2022–23 Season Preview -13 Shows We Can’t Wait to See: Lia Rodrigues’ Fúria

The pulsating human mass in Lia Rodrigues’ choreography can slip from feeling like a neighborhood party to a frightening mob. This fall, the Brazilian Rodrigues, whose work is celebrated in Europe but rarely seen in the U.S., brings the darkly outrageous Fúria, flesh grappling with flesh, to the Wexner Center for the Arts in Columbus, OH, Oct. 21–22; Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, Oct. 28–29; and Peak Performances in Montclair, NJ, Nov. 3–6.

Peak Performances’ ‘Prince Hamlet’ puts American Sign Language front and center

Placing emphasis on serving the hard of hearing and performed by a gender-bent, inclusive cast, Why Not Theatre’s production of “Prince Hamlet” — currently being presented by the Peak Performances series at Montclair State University — speaks volumes on embracing the beauty of American Sign Language.

At Peak Performances, nora chipaumire’s dynamic ‘Nehanda’ explores struggle for freedom

It would take years to document the crimes of European colonialism, and nora chipaumire only has three days. So the choreographer focuses on what she knows best — the outrages the British perpetrated in her native Zimbabwe. “Nehanda,” the immersive theater work in three parts that chipaumire’s pickup company premiered Sept. 16-18 at Montclair State University, plunges us into an ongoing struggle for freedom and human dignity.

Review: In ‘Nehanda,’ the Band Played On

The choreographer and performer Nora Chipaumire’s new six-hour work at the Alexander Kasser Theater invokes ancestral spirits.

PEAK PERFORMANCES AT MONTCLAIR STATE UNIVERSITY ANNOUNCES 2022–2023 SEASON, IN WHICH ARTISTS CONFRONT DARK TRUTHS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT AND HELP US IMAGINE A FUTURE BEYOND THEM

PEAK PERFORMANCES AT MONTCLAIR STATE UNIVERSITY PRESENTS THE U.S. PREMIERE OF GANDINI JUGGLING’S SMASHED2, APRIL 21–24

Smashed2 Continues the Acclaimed Company’s Sly Exploration of Etiquette and Gender Roles, Applying Elements of Pina Bausch’s Gestural Choreography to Their Wild Yet Precise Juggling Practice

PEAK Performances Presents Company SBB // Stefanie Batten Bland’s Look Who’s Coming to Dinner, November 4 – 7.

Dance-Theater Work Reimagines theOscar-Winning1967Film Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, Starring Sidney Poitier, Katherine Hepburn, and Spencer Tracy, as a Probing Dance-Theater Work, Considering the Dinner Table as a Site of Tension and Transformation.

PEAK PERFORMANCES AT MONTCLAIR STATE UNIVERSITY ANNOUNCES 2021-2022 SEASON OF LIVE, IN-PERSON AND VIDEO-BASED PRODUCTIONS

Augusta Read Thomas: The Auditions

The Auditions, a ballet for chamber orchestra, was composed for the distinguished and innovative Martha Graham Dance Company. The score is divided into seven sections, with odd-numbered movements titled ‘The Landscape’ with generally slower, more dream-like atmospheres.

Augusta Read Thomas – The Auditions (Nimbus Alliance)

This is witty, inventive and colourful music…It’s fabulous, and unlike anything I’ve heard all year. The longest work here is The Auditions, a ballet score written for the Martha Graham Dance Company. Three contrasting dance auditions are interspersed with slower framing sections, Thomas’s rhythmic zest recalling Copland. Third Coast Percussion crop up in the brief, attractive Selene. The performances, from a variety of sources, are all great – do investigate.

Peak Performances Launches Reimagined Peak Journal In a Virtual, Multimedia Format

PEAK Journal Takes on a New Form in PEAK’s Move Online, Opening the Publication up to More Experiential and Exploratory Pieces, Beginning with Works from Jeanine Durning, Simone Forti, and Rashaun Mitchell.

Love’s Risk Daringly Visualized

The show debuted in 2019 as part of Peak Performances, a series at Montclair State University in New Jersey that consistently punches above its weight. But on Sunday, a recording will be broadcast on WNET’s All Arts channel (check with your cable provider) at 8 p.m. Eastern time, and will be available for all on the channel’s website afterward. It’s the first selection of PEAK Plus, a new digital series of Peak Performances programming recorded by multiple robotic video cameras.

Dance: Anne Bogart and Elizabeth Streb

For years, Peak Performances, at Montclair State University, has used big-name talent and world premières to lure New Yorkers to New Jersey. Now PEAK Plus makes some of those enticements more easily accessible, broadcast as part of WNET’s All Arts, and on the All Arts Web site. First up, on Oct. 11, is the 2019 production “Falling & Loving,” directed by Anne Bogart and Elizabeth Streb, in which six actors from siti Company, reciting words on love by Charles Mee, meet six daredevils from Streb Extreme Action. Together they contend with swinging bowling balls and buckets that dump water, flour, confetti, and more.

PEAK PERFORMANCES AND WNET’S ALL ARTS ANNOUNCE FIRST SEASON OF PEAK PLUS BROADCASTS

PEAK Performances and WNET’s ALL ARTS today announce the initial lineup for PEAK Plus, a partnership formed last year to broadcast performances produced at PEAK Performances’ state-of-the-art home, The Alexander Kasser Theater at Montclair State University, to audiences across the country. These monthly releases—beginning with works performed last season and soon featuring works programmed for Fall 2020 at PEAK—launch October 11, 2020 with Anne Bogart & Elizabeth Streb’s FALLING & LOVING, based on the works of Charles Mee, and breathtakingly captured with 12 cameras of varying sizes and purposes.

6 Dance Performances to See in N.Y.C. This Weekend

Richard Alston at the Alexander Kasser Theater at Montclair State University in Montclair, N.J. (Feb. 20-21, 7:30 p.m.; through Feb. 23). Alston has been making vibrant, lyrical dances for a half-century and has been a pillar of British dance for nearly that long, serving as the artistic director of the Place, an important center of dance training and performance in London.

Richard Alston Dance Company

Recently knighted, Alston has long been an establishment figure in British modern dance, admired for his detailed musicality and his old-school craftsmanship. So it was a bit of a shock when he announced, in 2018, that funding cuts were forcing him to shut down his company. For its last show in the U.S., at Peak Performances, in Montclair, New Jersey…