World-class review of ballet and dance.
Having choreographed more than 100 works for companies worldwide, including American Ballet Theatre, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater and the National Ballet of Japan, Jessica Lang, who grew up in Bucks County, PA, began studying ballet as a child. At the tender age of 13, realizing that dance was her true calling, she never looked back, becoming a creative force in the process.
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I had the pleasure of interviewing Janie Taylor, my close friend of 25 years, in advance of the L.A. Dance Project’s upcoming run at the Joyce Theater. From May 3-15, LADP is presenting two programs of works by female choreographers—one of whom is Janie. Though she started choreographing just three years ago, Janie has two ballets in the lineup which will have their NYC premieres: “Adagio in B Minor,” a duet to Mozart, and “Night Bloom,” an ensemble piece to Stravinsky that will close every night. She will also perform in Bobbi Jene Smith and Or Schraiber’s Covid-inspired work, “Solo...
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Sam Pratt and Amadi Washington have been dancing together since they were ten years old. The dancer/choreographer duo known as Baye & Asa, who are 2021/22 Artists in Residence at the historic 92Y and have recently completed a commission with the Los Angeles-based Bodytraffic, met in elementary school as students at the prestigious Dalton School in New York City. Their first dance class together was in fifth grade.
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Claudia Schreier’s “Passage” for Dance Theatre of Harlem was commissioned to mark the 400-year-anniversary of the arrival of the first enslaved Africans to Virginia in 1619. But to think of “Passage” as a commemoration, or as a historical piece, doesn’t do justice to its purpose or its power.
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When Seibi Lee discovered Kathak, at first, she says she almost didn’t know what happened. Up until that point, her life—at least in terms of her career—was that of a typical 20-something: exploring, learning, and trying out multiple options in hopes of finding the best fit. Then along came Kathak, merging her multiple life paths and bringing a clarity and confluence that she hadn’t felt before.
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Ethan Stiefel thinks the world could use some laughter right now. “My mantra as of late has been that love and laughter can prevail,” says the former American Ballet Theatre star, who took the reins of the Princeton, New Jersey-based American Repertory Ballet last summer. “I felt that coming out of the pandemic it would be great to have a new ballet that really exudes laughter and joy.”
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If there’s a secret to keeping a dance company together for more than 50 years, Garth Fagan knows what it is. Indeed, his Rochester, NY-based Garth Fagan Dance was founded in 1970 (first called Bottom of the Bucket, BUT…Dance Theatre), and, at 81, Fagan, who was born in Kingston, Jamaica, has no plans to retire.
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Andrew Tay has a kaleidoscopic vision for what dance can do. As a choreographer, dance curator, performer, and DJ in Montreal for the past 20 years, he has bridged diverse audiences and artistic communities through his multidisciplinary dance events that sit somewhere between a conversation with a stranger, interactive art installation, and late-night party.
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Sara Mearns has never been afraid of hanging up her pointe shoes for the night: In recent years, she’s thrived in the work of Merce Cunningham, Jodi Melnick, Isadora Duncan, Honji Wang, Martha Graham and others. But Mearns’ latest project, a weeklong engagement at New York City’s Joyce Theater, will be a new test of her capacity to work outside of what she calls “the ballerina bubble.”
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When Jacques Heim, who founded DIAVOLO | Architecture in Motion™, in Los Angeles in 1992, he married his abiding love for dance with his passion for architecture. In the process, Diavolo became one of L.A.’s pre-eminent dance companies, one that also toured internationally for some two decades. But the global pandemic changed the ways in which all choreographers, dancers, artistic directors and presenters thought about dance, and Heim, born in Paris in 1964, was no exception.
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Writer, director, and choreographer Alan Lucien Øyen grew up with the theatre in his blood. As the son of a dresser, Øyen’s second home was a small theatre, Den Nationale Scene, established by Ibsen himself, in the town of Bergen, Norway. From age 17, Alan studied ballet and went on to dance with Norwegian national contemporary dance company Carte Blanche, and Pretty Ugly, Amanda Miller’s Cologne-based company. In 2006 Øyen founded his own touring company, winter guests, a multidisciplinary company bringing together actors, dancers, writers, set designers and technicians, where his uniquely emotional and dramatic dance-theatre could come to life.
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Federico Bonelli's award-winning career is a long and illustrious one, scanning many decades. The multi-faceted dancer, who was born in Genoa, Italy has performed with Zurich Ballet, the Dutch National Ballet and, since 2003, the Royal Ballet. Bonelli has brought his extraordinary, gravity defying frame to such celebrated works as “Romeo and Juliet,” “The Nutcracker,” “La Sylphide,” “Pierrot Lunaire,” “Alice's Adventures in Wonderland,” “The Dante Project,” “Giselle,” “Frankenstein,” “Manon,” and “Woolf Works.” He has garnered many awards, notably first prize at the Rieti International Ballet Competition, and a Prix de Lausanne scholarship.
Continue ReadingWatching Matthew Bourne's reworked version of the “star-cross'd lovers,” I was briefly reminded of Veronica, played by Winona Ryder, in the dark 1988 comedy by Daniel Waters and Michael Lehmann, Heathers, and her line, “my teen angst bullshit has a body count.” Yes, this is the darker side of Bourne's repertoire,...
Continue ReadingThe choreographer Alexei Ratmansky reflects on the war in Ukraine, the connection between geopolitics and ballet, and joining the house of Balanchine.
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Beneath blue California skies, manicured trees, and the occasional hum of an overhead airplane, Tamara Rojo took the Frost Amphitheater stage at Stanford University to introduce herself as the new artistic director of San Francisco Ballet.
Continue ReadingAfter a week of the well-balanced meal that is “Jewels”—the nutritive, potentially tedious, leafy greens of “Emeralds,” the gamy, carnivorous “Rubies,” and the decadent, shiny white mountains of meringue in “Diamonds”—the New York City Ballet continued its 75th Anniversary All-Balanchine Fall Season with rather more dyspeptic fare.
Continue ReadingAn “Ajiaco” is a type of soup common to Colombia, Cuba, and Peru that combines a variety of different vegetables, spices, and meats.
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