A Danced Rituel
When Frank Gehry was tapped to be the architect of Walt Disney Concert Hall, home to both the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the Los Angeles Master Chorale, he envisioned the space to be “a living room for the city.”
PlusWorld-class review of ballet and dance.
The Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater’s annual December residency at City Center featured four world premieres. I caught two: Hope Boykin’s “Finding Free” and Lar Lubovitch’s “Many Angels.” Both were in conversation with the troupe’s repertorial lodestar, Ailey’s spiritual “Revelations,” which closed the show. (As it does most nights, 27 times this season. Ronald K. Brown’s similarly uplifting “Grace” holds the finale honor 9 times, while Kyle Abraham’s “Are You in Your Feelings?”, Matthew Rushing’s “Sacred Songs,” and Alonzo King’s “Following the Subtle Current Upstream” close once apiece.) Like “Revelations,” “Finding Free” contemplated the path to heaven—with detours through the hell of oppression—while “Many Angels” started in a higher plane and stayed there. Both new dances were beautiful variations on the deliverance theme, making for an exalted Sunday night triptych.
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When Frank Gehry was tapped to be the architect of Walt Disney Concert Hall, home to both the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the Los Angeles Master Chorale, he envisioned the space to be “a living room for the city.”
PlusSan Francisco’s War Memorial Opera House is a grand, gracious theater, so it was a big deal to see the San Francisco Ballet School hold its end-of-year performances in that hall for the first time since at least 1985.
PlusAt its heart, “Sylvia” is a ballet about the resistance to love—a theme that continues to resonate deeply, as the human spirit often recoils from love, driven by fear, pride, a need for control, or the weight of duties and moral constraints.
PlusSince the 1970s, the Paris Opera Ballet has cultivated a distinctive tradition of nurturing its own dancers as emerging choreographers.
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