Dancer Brett Perry of Trey McIntyre Project. The company comes to Cal Performances March 21 and 22. Photo: Lois Greenfield Sometimes, “goodbye” is also “hello.” Billed by Cal Performances as “The Farewell Tour of the Trey McIntyre Project,” the contemporary dance company’s Berkeley performances on March 21-22 at Zellerbach Hall are as much about starting […]

Lou Fancher
Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet: Creating a fearless art
Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet performs Necessity, Again. The company is at Cal Performances Feb. 22- 23, 2014. Photo: Paula Lobo Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet, which has just marked its tenth anniversary, brings its fierce, unforgettable dancers and repertoire to Cal Performance’s Zellerbach Hall for performances on Feb 22-23. Founded in 2003, the New York-based company was […]
Martha Graham Dance Co. serves up 3 classic feasts
Kenneth Topping and Erica Dankmeyer in Martha Graham Company’s Cave Of The Heart. Photo: John Deane Janet Eilber, Artistic Director of Martha Graham Dance Company since 2005, knows what all chefs, farmers, architects, engineers, scientists, philosophers — really, what anyone knows. The key to a delicious, sturdy, profoundly pleasing creation is all in the ingredients. […]
Tristan and Yseult: Sublime tour de force at Berkeley Rep
Andrew Durand (Tristan) and Patrycja Kujawska (Yseult) perform the title roles in Kneehigh’s Tristan and Yseult. Photo: Steve Tanner First-rate theater lifts our well-cushioned minds and derrières out of life’s doldrums, challenging us to contemplate the great mysteries of human existence: love, hate, honor, betrayal, death, and why zippers always get stuck when we are […]
Berkeley Lab’s Carl Haber: A genius in our midst
Carl Haber (left) and Earl Cornell, Berkeley Lab researchers, digitally recovered a 128-year-old recording of Alexander Graham Bell’s voice. Photo: Berkeley Lab What does winning sound like? The definition of winning for MacArthur Genius Award recipient and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory physicist Carl Haber is surprising. “Winning” is not the unrestricted $625,000 the Berkeley scientist will […]
Shanghai Ballet produces gorgeous classical dance
Company members of Shanghai Ballet perform The Butterfly Lovers at Cal Performances on Nov. 1 and 2, 2013. Less than two weeks after Cal Performances brought the Nederland Dance Theatre’s exquisite dancers to Zellerbach Hall, Bay Area balletomanes reveled in the Shanghai Ballet’s 50-member, classically gifted company. The Butterfly Lovers, a four act story ballet […]
NDT: Supernova dance technique, dismaying choreography
Nederlands Dans Theater’s performance of Schmetterling, butterfly, at Cal Performances. Photo: Nederlands Dans Theater Nederlands Dans Theater’s performance of Schmetterling, butterfly, at Cal Performances. Photo: Nederlands Dans Theater If it’s possible for a dance performance to cause tears of joy and dismay, shed simultaneously, then Nederlands Dans Theater’s Oct. 23 appearance at Cal Performances’ Zellerbach […]
The Moth: A storytelling phenomenon comes to Berkeley
The Moth is a 16-year-old storytelling phenomenon founded by poet and novelist George Dawes Green. Photo: The Moth Thank goodness for boring, sappy poetry. Without it, there might never be The Moth. And thank goodness for the third annual Bay Area Science Festival, which brings marvelous scientific minds to the masses with ten days (Oct. […]
Cal Fall Free for All: Choreography on a massive scale
Cal Fall Free for All is on Sunday Sept. 29, 10:30am-6:00pm. Cal Performances’ fourth annual Fall Free-For-All is choreography on a massive scale. The all-day arts sampler spins into action on Sunday, September 29 with vivid expressions of creativity accompanied by everything from Body Music to 13th-century French pop tunes to a Duke Ellington tribute […]
Berkeley’s Christian Burns: Drawing with his dancing
Christian Burns is a dancer based in Berkeley. His next project, a collaboration with Hope Mohr, with lighting installation by producer/designer David Szalsa, will run December 4-5 at The Garage in San Francisco. Photo: Andrea Basile The Bay Area dance world presents an embarrassment of riches: from ballet to modern, embracing street, jazz, tap, flamenco, ethnic […]
Berkeley Alvin Ailey camp teaches more than dance
Participants at 2011 Alvin Ailey camp have fun with an exercise at the Berkeley Marina, where sailing was also on the agenda. Photo: Tracey Taylor Like characters in an ancient Roman frieze, eight young boys assume motionless poses, then spring to pumping, rolling, spinning life in front of the Zellerbach Playhouse on the University of […]
Review: Diebenkorn’s ‘Berkeley Years’ at the de Young
Richard Diebenkorn (1922-1993), Seawall, 1957, Oil on canvas, 20 x 26 in. (50.8 x 66 cm) Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, gift of Phyllis G. Diebenkorn, 1995.96 © 2013 The Richard Diebenkorn Foundation. All rights reserved. A splendid exhibition of Bay Area figurative and abstract-expressionist artist Richard Diebenkorn’s paintings and drawings on display at […]