"It [Japan House/Philadelphia] remains in the realm of poetry—an ineffable accumulation of many small moments of gravity and beauty."
—Lisa Kraus, Philadelphia Inquirer
"Movement so satisfying on a moment-to-moment basis...the kind of work that repays repeated viewing".
Philadelphia City Paper
"Intuitive, inventive, and enticing," her dances "unfold like a free verse,...with an underlying sense of unity"
Dance Magazine
"Stein can landscape a group of dancers like nobody else."
Philadelphia Inquirer
"Leah Stein and her gallant company ingeniously used every part of the natural environment...and in the process generated powerful emotion."
Philadelphia City Paper
"Like good Haiku, her work allows the audience to ponder...In her quiet eloquence, Stein ranks among the best of Philadelphia's choreographers."
Dance Magazine
"Radiated supreme strength... their onstage rapport utterly uplifting - you find yourself longing for the unfussy beauty of the piece to go on and on."
The Herald, Scotland
"Lang's score is a marvel even by his increasingly high standard. Stein's choreography consistently underscored the music's power. The inevitable what-did-it-all-add-up-to question had the right open-ended answers"
—David Patrick Stearns, Philadelphia Inquirer
"Inside the Armory of the First Troop Philadelphia City Cavalry on the prosaic block of 23d Street just below Market, art, architecture, and nature collided Saturday in near-mystical blasts as choreographer Leah Stein and Mendelssohn Club music director Alan Harler mustered their forces for composer David Lang's Battle Hymns."
—Merilyn Jackson, Philadelphia Inquirer
Photos by JJ. Tiziou: www.jjtiziou.net.
"The most successful melding of space, music and visuals."
—Peter Burwasser, City Paper
"Battle Hymns is one of the best artistic responses to war I've ever encountered."
—Tom Purdom, Broad Street Review
"...a challenging artistic achievement. Lang's sonic architecture, Stein's choreography and the choir, sometimes distanced, at times overwhelming, honors the Armory, as well as our hearts and mind."
—Lewis Whittington, Edge