All – Tagged "REVIEWS" – Page 85

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REVIEWS | By Sara Veale

35 Years in the Making

Phoenix Dance Theatre is one of the UK’s oldest contemporary dance companies outside of London. The Leeds-based troupe was founded in 1981 by three graduates, and has since evolved into a ten-member professional ensemble with a sizeable repertory—including works from the likes of Richard Alston and Didy Veldman—and bevy of stage credits around the UK and abroad. Its latest bill, devised to celebrate its 35th anniversary, revives a 1997 work from Dutch-Israeli choreographer Itzik Galili alongside two recent pieces from British dancemakers Kate Flatt and Caroline Finn—a selection that shows off the range of styles the company has to offer...

REVIEWS | By Sara Veale

Justice for Giselle

Forget the merry folk jigs and wispy waltzes; Akram Khan’s “Giselle” entertains none of the levity associated with its 1841 predecessor, one of the most famous ballets to emerge from the Romantic era. The new production, created for English National Ballet, is an angry rebuke of inequality and social stratification, perceptive in its condemnation and admirable in its intensity. Khan has preserved the broad strokes of Théophile Gautier’s original narrative—the lovers from different worlds, the devastating betrayal, the supernatural revenge—but overhauled its setting and tone to present a dark parable about the failures of globalisation. The first half reveals our...

REVIEWS | By Gracia Haby

Aftershock

Darkly, silvered, a grassland of manmade forms grows. It grows in the North Melbourne Town Hall. It is, for now, neatly contained within the designated performance space, but like all things in nature, it is as predictable as it is unpredictable. This constructed grassland of “over 270 poles, strips, or sheets of aluminium, brass, copper and sprung steel”[note]Ashley Dyer, Artist Statement, “Tremor” programme, Arts House, North Melbourne, Victoria, November 2016[/note] hums with life. Its presence felt from the moment I enter the space.

REVIEWS | By Rachel Howard

Shapes & Lines

It happened six days ago; it happened in a different age. An age in which we believed a racist, misogynist sociopath like Donald Trump could never be president. The audience at San Francisco’s Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Theater rose immediately, en masse, and poured forth solemn, awed applause for the LINES Ballet dancers.

REVIEWS | By Oksana Khadarina

Nijinsky in Black & White

“I know they think I am a sick man. I am sorry for them because they think I am sick. I am in good health, and I do not spare my strength. I will dance more than ever. I want to teach dancing and will therefore work a little every day. I will also write.”

REVIEWS | By Rachel Elderkin

Visions of the Past

“Anastasia” may be one of the few full length ballets Kenneth MacMillan created but it is rarely performed. Yet this carefully constructed work feels deserving of a place in company repertoire. If you accept the slow pace, it is an enjoyable, strikingly modern ballet and, in the hands of the Royal Ballet, it is danced with an easy elegance.

REVIEWS | By Victoria Looseleaf

Hear them Roar

What is it about a girl in stilettos—those near lethal heels generally designed by men: think Jimmy Choo, Manolo Blahnik and Christian Louboutin—that make a woman feel both seriously sexy and über-vulnerable at the same time? In her, “Girl Gods” (we prefer the term ‘Goddesses’), a dance three years in the making and a Los Angeles premiere, choreographer Pat Graney ventures into the terrain of feminine tropes with mordant wit, alarming candor and reservoirs of rage.

REVIEWS | By Jade Larine

A Tribute to Violette Verdy

In case you missed it, during his short tenure as a ballet director, Benjamin Millepied tried to force-feed the Parisian audience with an all-you-can-eat Balanchine menu.

REVIEWS | By Lorna Irvine

A Real Triple Threat

Three dancers, three fragmented selves, three perspectives.

REVIEWS | By Erica Getto

The Conduct Of A Person

In his 1881 guide Our Etiquette and Social Observances, writer Hudson K. Lyverthey aims to outline the “rules for the conduct of a person in all of his relations to society.” He uses drawing rooms, street corners, social dances, and even church as settings for this discussion. His booklet, he explains, is unique because it “is designed for both ladies and gentlemen; the advantages of this plan will be evident.”

REVIEWS | By Victoria Looseleaf

L.A. Tarantella

A Russian, a Dane and a Canadian—all choreographers—may never have walked into a bar together, but their works made for a magnificently diverse program presented by Los Angeles Ballet to kick off the troupe’s 11th season. The three dancemakers, George Balanchine, August Bournonville and Aszure Barton, represent three distinct styles, and showcased the company’s commitment to preservation as well as being cleverly hip in the moment.

REVIEWS | By Rachel Elderkin

Breaking Point

The dancers and musicians gather on the stage, the chorus of their voices rising through the auditorium. There’s a Middle Eastern influence to their music, a complex layering of sound that comes from the diversity of styles choreographer Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui has brought together. Each of his dancers and musicians are experienced in different disciplines and this crossing of skills provides a rich palette for Cherkaoui to draw from. The result is a carefully crafted work that emerges from a maelstrom of music, movement, voice and image.

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.