What Moves You
The Fall for Dance Festival programming formula runs roughly thus: feature a new troupe, include a pet (or vanity) project of a big NYC star, and end with a feel-good group showcase.
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Puppet Master
He is the love of your life. You are his one-and-only. The pair of you is doomed: Obligations to the social order make your relationship impossible. The only way out—double suicide. Actually, this being eighteenth-century Japan, you let him literally do it all; still, you are his forever and there is no turning back.
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“Jérôme Bel”
Measured against his own criteria, French dance maker Jérôme Bel would seem a failure. In the eponymously named show that opened the L’Alliance New York Crossing the Line Festival last week, Bel professes he has no desire to entertain an audience.
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With Humor and Flair
It’s a new era at Smuin Contemporary Ballet, but incoming artistic director Amy Seiwert was still invoking her old boss pre-curtain as the company toured its first program under her leadership to the San Francisco suburb of Walnut Creek.
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Through Enamel Eyes
I have a confession. Until last week, I had never seen “Coppélia.” I know the story well, however, and a young me performed many approximations of Swanilda’s role alone in my bedroom, thanks to a beloved and well-worn copy of The Illustrated Book of Ballet Stories, a book and cassette combo narrated by Darcey Bussell.
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Eclectic NYCB
The second program of the New York City Ballet’s fall season was called “Eclectic NYCB” and it lived up to its billing. It featured a second-tier Balanchine work, a Jerome Robbins crowd-pleaser, and two heartfelt pas de deux acquired from outside dance festivals—one a company premiere.
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Finding Balance
New York City Center's Fall for Dance Festival continued with programs featuring Complexions Contemporary Ballet, a world premiere duet performed by Skylar Brandt and Herman Cornejo, and a tap tribute to Nina Simone performed by M.A.D.D. Rhythms collective, among other performances.
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Indra’s Vast Net
Imagine a large net stretched across the vast expanse of our world system studded with an infinitely faceted jewel at each intersection.
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Falling, Floating, and Flying
A smoky, orange hue hovers over the stage like wildfire smoke. A woman emerges from the flame, floating erect atop a crawling man’s back. She bends her knees and dismounts, arriving center stage, delivered to the audience like a queen.
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July September Romance
Last night I went to my first show of New York City’s jam-packed fall dance season, and though I never floated outside of the space-time continuum, I did feel invigorated by the New York City Ballet’s excellent opening program.
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What's Going On at Richmond Ballet
En Chalant,” Richmond Ballet artistic director Ma Cong said at the opening night of the company’s Studio Finale series on September 17th, “is the opposite of nonchalant.”
FREE ARTICLEFeatured Reads
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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