Invisible Wounds
It was apropos that I attended choreographer Wanjiru Kamuyu’s latest work, “Fragmented Shadows,” just before Halloween.
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Disappearing Act
Making its long anticipated debut at Sadler’s Wells, “Figures in Extinction" is perhaps the brightest new feather in Nederland Dans Theater’s cap.
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ABT, Past, Present, and Future
The final program of American Ballet Theatre’s fall season, titled “Innovations Past and Present,” featured the world premiere of Juliano Nunes “Have We Met!?” as well as two company gems: Alexei Ratmansky’s “Serenade after Plato’s Symposium” and George Balanchine’s “Theme and Variations.”
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Natural Histories
Miriam Miller steps into the center and raises her arm with deliberation, pressing her palm upward to the vaulted Gothic ceiling of the cathedral.
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Complex Female Characters
When Richard Move enters from stage left, their presence is already monumental. In a long-sleeved gown, a wig swept in a dramatic topnot, and their eyes lined in striking swoops, the artist presents himself in the likeness of Martha Graham—though standing at 6’4, they have more than a foot on the late modern dance pioneer.
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Ultimate Release
Perhaps not since Mikhail Fokine’s 1905 iconic “The Dying Swan” has there been as haunting a solo dance depiction of avian death as Aakash Odedra Company’s “Songs of the Bulbul” (2024).
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Weighty Issues
Dance, at its best, captures nuance particularly well, allowing us to feel deeply and purely. In its wordlessness, it places a primal reliance on movement and embodied knowledge as communication all its own. It can speak directly from the body to the heart, bypassing the brain’s drive to “make sense of.”
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Modern Figures
“Racines”—meaning roots—stands as the counterbalance to “Giselle,” the two ballets opening the Paris Opera Ballet’s season this year.
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Giselle Status
“Giselle” is a ballet cut in two: day and night, the earth of peasants and vine workers set against the pale netherworld of the Wilis, spirits of young women betrayed in love. Between these two realms opens a tragic dramatic fracture—the spectacular and disheartening death of Giselle.
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At Giselle’s House
Michele Wiles’ Park City home is nestled in the back of a wooded neighborhood, hidden from the road by pines and deciduous trees that are currently in the midst of their autumn transformations.
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French Jewels
It was a grand night of show and—well, show more—as eight members of L.A. Dance Project strutted their gorgeous, technically brilliant stuff in the US premiere of “Gems.”
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Traditional Tales Retold
During the summer, two Chinese dance productions came to Koch Theater at New York’s Lincoln Center: “Lady White Snake” from Shanghai Grand Theater in July and “Butterfly Lovers” from Hong Kong Ballet in August.
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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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