Best of the West
“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times,” so began Charles Dickens’s masterpiece, A Tale of Two Cities.
FREE ARTICLEWorld-class review of ballet and dance.
A few years ago, I had the pleasure of catching a perfectly shaped, humorous dance vignette of two dancers with two chairs, set to the first movement of Bach’s Violin Concerto in A minor. It was both playful and choreographically complex. This duet has since, in the words of its choreographer Katie Armstrong, grown arms and legs. “Sketches” now encompasses four dancers performing the whole concerto, intertwined with specially composed sound from DJ, composer and improviser Mariam Rezaei and performed live by a string quintet. There is also a concurrent film project, which has been both created within and shown throughout this last tour throughout Scotland. Sounding complex? Well, funnily enough . . .
“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times,” so began Charles Dickens’s masterpiece, A Tale of Two Cities.
FREE ARTICLEElphaba (Cynthia Erivo) steps down the steps, rests her hat on the floor and takes in the Ozdust Ballroom in Wicked. She elevates her arm, bringing her bent wrist to her temple.
PlusThe Sarasota Ballet does not do a “Nutcracker”—they leave that to their associate school. Instead, over the weekend, the company offered a triple bill of which just one ballet, Frederick Ashton’s winter-themed “Les Patineurs,” nodded at the season.
PlusI 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.
Plus
comments