Three Early Summer Dances
In this summer of torrential rains and torrid heat, dance, indoor and outside, hasn’t skipped a beat.
Continue ReadingWorld-class review of ballet and dance.
In this summer of torrential rains and torrid heat, dance, indoor and outside, hasn’t skipped a beat.
Continue ReadingAmerican Ballet Theatre’s annual summer season at the Metropolitan Opera House centers around long-form storytelling.
Continue ReadingThere is dance that amplifies music, and there is music designed to amplify dance. With Mark Morris, the dance is the music.
Continue ReadingThe Sarasota Ballet’s return to Jacob’s Pillow for five days of a triple bill that included two little-seen works by Sir Frederick Ashton and a world premiere by Jessica Lang, was charged with anticipation and curiosity.
FREE ARTICLEIngrid Silva’s expression is calm, the side of her mouth upturned a few degrees, as if she’s delighting in the reception of her own joke.
Continue ReadingWhy Not Theatre’s bold, multidisciplinary adaptation of the Mahabharata drew a rapt audience at Lincoln Center’s vibrant summer arts festival “Summer for the City.”
Continue ReadingWashington, D.C.’s 100° June weather wasn’t the only thing generating heat in the city. Chamber Dance Project’s 11th annual D.C. summer season production, “Red Angels,” produced its own scorching intensity as one of this summer’s early triumphs.
Continue ReadingA ballet body is essentially a deformed body. The older and more experienced the dancer, the more evident–and beautiful–this deformation is.
Continue ReadingTo celebrate its 85th anniversary, the American Ballet Theatre filled its summer season with exciting debuts.
Continue ReadingA 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 ReadingCasual 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 ReadingSo, 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 choreographers, including Frederick Ashton, Rudolf Nureyev and Alexei Ratmansky, began telling the tale of fairy godmothers, crystal coaches and a rags-to-riches heroine.
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 ReadingBeneath 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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