Jiří Kylián, Discipline and Freedom
The world-renowned Czech choreographer and multimedia artist Jiří Kylián was recently honored with a retrospective festival at the Oslo opera house.
Continue ReadingFeatured
Count Down
So, shoe me! Seriously, there have been countless iterations of the ballet “Cinderella,” all pivoting around footwear, whether pointe, glass or golden slippers. Indeed, this particular terpsichorean fairytale can be traced back to the early nineteenth century, but it wasn’t until Prokofiev finished his brooding Romantic score in 1944 that...
Continue Reading
Welcome to Wonderland
A delightful production, served with verve: the National Ballet of Japan’s recent performance of “Alice in Wonderland” was an unabashed celebration of imagination, deftly showcasing all the wacky wonder of Christopher Wheeldon’s modern ballet classic.
Continue Reading
The world-renowned Czech choreographer and multimedia artist Jiří Kylián was recently honored with a retrospective festival at the Oslo opera house.
Continue Reading
Olga Smirnova, Leaps and Bounds
Until March 2022, Olga Smirnova was one of the top dancers at the Bolshoi, performing roles in a large swathe of the repertory, everything from Odette in “Swan Lake” to Marguerite Gauthier in John Neumeier’s “Lady of the Camellias” and Bianca in Jean-Christophe Maillot’s “Taming of the Shrew.” She was...
Continue Reading
Keeping the Faith
There’s a small moment in Rena Butler’s new “Cracks” that I think only could have become possible at Pacific Northwest Ballet, which commissioned it. At stage right, two tall dancers, both dressed like Catholic school students in pleated skirts and polo shirts, pas de bourrée and then rebound out of...
Continue ReadingLatest
Olga Smirnova, Leaps and Bounds
Until March 2022, Olga Smirnova was one of the top dancers at the Bolshoi, performing roles in a large swathe of the repertory, everything from Odette in “Swan Lake” to Marguerite Gauthier in John Neumeier’s “Lady of the Camellias” and Bianca in Jean-Christophe Maillot’s “Taming of the Shrew.” She was an infrequent visitor to New York, though she appeared in Natalia Makarova’s “La Bayadère” at American Ballet Theatre in 2014 and took part in the now legendary performances of George Balanchine’s “Jewels” at the Lincoln Center Festival in 2017, in which each section—”Emeralds,” “Rubies,” “Diamonds”—was taken on by dancers from...
Continue Reading
Welcome to Wonderland
A delightful production, served with verve: the National Ballet of Japan’s recent performance of “Alice in Wonderland” was an unabashed celebration of imagination, deftly showcasing all the wacky wonder of Christopher Wheeldon’s modern ballet classic.
Continue Reading
L.A. Anthem
Casual perfection. Studied grace. Spontaneous elegance. These are but a few of the words that came to mind when this writer observed nine gorgeous dancers from LA Dance Project and four students from the Trudi Zipper Dance Institute at the Colburn School, cavorting around the courtyard and grounds of the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts last Friday in Janie Taylor’s “Anthem.”
Continue ReadingCount Down
So, shoe me! Seriously, there have been countless iterations of the ballet “Cinderella,” all pivoting around footwear, whether pointe, glass or golden slippers. Indeed, this particular terpsichorean fairytale can be...
Performance
Place
Words
Gift Subscription
$69.95
Gift a year of world-class dance journalism. Recipients will receive full access to Fjord's wide diversity of reviews, interviews, articles & podcasts.
Keeping the Faith
There’s a small moment in Rena Butler’s new “Cracks” that I think only could have become possible at Pacific Northwest Ballet, which commissioned it. At stage right, two tall dancers, both dressed like Catholic school students in pleated skirts and polo shirts, pas de bourrée and then rebound out of a sissonne into more pointe work. Both dancers have strong, well-shaped feet, compact hips, lyrically expressive torsos, and wide shoulders. Only after a few bars of music could I confirm that the dancers were Elle Macy, who is female-identifying, and Zsilas Michael Hughes, who is gender-nonbinary.
Continue Reading
Team Effort
This year marked the 60th anniversary of the School of American Ballet’s annual Workshop Performances. The programming was unusually democratic this year.
