as flowing with watery meaning or flooded with empty butoh stereotypes may depend on the consciousness you bring to it."

For the full review, click here.

November 17, 2006  ·  01:48 PM   ·  Dance   ·  Comments (0)

I'll be reading this Thursday at "Inside Storytime" at the Rickshaw Stop in Hayes Valley, which I haven't seen yet but understand is a very cool venue. Here's the scoop:

GENERATIONS on November 16th, 7 - 9 pm. Regina Louise (Somebody's Someone), Terry Bisson (Bears Discover Fire), Rachel Howard (The Lost Night), Matthew Iribarne (Astronauts and Other Stories), and Ransom Stephens (Fade To Pink), on the power and terror of our bond with those who begat us and those who we begot...

Rickshaw Stop, 155 Fell St., $3-$10 sliding scale.

Click here, and come on out for a cozy reading on a cold winter's night.

November 12, 2006  ·  02:49 PM   ·  The Lost Night   ·  Comments (1)

I reviewed Lines Ballet's latest home season for today's Chronicle:

"Alonzo King is not the kind of choreographer who can operate on autopilot with passable results. His concern is nothing less than the transcendent possibilities of the human heart, which his sleek, eminently rubber-jointed dancers explore in intensely allegorical, New Age-tinged encounters.

In a King pas de deux, the man doesn't support the woman as she twirls through perfectly centered, regal pirouettes. Instead, he folds her limbs like elaborate origami, she presses her hands against his chest as though pleading for emotional distance, he bends her at the waist until she's on all fours, she throws herself upon his back, spasming with vulnerability. When King is on, such a duet can leave you in awe of its profundity. When King is going through the motions, it can look like the world's most pretentious game of Twister.

Both effects are on display now at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Theater, where King's Lines Ballet opened its fall home season Friday with two recent pieces new to San Francisco. "Migration," a commission for Germany's Wolfsburg Festival, is a heavenward journey laced with virtuosic dancing and tender, touching moments -- King at his best. "Sky Clad," which uses live music by Hindustani vocalist Rita Sahai, is a soulless trudge through half an hour of vague exoticisms and empty symbolism. The contrast is fascinating."

Click here for the full review.

November 06, 2006  ·  10:06 AM   ·  Dance   ·  Comments (0)

Your Favorite Author Wants You To Vote

I'm really optimistic about the elections next week, so when "Happy Baby" author and LitPac founder Stephen Elliott asked me to participate in his "voter wake-up call," I was thrilled. Here's the deal, and it's very cool: sign up by sending an email to stephen at litpac dot org by 10 a.m. Monday and you will receive, on election day, a personal phone call reminding you to vote from either yours truly, Dave Eggers, Jonathan Franzen, Po Bronson, or one of the other fantastic writers Stephen has enlisted.

Check it out here. And please. Vote.

November 03, 2006  ·  03:38 PM   ·  Books   ·  Comments (0)