PRESS
Dance Gotham @ The Skirball
Oberon's Grove (Philip Gardner)
January 13, 2014
“Transparent Walls ... was just about perfect in every respect. Aleksandra Vrebalov's marvelous score laid the groundwork for the strikingly handsome choreography, a gorgeously rich movement vocabulary exploring visual polyphony with remarkable clarity. With port de bras sometimes suggesting flight, the dancers come and go from the lit space into the shadows; the simple act of walking takes on an air of mysterious destiny. Amidst the ever- shifting patterns of the ensemble, moments of tenderness emerge imbuing the active geometry of the piece with a poetic calm. Such contrasts, along with the overall sweep of the choreography, kept me thoroughly engrossed throughout the piece.” FULL REVIEW
Who Needs Melody When You’ve Got a Move On? Dusan Tynek Dance Theater Plays BAM Fisher
The New York Times (Brian Seibert)
September 5, 2013
“In the decade since the Czech-born choreographer Dušan Týnek founded a dance company in New York, he has earned a reputation for his imagination, his choreographic craft and his musicality. What’s most compelling about Mr. Tynek’s phrases is how they work in chain reactions; his designs have a direction … “Romanesco Suite” … an exciting premiere … demonstrates enough rhythmic sense to forgo music successfully … “Stereopsis” also exhibits Mr. Tynek’s talents … the choreography generates terrific gyroscopic force … Tynek’s depth as an artist can be best sensed in how he moves bodies.” FULL REVIEW
Dušan Týnek Talks About His BAM Fisher Debut
Time Out New York (Gia Kourlas)
August 29, 2013
“As contemporary choreographers go, Dušan Týnek is a rare breed: He likes music. He has a dance company. For his season at the BAM Fisher, he celebrates his troupe’s tenth anniversary. But this year, he is scrapping music to explore the potential of rhythms found in the body.” FULL PREVIEW
The Czech-born choreographer’s arresting new ‘Romanesco Suite’ finds drama in abstraction
Financial Times London (By Apollinaire Scherr)
September 5, 2013
“Almost as soon as his eight-member company debuted a decade ago, Dušan Týnek was exciting critics. The Czech-born New Yorker honoured perennial virtues that tend to get lost in young choreographers’ rush to make a mark: structure, shape and musicality, or, in other words, dancing and its shepherding into a dance. Ten years on, he has justified his considerable gifts… In the terrific premiere Romanesco Suite, the drama lies in the abstract: patterns peppered with accident and unfurled in variations.. Týnek has already discovered how to combine story and steps without them cancelling each other out. For 2010’s masterly Base Pairs, he instituted a separation of powers. Polutanovich’s evocative erotic love poem, which Childs read on tape with the eerie impassivity of Laurie Anderson, existed on one plane. The angular steps, the disarmingly novel entanglements of couples, the eruptions of stillness, occurred on another. Ragged with feeling, the poem spoke to the individual. Prismatic and stark, the dancing emerged from far away to convey the whole picture, and how beautiful it was.” FULL REVIEW
Dušan Týnek Dance Theatre
EyeOnDance (Mary Seidman + Jennifer Thompson)
September 6, 2013
“Dušan Týnek and his eight member company, Dušan Týnek Dance Theatre, convinced the public of his ascending stature in the modern dance scene of New York during the Opening Night performance of his 10th anniversary season ... Týnek sets up a theme... this time of spatial pathways and movements at the outset, then explores the many possible configurations to completion with his versatile and facile dancers ... expressing in dance and voice what words can never say: the inexplicable mystery of life and experience.” FULL REVIEWS
Czech Dušan Týnek Plays Complex Dance Games
Gay City News (Gus Solomons Jr)
September 6, 2013
“Dušan Týnek is a young Czech-born choreographer whose eponymous Dance Theatre, founded in 2003, has attracted goodly attention … Týnek’s choreography is extremely rhythmical .. he is skilled at moving dancers through space, clever at twisting old steps to new purposes, and thorough in details of production … Týnek knows how to make athletic, even exhilarating movement motifs”
Inside and Outside Perspectives on Dusan Tynek’s Stereopsis at BAM: Interview with Dancer Emily Gayeski
DIY Dancer (Candice Thompson)
September 17, 2013
"a world in which any obstacle can be surmounted and humans move in concert with each other ... We are so bound by the structure of the meter that I can only find the humanity in the intensity of looking into the faces of my fellow dancers. The amount of focus this requires is so great... " FULL INTERVIEW
Dušan Týnek Dance Theatre
New Yorker – Goings On About Town: Dance
September 2013
The two premières and one repertory work in this tenth-anniversary season share an interest in the tension between science and myth. Less typically for this talented choreographer, the pieces in the program are accompanied by footfalls and voices instead of music. “Stereopsis” addresses depth perception with a spoken-word text reimagining Homer’s story of Cyclops. In “Romanesco Suite,” the subject is fractals and homunculi; the score, cicada songs captured earlier this year. “Base Pairs,” from 2010, sets evolutionary theory against creationism to the ticking of a metronome and a recording of Lucinda Childs.
