Siobhan Burke @siobhanfburke-blog - Tumblr Blog

A year after posting “new website coming soon,” I bring you... my new website! I’m no longer using this Tumblr, so please reroute to sioburke.com. Thanks!

New website coming soon

In the meantime, here are some things I’ve been working on lately…

A New York Times feature on the audience / performer / security guard relationships in Maria Hassabi’s PLASTIC at MoMA.

A Dance Magazine cover story on freelance dancers Molly Lieber, Omagbitse Omagbemi, and Stuart Singer. Only in print!

A New York Times Arts & Leisure piece on Stephen Petronio’s restaging of Trisha Brown’s Glacial Decoy.

Reviews of Molly Poerstel, Maria Hassabi, Aakash Odedra, and Eiko.

My thoughts, continued, on Danspace Project’s “Platform 2015: Dancers, Buildings, and People in the Streets.” (Photo by Ian Douglas: Sterling Hyltin and Jodi Melnick in Starts and Fits, No Middles No Ends: Eight Unfinished Dances)

There's some exciting stuff going on at Danspace Project this month. My thoughts, so far, on "Platform 2015: Dancers, Buildings, and People in the Streets." (Photo by Ian Douglas. Claudia La Rocco at "A Reading for Edwin Denby.")

I'll be speaking on this panel of New York Times dance critics, with fellow freelancers Gia Kourlas and Brian Seibert and chief dance critic Alastair Macaulay, April 6 at Barnard College. No reservations required (despite what the website says).

I spent this morning rummaging through old papers in search of something to read at "Now and Then," a reading series featuring performance texts and texts about performance. The organizer, archivist extraordinaire Sarah Maxfield, invites each reader to share something new and something old. I'll be reading on August 5 along with Becca Blackwell. Very excited to be part of this (I've never read my work in public before), and I hope that you out there can make it: 7pm, Underground Theater, Abrons Arts Center, $0.

After we read, there will be a short Q&A and a little experiment called Haircutting: get your hair cut and/or styled while talking about performance. (Stylist TBA.) Good old-fashioned mingling is also an option.

"Now and Then" is also happening this Tuesday, July 29, with Andy Horwitz and Mariana Valencia. Check back here for upcoming fall events.

Still from Mariah's Lollipop: A Whimsical, directed, choreographed, and performed by Alexandra Hulme and Celia Rowlson-Hall. Full video, complete w/ gleeful and perfectly imperfect dancing, here.

Coming out of hibernation (an update)

I've been reflecting on the long, long winter, taking stock of all that time spent indoors. Here are a few things I did while hibernating (or trying not to):

In January, I wrote this piece for The Performance Club, "Acting." Check out the comments section especially, and also this illuminating follow-up.

In February, I revisited my Irish dancing roots in this story for The New York Times: "The Jig Is Up, if You're Irish or Not." I also had the pleasure of speaking on a panel at Steps On Broadway with Wendy Perron, Sascha Radetsky, and Mark Dendy. (The theme: dancers who write, in honor of Wendy's new book.)

In March, I danced with Rebecca Warner at Movement Research at Judson Church, along with Rachel Berman and Ryan David O'Byrne. It was one of the weirder nights in recent Judson history, on account of (a) the (presumably) drunk heckler in the front row and (b) the live bird released into the sanctuary, wildly flapping, as part of an already perplexing sort of staged S&M ritual. (The bird crashed into a wall and, we thought, died. But it was later rescued by MR personnel.) I had a great time dancing.

Also in March, Dance Magazine published my "where are they now?" story on the last official group of Merce Cunningham dancers. See: "The Merce Effect."

In the past few months, I've seen some fabulous flamenco and tap; an inspiring celebration at the National Dance Institute; some less inspiring experiments with "found" objects; and a haunting new series of duets by Kimberly Bartosik, which I hope comes back to New York soon.

