World-class review of ballet and dance.
If you’ve ever laughed at the wrong moment, or at a joke that wasn’t funny, or to break the tension, then you will appreciate the theme of Shannon Gillen’s “Punch Line,” performed by the physical dance theater group Vim Vigor, that opened the Gibney performance 2023-24 season in September.
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With a bang it begins, the explosion of a star, on stage at the Playhouse, Arts Centre. Bangarra Dance Theatre’s “Yuldea” has arrived on Wurundjeri Country (Melbourne) with a supernova to outshine entire galaxies, before heading to Bendigo, Djaara Country, for the final quivering leg and jutting arm of shifting gas and particles.
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Marking a centenary is always an occasion. And for the Martha Graham Dance Company, which was founded in 1926 and is the oldest dance troupe in America, the festivities have just begun.
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New York City Center's 80th anniversary features a fall dance season worth celebrating.
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From the moment the curtain rose, Queensland Ballet’s “Strictly Gershwin” dazzled.
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In just 17 years, artistic director Christine Cox has taken BalletX from a summer pickup project to a formidable choreographic factory.
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A virulent new strain of Covid is on the rise; democracy is in peril; and the war still rages on in Ukraine. But relief of the highest order came in the form of, “The Missing Mountain.”
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After 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.
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Watching 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, and it pulls no punches.
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Overheard after the curtain drop on “Theme and Variations,” the opener of English National Ballet’s latest mixed bill: “Well, it was very Balanchine!”
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Smaïl Kanouté is a French-Malian graphic designer, dancer, and choreographer based in Paris, and the founder of a Compagnie Vivons, which combines visual art, film, and live performance.
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Looking to the alphabet, many letters have been used to describe a swan, from the S of their long necks to the letters V and J to describe the overhead appearance of the flock echelons of them in flight.
PlusLong before the dancers take the stage, Dance Theatre of Harlem’s season at New York City Center feels like one of the most energizing cultural events of the spring.
PlusIt is rare for George Balanchine’s grand, bedazzled “Symphony in C” to open a program. Its champagne-popping finale for 52 dancers tends to be a nightcap.
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The Spring is Blooming festival, by Dance Reflections by Van Cleef & Arpels, now in its fifth year, has become a highlight of the spring dance circuit.
PlusAs the audience come to their feet at the end of this ballet there is a noted difference to be seen on stage. Three women stand with joined hands, taking their call as the romantic leads of a loud and proud lesbian ballet.
PlusOne of San Francisco Ballet’s greatest assets is its home venue, the Beaux-Arts style War Memorial Opera House, with four rings of seating that require performers to project their energies practically to the exosphere.
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