World-class review of ballet and dance.
On a steamy July evening, the arty fashionistas of Bushwick seem remarkably crisp and refreshed, wine spritzers in hand, as they gather for a rare showing by two rock stars of dance at Carvalho Park gallery in Brooklyn.
Continue Reading
Smuin Contemporary Ballet is a different company than when it last came to New York in 2012, five years after the sudden death of its popular founder. Michael Smuin was known for his highly accessible works full of musical theater splash. While his San Francisco based company continues to perform his repertory, it has commissioned a broad range of new work under succeeding director, Celia Fushille.
Continue Reading
In its Summer Series 2024, the Philadelphia contemporary ballet company offers three world premieres by choreographers Amy Hall Garner, Loughlan Prior and Stina Quagebeur. The extended run, July 10-21 at the Wilma Theater, is just about the only dance to be seen during summer’s dog days. And what a cool and breezy show it is. Just the boost we needed.
Continue Reading
On a scorcher of a day in July, New York’s Lincoln Center launched India Week, a cultural extravaganza celebrating the variety and vibrancy of Indian culture.
FREE ARTICLE
There are ballet galas, and then there are ballet galas curated by Christopher Wheeldon (he was given an OBE in 2016).
Continue Reading
It’s a treat to see the Paul Taylor Dance Company perform within the close range of the Joyce Theater. (The company typically holds court at the much larger Lincoln Center.)
Continue Reading
What is freedom? And how do you keep working to reclaim freedom with fresh energy and joy?
Continue Reading
In late April at New York City Center, the Martha Graham Dance Company began a three-year celebration of its 100th anniversary. The four City Center performances were collectively entitled “American Legacies.”
Continue Reading
I imagine choreographers lazing about listening to disparate styles of music they may want to dance to. Or it’s possible a few dancer friends drop by or roomies come home and one says, “I’ve got a tape to play.”
Continue Reading
Though I desperately wanted to see the American Ballet Theater premiere Wayne McGregor’s “Woolf Works” this season, one could do worse than seeing “Onegin” as a last show before hitting the road for summer vacation.
Continue Reading
Dutch company Introdans’s mission statement is in its name: The group was founded by Ton Wiggers in 1971 to “introduce dance” to as large an audience as possible, at first responding to a lack of professional concert dance in Wiggers's own region, the eastern part of the Netherlands.
Continue Reading
Twyla Tharp's newest evening-length work, “How Long Blues,” is absurd. In under an hour, it depicts jazz clubs and soccer games, giant marionettes, a string of affairs, an avalanche, and a suicide, all without any particular reasoning.
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.
Continue Reading
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.
Continue Reading