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Lincoln Center Out-of-Doors Summer Festival
"The performances and the repertory provided a fascinating
visit to the period in which dance began to coalesce into a
recognizable antecedent of modern ballet technique… it was
genuinely entertaining."
By Joel Lobenthal, The New York Sun, August 27, 2007
Points of Departure
"William uncorsets Baroque decorum and steps just enough to
create an image of joyous celebration."
By Deborah Jowitt, Village Voice, October 2, 2007
Zelindor, Roi des Sylphes at Lincoln Center with Opera
Lafayette Orchestra and Chorus
"Fans of early music should seek it out." By Anne Midgette,
The New York Times, October 20, 2007
"this "Zélindor" took theatergoers into an enchanted realm all
its own." By Jack Anderson, The New York Theater Wire, October
20, 2007
"In sum, Zélindor was a great success and probably the
highlight of the year in New York for baroque performance
enthusiasts." Newolde.com, John Wall
Harlequin's Capers at Cornell University
"The elaborate costumes and grotesque masks were often as
intriguing as the dances themselves, and in many cases the two
worked together. My favorite skit was “The Three-Legged Dance”
performed by Rachel List, whose footloose antics included
extra fancy footwork with an extra foot that sometimes
switched positions on the body according to her fancy."
By Will Cordeiro, The Cornell Daily Sun, November 20, 2007
“This
production…dazzled in all ways: it was wittily staged
and choreographed”
-- THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
“ingeniously and tastefully presented…Soirée
Baroque en Haïti entertained and illuminated”
-- ANNA KISSELGOFF, THE NEW YORK TIMES
“Absolutely gorgeous”
-- THE WASHINGTON POST
“I cannot describe the evening’s novelty”
-- DEBORAH JOWITT, THE VILLAGE VOICE
Turocy has a “gift for flowing and shifting
patterns”
-- THE BOSTON GLOBE
“The 18th century French dance theater comes
alive with enormous zest and delicacy…you can’t
help being transported by the gentleness and wit of these
entertainments”
-- MARILYN TUCKER, THE SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE
“Many were notable for their quick, intricate
and seemingly effortless footwork…their bodies spoke
the language of Baroque dance with admirable fluency”
-- JACK ANDERSON, THE NEW YORK TIMES
“The dancers and the musicians…had a full
audience clapping for more…one performance will fascinate
and ensnare you for more”
-- MARIAN HOROSKO, DANCER MAGAZINE
“The marriage of musical and dramatic expression
is as near perfect as one could imagine”
-- THE GUARDIAN
“A second facet of heaven…imaginatively
programmed and impeccably performed”
-- MINDY ALOFF, DANCEVIEWTIMES.COM
“Turocy…performs an inestimable service to the
dance world”
-- BACK STAGE
"Ms. Turocy is also a rare performer in that
much of what she directs and dances simply doesn't exist in
the ordinary sense. She has to unearth it. She's as much investigator
as artist."
-- DALLAS MORNING NEWS
“Nobody today seems more qualified to reconstruct
the French dances of the 18th century than this American and
her New York Baroque Dance Company.”
-- LE FIGARO
“Above all, Catherine Turocy’s choreography,
with its slow, minutely stylized gesture and dance movement
realized through the NYBDC, releases and ensures the apprehension
of every changing emotion in the score”
-- HILARY FINCH, THE LONDON TIMES
Handel’s Alcina:
"The highlight of the Festival was Alcina. The world-renowned
New York Baroque Dance Company was invited to present dances
in the courtly and comical styles to revive this opera with
true historical authenticity. The company's foundress, Chevalier
Catherine Turocy, who has earned an acclaimed, and well deserved
international reputation for staging Baroque opera, used strict
period choreography and stage direction to great effect in
her faithful reconstruction of Händel's masterpiece."
-- SIEGFRIED HELM, GENERALANZELGER, JUNE
2002
" ‘Best in Show!’ Göttingen's production
(of Alcina), directed by American choreographer Catherine
Turocy, was a whirlwind of desperately needed fresh air. Turocy,
an expert in 18th century dance and director of the New York
Baroque Dance Company, brought out the compassion and nobility
in Händel's characterizations. Turocy also firmly resisted
the common temptation to patronize Händel and his current
audience with condescending irony and gimmicks. Instead, she
enhanced the evening with some wonderfully staged ballets,
exactly where Händel specifies them."
-- DAVID WICKERS, THE GUARDIAN, MAY 2002
"With Catherine Turocy, a specialist in Baroque dance,
in charge of the production, dance had a part to play in telling
the story of Alcina. Turocy relied on Baroque gestures to
enliven the da capo arias but effectively drew on techniques
of the modern director as well."
