Jonah Bokaer danced with Merce Cunningham for seven years before starting his independent work. Cunningham gave his designers and musicians free rein. The dancers were fully rehearsed but when these alien forces came together to do their separate things, a fortuitous beauty emerged. Bokaer and his collaborators work together to achieve a refined stage universe. His dances are collaborative gems but not objective exercises. Cunningham-like, he speaks about form and structure and design, but his dances set out a planned universe where operations can be only partly controlled. At that point, chance intervenes in the creative process, and even computer-generated movement can bring us to laughter and fear.
Related:
A walk on the wild side, Review: Boston Ballet's La Bayadère, 5 Traverse is shutting its doors, More 
- A walk on the wild side
Everyone looks so weary in Howard Yezerski Gallery's gritty documentary photos of Boston's dear departed Combat Zone from 1969 to 1978. The year's still young, but this glimpse into our past from Roswell Angier, Jerry Berndt, and John Goodman may be one of the best shows of 2010.
- Review: Boston Ballet's La Bayadère
The Ballet's opening-night performance confirmed that La Bayadère should visit the Hub more often.
- 5 Traverse is shutting its doors
Last week 5 Traverse gallery announced that it was closing.
- Interplay
Caitlin Berrigan’s 2009 video Transfer is simple and elemental.
- Photos: Boston's Combat Zone, Burlesque (NSFW)
Images from Boston's Combat Zone at Howard Yezerski Gallery and the "Henry Horenstein: Show" at Walker.
- Subject bias
"Objects of Wonder" is a mixed bag of a show, which is what it sets out to be.
- Living history
This year marks the 25th anniversary of Bert Gallery, which Catherine Little Bert and her father-in-law Hugo Bert (who'd run Cottage Gallery in North Providence) opened in the Biltmore Hotel in downtown Providence in 1985.
- Flickers
The hour's worth of film and dance that followed my absurdist journey offered flashbacks, edges, mysterious messages, and a thunderstorm. In 1924, Tristan Tzara described Dada as a resistance to the pretensions of art, "a snow of butterflies released from the head of a prestidigitator." I left Inman Square feeling energized.
- Bon appétit!
Luis Meléndez himself greets you at the outset of "Luis Meléndez: Master of the Spanish Still Life" at the Museum of Fine Arts. He seems a haughty 31-year-old in this 1746 self-portrait, standing in a fine silk coat and ruffled shirt and holding up a chalk drawing (note the chalk in his hand) of a hunky nude dude.
- Slideshow: The MFA's Luis Melendez exhibit
Images of Luis Melendez's show at the MFA
- 10 least romantic places in greater Boston
If you're in a relationship, Valentine's Day is reasonably okay — as greeting-card-company-manufactured holidays go.
- Less
Topics:
Dance
, Entertainment, Boston, Dance, More
, Entertainment, Boston, Dance, Merce Cunningham, control, environment, Elizabeth Streb, balls, CULTURE, Nature, Less