Dušan Týnek Dance Theatre in Rehearsal
Oberon's Grove (Philip Gardner)
September 2013
"Dušan's choreography is organic, mythic, stylized, quirky and ritualistic - all at once. I really enjoyed watching his excellent troupe of dancers, each of them injecting a unique personality into the movement." FULL PREVIEW
Three for One
ArtsJournal (Deborah Jowitt)
June 2013
"a very musical choreographer ... I greatly admire how warmly Tynek’s dancers respond to one another and the space around ... big, musical, full-bodied dancing ... beauty abounded"FULL REVIEW
The Impulse at Its Purest, Racing Anew
The New York Times (Alastair Macaulay)
June 2013
"The most interesting moments of Mr. Tynek’s dances ... are when he breaks away from symmetry, conventional musicality and politely orthodox male-female couplings. When "Widow’s Walk," though geometrically very ordered, starts to show the ways in which its men and women are in different zones and moods, it breaks ...into real drama. " FULL REVIEW
Abstract dance ensemble performs eclectic repertoire
The Lamron (Jennie Conway)
October 2012
FULL REVIEW
Dance About Quarries Debuts on Stage at Quarry
Gloucester Times (Gail McCarthy)
August 2012
PREVIEW
Hope Mohr Dance and Dušan Týnek Dance Theatre
Scene4Magazine (Catherine Conway Honig)
April 2012
"demanding and detailed technique is clear … brilliant … dance with great technical mastery and an inspired sense of ensemble" FULL REVIEW
Hope Mohr Dance and Dušan Týnek Dance Theatre
Dance Commentary (Heather Desaulniers)
March 2012
"a very independent and individual method of movement ... constant rebounding of physicality from place to place - beautiful constant motion ... dynamic range, shifting from stillness to slow adagio sequences all the way to brisk, feisty allegros ... absolutely no borders and no containment." FULL REVIEW
Týnek Travels Cross-Country
Dance Magazine
March 2012
"Praised for his intelligent and inventive dancemaking, Týnek makes his West Coast debut [as part of] Hope Mohr Dance's Bridge Project" FULL REVIEW
Dušan Týnek Dance Theatre: Music to My Eyes
WNET: SundayArts Blog (Susan Yung)
November 10, 2011
"the show with live musicians underscored the interplay that can take place between the dancers and musicians that seems to heighten the level of every emotion expressed, and as a result, draws the audience in more closely ... [ETHEL] plays with ferocity and spontaneity, and with such volume that it becomes a visceral experience, and yet Tynek’s choreography was not overshadowed by the dynamic ensemble. He creates smart, substantial dance phrases (more of a rarity than you might imagine) that are strongly structured and that use every available entrance/exit in clever ways to move his impressive, daring dancers around." FULL REVIEW
Promises, Promises
Seeing Things/www.artsjournal.com (Tobi Tobias)
November 7, 2011
"Dušan Týnek' s second program, recently at Tribeca PAC, made me wonder why the standing of this marvelous choreographer hasn't graduated from "promising" to top-of-the-line. If he were working for a big institutionalized company like ABT or New York City Ballet, he might blow contenders like Brian Reeder and even Benjamin Millepied off the map ... many a dance writer has noted his gifts: imagination and originality, first of all; then, a seemingly inborn command of structure; an uncanny ability to make movement express emotion and atmosphere; and a dance vocabulary that bonds classical and modern techniques in a way that seems natural, not studied or just plain awkward." FULL REVIEW
Need Live Music or Not? Well, Why Not Try Both
The New York Times (Brian Seibert)
November 4, 2011
"this week’s terrific premiere, “Portals,” [was] striking [with a] high level of invention ... Live music doesn’t always improve a dance. For some choreographers, live musicians are expensively irrelevant to their work or threateningly distracting. Dušan Týnek is not one of those choreographers. The participation of the string quartet Ethel in the second program of his company’s two-week run at the TriBeCa Performing Arts Center made for an especially vibrant Thursday night." FULL REVIEW
The Sea That Gives, and Takes Away
The New York Times (Brian Seibert)
October 31, 2011
“It is a sign of the skill, range and taste of the Czech-born choreographer Dušan Týnek that a new dance of his will often recall the work of a great choreographer ... Mr. Tynek's musicality was especially clear in Fleur-de-lis ... evocative ... beautiful abstraction of religious imagery, rich in cantilevered balances. The transition into the final "Resurrection" segment turns the act of sleeping into dance with uncommon poetry. At several points "Fleur-de-lis" attends to the music’s slower, harmonic rhythm, stopping in poses as the melody runs quick. The effect is that of locks in a powerful river, channeling its flow." FULL REVIEW
Dance Listings
The New York Times (Roslyn Sulcas)
October 28, 2011
"It’s a packed week for dance, but it’s well worth carving out an evening to see one of the programs from Dusan Tynek, a Czech-born choreographer now living in New York. Mr. Tynek is a talent who seems to be waiting for his big moment; he has a gift for creating inventive, luscious movement and an instinct for theatrical effect. The first program this weekend offers the new “Widow’s Walk” as well as “Middlegame” and “Fleur-de-lis.” The second program offers another new piece, “Portals,” which explores ideas around immigration and which will be accompanied by the string quartet Ethel." FULL REVIEW
Goings On About Town
The New Yorker
October 24, 2011
"A former Lucinda Childs dancer, Týnek shares his mentor’s interest in clean, continually shifting patterns, as well as a style that can be described as loosely balletic, but with the grounded quality of modern dance. He also has a taste for Baroque and contemporary classical music. In his two-week season, Týnek’s company will offer two programs that include repertory pieces and two new works, 'Widow’s Walk' and 'Portals.' The string quartet Ethel, which specializes in contemporary music, will provide accompaniment for the second program." FULL REVIEW
Dance Now Heralds the Fall
The Village Voice (Deborah Jowitt)
September 15, 2010
“Dusan Tynek [is a] fine craftsman - expert at melding choreographic structure, movement, and spatial design to imply feeling and relationships ... chooses excellent music and uses it well ... A quartet from Tynek’s Middlegame makes we wish I’d seen the full work back in June. Two couples—one dressed in white, one in black underwear—wrangle and switch mates mostly within the confines of four chairs set up in a square. Their ingenious behavior varies from polite and well-bred to guardedly violent, while the guitar playing of the great Carlos Paredes and Parrish’s red-lit sky heats the atmosphere to a sensuous simmer.”
