Nicholas Leichter: From Bavaria to Brooklyn
DANCE MAGAZINE — February 2006
NEW YORK NOTEBOOK
From Bavaria to Brooklyn
Collaborating with the Brooklyn Philharmonic on Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana, choreographer Nicholas Leichter shakes up a classic work with movement motifs that could just as easily be found at a rave or disco as on the pages of an illuminated manuscript. Think Canterbury Tales meets pop life. The well-known opening, “O Fortuna,” used as a sound track in everything from blockbuster films to car commercials, bookends the work. Soloist Daniel Clifton dances first, moving with searing force through articulations and undulations, and is then joined by the full company. The results are as wickedly wonderful as the writings of the de-frocked 13th century Bavarian monks whose bawdy poems the music is based upon. Feb. 25 at Brooklyn Academy of Music. See brooklynphilharmonic.org — TOM PEARSON