World-class review of ballet and dance.
George Balanchine was a supreme master of choreographic abstraction, yet when he wanted to tell a story he did so with relish and theatrical flair, shaping his narratives with unique dramatic insight and wit. New York City Ballet’s “Balanchine Short Stories”—a triple bill featuring “La Sonnambula,” “Prodigal Son,” and “Firebird”—offered the audience a fascinating journey into the world of Balanchine’s storytelling.
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“Allegro Brillante,” “Swan Lake,” and “The Four Temperaments” comprised the all-Balanchine bill which New York City Ballet presented during its six-week winter season at David H. Koch Theater. A perfect Balanchine sampler, the program was golden from start to finish, offering something for every taste: an effervescent classical abstraction, a heartbreaking romance and a spellbinding foray into modernism.
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More than three decades at the helm of San Francisco Ballet has sharply attuned Helgi Tomasson to the political mood of his high society season opening gala attendees.
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Jean-Guillaume Bart isn’t one of those nostalgic choreographers, nor is he a French Ratmansky. He’s more of a ballet archeologist crossed with a dance philosopher, influenced by Paul Valéry. He doesn’t really revive steps from the past (most of the steps are his own invention), his concern is to bring a dying tradition alive. A tradition that is dear to his heart and a spirit that is nowhere to be seen on the world stage must be restored. According to him, now an empty art, ballet should make sense. Every move has to be infused with an inner meaning, aesthetically...
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World Music/CRASHarts is known for bringing exceptional artists to Boston’s stages for their local debuts, and although it turns out that ODC/Dance made one prior Boston appearance 45 years ago, this concert once again offered local audiences a taste of something new—this time, coming from San Francisco, CA.
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Where there is futility and restlessness, there can also be hope, depth, love, honor, and plenty of humor—this emerged as a thesis of “Loose Gravel,” a collection of more than thirty vignettes of dance, movement, theatre, and absurdity. It was the ambitious first performance of Frank Wo/Men Collective, a new group of Austin- and New York City–based artists, most of them alumni and students of the Department of Theatre and Dance at the University of Texas at Austin. Contemplative, skilled, inventive, and often hilarious, the two-hour performance, collaboratively developed by the seven-member collective, was a heartening beginning to 2017.
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In dance, at least, 2016 had plenty to offer. From the reviews of others, it seems that I missed some of those shows considered the best of the year (poor holiday timing on my part) but I’m hoping that I’ll get another chance to see Michael Keegan-Dolan’s “Swan Lake/Loch na hEala” (a re-working of “Swan Lake”), Akram Khan’s “Giselle” and Matthew Bourne’s latest ballet, “The Red Shoes.” In the end, my favourite shows come down to personal choice so, when looking back through all the performances I have been fortunate to see, these are the ones that jumped out of...
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Your home is not your home. In its place, a dreamscape of flowers and snow, where dolls can transform into princes and sweets come alive. Victorian bouquets dance, characters travel by hot air balloon, and Christmas trees grow to envelop a stage. Though the story of “The Nutcracker” makes little logical sense, it doesn’t need to; in this fantastical, surreal territory, the strange is somehow familiar, and a little girl can unlock a portal into another world.
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International ballet competitions have become a somewhat necessary evil in the ballet world. Brought to popular culture’s attention by movies such as First Position, they are, by all accounts, high impact events. Artistic directors from world-famous ballet companies line the judging panels to the watch ballet’s rising stars train, perform and compete. The competitors, usually between 15-18 years of age, are devoted individuals, likely type-A personalities, who have already put in years of training. But the exposure of such competitions is priceless. Best case, these young men and women will secure a scholarship to a company school or generous cash...
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For us ballet diehards, the annual “Nutcracker” marathon performs double duty, filling companies’ coffers for the “real” season, and giving rising talents a chance to step out as one of those myriad Sugar Plum Fairies in a mid-run matinee.
Continue ReadingThere is no doubt that this year will go down as one of the strangest—and possibly saddest—in memory, at least politically speaking. And since the political is personal, with 2016 offering dashed dreams in terms of breaking the glass ceiling, the tragedy of Aleppo and the onslaught of so-called fake news, many of us, thankfully, continue to be consoled by art, with this writer particularly under dance’s spell for salvation.
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I grew up watching Lucky and Penny spin about the dance floor. I knew their every line, and, more importantly, their every move, and their every move’s lines. Studied on a Beta video and later a VHS, their moving forms were so familiar to me. And perhaps through my repeated viewings I’d hoped for some sort of talent transference through the screen to me lying in Cobra on the floor, my chin resting in my hands. Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, as John ‘Lucky’ Garnett and Penelope ‘Penny’ Carrol, in George Stevens’ Swing Time (1936), were my idols in Primary...
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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