World-class review of ballet and dance.
All hail the marching ensemble, a brigade of bouncing hips and outstretched arms, palms flexed and chins thrust to the sky! With its pop soundtrack and bold rearrangements of the classical lexicon, English National Ballet’s “Forsythe Evening” celebrates bravura in ballet, pairing two recent works from William Forsythe that emphasise the accessible side of the art form—the spectacular feats and showboating performances that create excitement in any audience.
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Although seemingly an evening of classical ballet, Philadelphia Ballet’s mid-March run at Philadelphia’s Academy of Music, “Bold, Brilliant, Balanchine” was a program where history, politics, race, gender issues and global affairs coalesced merely by virtue of the loaded times we live in. Artistic Director Ángel Corella conceived the program which opened with Georges Bizet’s “Symphony in C” some time ago, yet his choices deeply relate to current events. Among the threads to follow are how the concert’s three ballets depend on the creative talents of women (it was Women’s History Month after all) and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
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Time is of the essence at the Royal Opera House this spring. It hazily drifts past in Kyle Abraham’s “The Weathering;” it brutally constrains the dancers in Crystal Pite’s “Solo Echo;” and in Christopher Wheeldon’s “DGV: Danse à grande vitesse,” journeys and travel through the eras come to the fore.
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Recently, when a fellow San Francisco-based critic told me how much he had “resented” watching dance on screen during the pandemic, I had to say that for me there had been an upside: getting to know Pacific Northwest Ballet.
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Mark Morris Dance Group delighted the audience at Brooklyn Academy of Music on Thursday, March 24th, with the return of “L’Allegro, Il Penseroso il Moderato.” The performance was a reminder of the reassuring effects of good repertory: coming once again, like spring, to revive us with light, color, and joy.
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With new artistic director Hope Muir taking the helm of the National Ballet of Canada in January 2022, the company returned to the stage early March in a mixed winter programme that had a bit of the new, the old, and a goodbye. The quadruple-bill evening at the Four Seasons Centre included world premieres from Alysa Pires and Siphe November, Kenneth MacMillan’s ragtime classic “Elite Syncopations,” and a retirement performance from Jillian Vanstone in Christopher’s Wheeldon’s “After the Rain.”
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It’s difficult to be the most memorable piece of the night when flanked by George Balanchine’s blissful “Chaconne” and Jiří Kylián’s seminal “Bella Figura,” yet Stephen Galloway’s new work “Devil’s/eye” rose to this challenge and exceeded all expectations. Set to five songs by The Rolling Stones, “Devil’s/eye” is a joyous celebration of sizzling sensuality and vibrant individuality. Boston Ballet’s dancers performing to rock and roll, you might ask? Yes, and it works!
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Sarasota Ballet is known for its scrupulous renditions of ballets by Frederick Ashton and other British choreographers, as well as for its general excellence in classical dance. What it is less known for is commissioning new works from living choreographers. Which makes its new “A Comedy of Errors,” which premiered at the Van Wezel Performing Arts Hall on March 26th, all the more remarkable.
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When I heard that Karole Armitage had packaged her latest creations as “A Pandemic Notebook,” I was intrigued. What exactly does a punk ballerina/director/choreographer get up to during a long cultural shutdown? As is her wont, a lot. And though she did succumb to one straightforward pandemic trope, in “6’ Feet Apart” (the only clunker on the bill), she mostly took the big themes of the past few years—disease, Trump, nature, celebrity—and filtered them through her smart and eclectic lens. At New York Live Arts last week, her Notebook entries were presented as a series of short works alternating between...
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Last seen at La Scala in 2014, George Balanchine’s “Jewels” returned on stage this season, coincidentally like many other companies around the world: the New York City Ballet and Royal Ballet, not to mention the Bolshoi Ballet and the Mariinsky Ballet.
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Calling all dance junkies! Seriously, after being deprived of live performances for more than two years—save for the occasional outdoor terpsichorean pleasure—Angelenos were treated to heavy doses of balletic feasting when Hamburg Ballet made its debut at the Music Center this month.
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The Joyce Theater celebrated St. Patrick's Day with a riveting and rhythmic run by the midwestern Trinity Irish Dance Company. The company, under the direction of founding artistic director Mark Howard, claims to be the birthplace of “progressive Irish dance,” a genre which uses traditional Irish step dance in contemporary choreographies alongside both traditional and contemporary music. The company presented a number of short pieces, mainly by Howard, as well as one new commission by tap stars Michelle Dorrance and Melinda Sullivan.
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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