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.
PlusWorld-class review of ballet and dance.
There was no shortage of drama and poetry this past week at San Francisco Ballet. On the dramatic side: the announcement of a $60 million dollar anonymous donation, the largest in the company’s history; the retirement of the company’s most famous and long-serving dancer, Yuan Yuan Tan; and the company premiere of that old Frederick Ashton vehicle for Margot Fonteyn and Rudolf Nureyev, “Marguerite and Armand.” On the poetic side, we had Kenneth MacMillan’s “Song of the Earth.” Simultaneously stark and lush, pared and powerful, it balanced the ledger.
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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.
Plus“I can’t even stand it,” exclaimed Tina Finkelman Berkett about the Perenchio Foundation grant that her dance troupe, BodyTraffic, recently received.
PlusBeneath 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.
FREE ARTICLEHubbard 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.
FREE ARTICLE
I think it’s pretty disrespectful that Yuan Yuan wasn’t given her own farewell gala if that’s what she wanted. Who meant more to the company over the past quarter century? She was such a workhorse in her heyday. I always wondered “how does she do it?”—it seems like one retrospective gala at season’s end would had been the right thing to do. What is the message being sent by denying her this?
Thank you for this excellent, heartfelt and balanced review of Yuan
Yuan’s farewell.