A Beautiful Mindscape
Shen Wei is a master mover between worlds—between East and West, between choreography and painting, between process and product, between the physical and the spiritual, and I could go on.
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World-class review of ballet and dance.
The haute joaillerie house Van Cleef & Arpels has a long history of supporting dance, since Louis Arpels attended the Paris Opera Ballet in the 1920s. In the 1940s, the company began producing jewel-encrusted ballerina clips. When Claude Arpels met George Balanchine in 1961, it led to the New York City Ballet’s first abstract full-length ballet, “Jewels,” in 1967. Since 2012, the house has sponsored the L.A. Dance Project, and, in 2015, they began awarding the Fedora–Van Cleef & Arpels Prize for Ballet. Winners include Alexei Ratmansky, William Forsythe, and Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui. So it was fitting that VC&A commissioned a new dance to be performed during its second annual Fifth Avenue Blooms festival, an outdoor celebration of spring running along NYC’s Fifth Ave from 50th-59th Street throughout the month of May. What was less fitting was the choice of downtown experimentalist choreographer Pam Tanowitz to headline this floral-festooned uptown stretch of consumerism—and the incongruity was a delight.
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Shen Wei is a master mover between worlds—between East and West, between choreography and painting, between process and product, between the physical and the spiritual, and I could go on.
PlusRudolf Nureyev’s “Don Quixote” is a long-running ballet in La Scala’s repertoire, periodically revived and performed on tour.
PlusEven in stillness, there is energy. When the stage lights up on Cassandra Trenary, the dancer is already quivering, muscles tensed, as if gearing up for a fight. That is precisely what ensues.
PlusCell phones and motorcycle headlights illuminated the stage at the Teatro América during a recent performance of the ballet company ProDanza. When the music also failed, audience members joined dancers in singing along, ensuring the show could go on.
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