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A Creepy Coppélia
REVIEWS | Par Paul McInnes

A Creepy Coppélia

There's something of a disconnect when you watch a live performance of ballet on YouTube knowing that it is taking place 20 minutes from your house. Due to the latest State of Emergency issued by the Tokyo Metropolitan Government, the Japanese capital has become a cultural and social wasteland. With news that many western nations are cracking on and making significant inroads with vaccination programs, it's disappointing and frustrating to see the Japanese authorities bungle, with outstanding levels of incompetency, the pathway out of this pandemic shitshow with a paltry one percent of the country being vaccinated at the time...

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Counterpointe
REVIEWS | Par Claudia Lawson

Counterpointe

Twice a year the Australian Ballet relocate to the Sydney Opera House from their home in Melbourne to debut major works. Known as their Sydney seasons, this is the first time the company have ventured to sunny Sydney since late 2019 and Covid shook the world. Under the new directorship of David Hallberg, and with Australia essentially Covid-free, the season was steeped in anticipation, excitement, but also pressure for the company. With Hallberg’s first Sydney offering New York Dialects already receiving rave reviews, the company now present Counterpointe—a triple bill of three bite-size dance delights; Act III from “Raymonda,” Balanchine’s...

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Deep Dive
DANCE FILM | REVIEWS | Par Róisín O'Brien

Deep Dive

There’s about 14 different choreographies in this 13-minute long dance film, Dive. Some of them are bonkers. Some are sad. One has an alpaca.

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Grahamfest95
REVIEWS | Par Faye Arthurs

Grahamfest95

The Martha Graham Dance Company turned 95 on April 18th. The company celebrated this milestone with a trio of performances broadcast live from its studios last weekend. Viewers could purchase programs separately or as a three-pack. Past/Present was the most balanced and satisfying as a standalone. Otherwise, the three-pack was a rewarding investment, despite some overlap in programming and formatting issues.

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Uprooted
DANCE FILM | REVIEWS | Par Lorna Irvine

Uprooted

At first, there is nothing—just the cream and brown clad figure of Scottish Dance Theatre's guest dancer Yosuke Kusano who walks across a wooden floor. As the floor is bare, so too are his very exacting movements, just enough to infer tension: minimal, sharp and mired in a kind of self-protective series of gestures. A hand is raised like an alarm signal. He tiptoes. He moves instinctively, his body governed entirely by the feelings that exist in that exact moment. Suddenly, he pulls at something just visible to the side of his shoulder—a strand of hair that is seemingly not...

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Real Men
REVIEWS | Par Rachel Howard

Real Men

Ballet22 is a new pick-up company in the San Francisco Bay Area born of one dancer with extraordinarily strong feet. Growing up in Puerto Rico, Roberto Vega Ortiz longed to dance on pointe, but his teachers said that wasn’t acceptable. So he practiced in private. Obsessively. And his pointe work became very, very good.

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Sky Stories
DANCE FILM | REVIEWS | Par Josephine Minhinnett

Sky Stories

For Red Sky Performance, dance is deeply connected to oral traditions, ceremony, and place—the land and water of Turtle Island, a name that many Indigenous communities in Canada use to refer to the continent and the ancestral territories where they live, work, and create today.

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When We Fell
DANCE FILM | REVIEWS | Par Faye Arthurs

When We Fell

The New York City Ballet’s Digital Spring Season continued this week with the premiere of the dance film When We Fell, choreographed by Kyle Abraham and co-directed by Abraham and Ryan Marie Helfant. This was an ambitious departure from the old performance recordings and Zoom rehearsal footage of the first three weeks of the season. It was also an about-face from the first ensemble work Abraham made for the company: 2018’s splashy, rap-scored “The Runaway.” When We Fell is somber and distilled. No matter which vein Abraham is working in, his singular choreographic voice and clear messaging come through.

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A New York State of Mind
REVIEWS | Par Claudia Lawson

A New York State of Mind

In early April, the Australian Ballet returned to the main stage of the Sydney Opera House for the first time in over a year. Like companies the world over, they were on hiatus while the pandemic raged. With Australia now essentially Covid-free, the company returns to a packed house, and a “new era.” In 2020, former American Ballet Theatre star David Hallberg took over from longtime artistic director David McAllister, and this is his Sydney debut. The programme throws back to Hallberg's roots, a triple bill called “New York Dialects.”

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A Belated Celebration
REVIEWS | Par Madelyn Coupe

A Belated Celebration

Queensland Ballet opened their 2021 Season with a belated celebration. The company performed their 60th Anniversary Gala—a production which, like most others around the globe, was cancelled last year due to coronavirus. It paid homage to Queensland Ballet’s history. It listed the contributions made by previous Artistic Directors and, on the surface, showcased the technical might of the dancers. Underneath all this glamour, however, lies a very specific subliminal message; one that could be easily misread or overlooked entirely. The production acted as a teaser to its audience of where Queensland Ballet, and the artistic team, wishes to head in...

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Wild (Pacific North)West
REVIEWS | Par Rachel Howard

Wild (Pacific North)West

I’m having a pandemic love affair with Pacific Northwest Ballet. It’s most unexpected, as so many of the emotional complexities of the past year have been. I live in California’s Bay Area; San Francisco Ballet has been my “home” company for two decades; I feel a loyalty to them. Yet it cannot be denied that when it comes to meeting the many challenges of these times with grace, authenticity, and whole-heartedness, Pacific Northwest Ballet has proven not just impressive but exceptionally endearing. It’s their behind-the-scenes glimpses of the dancers in each program’s “Five Minute Call” that carve a place in...

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Afternoon of Fauns and Nymphs
REVIEWS | Par Paul McInnes

Afternoon of Fauns and Nymphs

It's always fascinating when a production asks serious and intellectual questions of the audience. What is the role of dance? How does it reflect our lives and the world in which we live? How can it viscerally change us as human beings? 

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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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