P R E S S
Best Dance of 2009.
At Danspace Project, Sound Memory was a happy surprise: a rigorous work for three dancers that started with the notion of a mixtape—as in, the now-ancient audiocassette. It created an evocative world of dance theater about memory and imagination.
- Time Out New York
"Julian Barnett’s “Wooden Heart,” a premiere, was also compelling... the dance highlighted Mr. Barnett’s affinity for peering into cool, ambiguous relationships and displaying both tension and vulnerability."
- New York Times
”In the past few years Mr. Barnett has begun spooling out choreography, constructing elegant, spare works in which stillness and violence (emotional, but also of bucking spines and whiplash bodies) share equal, uneasy time."
- New York Times
"Judging by his accomplished new dance, “Sound Memory,” Julian Barnett was once an obsessive maker of mix tapes. He does more than scratch the surface of sound and memory before the age of digitization. Mr. Barnett has found a reason not just to dance, but also to make dances, and in doing so he’s cultivated a potent sound memory for the present."
- New York Times
“Barnett is adept at converting the incidental into the momentous.”
- New York Times
“A clear glimpse into an enticingly familiar world.”
- New York Times
“Haunting…thin line between togetherness and dependence, control and caring…takes poignancy to nearly the breaking point.”
- The Boston Globe
"Julian Barnett is a terrific dancer—small and powerful, nimble, unpredictable; he can melt one moment and explode the next. Sound Memory reveals that he has smart, original concepts and the talent to see them through."
- The Village Voice
“Stylishly designed and gripping.”
- The Village Voice
“New York innovator”.
- The Oregonian
“A man-about-downtown with wonderful technical chops.”
- The Village Voice
“Julian Barnett's brilliant "Sound Memory" doesn't leave the dance open to our imagination, it explores what an imagination does with what gets handed to it. Sometimes the dance is in real time and sometimes it has the smooth patina of dream-memory. It is the raw and the cooked together.”
- ArtsJournal
“…contained some of the most soul piercing choreography of the evening.”
- Laguna Beach Independent
“…It would be hard to forget the solo by Julian Barnett. Barnett showed his power in 'Echologue,' a haunted solo of agony and triumph. Barnett does big things with his small gymnast body, and his vocal transformation from barely alive at the start of the piece to almost uncontrollably powerful at the end frames the work perfectly.”
- ballet~dance magazine
“His fearsome facial expressions seemed as remarkable as his choreography and when Jocelyn Tobias joined him for the duet, the idiosyncratic piece had the dancers veering into separate spaces and worlds. With such inventiveness, one hopes that Barnett keeps on creating and dancing for a very long time.”
- Fire Island Tide
“Julian Barnett reminds us that despite his performance art credibility he may be the best pure dancer on stage.”
- Offoffoff.com
"Julian Barnett creates something real from almost nothing."
- Offoffoff.com
"…An audience favorite. Striking and sporadic at times, the moves brought to mind Jerome Robbins’ progressive work in “West Side Story.”
- The Deseret News
"Julian Barnett, who can usually be counted on to push the envelope, sacrificed himself to pleasure and guilt in a tortured solo to music by Carlos Santana."
- Gay City News
"Julian Barnett, a DancemOpolitan regular, rocked out to Carlos Santana in "Soul Sacrifice," a potent explosion of abandon and chaos. Barnett's athletic, audacious performance quality married with his flair for dramatic timing made this union with rock music constantly satisfying to watch."
- Dance Insider
"The real backstage star of this production is it’s choreographer, Julian Barnett, who also appears on stage as the teenage Tommy in the show’s most arresting performance. Barnett’s choreography is continually energetic and the visual equal to the pounding score, no small task given that the show is virtually all music. The abandon he has elicited from the entire cast is galvanizing. Barnett’s performance of the post-traumatic Tommy is riveting – at once funny, engaging and poignant. Whether it is in the minimalism of the haunted eyes or the exuberant outbursts of freeing dance, Barnett compels and amazes. His Tommy is a rich cipher, but not one whi is unapproachable. He is a sinned-against naïf, but not one who begs pity."
- Metroland