The Crowd Was Pleased
Attitude (Pat Catterson)
Fall 2010
"The most choreographically sophisticated work on the program was Dušan Týnek’s “Fleur-de-lis.” Not only was he more inventive in his movement and rhythms than the other two artists, but also he could create transitions that were part of the fabric of the dance rather than filler runs and walks. He also chose challenging music, three ecstatically beautiful violin pieces by Heinrich Ignaz Franz von Biber, and he met that invitation with skill and sensitivity ... It is refreshing to see a choreographer today who still relishes beautiful and complex step making and invests in defining its particulars.” FULL REVIEW
Action on the Stage Imprinted on the Eye
The New York Times (Roslyn Sulcas)
June 3, 2010
"Mr. Tynek showed a remarkable capacity for creating tightly structured dance worlds, inhabited by ingenious, surprising movement invention ... the work is marvelous ... Mr. Tynek is an undoubted talent, a choreographer who seems fascinated by movement itself and the strange, subtle ways in which it communicates strange, subtle things." FULL REVIEW
Goings On About Town
The New Yorker (Brian Seibert)
May 28, 2010
"a mad party in Victorian undergarments ... the internal designs thrill with lovely detail and ingenious mayhem." FULL REVIEW
Dance Listing
The New York Times (Roslyn Sulcas)
May 28, 2010
"Dusan Tynek has a gift for creating improbable movement and formal, architectural structure. He is also musically acute and interested in choreographing to music, which makes him something of an anomaly in contemporary dance circles." FULL REVIEW
September 11 and Beyond
offoffoff.com (Quinn Batson)
September 14, 2009
"Dusan Tynek Dance Theatre: Middlegame - always worth watching and often surprising, his mixture of music, movement and pageant is unique, with vivid partnering and group tableaux" FULL REVIEW
Moving Forward, With Nods to the Past
The New York Times (Roslyn Sulcas)
October 31, 2008
"And the sheer-enjoyment-of-dancing prize goes to an excerpt from Dusan Tynek’s rambunctious 'Apian Way,' set to Bach’s Violin Sonata No. 3 in C. Busy as bees (apparently the inspiration for the dance), three men rush about bumping chests, lifting one another and generally frolicking. And why not?" FULL REVIEW
Social Bees Fluttering to Bach's Sonatas
The New York Times (Gia Kourlas)
June 14, 2008
"The Czech choreographer Dusan Tynek is a bit of an anomaly nowadays: he makes dances, formal ones, set to Baroque music that burst with leaps, turns and lifts ... Both ['Apian Way' and 'Fleur-de-lis'] are striking for their architectural rigor and fervid movement invention ... He has only seven bodies, including his own, at his disposal, but Mr. Tynek is the rare choreographer whose vision would soar with a dozen more." FULL REVIEW
Audience Review
Mount Tremper Arts Blog (Valerie Linet)
August 18, 2008
"In both pieces there was a commitment from the dancers to connect with one another and the audience in such a concentrated way over an extended period of time with a clear and conscious ability to express story and emotion ... I was so moved by the strength, control, expressiveness, and forms of the dancers’ bodies, that I figured they must all be divine and I was the mortal who had encountered them." FULL REVIEW
Tynek's Busy Bees
InfiniteBody (Eva Yaa Asantewaa)
June 16, 2008
"well-crafted, expert movement ... it is perhaps the blending of his dancers’ humble humanity and their bee-like energy, moves and clusterings – arranged with Týnek’s sharp vision – that give the work its power to touch the heart." FULL REVIEW
Good Buzz: Dusan Tynek Dance Theatre Follow the Apian Way
OffOffOff.com (Quinn Batson)
June 20, 2008
"Apian Way is a delight ... there are many interesting soft-collapsing movements and partnerings mixed with swinging-arm synchronous moments, all flowing together so steadily that the viewer is left with a buoyant feeling as much as a visual memory." FULL REVIEW
Goings On About Town - Dusan Tynek Dance Theatre
The New Yorker (Brian Seibert)
June 16, 2008
“'Apian Way' ... seems larger than its cast of seven (which includes Týnek). It’s full of breath and Baroque joy, its balleticized folk-dance patterns and daisy chains tweaked by quirky spasms, stutters, and flutters that play with the theme of bee life. 'Fleur-de-Lis' [is a] striking composition of religious imagery ..." FULL REVIEW
Dusan Tynek, Kosile and Scenes - Open Look 2007 (in translation)
be-in magazine (Alisa Kustikova)
July 16, 2007
“The spectator can not help but feel that he is attending some sort of sacred event. For he is. Dusan Tynek Dance Theatre is plastique theater, in the fullest sense of the term, where it is possible to trace lines of the plot and the character of heroes as revealed through the unusual talents of the choreographer.” FULL REVIEW
Passion for Seeing What the Body Can Do
The New York Times (Roslyn Sulcas)
April 28, 2007
“Dusan Tynek’s 'Fleur-de-lis' is a beautiful work, full of poetry and surprise ... a cascade of haunting moments that seem perfectly in accord with the music ... Mr. Tynek has a gift for creating movement that looks physically impossible; men cantilever off the women’s bodies; a woman floats away from a man, her legs flying out behind her. He also makes beautifully architectural dance, often weaving a diagonal line of dancers through a vertical one, and he has an acute musical sensibility evinced in a strangely effective stop-and-start section to the surging violin in 'Resurrection.'" FULL REVIEW