-- GEORGE LOOMIS, FINANCIAL TIMES, LONDON,
MAY 2000
"Catherine Turocy's direction followed the historic example
of Baroque productions. Her production (of Alcina) continued
the tradition of the Göttingen Händel Festival and
displayed loving attention to detail at a high level without
superficialities."
-- MATTHIAS HENGELBROCK, FONOFORUM - JULY
2002
"Göttingen's new production of Alcina in the Deutsches
Theater (May 18) was directed by Catherine Turocy, a specialist
in Baroque dance. She ensured that the dances, performed by
her New York Baroque Dance Company, played an integral role
in the story of the enchantress who lures men to her magic
island and transforms them into wild beasts or other undesirable
states. Some of these unfortunate souls, one in the form of
a white gorilla, danced for Alcina's entertainment. And dance
contributed strikingly to the denouement when her erstwhile
victims wobbled onstage, returned to human form but dazed,
like the prisoners in Fidelio."
-- OPERA NEWS, SEPTEMBER 2002
“[Turocy’s choreography] has a forceful impact…a
feast for the eyes – MAGICAL”
-- GOTTINGER TAGEBLATT, MAY 2002
“Catherine Turocy cleverly added small ironic touches
to her production, so Alcina was not at all rigid and slow.
On the contrary…the stylized aesthetics of the Baroque
opera come to full fruition”
-- RHEINPFALZ, JULY 2002
Ballet en Versailles:
“Catherine Turocy, leader of the NYBDC, is admirably
perfect”
GOTTINGER TAGEBLATT, MAY 2002."There was dancing both
from the court and the theater artfully directed and choreographed
by Chevalier Catherine Turocy. The fact that these dances
still appeal to modern audiences is reason enough to welcome
the revival of the strictly historical performance practice.
Heartfelt applause to Chevalier Turocy!"
-- ANDREAS BERGER, BRAUNSCHWEIGER ZEITUNG,
MAY 2000
Purcell's Dido and Aeneas:
"As staged and choreographed by Catherine Turocy, the
opera achieves a marvelous harmony of affect. Every small
gesture — every nod, glance, bow, and dip — has
been choreographed and rendered as graceful as the quivering
movement of Aeneas' outlandish scarlet plumes. If most of
the audience walked, strode or rushed into the Meyerson shortly
before 2 PM, ninety minutes later most of us surely floated
out, transported by the music, staging, and ineffably sublime
dancing."
-- MARGARET PUTNAM, DALLAS MORNING NEWS
Gluck's Orphée et Euridice:
"The New York Baroque Dance Company, artfully choreographed
by Catherine Turocy, helped bring considerable atmosphere
to this memorable blast from the past."
-- TIM SMITH, THE BALTIMORE SUN, JAN 2002
Verdi's Rigoletto:
"It was a wonderful stroke to sign Catherine Turocy as
the choreographer. She is an authority on ancient dance and
Rigoletto is set in the 16th century, so the choreography
seems elegant and perfectly right."
-- OLIN CHISM, THE DALLAS MORNING NEWS,
2001
Bach, Handel and the Dance:
“Turocy shows her special deftness in evolving new patterns
out of old dances…What imagination she has for 18th
century evolving patterns and delicately skillful characterizations,
and how delightful to spend some time with ladies and gentlemen
who know all the delicacies”
-- SUSANNA SLOAT, ATTITUDE, 1995
Royer's Le Pouvoir de l'Amour:
"Oberlin also enlisted the aid of Catherine Turocy, artistic
director of the New York Baroque Dance Company and a superb
reconstructor-creator of Baroque choreography. Victoria Vaughn's
formal stage direction meshed fluidly with Ms. Turocy's exquisite
dances…Catherine Turocy, artistic director of the NYBDC,
is a superb reconstructor/recreator of Baroque choreography."
-- HEIDI WALESON, THE WALL STREET JOURNAL,
Mar 2002
"All three scenes are as much danced as sung, and the
subdued grace of Catherine Turocy's small company was highly
satisfying. This was opera with historical accuracy on its
mind."
-- BERNARD HOLLAND, THE NEW YORK TIMES,
Feb 2002
Harlequins, Gods and Dancers:
"The New York Baroque Dance Company offers a more lavish
and theatrical view of eighteenth-century dances than we generally
see. Not only are the costumes rather splendid, but the range
and intensity of expression are notable too. The programme
goes far beyond the formal dances which other groups have
shown."
-- JOHN PERCIVAL, THE TIMES (LONDON)
"Turocy and company offered a winning and all-too brief
series of Pecour dances she has reconstructed and, to judge
by her flowing arm and body work, improved upon. We see the
beginnings of danced expressiveness, particularly visible
on this program in Turocy's eloquent masked solo from Lully's
Armide."
