Pretty Woman
“La Dame aux camélias” conveys the pain of the tragic love story between the celebrated, generous and doomed courtesan Marguerite Gautier and the passionate, idealistic and tormented Armand Duval.
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World-class review of ballet and dance.
How many ways to think about “Sleeping Beauty”? In the first written Italian and French versions, the plots outline the fate of a young girl as the object of family jealousy, trickery and, after being drugged asleep, ravishment. By the mid-19th century, the Brothers Grimm toned down the storyline, romanticized and adapted it as a story fit for children. Ivan Vsevolozhsky, Tchaikovsky, and Marius Petipa’s 1890 landmark ballet further refashioned it. But another few generations of scholarly research recognized the darker undertones and representations of girls in the fairy tale tradition. Apart from handsome swains or huntsmen who save damsels like Beauty or Red Riding Hood from stepmothers or disfigured crones, the producers of even the most treasured classics should take some measure of the plight of characters, even if fantasy.
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“La Dame aux camélias” conveys the pain of the tragic love story between the celebrated, generous and doomed courtesan Marguerite Gautier and the passionate, idealistic and tormented Armand Duval.
Continue ReadingFittingly, I caught Kaori Ito’s charming production “An Upside Down World” on Children’s Day, a national holiday in Japan.
Continue ReadingJoy is the goal of Parsons Dance. That is immediately apparent from the opening of the program for its New York season at the Joyce Theater: “Ludwig,” a brand-new David Parsons original, features all nine company dancers, smiling and dressed in varying shades of sunset oranges and yellows, moving vigorously to the second movement of Beethoven’s ninth symphony.
Continue ReadingCathy Weis’ SoHo loft is haunted. This is not because of the skeleton that dangles on the wall, or the iron hand that floats ominously above the piano. 537 Broadway—or Weis Acres, as the multi-media artist Weis dubs it—is enchanted by spirits of artists and eccentrics past.
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