"New Virtuosity": Downtown Puts on its Dancing Shoes
Ballet-Dance Magazine (Cecly Placenti)
April 27, 2007
"The kinetic poetry of Dusan Tynek Dance Theatre draws on an athletic lyricism and smart design ... there is much of the classical style in Tynek's work, but only enough to be refined, to serve the propulsion into the new." FULL REVIEW
Connect the Dots:Choreographer with a painterly eye deconstructs
The Village Voice (Deborah Jowitt)
March 19, 2007
"[in the] striking new Fleur-de-lis [and] wonderfully resonant Kosile ... Týnek has excellent musical taste and a powerful sense of the pictorial. Elegantly designed, often surprising groupings and encounters are his strong suit ... I'm impressed by how skillfully Týnek and the performers ... weave the dancing to produce rich images of community life." FULL REVIEW
Command Performance: Tynek Casts a Demi-Spell
The Dance Insider (Alison D'Amato)
March 15, 2007
"The force of Tynek's movement lies in a particular clarity of shape and intention, with the dancers' bodies evoking the concrete and architectural. The movement phrases are strong and specific, and often call on the performers to approach each other in the service of some exhilarating moments of partnering." FULL REVIEW
Flower Form
Attitude (Lori Ortiz)
June 1, 2007
“Tynek's contemporary dancers recall early concepts of the body, as in his acclaimed 'The Pink Tree'... and the totality of dance and cultural history ... sophisticated, thought-provoking, and appealing ... Tynek's Old World sensibility feels refreshing and different as it's presented in our fast-paced urban environment." FULL REVIEW
New Life Can Arise in Old Happy Endings
The New York Times (Jennifer Dunning)
December 24, 2006
"Here are five of the year’s contributors of illuminating wonder ... The forthrightness of Dusan Tynek’s choreography in a performance by his company at Dance Theater Workshop in July brought Mark Morris to mind. But Mr. Tynek’s powerful “Kosile,” inspired by a collection of ballads by the 19th-century Czech poet Karel Jaromir Erben, created and inhabited a dark yet almost funny world of its own, in a shifting field of men in white wedding shirts and women passing red lilies from mouth to mouth."
FULL REVIEW
Stirred by Old Folk Tales, a Troupe Offers Up a Fresh Breeze
The New York Times (Jennifer Dunning)
July 17, 2006
"the terrific Dusan Tynek Dance Theater swept through Dance Theater Workshop ... like a cool breeze in a parched landscape ... [Tynek's] powerful new 'Kosile' is entirely his own, though a few fleeting moments had the shadowed urgency of the Antony Tudor classic, 'Dark Elegies' ... fascinating choreographic vocabulary and imagination." FULL REVIEW
Process and Product
Gay City News (Brian McCormick)
July 7, 2006
"kinetic, poetic, appealing, and smartly designed ... the work is remarkable and the dancers exceptional ... a superb ensemble." FULL REVIEW
The Dusan Tynek Dance Theater
Eyeondance (Celia Ipiotis)
July 17, 2006
“Solid choreography … which draws on an athletic lyricism and a spunky folk dance sensibility … logic always surrounds objects in motion and clever logic guides his smart, clean dances. [Týnek] is a choreographer to watch." FULL REVIEW
Dusan Tynek
Danceviewtimes (Susan Reiter)
July 16, 2006
"ingenious and clever ... clarity of vision and an overlay of luminous melancholy were evident in the two substantial world premieres." FULL REVIEW
Works Onstage Are Pictures in the Flesh
The New York Times (Jack Anderson)
December 7, 2004
"Týnek's choreographic flights of fancy [are] alluring ... fascinating ... powerful." FULL REVIEW
Choreography on a Canvas
Gay City News (Lori Ortiz)
December 16, 2004
"Learn to say Dušan Týnek. You may see this .... choreographer's name in lights. With a range of talents and choreographic tools ... [Týnek] is not afraid to dance with the masters. He is one of the few choreographers today working with plastique like Ashton did." FULL REVIEW
A Sampler of the New Season Offers a Couple of Must-See-More-Ofs
The Village Voice (Tobi Tobias)
October 12, 2004
"The Pink Tree [is] astutely constructed and beautifully danced ... of 85 choreographers [at the 2004 Dancenow/NYC Festival], Dušan Týnek stood out for his skill at implying feelings through movement." FULL REVIEW
Reflections
Ina Hahn, Director of the Windhover Center
December 2004
"Dušan re-invents the language ... of modern dance ... with ingenious combinations and resolutions ... dynamic changes are everywhere ... and lifts don’t happen except from necessity, from deep arousal or ecstasy. Dušan has broken the rules ... within a well worked-out structure, and with a knowledge of what [he] was breaking and why. Dušan is a brilliant and promising young choreographer, who has a rich knowledge of the art (art and music and theater) of Western civilization - something much needed if the art of dance if it is to continue to flourish and be taken seriously. He raids the past in order to re-invent it as Bartok did with Bach ... he is the Bartok of dance — much as Humphrey was the Bach of dance."
