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REVIEWS | By Gracia Haby

Cutting Loose

At the Kier Choreographic Award semi-finals my shoes cut loose. At the Kier Choreographic Award semi-finals, independent of me, that is, my shoes cut loose. Lobbed by an enthusiastic audience member, relishing their liberty, my left shoe, it flew across the dance floor, airborne and free. It landed with a thud. The right shoe, it was a log that tripped another audience member mid-dance, before it transformed from obstacle into a fish flipping on land. My shoes, free of me, had the night of their lives, I expect. And when it came time to collect my shoes from the stage,...

REVIEWS | By Sara Veale

Tableaux Vivants

“Körper” is a study of the human body, a deep-dive into its physical form as well as the outside forces that shape our grasp on anatomy, sexuality and mortality. Sasha Waltz, one of Germany’s foremost dance theatre choreographers, created the work in 2000 as the first in a trilogy, and it’s since toured some 50-odd cities, dividing audiences around the world with its unyielding pitch and arduous manoeuvring.

REVIEWS | By Jade Larine

Too Big to Fail

Marie-Agnès Gillot is one of a kind, one in a million. She has arms and legs for days, which she sinuously moves like tentacles, spectacular extensions which she uses as air-piercing arrows and a stage charisma that could hypnotize you from the highest gallery seat. A Guillem-like dancer of intense virtuosity, she had world-class potential. But she’s never completely made the most of it and her final “Boléro” translates just that. Her 20-minute solo indeed read like a resigned swan song: yet, a beautiful one.

INTERVIEWS | By Merli V. Guerra

The Wild Divine

Since 1987, Deborah Abel Dance Company has presented modern dance productions of the highest caliber in Boston, Massachusetts, and abroad. Based in Lexington, MA, the company aims “to remind us of a level of connection with ourselves and others that gets buried in everyday life, and which the arts are uniquely qualified to uncover.”

REVIEWS | By Oksana Khadarina

Divertimento

The David H. Koch Theater looked particularly festive during New York City Ballet’s winter season. Nearly 200,000 balloons of different sizes and colors, assembled in elaborate garlands and constellations—a pop art installation by the Turkish-American visual artist Jihan Zencirli (a.k.a. Geronimo)—transformed the theater’s atrium into something akin of a gigantic playground.

FEATURES | By Chris Rodgers-Wilson

No Pain

Somewhere in the last few bars of the Bluebird coda from "The Sleeping Beauty," I felt my foot give way. I can’t remember exactly what step it was, but I knew instantly something was wrong. I almost managed to get to the end of the rehearsal, but the foot had completely locked up. Overwhelmed by a mixture of shock, pain and embarrassment, I needed to be out of view. As I limped to the seclusion of the corridor outside the busy rehearsal studio, all I could hear was white noise. Our company ballet master and my dance partner joined me...

REVIEWS | By Rebecca Ritzel

Star-crossed Lovers

It seems the only way to see Shakespeare set in the Elizabethan era these days is to go to the ballet. Especially in Washington, D.C.

INTERVIEWS | By Victoria Looseleaf

Pivotal Moments: Crystal Pite

“I’m a choreographer because I’m interested in connecting with people, in connecting to audiences, and in connecting with people I’ve worked with—performers—as a way of finding common ground. There’s something about the presence of story,” said internationally acclaimed choreographer, Crystal Pite.

REVIEWS | By Rachel Howard

Inspired Steps

I don’t think I can avoid beginning this review on a personal note. I found Episcopalian Grace Cathedral at age 25, because I lived two blocks down Nob Hill and couldn’t figure out what else to do on Easter morning, never guessing I would convert and still worship at Grace 18 years later. KT Nelson, cofounder and one of two main choreographers at ODC/Dance, San Francisco’s most prominent contemporary company, found Grace via a more circuitous route. Hearing Joby Talbot’s choral score “Path of Miracles,” which dramatizes a pilgrimage along Spain’s famous Camino de Santiago, led Nelson to a five-week...

REVIEWS | By Sara Veale

Universal Yearning

When Pina Bausch embarked on her World Cities series in the ’80s, striking up temporary residencies in locales as far-flung as São Paulo and Santiago, she sought to capture the wrenching needs, desires and fears that unite people the world over. The dance theatre works created during these sprees are searching and seductive, mingling lust and passion with darker human instincts. Some relay literal imagery and music picked up during the company’s travels, while others revel in abstraction, foregrounding sentiments inspired by their stay but only occasionally reflecting a city’s particular history and ambiance.

REVIEWS | By Penelope Ford

A Numbers Game

“Project 7,” choreographer and director Kylie Thompson revealed, was the working title of her new piece, named for the seven dancers of her eponymous pick-up company. On the meaning of the ultimate title, “33/33,” she was less forthcoming, hinting only at numerology as a driving theme. In the post-performance chat, lighting and projection designer, Simon Clemo reminded us: “Everything you need to know about the work is contained in the work,” his words and designs taking cues from the Russian avant-garde, and the Suprematism movement of 1930s.

REVIEWS | By Lorna Irvine

Disruptions

On the face of it, these two short pieces performed by the mighty Scottish Dance Theatre have little in common. They create two very distinct worlds. Yet they both deal in disruption of form, and riff on well-known themes which touch our lives. Artistic director Fleur Darkin invites the audience to spot the link between two such disparate works, and as both pieces expand, so the similarity is revealed.

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.