Continue Reading
Star Dust
We are all of us, beings, in a constant state of continual change. We humans are a composition of oxygen, carbon, and hydrogen.
Continue Reading
Words of Meaning
The title of Catherine Tharin’s latest production, “In the Wake of Yes,” is a reference to “Molly Bloom’s Soliloquy,” an inner monologue on womanhood and sexuality, from James Joyce’s Ulysses. Tharin matches the tone of this work as she picks up on an exuberant string of “yeses” from that text. Her witty series of dances explores romance and its complications. At the center of the show is a film by Lora Robertson that lifts the dancers out of the tiny East Village stage and transports them (and us) to scenes of contemporary New York City. Tharin, who danced with the...
Continue ReadingCharacter Act
Through its newly opened program, “Other Dances,” Dutch National Ballet kicks off the summer with a slate of lighthearted fare that varies in precise approach but altogether evokes an effervescent...
Performance
Place
Words
Requiem for Humanity
Taking the historian’s long view, the message within “Last and First Men,” that “the whole duration of humanity, its evolution, and many successive species, is but a flash in the lifetime of the cosmos,” is, to me, ultimately a comfort.
Continue Reading
For the Muses
While the ghosts of, among others, Judy Garland, Jack Benny and the cast of “All in the Family” might be haunting Television City’s soundstage 33 in Los Angeles, the dancers of American Contemporary Ballet (ACB), took metaphoric flight on Thursday when they performed the world premiere of, “The Euterpides.”
Continue Reading
Pure Moods
“Into the Hairy”—the 45-minute ballet by choreographer Sharon Eyal and her creative collaborator Gai Behar—sets the tone immediately. Dancers dressed in arachnid-like unitards have a severe look, with black eye makeup that drips intensely down their cheeks, gothic and dramatic.
Continue Reading
All Together Now
Transformation is inevitable—and necessary in order to persist. That’s a theme that runs through two new works staged by Rotterdam’s Scapino Ballet in “Origin,” a program focused entirely on emerging choreographic talent.
Continue ReadingA New Recipe
An apron-clad Marjani Forté-Saunders, spotlit on the steps of the St. Mark’s Church sanctuary, rocks from one bare foot to the other while swinging a brown paper bag, presumably filled...
Performance
Place
Words
Partners in Sublime
For the most dynamic performers, artistry is an embodied quality. Whether through natural aptitude or diligent training—or most often, a combination of the two—the performer transcends the physical, choreographed act of their composition to present something that lingers outside the boundaries of their form.
Continue Reading
Lincoln Jones, Serendipitous Moves
Talk about the marriage of music and dance! Following in the footsteps of George Balanchine, whose works with Igor Stravinsky stretched across decades, Lincoln Jones, artistic director and choreographer of American Contemporary Ballet, continues the tradition when his company dances the world premiere of “The Euterpides.”
Continue Reading
Casting Carousel
The New York City Ballet mounted no premieres this spring, unless you count the stage adaptation of Kyle Abraham’s Covid lockdown film “When We Fell.” Instead, the company drummed up hype by packing the season with debuts in dances both newish and old.
Continue Reading
Looking Back, Moving Forward
One of the most important questions for any director who inherits a dance company from its founding choreographer is how to keep the repertory alive.
Continue ReadingPeople, Places, and Things
Bill T. Jones wriggles upstage on his back in a rectangle of light, reciting an unsent letter to the New York Times dance critic Jack Anderson.
Performance
Place
Words
subscribe to THE LATEST IN DANCE
“Uncommonly intelligent, substantial coverage.”
- Weekly articles from the world of dance
- Wide diversity of reviews, interviews, articles & more
- Support for quality art journalism
Already a paid subscriber? Login
"This extraordinary little magazine has grown to become a cultural mainstay, not just a valued critical source, but a cultural communicator, critic, review, booster and historian."
Brenda Way
ODC/Dance
frequent questions
What's the difference between a physical and digital subscription?
With a physical subscription you'll get a physical magazine twice a year along with full site access. With a digital subscription, you'll only get access to articles and podcasts.
Will I get access to podcast content with a subscription?
Yes.
With either a physical or digital subscription, you'll get access to podcast content.
How do I get full access to articles?
With either a physical or digital subscription.
You just need a subscription to get full access to articles.