It is the fluid, expansive movement and the skill with which Mr. Munisteri creates and dissembles his spatial patterns that are the real interest of [Terra Nova].
Roslyn Sulcas, The New York Times, 2007
[Terra Nova's] choreography itself is typical Munisteri, lucid and ingenious, a bright and brave new world of dance invention.
Brian Siebert, The New Yorker, 2007
Tuesday, 4 a.m. is a splendid dance whose small beauties and whimsical flourishes are pieced into a satisfying overarching design. The dance covers horizontal space with sweep and verve—then shifts focus, placing three couples in a staggered line. There is an assured flow to these movements, as if their architect was working in clear, intuitive bursts. And the choice of Stravinsky is inspired—his headstrong music pairs well with Mr. Munisteri's love of spontaneous digressions and unexpected counts.
Joy Goodwin, The New York Sun, 2006Wildy engaging, ...Munisteri's dances are full-bodied choreographic feasts.... This is about the delight of sumptuous movement.
David Lyman, The Cincinnati Enquirer, 2006Ben Munisteri’s made a masterpiece to Stravinsky’s Capriccio for Piano and Orchestra., It’s called Tuesday, 4 a.m. This is cool, heartbreaking dance without a tear; it hits you deeply, as great dance should. I’ve not seen a finer new dance in ages: It’s not only the best dance to Stravinsky since Balanchine, but Munisteri stands tall as a master on his own.
Francis Mason, WQXR, 96.3 FM, New York, 2006I’ve been waiting a long time for an American ballet choreographer to make a dance as intriguing and novel as Ben Munisteri’s Turbine Mines… Munisteri is expanding the ballet repertory in a less cryptic and intellectualized manner than his peers (for example, William Forsythe), and the results are riveting.
Theodore Bale, Boston Herald, 2005[The concert] was a potpourri of movement by a master of the eclectic.
Jack Anderson, The New York Times, 2005Munisteri deserves the often lavish praise he's received for his craftsmanship. His dances are not about breaking your heart. The choreography presents clear, hard-edged designs, both in terms of space patterns and bodily movements…. Munisteri's smart choreography is never predictable.
Deborah Jowitt, The Village Voice, 2005[Munisteri] is intriguingly unpredictable…but he doesn't just throw disparate elements together. There is surprising flow to his phrases, and it is startling how easily, almost casually, his skilled dancers make bizarre transitions. Turbine Mines featured exquisite, inventive partnering, as dancers swung under and around one another like cogs in an intricate machine.
Karen Campbell, Boston Globe, 2005[A] kind of preordained, primeval partnership powers the work of Ben Munisteri…. His dancers appear to be inspired less by human emotion than by an instinctual drive that unfailingly takes them where they’re meant to be.”
Tresca Weinstein, Albany Times Union, 2005[With] a sense of boundless joy in the sheer process of choreographic invention. ...[Munisteri] was both serious and inventive. [In] his new dance, Turbine Mines,... the dancers often seemed caught up in an adventure in which they were propelled by a mysterious and inescapable kinetic force. His choreography is meticulously organized.... Every fragment was vibrant.
Jack Anderson, The New York Times, 2004Visceral , finely constructed dances... wild and vigorous.
Valerie Gladstone, The New York Times , 2004Sheer invention...Munisteri exposes his process as Mozart exposed the sonata form. Both make it easy to take pleasure in the elegant unfolding of structure. Munisteri’s vocabulary might be quirky, but he is a classical architect of temporal form.... Munisteri's Terminal Event is a 16-minute masterpiece of eight-dancer geometry, multi-leveled rhythmic interplay (dancer to the jazzy music and dancer to dancer) and celebration of the virtuosic body. Each of the three sections grows with the inevitable beauty of a flower, one that is new to the viewer and abounds with unlikely color and winding tendrils.
Tom Strini, Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, 2004Turbine Mines, to Vangelis’ soundtrack from Blade Runner, is a beam up to an off-world-colony, where we melt in slavish adoration. In polyamide costumes of interference colors, the sci-fi dancers hold their ground with deep organic pelvic rotations. Danica Holoviak makes an authoritative sweep in an expressive duet and caps off this heartwarming performance that brings the house to its feet.
Lori Ortiz, offoffoff.com, 2004Munisteri managed to integrate his odd, striking brand of movement into this environment so that the six dancers looked like natives of the place, not tourists or intruders. He presented the human form as civic sculpture of bygone idealistic days. Facing the viewer straight-on with a clear-eyed gaze, handsome athletic bodies made large, clear, energetic moves that looked like metaphors for optimism. This stuff works best when Munisteri enriches it with excursions into the oblique that provide the subtlety and mystery on which dancing thrives.
Tobi Tobias, The Village Voice, 2003The slightly skewed patterns on the stage are invariably beautiful.... Munisteri moves his dancers through drastic shifts in velocity and more subtle shifts in style without ever losing the clarity of his design.... It brought tears to my eyes.
Alicia Mosier, danceinsider.com, 2001[With] Ben Munisteri, ... you get dancing with unusual punch.
Elizabeth Zimmer, The Village Voice, 2000Munisteri displays very smart, beautifully controlled dancing that's wild at the core. How did a confessed club kid who once performed Doug Elkins’s deconstructed hip-hop develop a selective sense regarding ballet? ... [A]ll Munisteri's movement and space patterns, no matter how idiosyncratic and skewed, maintain the tension of ballet and its linear clarity.
Deborah Jowitt, The Village Voice, 2000A real original in the way he moves his extraordinary dancers, ... Munisteri is a rare artist: The maker of new dance for Balanchine fans.
Francis Mason, WQXR, 96.3 FM, New York, 1998
Alice Naude, Dance Magazine, 1998 An abstract dance about itself,... [movement] is juxtaposed with catwalk narcissism and dance-club pugilism... The work itself contains all of Munisteri’s humor and intelligence.”
Chris Dohse, The Village Voice, 1998