Curiosity Follows a Choreographer’s Debut
The New York Times (Jack Anderson)
December 13, 2003
"striking ... inventive ... musically bewitched." FULL REVIEW
Succumbing to Glimpses of a Poet's Soul and a Closet
The Village Voice (Tobi Tobias)
December 10, 2003
"luminous with imagination ... filled with vision, charm and wit ... art that preserves uncorrupted the poetic fantasies of childhood." FULL REVIEW
Letter from New York
The DanceView Times (Mindy Aloff)
December 8, 2003
"[Pilot's Dream] is more than ingenious or neatly shaped: it’s a beautiful, ranging epic, filled with dramatic surprise and expertly shaped choreographic events ... Pilot’s Dream announces a choreographer with a future to which one looks forward, in a time and a place where so many other hopes for the art of modern dance seem end-stopped ... [Týnek is] a dance poet, and a very rare one." FULL REVIEW
Oberon's Grove (Philip Gardner)
January 13, 2014
“Transparent Walls ... was just about perfect in every respect. Aleksandra Vrebalov's marvelous score laid the groundwork for the strikingly handsome choreography, a gorgeously rich movement vocabulary exploring visual polyphony with remarkable clarity. With port de bras sometimes suggesting flight, the dancers come and go from the lit space into the shadows; the simple act of walking takes on an air of mysterious destiny. Amidst the ever- shifting patterns of the ensemble, moments of tenderness emerge imbuing the active geometry of the piece with a poetic calm. Such contrasts, along with the overall sweep of the choreography, kept me thoroughly engrossed throughout the piece.” FULL REVIEW
Who Needs Melody When You’ve Got a Move On? Dusan Tynek Dance Theater Plays BAM Fisher
The New York Times (Brian Seibert)
September 5, 2013
“In the decade since the Czech-born choreographer Dušan Týnek founded a dance company in New York, he has earned a reputation for his imagination, his choreographic craft and his musicality. What’s most compelling about Mr. Tynek’s phrases is how they work in chain reactions; his designs have a direction … “Romanesco Suite” … an exciting premiere … demonstrates enough rhythmic sense to forgo music successfully … “Stereopsis” also exhibits Mr. Tynek’s talents … the choreography generates terrific gyroscopic force … Tynek’s depth as an artist can be best sensed in how he moves bodies.” FULL REVIEW
Dušan Týnek Talks About His BAM Fisher Debut
Time Out New York (Gia Kourlas)
August 29, 2013
“As contemporary choreographers go, Dušan Týnek is a rare breed: He likes music. He has a dance company. For his season at the BAM Fisher, he celebrates his troupe’s tenth anniversary. But this year, he is scrapping music to explore the potential of rhythms found in the body.” FULL PREVIEW
The Czech-born choreographer’s arresting new ‘Romanesco Suite’ finds drama in abstraction
Financial Times London (By Apollinaire Scherr)
September 5, 2013
“Almost as soon as his eight-member company debuted a decade ago, Dušan Týnek was exciting critics. The Czech-born New Yorker honoured perennial virtues that tend to get lost in young choreographers’ rush to make a mark: structure, shape and musicality, or, in other words, dancing and its shepherding into a dance. Ten years on, he has justified his considerable gifts… In the terrific premiere Romanesco Suite, the drama lies in the abstract: patterns peppered with accident and unfurled in variations.. Týnek has already discovered how to combine story and steps without them cancelling each other out. For 2010’s masterly Base Pairs, he instituted a separation of powers. Polutanovich’s evocative erotic love poem, which Childs read on tape with the eerie impassivity of Laurie Anderson, existed on one plane. The angular steps, the disarmingly novel entanglements of couples, the eruptions of stillness, occurred on another. Ragged with feeling, the poem spoke to the individual. Prismatic and stark, the dancing emerged from far away to convey the whole picture, and how beautiful it was.” FULL REVIEW
Dušan Týnek Dance Theatre
EyeOnDance (Mary Seidman + Jennifer Thompson)
September 6, 2013
“Dušan Týnek and his eight member company, Dušan Týnek Dance Theatre, convinced the public of his ascending stature in the modern dance scene of New York during the Opening Night performance of his 10th anniversary season ... Týnek sets up a theme... this time of spatial pathways and movements at the outset, then explores the many possible configurations to completion with his versatile and facile dancers ... expressing in dance and voice what words can never say: the inexplicable mystery of life and experience.” FULL REVIEWS
Czech Dušan Týnek Plays Complex Dance Games
Gay City News (Gus Solomons Jr)
September 6, 2013
“Dušan Týnek is a young Czech-born choreographer whose eponymous Dance Theatre, founded in 2003, has attracted goodly attention … Týnek’s choreography is extremely rhythmical .. he is skilled at moving dancers through space, clever at twisting old steps to new purposes, and thorough in details of production … Týnek knows how to make athletic, even exhilarating movement motifs”
Inside and Outside Perspectives on Dusan Tynek’s Stereopsis at BAM: Interview with Dancer Emily Gayeski
DIY Dancer (Candice Thompson)
September 17, 2013
"a world in which any obstacle can be surmounted and humans move in concert with each other ... We are so bound by the structure of the meter that I can only find the humanity in the intensity of looking into the faces of my fellow dancers. The amount of focus this requires is so great... " FULL INTERVIEW
Dušan Týnek Dance Theatre
New Yorker – Goings On About Town: Dance
September 2013
The two premières and one repertory work in this tenth-anniversary season share an interest in the tension between science and myth. Less typically for this talented choreographer, the pieces in the program are accompanied by footfalls and voices instead of music. “Stereopsis” addresses depth perception with a spoken-word text reimagining Homer’s story of Cyclops. In “Romanesco Suite,” the subject is fractals and homunculi; the score, cicada songs captured earlier this year. “Base Pairs,” from 2010, sets evolutionary theory against creationism to the ticking of a metronome and a recording of Lucinda Childs.