-- THE PROVINCE, BRITISH COLUMBIA
Rameau's Pygmalion:
"At their recent Schimmel performances with the musicians
and singers of Concert Royal, the dancers under Catherine
Turocy gave the most complete realization I've seen of this
pre-classical period. What you're supposed to hear, and see,
is the music, the line, the rhythm. Every performer is a soloist
and every strand of sound and action can be clearly seen within
the overall fabric Richman, Turocy and stage director John
Haber have produced. The program should have lots more than
three performances."
-- MARCIA B. SIEGEL, THE SOHO NEWS
Rameau’s Les Fêtes d’Hébé:
“Turocy has now achieved a range of freedom and an intensity
that one wouldn’t have dreamt of five years ago. In
this production, she consistently avoided the temptation to
be cute or precious, performing with a purposeful understatement
that was moving and, in the end, triumphant”
-- DAVID PATRICK STEARNS, MUSICAL AMERICA
“Amazingly enough, considering the preserved-in-formaldehyde
look of most “authentic”-opera projects, the group’s
production of Rameau’s opera-ballet came to life with
striking musical and theatrical immediacy”
-- PETER G. DAVIS, NEW YORK MAGAZINE
“Groups like Richman’s and Turocy’s are
unearthing the riches of the past for the benefit of the future”
-- MICHAEL WALSH, TIME MAGAZINE
Rameau’s Les Boréades:
“Much more natural and less stuffy…thanks in particular
to the choreography of Catherine Turocy and her dancers, whose
steps exclude neither charm, nor humor, nor the freshness
of originiality, well-matched to the inexhaustible flavor
and sweetness of the music”
-- LE MONDE
Handel’s Ariodante at the Spoleto Festival USA:
“There have been few such bright, inventive productions
as the one of “Ariodante” that opened here Monday
night at the Spoleto Festival USA—it should influence
how other Handel operas are done in this country…They
did it the hard way—Handel’s way. Painstaking
attention has been given to the exigencies of baroque style.”
Rameau’s Les Indes Galantes:
"But what made the music seem to rise to a new dimension
were the performances of Ms. Turocy, as Terpsicore, and Steven
Rickards, the countertenor who sang Apollo. No less magnificent
was Ms. Turocy, who managed through dance and gesture to provide
a visual equivalent of Händel that was every bit as ornamented,
detailed, and spritely as the music. In the process, she also
discovered for the audience the lost art of baroque dance,
and invested it with a liveliness and charm you could never
guess from an old print. The evening was a rare pleasure,
and let's hope one that will be repeated."
-- MARGARET PUTNAM, DALLAS MORNING NEWS
"Here was a programme in which elegance and period gaiety
were intrinsic. It was revitalizing to see these American
dancers, led by Catherine Turocy and Ann Jacoby, performing
with stately delicacy, and in a manner quite different from
anything else to be seen on the London stage. Such was the
poise and confidence of all six, and so fluent were the accompanying
musicians playing under the direction of James Richman on
old instruments, that authenticity seemed unquestionable."
-- ANN NUGENT, THE GUARDIAN (LONDON)
Solo in La Cupis with the Baroque Dance Ensemble:
"In La Cupis, Cathy Turocy still gives one of the most
moving performances in dance today; she magnifies the importance
of little things, of wrists and eyes, for instance, and no
high-power technician is as thrilling as she is in her quiet
and concentrated intelligence."
-- GEORGE GELLES, THE WASHINGTON STAR
Baroque Dance at the Meyerson:
"The best of all time capsules burst open on the stage
of the Meyerson Performing Arts Center on Wednesday night,
splling forth the exotic, the fine and the wondrous. For two
hours, the 18th century of the French upper crust bloomed
in hothouse splendor, gently and skillfully coaxed into being
by the New York Baroque Dance Company. Suddenly we were in
the company of Watteau and Fragonard, where golden creatures
bobbed and curtsied with unhurried ease as though carried
on currents of air. The evening sped by."
-- MARGARET PUTNAM, THE DALLAS MORNING
NEWS
Masterpieces of 18th Century at the Boston Early Music
Festival:
"Catherine Turocy dances the Baroque repertoire as her
birthright. It shows in the hauteur of her shoulders, the
perfectly proportioned curliques of her gloved wrists, the
special way she inscribes the lines of a minuet or bourée
in the air so that the shape of the dance lingers behind her
hooped petticoats as if drawn in colored chalks."
-- DEBRA CASH, THE BOSTON GLOBE
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