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.
It’s late September: the air is crisp, the kids are back at school, and the Fall for Dance festival is ensconced at City Center for two weeks of grab-bag programming at bargain-bin prices. I chose to attend Program 3 of this year’s fest because it featured the live premiere of Jamar Roberts’s “Morani/Mungu (Black Warrior/Black God),” which premiered virtually during the Covid-adapted FFDF of 2020. Arriving 5 months after George Floyd’s death and overtly tackling the struggle to simply exist as a Black person in America, I found this solo incredibly moving at the time. I’ve wanted to see it danced live for two years now. Roberts himself danced the streaming premiere, but he has since retired from performing with the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater to be the troupe’s resident choreographer. Until just recently, the FFDF casting of this solo was a mystery, and I wondered who would be able to fill Roberts’s giant shoes (well, bare feet). James Gilmer, a rising Ailey star, was eventually tapped for the honor. He did not disappoint. Nor did “Morani/Mungu,” which proved once again to be a knockout, both physically and emotionally.
Performance
Place
Words
Jennifer Stahl and Tiit Helimets in Robbins' “In the Night.” Photograph by Erik Tomasson
“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