A Parisian Dream
A participatory eagerness, a desire to be part of something sweet and beautiful, suffused the return of George Balanchine’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” to San Francisco Ballet on the cusp of spring.
Continue ReadingWorld-class review of ballet and dance.
Chief executive and artistic director of Scottish Ballet, Christopher Hampson, has spoken of a desire to reimagine the classic fairytale as being a place populated by people who are “not defined by material things, or by who they have married.” Job done. It's an idiosyncratic, witty foray into scenes evocative of MGM's golden age, with a pinch of film noir at the start and an undercurrent of German Expressionism also thrown in, but moreover, his main remit is to weave a morality tale of eschewing worldly goods for inner beauty. The disparity between rich and poor is alluded to in the uniformity of movement within the cobblers at their production line, juxtaposed with the Hollywood fantasy of the Prince's court.
Performance
Place
Words
Scottish Ballet in Christopher Hampson’s “Cinderella.” Photograph by Andy Ross
“Uncommonly intelligent, substantial coverage.”
Already a paid subscriber? Login
A participatory eagerness, a desire to be part of something sweet and beautiful, suffused the return of George Balanchine’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” to San Francisco Ballet on the cusp of spring.
Continue ReadingEntering his 10th year as artistic director of Philadelphia Ballet, Ángel Corella put his artists through a ring of fire in their early spring concert at the Academy of Music.
Continue ReadingIn her 1951 autobiography Dance to the Piper, Agnes de Mille spends seven pages describing in colorful detail what it was like to be on the road with the Ballets Russes.
FREE ARTICLESix dancers enter from stage left and position themselves along the rear wall, their backs to the audience. Today, the light through a row of windows casts them in silhouette.
Continue Reading
comments