Dušan Týnek Dance Theatre in Rehearsal
Oberon's Grove (Philip Gardner)
September 2013
"Dušan's choreography is organic, mythic, stylized, quirky and ritualistic - all at once. I really enjoyed watching his excellent troupe of dancers, each of them injecting a unique personality into the movement." FULL PREVIEW
Three for One
ArtsJournal (Deborah Jowitt)
June 2013
"a very musical choreographer ... I greatly admire how warmly Tynek’s dancers respond to one another and the space around ... big, musical, full-bodied dancing ... beauty abounded"FULL REVIEW
The Impulse at Its Purest, Racing Anew
The New York Times (Alastair Macaulay)
June 2013
"The most interesting moments of Mr. Tynek’s dances ... are when he breaks away from symmetry, conventional musicality and politely orthodox male-female couplings. When "Widow’s Walk," though geometrically very ordered, starts to show the ways in which its men and women are in different zones and moods, it breaks ...into real drama. " FULL REVIEW
Abstract dance ensemble performs eclectic repertoire
The Lamron (Jennie Conway)
October 2012
FULL REVIEW
Dance About Quarries Debuts on Stage at Quarry
Gloucester Times (Gail McCarthy)
August 2012
PREVIEW
Hope Mohr Dance and Dušan Týnek Dance Theatre
Scene4Magazine (Catherine Conway Honig)
April 2012
"demanding and detailed technique is clear … brilliant … dance with great technical mastery and an inspired sense of ensemble" FULL REVIEW
Hope Mohr Dance and Dušan Týnek Dance Theatre
Dance Commentary (Heather Desaulniers)
March 2012
"a very independent and individual method of movement ... constant rebounding of physicality from place to place - beautiful constant motion ... dynamic range, shifting from stillness to slow adagio sequences all the way to brisk, feisty allegros ... absolutely no borders and no containment." FULL REVIEW
Týnek Travels Cross-Country
Dance Magazine
March 2012
"Praised for his intelligent and inventive dancemaking, Týnek makes his West Coast debut [as part of] Hope Mohr Dance's Bridge Project" FULL REVIEW
Dušan Týnek Dance Theatre: Music to My Eyes
WNET: SundayArts Blog (Susan Yung)
November 10, 2011
"the show with live musicians underscored the interplay that can take place between the dancers and musicians that seems to heighten the level of every emotion expressed, and as a result, draws the audience in more closely ... [ETHEL] plays with ferocity and spontaneity, and with such volume that it becomes a visceral experience, and yet Tynek’s choreography was not overshadowed by the dynamic ensemble. He creates smart, substantial dance phrases (more of a rarity than you might imagine) that are strongly structured and that use every available entrance/exit in clever ways to move his impressive, daring dancers around." FULL REVIEW
Promises, Promises
Seeing Things/www.artsjournal.com (Tobi Tobias)
November 7, 2011
"Dušan Týnek' s second program, recently at Tribeca PAC, made me wonder why the standing of this marvelous choreographer hasn't graduated from "promising" to top-of-the-line. If he were working for a big institutionalized company like ABT or New York City Ballet, he might blow contenders like Brian Reeder and even Benjamin Millepied off the map ... many a dance writer has noted his gifts: imagination and originality, first of all; then, a seemingly inborn command of structure; an uncanny ability to make movement express emotion and atmosphere; and a dance vocabulary that bonds classical and modern techniques in a way that seems natural, not studied or just plain awkward." FULL REVIEW
Need Live Music or Not? Well, Why Not Try Both
The New York Times (Brian Seibert)
November 4, 2011
"this week’s terrific premiere, “Portals,” [was] striking [with a] high level of invention ... Live music doesn’t always improve a dance. For some choreographers, live musicians are expensively irrelevant to their work or threateningly distracting. Dušan Týnek is not one of those choreographers. The participation of the string quartet Ethel in the second program of his company’s two-week run at the TriBeCa Performing Arts Center made for an especially vibrant Thursday night." FULL REVIEW
The Sea That Gives, and Takes Away
The New York Times (Brian Seibert)
October 31, 2011
“It is a sign of the skill, range and taste of the Czech-born choreographer Dušan Týnek that a new dance of his will often recall the work of a great choreographer ... Mr. Tynek's musicality was especially clear in Fleur-de-lis ... evocative ... beautiful abstraction of religious imagery, rich in cantilevered balances. The transition into the final "Resurrection" segment turns the act of sleeping into dance with uncommon poetry. At several points "Fleur-de-lis" attends to the music’s slower, harmonic rhythm, stopping in poses as the melody runs quick. The effect is that of locks in a powerful river, channeling its flow." FULL REVIEW
Dance Listings
The New York Times (Roslyn Sulcas)
October 28, 2011
"It’s a packed week for dance, but it’s well worth carving out an evening to see one of the programs from Dusan Tynek, a Czech-born choreographer now living in New York. Mr. Tynek is a talent who seems to be waiting for his big moment; he has a gift for creating inventive, luscious movement and an instinct for theatrical effect. The first program this weekend offers the new “Widow’s Walk” as well as “Middlegame” and “Fleur-de-lis.” The second program offers another new piece, “Portals,” which explores ideas around immigration and which will be accompanied by the string quartet Ethel." FULL REVIEW
Goings On About Town
The New Yorker
October 24, 2011
"A former Lucinda Childs dancer, Týnek shares his mentor’s interest in clean, continually shifting patterns, as well as a style that can be described as loosely balletic, but with the grounded quality of modern dance. He also has a taste for Baroque and contemporary classical music. In his two-week season, Týnek’s company will offer two programs that include repertory pieces and two new works, 'Widow’s Walk' and 'Portals.' The string quartet Ethel, which specializes in contemporary music, will provide accompaniment for the second program." FULL REVIEW
Dance Now Heralds the Fall
The Village Voice (Deborah Jowitt)
September 15, 2010
“Dusan Tynek [is a] fine craftsman - expert at melding choreographic structure, movement, and spatial design to imply feeling and relationships ... chooses excellent music and uses it well ... A quartet from Tynek’s Middlegame makes we wish I’d seen the full work back in June. Two couples—one dressed in white, one in black underwear—wrangle and switch mates mostly within the confines of four chairs set up in a square. Their ingenious behavior varies from polite and well-bred to guardedly violent, while the guitar playing of the great Carlos Paredes and Parrish’s red-lit sky heats the atmosphere to a sensuous simmer.”
