Hard (Nut) Facts
I couldn’t stop thinking about hockey at the New York City Ballet’s “Nutcracker” this year, and not only because the stage appeared to be made of ice: there were a slew of spectacular falls one night I attended.
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Other Delights
Last week, during the first Fjord Review Dance Critics’ Festival, Mindy Aloff discussed and read from an Edwin Denby essay during “The Critic’s Process” panel.
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A Sweet Nutcracker
There are “Nutcrackers,” and then there’s American Contemporary Ballet’s “The Nutcracker Suite.”
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The Other Side
Is it as traditional as there being “The Nutcracker” or the British pantomime on at Christmas time, for there to be an alternative offering?
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Song and Dance
To paraphrase that great song from “A Chorus Line,” the Los Angeles-based BodyTraffic gave a concert that might best be summed up as, “Dancers 10, Choreographers, well, 3.”
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Running in Circles
As Highways Performance Space continues its 35th anniversary celebration, executive director Leo Garcia and artistic director Patrick Kennelly presented two special programs, each honoring titans of the post-modern dance world
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A Thing of Beauty
I can only imagine the challenge it might be for a creator to approach the cavernous 55,000 square foot drill hall of Park Avenue Armory in its raw state.
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Eye Candy
’Tis the season, so it would be churlish to pick holes in Christopher Hampson's glorious confection, adapted from Peter Darrell's iconic work.
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Piece by Piece
Like two cicadas advancing, springing instep with each other, Tra Mi Dinh and Rachel Coulson manifest from the shadows of the deep stage of the new Union Theatre.
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From Strength to Strength: Tina Finkelman Berkett
“I can’t even stand it,” exclaimed Tina Finkelman Berkett about the Perenchio Foundation grant that her dance troupe, BodyTraffic, recently received.
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Moving Portraits
Beneath a tree also over a century old is where I meet dancer and artist Eileen Kramer, and where the 60-minute loop will end. And it feels fitting, on the heels of her recent death on November 15, 2024, at 110-years-of-age, to start here, at effectively the end of Sue Healey’s screening of On View: Icons.
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Falling for Hubbard
Hubbard Street Dance Chicago’s Fall Series will entertain you. Deftly curated, with choreographers ranging from Aszure Barton to Bob Fosse, Hubbard’s dancers ably morph through this riveting programme of showmanship.
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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,...
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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