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Breaking the Mold
REVIEWS | Par Cecilia Whalen

Breaking the Mold

As jazz music was evolving in the early 20th century, people were moved by it and moved to it. Early jazz dances like the Charleston and the Lindy Hop emerged as a response to swing music and, like their musical counterpart, celebrated energetic improvisation using vocabulary rooted in West African and African American aesthetics. In the 1940s, the music took a sharp new turn: the art form moved into the era of bebop, the modern, virtuosic and up-tempo style that critics complained “you can't dance to.” While bebop musicians cleverly retorted that maybe “you can't dance to it,” the critics...

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The Danish Girl
REVIEWS | Par Valentina Bonelli

The Danish Girl

Sasha Riva and Simone Repele, Italian dancers with parallel careers with Hamburg Ballett and Geneva Ballet, now a choreographic duo, chose the novel and the movie The Danish Girl as a subject for their new work: “Lili Elbe Show.” After a preview last summer in Montepulciano (a beautiful village in Tuscany), the piece for five dancers, with revised choreography, staging and with new costumes by Francesco Murano, premiered in February in Rovereto and Trento, headlining inDanza.22. As explained by the choreographers themselves, it was not easy to approach such a story, but they believe that this is the right moment...

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Foot Work
REVIEWS | Par Gracia Haby

Foot Work

The sole is stamped with the maker’s mark, the size, and the width of the shoe. The sole is attached to the last with a staple gun, then using the relevant sized upper, the shoe is pulled over the last, the toe is pinned, and the upper is stapled to the seat of the last. This is followed by a combination of paste, hessians and cards to build up the block, depending upon the dancer’s specifications. This is how Freed of London make their bespoke pointe shoes, and this behind-the-scenes process is how Prue Lang’s “Castillo” begins.

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Heart to Heart
REVIEWS | Par Candice Thompson

Heart to Heart

On Tuesday evening February 22, 2022, Israeli dance ensemble L-E-V brought “Chapter 3: The Brutal Journey of the Heart” to the dance-obsessed audiences of New York’s the Joyce Theater. Founded by co-artistic directors Sharon Eyal and Gai Behar, L-E-V traces a lineage from Batsheva Dance Company, where Eyal was both a dancer and later associate artistic director and house choreographer, and Tel Aviv nightlife, where Behar has been both a party producer and curator. “Chapter 3” held both of these influences in close proximity while also showcasing very talented dancers in Eyal’s ultra-specific, dance language. 

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Prodigal Son No More
REVIEWS | Par Marina Harss

Prodigal Son No More

On February 27th, at a matinee performance, New York City Ballet’s Gonzalo García retired after fifteen years at the company, following ten at San Francisco Ballet. He’s 42—a respectable retirement age for a dancer, and he surely has his share of aches and pains. His retirement comes just as three young men in the company have been promoted to principal status. A wave of change has arrived at City Ballet.

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The Art of the Short Film
DANCE FILM | REVIEWS | Par Lorna Irvine

The Art of the Short Film

As we blink from the stupor of the near-hibernation of New Year and slowly come around to (supposedly) changing seasons, Northern Ballet have provided some incredible work on film to watch as storms batter the United Kingdom. Here is a round up of some of the most interesting ones to catch online. The artistry is superb, inventive and all have completely distinct visions in their ouevre.

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Swan Songs and Cygnets
REVIEWS | Par Faye Arthurs

Swan Songs and Cygnets

Principal dancer Teresa Reichlen bade the New York City Ballet adieu last weekend after 22 years. She had been slated to retire with Peter Martins’s full-length “Swan Lake,” but thanks to the Omicron variant of Covid she had to settle for Balanchine’s one-act “Swan Lake” instead. At 37 years old, she did not exactly retire young. But physically, her departure seemed premature. The fact that she was planning to dance the full-length “SL” speaks for itself. Most principals exit long past their ability to get through that gauntlet. But Reichlen was always something of an outlier.

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There is only the dance
REVIEWS | Par Faye Arthurs

There is only the dance

“There is only the dance” T.S. Eliot wrote in 1936 in “Burnt Norton,” the first poem in his seminal late work, Four Quartets. Yet there has only been an actual dance set to this quartet since 2018, when choreographer Pam Tanowitz became the first person granted permission by the Eliot estate to choreograph to the text. The resulting work had its NYC premiere at the Brooklyn Academy of Music last week. The Four Quartets really speak to dance lovers, as was evidenced by the large crowd of balletomanes at BAM. (I confess they among my favorite poems.) Dramaturge Gideon Lester...

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Dancing in Eden
REVIEWS | Par Rachel Howard

Dancing in Eden

San Francisco Ballet topped international dance news lately with the announcement that Tamara Rojo will take over as artistic director next year, succeeding New York City Ballet star Helgi Tomasson after his 37-year tenure. What has San Francisco Ballet, once a second-tier West Coast company, become under Tomasson’s leadership? Well, in institutional size SFB is now second only to New York City Ballet among US companies, with an annual budget of $52 million. In repertory, it counts ballets by most of the major international talents, many of these commissioned in massive new works festivals.

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Entrances and Exits
REVIEWS | Par Marina Harss

Entrances and Exits

This was supposed to be the week New York City Ballet was to dance Peter Martins’s full-length version of “Swan Lake.” Because the rapid spread of Omicron forced the company to shorten its rehearsal period, that production was replaced with George Balanchine’s one-act version, which has been combined with other repertory ballets. No regrets—Martins’ “Swan” is a cold, bleak affair—but some of the resulting programs have been a bit of a grab-bag. Consider the one on February 15th, which included the high-modernist 1946 work “The Four Temperaments,” combined with the breezy pas de deux “Sonatine,” followed by a stand-alone “Black...

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Pyotr Ilych in the House
REVIEWS | Par Marina Harss

Pyotr Ilych in the House

Thankfully, no further Covid disruptions have marred the company’s winter season, though fear-of-Omicron has kept the houses less than full. A shame, since the company is dancing so well. This week and next, Balanchine’s one-act “Swan Lake” has been added to the mix, in place of the originally-scheduled full evening production by Peter Martins. Even “Swan Lake” has not been enough to fill the house, though it was noticeably more populated on the evening of February 11 than it had been a few days earlier.

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Visionary Voices
REVIEWS | Par Faye Arthurs

Visionary Voices

New York City Ballet’s Visionary Voices program featured one world premiere, Jamar Roberts’s “Emanon—In Two Movements,” and two recent additions to the repertory: Pam Tanowitz’s “Bartók Ballet” from 2019 and Kyle Abraham’s “The Runaway” from 2018. It was a surprise that the newest piece felt like it was the oldest, but that wasn’t a bad thing. Rather, it was delightfully unexpected that the most overt Balanchine ode I’ve seen in a while came from the resident choreographer of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater.

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Featured Reads

REVIEWS | Rachel Howard
Starry Nights

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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