World-class review of ballet and dance.
That eerie post-Covid time warp—are we moving forward or stuck in a loop?—prevailed on a windy summer night as former San Francisco Ballet artistic director Helgi Tomasson took the stage of Stanford University’s Frost Amphitheater and explained that the program would begin with his old staple set to Bach keyboard works, “7 for Eight.”
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While books are being banned and burned in the States, and the political climate continues to roil, one can take solace in art. Especially the art of Butoh master and Los Angeles treasure, Japanese rice-farmer-turned-dancer Oguri, who’s been making dances in Southern California since 1990. And what dances they are: From site-specific work that has included the phenom exploring the connection between humans and the Getty Center’s architectural environment, to his ongoing series, “Flower of the Season,” in which he tackles subjects as diverse as Ikebana, the Japanese art of flower arranging, to “Caddy! Caddy! Caddy!” inspired by William Faulkner’s...
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In the archives at Jacob’s Pillow a 1948 video of Talley Beatty performing “Mourner’s Bench,” plays on a loop. In the space of a couple minutes, Beatty moves fluidly through wave-like motions, contracting and extending his body with a coiled intensity searching for release. The black and white footage is silent and flickering, and it is difficult to make out the expression on his face. Watching it over and over, I am struck by how Beatty continues to rise up with a Phoenix-like quality, eventually lifting up so much he executes a precarious one leg balance and promenade on top...
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The Vertigo Dance Company from Israel performed "One. One & One"─a work of incisive sensitivity and raw physicality at PS 21 (Performance Spaces for the 21st Century). Just a 3-hour drive north of New York City, the expansive conservancy with its singular, open-air pavilion theater is arguably the most perfect space to experience Vertigo’s earthy masterpiece. The 300-seat, open-air, state-of-the-art theater sits at the apex of a 100-acre preserve of apple orchards, meadows, and woodlands with trails. As the drama of sunset over New York’s verdant Hudson Valley played out in full view, the spectacle of Vertigo’s nine amazing dancers...
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The international dance festival Colours in Stuttgart is a fairly young endeavour. Commencing in 2015, it repeated every two years through 2019 and restarted this year with a grand program. Launched by Eric Gauthier together with Claudia Bauer and Meinrad Huber, the festival has received international acclaim since its conception. As often dance festivals do, it brings together dance professionals, amateurs and enthusiasts in a friendly environment where it’s possible to relish in a vibrant and colourful atmosphere.
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Once a year, Queensland Ballet stages “Bespoke,” the company’s main contemporary program. It presents three new works created by three different choreographers that experiment with the creative process. “Bespoke” holds a unique place in Queensland Ballet’s season. It acts as a platform that exposes audiences to a wider variety of works (ones that are not just classical). More importantly, however, it also allows us to witness the wide spectrum of abilities the company dancers have to offer—abilities that are, sometimes, overlooked when staging more traditional productions.
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For performing arts aficionados, summer in Los Angeles can mean only one thing: wining and dining under the stars at the iconic Hollywood Bowl, where a ticket can still be snagged for—yes—a buck. Currently celebrating its 100-year anniversary, the outdoor venue and summer home to the Los Angeles Philharmonic, with its 1927 Lloyd Wright-designed shell that has since undergone several incarnations, has been the backdrop for boldfaced names of all stripes.
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Philadelphia’s 17-year young BalletX has gifted the city with more than 100 world premiere contemporary ballets and then taken them on the road around the nation. Known for commissioning emerging and established choreographers from many countries, it has had some great successes. Among them, Rena Butler’s breathless “The Under Way,” which Covid relegated to film, Annabelle Lopez Ochoa’s staggeringly original “Castrati,” Tobin Del Cuore’s marvelous “Beside Myself,” and numerous delights from its co-founder and long-time resident choreographer for the Philadelphia Ballet, Matthew Neenan. Not to mention choreographers of the stature of Nicolo Fonte, Kevin O’Day, and the inimitable Jodie Gates...
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When the inclination is to create, as the award-winning choreographer Amy Seiwert says, “the most brilliant thing that anyone’s ever seen,” what happens when you’re given permission to be less than perfect? This is one question the Michael Smuin protégée who went on to direct the Sacramento Ballet for two seasons is asking with her innovative series, Sketch. For the project’s twelfth iteration, Seiwert invited Natasha Adorlee, formerly of ODC/Dance and Robert Moses’ Kin; and rising star, Joshua L. Peugh, founder of Dark Circles Contemporary Dance, to join her with a group of eight stellar dance artists to create new works...
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Australasian Dance Collective finally presented its second iteration of the triple bill “Three” to a very eager audience. Originally slated to be performed back in February, the Brisbane floods caused the production to be halted in its tracks. Mid-tech rehearsal everything stopped—the dancers were evacuated, the theatre flooded, and people patiently waited to hear about the future of “Three.” Thankfully, nearly five months later, the production was staged in all its sensory splendour, and audiences flocked to the theatre to support the three new Australian works.
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Even despite countless efforts not to, the concert dance world can feel inaccessible. At its most avant-garde, the form can come off as niche, esoteric, and difficult to understand, especially to those without a background in it. Kyle Abraham’s “An Untitled Love,” turns all these assumptions on their head.
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A single dancer commands the stage, her arms and legs lithely carving the space as the words of Gloria Anzaldúa’s poem “To Live In The Borderlands Means You,” simultaneously sculpt the air. A ballerina’s nimble fingertips etch lines in the sky as she dances with her partner in an ethereal, heart-wrenching pas de deux. Men in intricately embroidered jackets tap out a percussive and precise zapateado. Women in brightly colored skirts move together with force, muskets in hand. Ballet Nepantla’s “Valentina,” which was presented in an abridged version on July 13 at Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival’s Henry J. Leir Outdoor...
PlusWatching 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,...
PlusThe 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.
PlusAfter 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.
PlusAn “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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