World-class review of ballet and dance.
The year was 1913; the city, Paris. The cause for commotion—indeed, a full-blown riot? Vaslav Nijinsky's choreography for Sergei Diaghilev's Ballets Russes’ production of “Le Sacre du Printemps,” set to a raucous score by Igor Stravinsky. And though it's been more than 100 years since that infamous night, the legendary music, which critics then dubbed “Massacre du Printemps,” continues to inspire choreographers.
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Choreographer and dancer Victoria Chiu is a Melbourne girl. She doesn’t speak a Chinese language and the closest thing she has to a Chinese cultural ritual, she says, is the odd weekend yum cha session. Nonetheless, the question she is often asked, do you speak Chinese? forms the basis of her new work. Developed in collaboration with dancer Kristina Chan, “Do You Speak Chinese?” explores the many ways our bodies speak for us, often before we’ve even had a chance to open our mouths.
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Nat Cursio (award-winning “Private Dances,” “Blizzard,” “The Middle Room”) and Shannon Bott (“Racket,” “Hang in there,” “Nice Mate Nice”) have been creating “Recovery” for a period of six years. The work came about due to untimely deaths in both their families, and confronts grief, and what it is to continue on in the wake of loss. Simon Ellis, well-known creator of intimate choreographies, joined the creative process, and just when it seemed “Recovery” would never be, here it is. I am deeply appreciative to Nat Cursio, Shannon Bott and Simon Ellis for answering my questions via email.
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Jasmin Vardimon is the artistic director of Jasmin Vardimon Company, founded in 1997, and has been an associate artist at Sadler's Wells since 2006. Her career spans more than two decades, and she's received numerous accolades for her contributions to the dance world, including an honorary doctorate from Royal Holloway, University of London, awarded in July 2014.
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A day before Halloween, and Anastasia Adani doesn’t have a costume. “We’re going trick-or-treating anyway. I don’t know how I haven’t been fired as a wife and a mother—I’m here all the time,” she says, gesturing to one of three cavernous studios, home to her creative agency, A Plus Creative. Ms. Adani is the visionary behind the short film Lost in a Dream, featuring principal dancer Svetlana Lunkina. The film, evoking the ethereal, fairy-tale romanticism of the ballet, was made in collaboration with the National Ballet of Canada, and Toronto-based fashion designer David Dixon.
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I was introduced to Melbourne-based choreographer Nat Cursio via her work, “Blizzard,” created and performed at the lovingly restored utility-turned-arts-venue, the Substation, in Newport, Melbourne. It made the whole building sing. “Private Dances II” is the work of Nat Cursio as curator; the second piece I inhabited for a brief moment. Each has the effect of building a world around you, as the audience—although one feels slightly more privileged than the ordinary dance-goer with a Cursio work. Her upcoming work, “The Middle Room” is a piece for a single viewer (“participant”) at a time, set in her very own apartment....
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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