Now I'm getting to ready to teach in the precollege summer program at Barnard College, a course called The Rigor and Romance of Dance. Class will be outdoors whenever possible. If you have ideas for fun (and affordable) summer dance outings that might be of interest to high schoolers, please send them my way.

30xlace

Computers Play Computers in the Afternoon

Ask questions as big as the movies Teach men and woman how serious computers read minds.

A wide screen of daffodils Like staring into a rock, hungrily.

Domestic strangers in a duplicitous duplex cure each other. When one of the strangers says: “I learned the hard way.”

I made this so that you would come out of your stomach obediently. A surplus of daffodils becomes an emergency garland.

One cuts off one’s genitals because one doesn’t want them. If you don’t want the sunset throw it into the sewer.

5 songs found while watching dance

Looking for something to listen to this morning, I realized that my small music collection owes a lot to the dance I've seen in the past few years. Here are a few favorite songs I've found in the theater:

1. "Shower Alone," Haco, from Lucy Guerrin's Corridor at Baryshnikov Arts Center

2. "Ku Kisantu Kikwenda Ko," Franco & le TP OK Jazz, from Reggie Wilson & Andréya Ouamba's The Good Book at BAM

3. "Middle Name," People Get Ready, from People Get Ready's Specific Ocean at New York Live Arts

4. "Ima Read," Zebra Katz Ft. Njena Reddd Foxxx, from Trajal Harrell's Antigone Sr. / Twenty Looks or Paris is Burning at The Judson Church (L) at Abrons Arts Center [this one's really all about the video]

5. "Gabriel," Roy Davis Jr., from Ronald K. Brown's Grace (for Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater) at City Center

A story I find myself thinking about more often than other stories

From an essay by Molly Hickok in The 53rd State Occasional, No. 1, in which Paul Lazar asks 22 of his colleagues: (1) What matters most? and (2) Where do you part ways with your people?

sandwichquasandwich-blog

Saltie. Brooklyn, NY

jurionuki-blog

siobhanfburke-blog

Video by Laura Vitale, song by JD Samson & MEN (via jurionuki)

Recent Writing

[Members of Rosas in Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker's En Atendant at the Festival d'Avignon. Photo by Herman Sorgeloos, courtesy Rosas.]

About a week ago, I wrote my first dance review for The New York Times. Here it is, along with my second one:

"Fill, Empty, Stack, Hold: Art With a 6-Sided Object" (about Andrea Miller's Fold Here at Peak Performances)

"When Parisians Stormed Out, and the Earth Trembled" (about Bill T Jones' & SITI Company's A Rite at BAM)

And here’s my Dance Magazine interview with Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker, whose company, Rosas, will be performing at BAM Oct. 19-20:

Quick Q&A: Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker

We all have our artistic idols, and De Keersmaeker is one of mine (wrote a little bit about why in this piece from a couple of years ago). I highly recommend getting yourself to BAM for one or both of her pieces.

My fall (and winter and spring) dance preview for The New York Times.

Lately

Here's what I've been up to writing-wise this summer:

"A Restless Creature on New Terrain": On Wendy Whelan's new project (which just premiered at Jacob's Pillow) for The New York Times, Aug. 4

"Adventures in a Sinister Wonderland": On Third Rail Projects' Then She Fell and the choreographic process behind it for The New York Times, Aug. 11

"Who Needs the Drama?" On dance TV shows (written before the unfortunate cancellation of Bunheads) for Dance Magazine, August 2013

In other news, I'm very honored to have been chosen as a 2013 USC Annenberg/Getty Arts Journalism fellow. The fellowship will take me to L.A. for 10 days in October along with other arts journalists from around the country.

I also wrapped up my second year as a mentor with Girls Write Now. This past spring, my mentee and I participated in a creative publishing workshop, which culminated in the release of this e-zine featuring the works-in-progress of 20 mentors and mentees.

[Photo: Marcus Yam for the New York Times. Marissa Nielsen-Pincus and Alberto Denis in Third Rail Projects' Then She Fell.]

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