Madeline Duff

Review: ‘Flamenco Extranjero’ at GALA Theatre

When a technician noticed a lighting cue had come later than planned (the dancing took over), Aleksey Kulikov, co-director of Flamenco Aparicio Dance Company, explained to the crew member: “That’s...

Review: The Bentzen Ball Comedy Festival: Andrea Gibson and Amber Tamblyn

Amber Tamblyn and Andrea Gibson were heard loudly and clearly at The Kennedy Center this past weekend. Washington, D.C. and the Terrace Theater welcomed the two poets as part of the Comedy at The...

Review: Gin Dance Company’s ‘Dance, Champagne and Chocolate with Gin’ at the BalletNova Center for Dance

Gin Dance Company’s Dance, Champagne and Chocolate with Gin program felt a little bit like flicking between emoticons: determined, eyebrows scrunched emoji? Hmm, aloof? What about giggling emoji?...

Review: ‘DEMO’ at Kennedy Center Terrace Theater

No curtain opened on the black and white picture of Jerome Robbins, smiling, in a sweatshirt, a hand on his forehead and another on the chest of one of his two dogs. There was no boundary unrolled, no...

Review: VelocityDC Dance Festival

Velocity is speed with purpose: a change in distance over time, crucially defined by direction. The VelocityDC Dance Festival took us in many. In its ninth iteration, the variety-style performance,...

Report: CityDance’s 2017 DREAMscape Benefit Gala

Moments into a dimmed house at the historic Lincoln Theatre, an off-stage voice over a loudspeaker made a promise to a buzzing audience: “We’re going to light up the night sky, so dance!” CityDance’s...

A Report on ‘Handsome Hound’ at Millennium Stage at The Kennedy Center

Handsome Hound, a local band piloted by twenty-somethings Claire Daviss and Cuchulain Kelly, gives millennials a better name. Self-described as having “roots in folk, rock, pop, Americana, country and...

Review: Source Festival 2016: ‘Static’

In Tom Horan’s Static, directed by Bridget Grace Sheaff, Emma (Amy Horan), a perky millennial, inherits, after her father’s death, the sad task of excavating the second house he owned later in life....

Review: CityDance’s ‘DREAMscape’ at The Lincoln Theatre

Every so often, we witness a moment in time unabashedly good—good in its intentions, good in its ideals, good from inner core to every outer, polished extremity. CityDance’s benefit performance,...

‘Latin Heat’ at The Washington Ballet

Latin Heat does what the Washington Ballet does best: spotlight its dancers’ strengths and individual personalities. However, Latin Heat also illumines the WSB unhinged and unrestrained. Never before...

‘Seuls’ at The Kennedy Center

To witness Seuls is to witness a gifted artist toss his tools—la vie banale, literary idols, childhood—into the same spot in a stream. Each tool, each influence, creates a new circle on the surface....

Hubbard Street Dance Chicago at Wolf Trap

Eight dancers paused on an open-air stage. The curtain is up. No music, yet. A rustle from a small, brown mass as far downstage as can be: a bird, flicking wings. One more sits near the other quarter...

Polish National Ballet at The Kennedy Center

Grey, almost nondescript costumes, would not seem powerful. A lightly lit modern painting, blue, then back to grey, would not seem striking. Eight dancers, re-entering in lines from upstage to...

‘Tour-de-Force: Serenade’ at The Washington Ballet at The Kennedy Center

The dancers, dusted in long, white tulle, reflect—shells on a dark beach. It is an opening, a closing, a commencement, an ending. Arms raise. Hands flex. Heads turn, diagonally, toward a common...

‘DanceWorks Spring 2015’ at the Department of Theatre & Dance at The George Washington University

This dance variety show featuring undergraduate choreography and dancers unfolds with a consistent contemporary theme, but some pieces achieve more variety of movement than others. These Five Women,...

The Washington Ballet’s ‘Swan Lake’ at The Kennedy Center

Under a moonlit, cloudy sky, a young, overwhelmed Prince Siegfried seeks refuge in the forest following an evening of birthday revelry. A weighty anticipation gives a lag to his steps, for tomorrow he...

New York City Ballet: Program B: 21st-Century Choreographers’ at The Kennedy Center

Principal dancer Teresa Reichlen unwraps her leg into a développé, a blade curling a bow, then—suspends—playfully, before hiding it away. Her partner, principal Zachary Catazaro, approaches with a...

‘Hexagon 2015: The Spoof, the Whole Spoof, and Nothing but the Spoof!’ at Woodrow Wilson High School Auditorium

If fast-paced apps, tweets, and glowing screens have your eyes abnormally a-glaze (yes, millennials, you can admit this, too) trade Facebook for good-feeling farce and be sure to pop over to Hexagon’s...