Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.“I think it’s fun to take risks.” Pam Tanowitz is speaking from New York where she is putting the finishing touches to a new dance production for London’s Royal Opera House to be performed in its conservatory-like Floral Hall. Her seven dancers have been working on the piece, a blend of new and pre-existing sequences, since September (on and off) but their rented rehearsal studios are rarely as large as the former covered flower market that was re-sited alongside the main theatre during Covent Garden’s millennial makeover. “Sometimes I’m in a space that’s half the size,” she says.The company won’t arrive in London until two days before the first performance, when they will be joining forces with 10 students from Rambert dance school who have been learning the moves long-distance. “We’ve got four or five separate sections that we’ve been rehearsing so when I arrive I’m going to sew the dances together in the space, making them fit the hall.”Two performances are scheduled on March 25 and 26: one matinee, one evening. This means that lighting — a transformative element in most contemporary dancemaking — will be mostly outside Tanowitz’s control. The unforgiving glare of daylight in the glazed hall offers no hiding place — “Everything’s exposed!” The lack of a traditional proscenium set-up means that she is no longer in charge of what the audience can or can’t see, but she embraces these random, site-specific sightlines: “The dances can be viewed from all sides. If you’re looking through the beautiful window or at the bar or at other people’s faces? That’s all part of the scenery.”The last-minute nature of the project would be enough to bring most directors out in hives, but the 55-year-old Bronx-born choreographer clearly thrives on uncertainty: “One of my favourite things to do is to choreograph on the spot. It’s interesting to push myself in different situations rather than doing the same thing over and over again. It doesn’t feel like a problem; it feels like something for me to solve.”Neither Drums Nor Trumpets is one of 15 dance works in London’s second Dance Reflections season; it is bankrolled by the jewellery house Van Cleef & Arpels. This year’s four-week, multi-venue festival includes everything from Robyn Orlin’s celebration of Zulu rickshaw drivers to the Royal Ballet’s George Balanchine programme. There is a particularly welcome focus on the American moderns.Back in the 1990s and 2000s, London enjoyed semi-regular visits from the Martha Graham, Merce Cunningham and Paul Taylor companies, but tight touring budgets and the absence of a big contemporary dance repertory company in the UK has meant that their choreography is now seldom (if ever) seen. The 2025 Dance Reflections season reminds us what we are missing. Lyon Opera Ballet is dancing two Cunningham pieces, and the postmodernist Trisha Brown Company is reviving her 1985 piece Working Title. Dance Reflections also supported Natalia Osipova’s recent performances of Graham’s 1947 masterpiece Errand into the Maze.So far, so heritage, but the festival is dominated by new (or new-ish) work from 21st-century dancemakers including Jules Cunningham, Noé Soulier and Rachid Ouramdane in addition to Tanowitz’s piece, which was commissioned by Serge Laurent, director of the Van Cleef & Arpels dance and culture programme. “Every time Serge comes to New York we have a coffee and talk,” says Tanowitz. “He’s been very supportive and I feel like he’s creating opportunities for me that are different. Coming and doing this site-specific piece feels exciting — and risky.”Tanowitz is in huge demand both as teacher and creator. Choreographer in residence at Bard College’s Fisher Center in upstate New York since 2019, she also lectures on professional practice at Rutgers University. She has regularly undertaken commissions from contemporary and classical companies in addition to making dances for her own troupe. This year has already been very busy. Her work on Neither Drums Nor Trumpets coincides with the creation of new pieces for Miami City Ballet and Boston Lyric Opera.Tanowitz’s choreography is packed with steps that switch register with mercurial ease but are always tailored to the strengths of her chosen dancers, whatever their schooling. She clearly delights in exploiting the material encoded in their muscle memories but she also tries to challenge, even disrupt, their habits and thought patterns. “Part of my work is pushing and pulling against tradition,” she says. Her writing for ballet companies makes playful use of the familiar classroom steps, but the result never looks like patchwork or pastiche. Hers is a fresh and surprising voice.Neither Drums Nor Trumpets will be her fifth piece to be danced at Covent Garden. The first, Everyone Keeps Me, formed part of the Royal Ballet’s Merce Cunningham centenary tribute in 2019 (Tanowitz was a student of Viola Farber, a founder member of Cunningham’s company). Royal Ballet director Kevin O’Hare invited her back in 2022 when she made the witty Dispatch Duet. It was perfect as it was, but Tanowitz’s love of revising and reworking led to a playful film of the piece in 2023 danced in the bars, lifts and backstage areas of the Opera House. A year later she set about reimagining it yet again, this time as a 14-person ensemble Or Forevermore.Tanowitz hates to let go. The excitement of the creative process will always trump the finished product: “It’s more interesting!” she insists. “Once the dance is ‘up’, it’s not mine any more — it’s the dancers’. There might be too much in my dances, but you’re interested in seeing them again and, to me, that is more important than presenting a perfect dance.”Tanowitz’s witty, joyous, densely written dances reward repeat viewings, but we never really see the same piece twice because she cannot resist tailoring any revival to its new interpreters: “I have never done a verbatim dance in my life. As I get to know them, I will craft something based on the dancer. I am always tweaking stuff; it never really feels finished. I like the idea that it could be a rough draft and I could change things between shows. I like surprises.”This unwillingness to sign off on a piece can complicate final rehearsals — and exasperate those working with her: “My dancers have to tell me, ‘Stop changing things! We have to learn how to dance this!’ And they’re right, I have to stop myself. My dances are hard and there are lots of steps; I don’t want them to be nervous . . . I don’t want dancers thinking about the steps when they’re on stage. They should just be dancing.”Dance Reflections at various London venues, March 12-28, dancereflections-vancleefarpels.com, pamtanowitzdance.org
