Get Your Kicks  At Improvisation Festival/NY, extreme virtuosity
of body and psyche knocks you out. On a bill at Danspace
Project, Darrel Jones and Jeremy Wade in Shits Creek were
preternaturally articulate action figures—cartoonish, rubbery,
possibly trapped in the backpack of a delirious child. At the
start of The Beloved Dance (Phrases and Chi Improvisations),
Sara Shelton Mann channeled and updated Isadora for 2001,
tossing limbs and hair to an atmospheric drone. You could see
shackles shattering. Her partner Abby Crain unpacked a shoulder
bag, and Mann played solitaire with a bunch of credit cards that
made satisfying clicks on the floor. The taped text pretty much
flew past my ears—save for the word cheesecake. Silent moments
in Scratch (with a deft, sensitive ensemble of six including
Kirstie Simson and John Jasperse) suggested that sometimes less
data to process means more depth to savor.—Eva Yaa Asantewaa
Nine-year-old Vera joined me for the famed Rockettes at Radio
City Music Hall, where the Christ