The Show Must Go Online: What to watch at home, part 2 - Vancouver Ballet Society
By Tessa Perkins Deneault
As physical distancing continues, dancers and dance companies continue to find innovative ways to present their works online. In part two of our series, The Show Must Go Online, we’ve compiled another list of the best online viewing, including footage of dancers at home, newly-released recordings of previous performances, dance films and live-streamed events.
Dancers at home and outdoors
When powwows were cancelled, Indigenous dance artists rallied together in the Facebook group Quarantine Dance Specials 2020. The group hosts various special competitions, including a recent contest for fancy shawl dancers who are also basketball players, using the hashtag #ballinshawlers2020.
Set to Sam Smith’s Pray, this powerful piece of choreography by New Jersey dance artists Jason Wells and Jasiah Rodriguez, features a trio of black men dancing a personal response to the recent police killings in the United States.
Ballet BC’s Thinking of You is a short video compilation of company dancers at home and in outdoor locations edited by dancer Peter Smida.
Sylvain Émard’s Le Grand Continental is a contemporary line dance that features local amateur dancers in each city where it tours. During quarantine, Émard invited anyone who wanted to participate to learn the choreography on Facebook Live and be part of the largest ever online contemporary line dance.
The dancers of Royal Winnipeg Ballet are featured in their homes dancing Mark Godden’s Angels in the Architecture before they share their thoughts about quarantine and the company’s unfinished 80th season.
Five New York City Ballet dancers perform their own choreography in both indoor and outdoor locations in the short video, A Part of Together.
San Francisco’s Smuin Contemporary Ballet has put together a fun Social disDancing video featuring dancers in their own locations performing to Just a Little Tack by Ben Sollee.
Festivals
Dancing on the Edge festival, July 2–11, presents their mixed programs online this year, featuring short dance films, documentaries and pre-recorded excerpts of works in progress. Only three works will be presented live, in the courtyard of the Firehall Arts Centre, two of which will also be available online: Shay Kuebler’s M.O.I. – Momentum of Isolation and Olivia C. Davies’ Wishing Well.
Another Vancouver event, Vines Art Festival, August 5–15, will present all performances online including the Van Vogue Jam Eco-Ball Finals and a showcase featuring All Bodies Dance.
Fall for Dance North in Toronto is considering how to present their 2020 festival. In the meantime, they have released archival footage, including Compagnie Hervé KOUBI’s What the Day Owes to the Night.
Dance films
San Francisco Tiny Dance Film Festival has released a retrospective of short dance films from the past eight years, organized into programs such as The Grand Outdoors, Sites & Spaces and Cabin Fever.
Ballet X created four short dance films as part of the Guggenheim’s Works & Process Virtual Commissions, including Penny Saunders’ The Under Way, which makes parallels between historical moments and the present day in the United States.
San Francisco Dance Film Festival is presenting a digital season. Their next presentation, Ballet by the Bay on July 8, features dancers of Alonzo King Lines Ballet and San Francisco Ballet.
Sadler’s Wells has put together a series of dance films featuring dancers in unique locations such as an abandoned swimming pool, underwater and the streets of Paris.
Dallas’ Knowbox Dance Film Festival is presenting their 2019 festival online in lieu of its international screening tour.
Limited-time streaming
Sadler’s Wells is streaming Pina Bausch’s The Rite of Spring from July 1–31. Danced on the beach in Toubab Dialaw, Senegal, the film captured the final rehearsal of the cast of 38 dancers from 14 African countries before the world went into quarantine.
Graeme Murphy’s Swan Lake for The Australian Ballet is available until July 9 to stream within Australia, followed by Coppélia. For those outside Australia, the company recently released a documentary about preparations to tour the production to London.
English National Ballet finishes their Wednesday Watch Parties with Christopher Wheeldon’s Cinderella-in-the-round on July 8, available for 48 hours.
The Merce Cunningham Trust continues their Centennial Repertory Festival, offering repertoire presented during the recent Cunningham Centennial Celebration. New performances are posted every Monday and are available for one month.
Ballet Hispanico continues their #BUnidos Watch Parties with videos available for one week. Choreographers & Cocktails, a live discussion about the work hosted by artistic director Eduardo Vilaro, follows each video. Edwaard Liang’s El Viaje premieres July 8.
Each Saturday until July 25, Dance Theatre of Harlem presents a full length work available for one week. Balamouk by Annabelle Lopez Ochoa is streaming until July 5.
Unlimited streaming
This Ballet Black rehearsal gives insight into Mthuthuzeli November’s Ingoma at the Royal Opera House, a piece that fuses ballet, African dance and singing. November was inspired by the 1946 black miners strike in South Africa. In a recent Ballet Black video, Mute, company member Cira Robinson performs The Dying Swan in the Thames Estuary.
Four of Matthew Bourne’s ballets are available for rent online: Swan Lake with its all-male corps, Romeo and Juliet, The Car Man and Cinderella. An older 2012 recording of Swan Lake is available on YouTube, and digital programs offered by his company New Adventures are available for free download.
The Royal Opera House continues to release a new production each Friday. Wayne McGregor’s Woolf Works is available until July 9.
The Martha Graham Dance Company continues their Martha Matinees, releasing a new video each Tuesday. On June 20, the series featured the world premiere of Immediate Tragedy, a digital creation inspired by Graham’s lost solo of the same name.
St. Louis’ Big Muddy Dance Company has shared three of their works: Zugzwang! by Prince Lyons, With You Always by Shannon Alvis and Worlds of Wonder by artistic director Brian Enos.
For a less serious offering, watch Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo in their classic comic ballet, Go for Barocco.
Flamenco fans can see Soledad Barrio and Noche Flamenca perform Intimo at the Joyce Theatre.
Streaming services
Numeridanse is a multimedia platform coordinated by the Maison de la Danse, Lyon, that includes filmed performances, documentaries, interviews and dance videos. Genres include butoh, classical and neo-classical ballet, Indian, African, flamenco, contemporary, traditional dances and hip-hop.
UbuWeb Dance has a growing collection of videos including works by William Forsythe, Pina Bausch, Akram Khan and Marie Chouinard.
TED has a playlist devoted to dance works that have been performed at their events.
BroadwayHD not only offers a plethora of musicals, but for pure-dance lovers also includes Riverdance, Norwegian National Ballet’s Hedda Gabbler and Christopher Wheeldon’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland at the Royal Ballet.
You may not associate Disney+ with dance, but they will exclusively stream Hamilton from July 3, featuring the musical’s original cast and Andy Blankenbuehler’s hip hop-inspired choreography.
For more streaming services, see part 1 of this series.