The Crowd Was Pleased
Attitude (Pat Catterson)
Fall 2010
"The most choreographically sophisticated work on the program was Dušan Týnek’s “Fleur-de-lis.” Not only was he more inventive in his movement and rhythms than the other two artists, but also he could create transitions that were part of the fabric of the dance rather than filler runs and walks. He also chose challenging music, three ecstatically beautiful violin pieces by Heinrich Ignaz Franz von Biber, and he met that invitation with skill and sensitivity ... It is refreshing to see a choreographer today who still relishes beautiful and complex step making and invests in defining its particulars.” FULL REVIEW
Action on the Stage Imprinted on the Eye
The New York Times (Roslyn Sulcas)
June 3, 2010
"Mr. Tynek showed a remarkable capacity for creating tightly structured dance worlds, inhabited by ingenious, surprising movement invention ... the work is marvelous ... Mr. Tynek is an undoubted talent, a choreographer who seems fascinated by movement itself and the strange, subtle ways in which it communicates strange, subtle things." FULL REVIEW
Goings On About Town
The New Yorker (Brian Seibert)
May 28, 2010
"a mad party in Victorian undergarments ... the internal designs thrill with lovely detail and ingenious mayhem." FULL REVIEW
Dance Listing
The New York Times (Roslyn Sulcas)
May 28, 2010
"Dusan Tynek has a gift for creating improbable movement and formal, architectural structure. He is also musically acute and interested in choreographing to music, which makes him something of an anomaly in contemporary dance circles." FULL REVIEW
September 11 and Beyond
offoffoff.com (Quinn Batson)
September 14, 2009
"Dusan Tynek Dance Theatre: Middlegame - always worth watching and often surprising, his mixture of music, movement and pageant is unique, with vivid partnering and group tableaux" FULL REVIEW
Moving Forward, With Nods to the Past
The New York Times (Roslyn Sulcas)
October 31, 2008
"And the sheer-enjoyment-of-dancing prize goes to an excerpt from Dusan Tynek’s rambunctious 'Apian Way,' set to Bach’s Violin Sonata No. 3 in C. Busy as bees (apparently the inspiration for the dance), three men rush about bumping chests, lifting one another and generally frolicking. And why not?" FULL REVIEW
Social Bees Fluttering to Bach's Sonatas
The New York Times (Gia Kourlas)
June 14, 2008
"The Czech choreographer Dusan Tynek is a bit of an anomaly nowadays: he makes dances, formal ones, set to Baroque music that burst with leaps, turns and lifts ... Both ['Apian Way' and 'Fleur-de-lis'] are striking for their architectural rigor and fervid movement invention ... He has only seven bodies, including his own, at his disposal, but Mr. Tynek is the rare choreographer whose vision would soar with a dozen more." FULL REVIEW
Audience Review
Mount Tremper Arts Blog (Valerie Linet)
August 18, 2008
"In both pieces there was a commitment from the dancers to connect with one another and the audience in such a concentrated way over an extended period of time with a clear and conscious ability to express story and emotion ... I was so moved by the strength, control, expressiveness, and forms of the dancers’ bodies, that I figured they must all be divine and I was the mortal who had encountered them." FULL REVIEW
Tynek's Busy Bees
InfiniteBody (Eva Yaa Asantewaa)
June 16, 2008
"well-crafted, expert movement ... it is perhaps the blending of his dancers’ humble humanity and their bee-like energy, moves and clusterings – arranged with Týnek’s sharp vision – that give the work its power to touch the heart." FULL REVIEW
Good Buzz: Dusan Tynek Dance Theatre Follow the Apian Way
OffOffOff.com (Quinn Batson)
June 20, 2008
"Apian Way is a delight ... there are many interesting soft-collapsing movements and partnerings mixed with swinging-arm synchronous moments, all flowing together so steadily that the viewer is left with a buoyant feeling as much as a visual memory." FULL REVIEW
Goings On About Town - Dusan Tynek Dance Theatre
The New Yorker (Brian Seibert)
June 16, 2008
“'Apian Way' ... seems larger than its cast of seven (which includes Týnek). It’s full of breath and Baroque joy, its balleticized folk-dance patterns and daisy chains tweaked by quirky spasms, stutters, and flutters that play with the theme of bee life. 'Fleur-de-Lis' [is a] striking composition of religious imagery ..." FULL REVIEW
Dusan Tynek, Kosile and Scenes - Open Look 2007 (in translation)
be-in magazine (Alisa Kustikova)
July 16, 2007
“The spectator can not help but feel that he is attending some sort of sacred event. For he is. Dusan Tynek Dance Theatre is plastique theater, in the fullest sense of the term, where it is possible to trace lines of the plot and the character of heroes as revealed through the unusual talents of the choreographer.” FULL REVIEW
Passion for Seeing What the Body Can Do
The New York Times (Roslyn Sulcas)
April 28, 2007
“Dusan Tynek’s 'Fleur-de-lis' is a beautiful work, full of poetry and surprise ... a cascade of haunting moments that seem perfectly in accord with the music ... Mr. Tynek has a gift for creating movement that looks physically impossible; men cantilever off the women’s bodies; a woman floats away from a man, her legs flying out behind her. He also makes beautifully architectural dance, often weaving a diagonal line of dancers through a vertical one, and he has an acute musical sensibility evinced in a strangely effective stop-and-start section to the surging violin in 'Resurrection.'" FULL REVIEW
"New Virtuosity": Downtown Puts on its Dancing Shoes
Ballet-Dance Magazine (Cecly Placenti)
April 27, 2007
