All – Tagged "REVIEWS" – Page 4

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REVIEWS | Gracia Haby

The Final Stage

Folded forward at the waist, knees pressed together, but with her feet apart, Rachel Coulson assumes bird-like form. With her legs held as if bound at the knees, she travels backwards. Arms extended away from her torso giving the impression of wings, she rotates her hands as if her feathery tips are taking readings of the environment around her. In the conjuring of shapes, of course a waterbird appears before my eyes. This is part two of DanceX, presented by the Australian Ballet, where Stephanie Lake Company’s “Auto Cannibal,” replete with Coulson’s bird-like solo, shares the stage with West Australian...

REVIEWS | Karen Hildebrand

Limón's New Look

Limón Dance Company launches its 80th anniversary season with three works that represent the company’s past, present, and future. They not only celebrate José Limón, but demonstrate how his themes guide the company in fresh new ways.

REVIEWS | Karen Greenspan

The Take Away

Who would think that the unglamorous prep work in a Thai restaurant kitchen would serve as an idea for a choreographic work?

REVIEWS | Rebecca Deczynski

Dream Ballets

It’s hard to imagine a ballet quite as exquisite as Michel Fokine’s 1909 “Les Sylphides.” The white tutu piece, set to a score by Fredéric Chopin, introduced the world to the concept of a plotless ballet—and, in that, opened the door for every choreographer who was to come.

REVIEWS | Rebecca Deczynski

Turn Up, Turn Out

Tiler Peck has easily proven she can pull off multiple roles: dancer, in addition to artistic director, choreographer, and curator. The success of “Turn It Out With Tiler Peck and Friends”—which debuted at City Center in 2022 as its inaugural Artists at the Center program and has since been performed across the U.S. and in London—is evidence of that.

REVIEWS | Victoria Looseleaf

Art of Seduction

It’s a foregone conclusion that no matter how young, how beautiful, how alive one may be, death can come at any time.

REVIEWS | Eoin Fenton

The Big World in Small Spaces

London has very little to do to convince the world of its artiness. It’s often given that eye-roll inducing title of a ‘world city;’ whatever your heart wishes to see will probably, at some point, make its way through London.

REVIEWS | Faye Arthurs

Balletic Battlegrounds

The New York City Ballet’s Fall Fashion Gala was unusually tense this year, as the dancers refused to walk the red carpet or attend the post-performance dinner in protest of the standstill on their collective bargaining agreement.

REVIEWS | Gracia Haby

Devotion and Desire

Sir Kenneth MacMillan began his choreography for “Manon” with the pas de deux, and from this shining, central point spun outward. Building the story from its heart, almost as if from the inside out, the pas de deux reveals not only the emotional connection between the two dancers, but their place in the world.

REVIEWS | Robert Steven Mack

Creative Risk

If the ballet world now seems inundated with Dracula productions, Frankenstein adaptations are a rarer sight.

REVIEWS | Rachel Howard

Diamonds are Forever

It’s amusing to read in Pacific Northwest Ballet’s generally exceptional program notes that George Balanchine choreographed the triptych we now know as “Jewels” because he visited Van Cleef & Arpels and was struck by inspiration. I mean, perhaps visiting the jeweler did further tickle his imagination, but—PR stunt, anyone?

REVIEWS | Karen Hildebrand

Boundless Beauty

As I watch one after another pastel tutu clad ballerina bourrée into the arms of a white-tighted danseur, a melody not credited on the program floats through my brain. You know the one.

Featured Reads

REVIEWS | Lorna Irvine

Teenage Angst and Institutions

Watching 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,...

INTERVIEWS | Marina Harss

The Me of Today

The choreographer Alexei Ratmansky reflects on the war in Ukraine, the connection between geopolitics and ballet, and joining the house of Balanchine.

REVIEWS | Rachel Howard

Starry Nights

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.

REVIEWS | Faye Arthurs

America, F**K Yeah

After 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.

REVIEWS | Emily May

Acosta Danza’s Choreographic Soup

An “Ajiaco” is a type of soup common to Colombia, Cuba, and Peru that combines a variety of different vegetables, spices, and meats.