World-class review of ballet and dance.
On the back of a US tour of Annabelle Lopez Ochoa’s imaginative reworking of “A Streetcar Named Desire” comes another bold showing from Scottish Ballet: a double bill with works from Crystal Pite and Angelin Preljoçaj. It’s an edgy turn for the company, and some slick, focused displays of dance arise from it, particularly in Pite’s “Emergence,” created in 2009 for National Ballet of Canada and acquired by Scottish Ballet last year.
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It’s a given that Los Angeles, the sprawl-to-the-wall city, has some intriguing locations for site-specific dance, the Getty Center, Union Station and the plaza at the Music Center, to name but a few. With its tall royal palms, May-June jacaranda trees and sleek minimalist architecture, Santa Monica’s Tongva Park, proved a perfect match for the ever-exciting choreographer/dancer Mecca Vazie Andrews and her 11 skilled performers.
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A final performance. The audience applauds. Cries of Brava! can be heard, and flowers are tossed upon the stage in adoration and gratitude. In a tutu of rich autumnal hues, Clara takes her last bows. From the wings, her fellow dancers add to the applause.
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Nobody, but nobody, fuses together pop culture references, storytelling and populist dance quite like the fabulous Matthew Bourne. There is a reason people flock in droves to see his work, including those who are immune to dance's charms—he is simply a master craftsman. He is Britain's best-loved choreographer. This double Olivier Award-winning production is simply superb, and his company New Adventures are at the top of their game. “The Red Shoes” is arguably the most fully-formed production of his career to date.
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“Will you hold this, please?” I look up from my notebook to see a young woman pressing a length of string into my hands. A beat later she slinks away, leaving me to fumble with the thread as its other end is pulled taut by a man swaying across the room.
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Myele Manzanza makes sound. Terrific sound. He plays drums. He plays the floor like it too were an instrument. Every surface, by this extension, has the possibility of being an instrument. And Manzanza also tap, tap, taps sound on Elle Evangelista, beginning with her shoulders. Standing face-to-face, he transmits sound to Evangelista. You can hear sound, yes. But you can also feel it as vibrations within the body.
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Only five years ago, choreographer Justin Peck was virtually unknown. Today he is a prominent presence in the world of dance, widely praised and admired by audiences (particularly young audiences) and critics alike. His meteoric rise to fame is underpinned by an impressive body of works. So far he has created 14 ballets for New York City Ballet where he is soloist and resident choreographer (he assumed this position in 2014). His other creations (more than a dozen) include commissions from Paris Opera Ballet, Miami City Ballet, and San Francisco Ballet among other companies. His ballets have been performed by...
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Remarkable in its size, range, and variety, New York City Ballet’s Here/Now festival presented ten separate programs. The first three were dedicated to works by Christopher Wheeldon, Alexei Ratmansky, and Justin Peck, one choreographer at a time, in the format usually used for the company’s luminaries, George Balanchine and Jerome Robbins. The remaining seven programs were packaged as collections of stylistically and musically diverse pieces, all created specifically for the company in the past thirty or so years. Over the course of four weeks, the festival afforded audiences the unique opportunity to see a great variety of works—a one-of-a-kind retrospective...
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Themes were choice, play, youth, and freedom at Toronto Dance Theatre's Emerging Voices program, premiering work by Alicia Grant and Emily Law. Both choreographers had the opportunity to develop their work within TDT's choreographic incubator facilitated by TDT Artistic Director Christopher House, and set their work on company dancers.
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New York City Ballet’s Here/Now festival proved an epic undertaking. Over the course of four weeks, the company presented 43 ballets created by 22 choreographers, all works made during the past four decades—a celebration of contemporary choreography, unprecedented in its size, depth, scope, and richness.
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Cloaked, hooded figures process ceremoniously across the stage. They cross themselves before an unseen altar and disappear into the darkness between towering pillars. Dramatic, stately chimes enhance the pious atmosphere. Kneeling at their pews the company begin a sequence of precise and ordered movement, the angular isolations of their arms and upper body suggesting a ritual of prayer.
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On the eve of Mother’s Day, it is altogether possible that the mother of modern dance, Martha Graham, would be looking down and beaming at the latest incarnation of Martha Graham Dance Company, originally founded in—gasp—1926. To say that the 16-member troupe looked and moved beautifully is almost an understatement. Their very beings seemed infused with the spirit—and essence—of Martha herself.
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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