"The kinetic poetry of Dusan Tynek Dance Theatre draws on an athletic lyricism and smart design ... there is much of the classical style in Tynek's work, but only enough to be refined, to serve the propulsion into the new." FULL REVIEW
Connect the Dots:Choreographer with a painterly eye deconstructs
The Village Voice (Deborah Jowitt)
March 19, 2007
"[in the] striking new Fleur-de-lis [and] wonderfully resonant Kosile ... Týnek has excellent musical taste and a powerful sense of the pictorial. Elegantly designed, often surprising groupings and encounters are his strong suit ... I'm impressed by how skillfully Týnek and the performers ... weave the dancing to produce rich images of community life." FULL REVIEW
Command Performance: Tynek Casts a Demi-Spell
The Dance Insider (Alison D'Amato)
March 15, 2007
"The force of Tynek's movement lies in a particular clarity of shape and intention, with the dancers' bodies evoking the concrete and architectural. The movement phrases are strong and specific, and often call on the performers to approach each other in the service of some exhilarating moments of partnering." FULL REVIEW
Flower Form
Attitude (Lori Ortiz)
June 1, 2007
“Tynek's contemporary dancers recall early concepts of the body, as in his acclaimed 'The Pink Tree'... and the totality of dance and cultural history ... sophisticated, thought-provoking, and appealing ... Tynek's Old World sensibility feels refreshing and different as it's presented in our fast-paced urban environment." FULL REVIEW
New Life Can Arise in Old Happy Endings
The New York Times (Jennifer Dunning)
December 24, 2006
"Here are five of the year’s contributors of illuminating wonder ... The forthrightness of Dusan Tynek’s choreography in a performance by his company at Dance Theater Workshop in July brought Mark Morris to mind. But Mr. Tynek’s powerful “Kosile,” inspired by a collection of ballads by the 19th-century Czech poet Karel Jaromir Erben, created and inhabited a dark yet almost funny world of its own, in a shifting field of men in white wedding shirts and women passing red lilies from mouth to mouth."
FULL REVIEW
Stirred by Old Folk Tales, a Troupe Offers Up a Fresh Breeze
The New York Times (Jennifer Dunning)
July 17, 2006
"the terrific Dusan Tynek Dance Theater swept through Dance Theater Workshop ... like a cool breeze in a parched landscape ... [Tynek's] powerful new 'Kosile' is entirely his own, though a few fleeting moments had the shadowed urgency of the Antony Tudor classic, 'Dark Elegies' ... fascinating choreographic vocabulary and imagination." FULL REVIEW
Process and Product
Gay City News (Brian McCormick)
July 7, 2006
"kinetic, poetic, appealing, and smartly designed ... the work is remarkable and the dancers exceptional ... a superb ensemble." FULL REVIEW
The Dusan Tynek Dance Theater
Eyeondance (Celia Ipiotis)
July 17, 2006
“Solid choreography … which draws on an athletic lyricism and a spunky folk dance sensibility … logic always surrounds objects in motion and clever logic guides his smart, clean dances. [Týnek] is a choreographer to watch." FULL REVIEW
Dusan Tynek
Danceviewtimes (Susan Reiter)
July 16, 2006
"ingenious and clever ... clarity of vision and an overlay of luminous melancholy were evident in the two substantial world premieres." FULL REVIEW
Works Onstage Are Pictures in the Flesh
The New York Times (Jack Anderson)
December 7, 2004
"Týnek's choreographic flights of fancy [are] alluring ... fascinating ... powerful." FULL REVIEW
Choreography on a Canvas
Gay City News (Lori Ortiz)
December 16, 2004
"Learn to say Dušan Týnek. You may see this .... choreographer's name in lights. With a range of talents and choreographic tools ... [Týnek] is not afraid to dance with the masters. He is one of the few choreographers today working with plastique like Ashton did." FULL REVIEW
A Sampler of the New Season Offers a Couple of Must-See-More-Ofs
The Village Voice (Tobi Tobias)
October 12, 2004
"The Pink Tree [is] astutely constructed and beautifully danced ... of 85 choreographers [at the 2004 Dancenow/NYC Festival], Dušan Týnek stood out for his skill at implying feelings through movement." FULL REVIEW
Reflections
Ina Hahn, Director of the Windhover Center
December 2004
"Dušan re-invents the language ... of modern dance ... with ingenious combinations and resolutions ... dynamic changes are everywhere ... and lifts don’t happen except from necessity, from deep arousal or ecstasy. Dušan has broken the rules ... within a well worked-out structure, and with a knowledge of what [he] was breaking and why. Dušan is a brilliant and promising young choreographer, who has a rich knowledge of the art (art and music and theater) of Western civilization - something much needed if the art of dance if it is to continue to flourish and be taken seriously. He raids the past in order to re-invent it as Bartok did with Bach ... he is the Bartok of dance — much as Humphrey was the Bach of dance."
Curiosity Follows a Choreographer’s Debut
The New York Times (Jack Anderson)
December 13, 2003
"striking ... inventive ... musically bewitched." FULL REVIEW
Succumbing to Glimpses of a Poet's Soul and a Closet
The Village Voice (Tobi Tobias)
December 10, 2003
"luminous with imagination ... filled with vision, charm and wit ... art that preserves uncorrupted the poetic fantasies of childhood." FULL REVIEW
Letter from New York
The DanceView Times (Mindy Aloff)
December 8, 2003
"[Pilot's Dream] is more than ingenious or neatly shaped: it’s a beautiful, ranging epic, filled with dramatic surprise and expertly shaped choreographic events ... Pilot’s Dream announces a choreographer with a future to which one looks forward, in a time and a place where so many other hopes for the art of modern dance seem end-stopped ... [Týnek is] a dance poet, and a very rare one." FULL REVIEW
