Wheeldon's World
There are ballet galas, and then there are ballet galas curated by Christopher Wheeldon (he was given an OBE in 2016).
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World-class review of ballet and dance.
There are ballet galas, and then there are ballet galas curated by Christopher Wheeldon (he was given an OBE in 2016).
PlusIt’s a treat to see the Paul Taylor Dance Company perform within the close range of the Joyce Theater. (The company typically holds court at the much larger Lincoln Center.)
PlusWhat is freedom? And how do you keep working to reclaim freedom with fresh energy and joy?
PlusIn late April at New York City Center, the Martha Graham Dance Company began a three-year celebration of its 100th anniversary. The four City Center performances were collectively entitled “American Legacies.”
PlusI imagine choreographers lazing about listening to disparate styles of music they may want to dance to. Or it’s possible a few dancer friends drop by or roomies come home and one says, “I’ve got a tape to play.”
PlusThough I desperately wanted to see the American Ballet Theater premiere Wayne McGregor’s “Woolf Works” this season, one could do worse than seeing “Onegin” as a last show before hitting the road for summer vacation.
PlusDutch company Introdans’s mission statement is in its name: The group was founded by Ton Wiggers in 1971 to “introduce dance” to as large an audience as possible, at first responding to a lack of professional concert dance in Wiggers's own region, the eastern part of the Netherlands.
PlusThe School of American Ballet is celebrating its 90th anniversary this year. So is George Balanchine’s iconic “Serenade”—the first piece he made in America in 1934, choreographed on students from his brand-new academy.
PlusSometimes there’s not much you’re able to say analytically about a dance work, and yet you know you’ve just witnessed a blood-guts-and-soul offering from an artist of the keenest kinaesthetic intelligence. Such was the case with gizeh muñiz vengel’s “auiga,” second on a double bill finale for the ARC Edge residency at San Francisco’s CounterPulse.
PlusThe Australian Museum Mammalogy Collection holds ten specimens of the Bramble Cay Melomys collected from 1922–24, when they were in abundance. One hundred years later, a familiar photo of a wide-eyed, mosaic-tailed Melomys, the first native mammal to become extinct due to the impacts of climate change, greets me as I enter the Arts House foyer.
FREE ARTICLEWatching Pacific Northwest Ballet’s “Coppélia,” which the Seattle company generously released as a digital stream for distant fans, you could easily fall down two historically rewarding rabbit holes.
PlusTwo performers crawl in on hands and knees wearing neon green, hooded coveralls—the lightweight papery kind made for working in a sterile environment—and clusters of balloons pinned to their backs.
PlusWill Rawls makes boundaries visible by defying them. Known for the disciplinary and topical range of his projects, the choreographer, director, and performer approaches issues of representation in “[siccer],” a multi-part, multi-site work co-presented by L’Alliance New York’s Crossing the Line Festival. A live performance at Performance Space New York...
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It is always interesting when multiple theme steps emerge over the course of a mixed repertory evening, but it is uncanny on one featuring five different ballets, each with a different choreographer and composer, covering a twenty-year span (2005-2025).
PlusZvidance premiered its new work “Dandelion” mid-November at New York Live Arts. Founded by Zvi Gotheiner in 1989, Zvidance has been a steady presence in the New York contemporary dance scene, a reliable source of compositional integrity, and a magnet for wonderful dancers.
PlusCleveland native Dianne McIntrye received a hometown hero's welcome during her curtain speech prior to her eponymous dance group thrilling the audience in her latest work, “In the Same Tongue.”
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