Holly Cole at the Jazz Fest
Sometimes the magic just isn’t there, and it’s hard to say why. That’s how it was at Holly Cole’s Jazz Fest appearance. Did she sound good? Yes. Did the band play [read on]
Articles by Nancy Berman
Cecile McLorin Salvant casts a spell of love at the Jazz Fest
Cecile McLorin Salvant held the audience in the palm of her hand at the Festival International de Jazz de Montreal. Review by Nancy Berman.
Storry rocks the Jazz Fest
Nancy Berman reviews Storry at the Festival International de Jazz de Montreal.
Nederlands Dans Theater: Not to be missed (but thanks to COVID-19, you’ll miss it)
The Nederlands Dans Theater (NDT) is world renowned for the virtuosity and versatility of their dancers, as well as their collaborations with the most illustrious [read on]
José Navas’s Winterreise: A Cautionary Tale for Valentine’s Day?
Winter is long and hard. It sucks. Finding out that your significant other has ditched you for another and that you must leave your cozy home to wander, grieving and alone, [read on]
Radicale Vitalité: Marie Chouinard pushes the envelope, laughing all the way
In her latest work, Radicale Vitalité, Solos et Duos, Marie Chouinard walks a bunch of fine lines: pleasure vs. pain, laughter vs. tears, love vs. strife, sanity vs. [read on]
Dance From a Divided City: Elad Schechter, Rand Ziad Taha, and Hala Salem
From a divided city, a rare moment of collaboration between Muslim and Jew: Last night, Tangente Danse presented Premiere, a work choreographed by Elad Schechter and [read on]
She The People: The Patriarchy Isn’t Going to Smash Itself!!!
Warning: partial spoiler alert! Are you sick of watching the news and feeling angry? Have you had it up to here with sexual politics? Are you female, male, or anything in [read on]
Jeremy Dutcher: the music of activism
If you don’t already know Jeremy Dutcher, you should. A member of Tobique First Nation in New Brunswick, this classically trained singer, composer, musicologist, and [read on]
Alt-J: Revenge of the Nerds
Critics love to hate Alt-J. They and their music have been called fussy and uptight; beige, tuneless, mild, featureless, and boring; lead singer Joe Newman has been compared [read on]
Dianne Reeves: Building Bridges, Not Walls
One of the world’s foremost jazz vocalists, five-time Grammy winner Dianne Reeves and her phenomenal band knocked it out of the ballpark last night at the FIJM. Known for [read on]
Melody Gardot: sultry enchantress
Dressed all in black, with her customary dark sunglasses, Melody Gardot ravished a sold-out Salle Wilfrid-Pelletier at the FIJM last night. Slow, sultry, soulful, smoky, and [read on]
The new soul on the block: Storry’s Leave My Heart Behind drops today and it’s f*cking fantastic
Storry—a creative powerhouse of a woman—unleashes her extraordinary voice and vision today with the release of her first single, Leave My Heart Behind. While channeling [read on]
Lisa Fischer and Alonzo King’s Lines Ballet: Propelled Hearts
With a voice to shake you to your very core, Lisa Fischer takes to the stage with a dozen dancers in Alonzo King’s Lines Ballet’s Canadian premiere of The Propelled [read on]
Kidd Pivot’s Revisor: a fun-house mirror for modern times
In 1836 the Russian author Nikolai Gogol wrote a play called The Revisor in which not only the corruption but also the profound lack of humanity of government bureaucracies [read on]
Rosas incarnate Coltrane’s A Love Supreme
Nancy Berman reviews A Love Supreme by Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker and Salva Sanchis, presented by Danse Danse.
Tentacle Tribe tantalizes with Ghost
Tentacle Tribe is back with an expanded roster of dancers in Ghost, part of Danse Danse’s 2018-2019 season.
King of the Tabla and Other Gods of Music
The creation mythology of jazz tells of the transplantation and fusion of various musical cultures in the 18th and 19th centuries. The slave trade brought north-west African [read on]
Women Rock the Jazz Fest: Jann Arden, Martha Wainwright, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Davina and the Vagabonds
The opening weekend of the 39th edition of the FIJM featured some of the most inspiring women in the music world, including a new fun find. Friday night Jann Arden [read on]
Who knew monks could dance?
In Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui’s Sutra, 19 Shaolin monks from an ancient temple near Dengfeng, China, perform hair-raising feats of martial prowess honed over a lifetime of [read on]