World-class review of ballet and dance.
Let’s be blunt: This is a year of desperation “Nutcrackers.” To deliver even one-fifth the joy of a live “Nutcracker” during these darkest pandemic days (and, I fear, to attract an even smaller share of the usual audience)—this must be counted a triumph.
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Covid-19 has been devastating to the performing arts. However, over the weekend I watched a performance by the Sarasota Ballet that reminded me of a pandemic silver lining: expanded accessibility. From my apartment in Brooklyn I’ve been able to see performances streamed from all over the world. These digital shows are a little surreal, and they cannot compete with live ones, but they do offer a glimpse of companies I usually don’t have the ability to see. In a normal year, I would not have had the opportunity to review this small Gulf Coast troupe, but this year I was...
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In the last three decades, the term Dance and Technology became a thing, a niche where choreographers strove to enhance and marry kinetic movement with digital, animation, film and video. Brilliant failures and successes ensued, depending on how the collaborators gelled with each other. One of the great triumphs was “BIPED,” (1999) where Merce Cunningham partnered with Paul Kaiser and Shelley Eshkar's dazzling projected animation imagery and the murky, sonar-like thuds of Gavin Bryars' score. The dancers' shimmering tourmaline costumes furthered the underwater impression and the choreography swam, receding, wavery, elusive.
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The Swan, with choreography from David Dawson and written and filmed by Eve McConnachie, is of course inspired by “Swan Lake,” and focuses on the first six minutes of Act 4. It acts as (all being well next year) a wonderful taste of Scottish Ballet's forthcoming full adaptation and tour.
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According to his note accompanying Pacific Northwest Ballet’s latest digital stream, twice a week, artistic director Peter Boal attends a pandemic-strategizing Zoom meeting with the world’s leading companies—American Ballet Theatre, the Royal Ballet, the National Ballet of Canada, and many more. Let’s hope other ballet leaders are listening keenly to his contributions, because this second repertory program shows PNB stepping up to our moment with encouraging grace and boldness.
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From mimicking the swarming of bees in “Emergence,” to grappling with forces of nature in “The Seasons’ Canon:” Crystal Pite often eagerly looks to complex configurations and omnipotent powers when working with a corps de ballet.
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This year, Fall for Dance North not only showcased a diverse range of dance forms with real emotional depth, but delivered an ample dose of humour and levity in the midst of a pandemic. The relaunched interview series set in a bathtub, “Bathtub Bran” was a brilliant way to keep people entertained and, in true FFDN style, highlighted the fact that dance is not an exclusive art form or language, but an everyday one: if you can get bath ducks and miniature unicorns, you can get dance.
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The second and final 2020 Fall for Dance program was not as somber as the first, though it still felt far removed from the ebullient live festivals of years past. Again, four pieces and seven dancers comprised the evening. Once again David Hallberg and Alicia Graf Mack co-hosted the event. And yet again there were two world premiere commissions and two classics on the bill. But this time around I tallied the scorecard at three hits and one miss.
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With the hidden conviction of attending the last Italian dance performances, we went to Venice at La Biennale Danza festival: a kind of resistance, before our new, imminent lockdown. Despite the enthusiastic title, “And Now!” the 14th edition was an undertone: a few critics and journalists, no one from abroad, the audience halved because of the distance rules. Neither was the director, Marie Chouinard, able to arrive from Canada. Instead British choreographer Wayne McGregor was there, attending all the shows: a few days after he would be appointed new director of dance at La Biennale.
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On the fiftieth anniversary of Yukio Mishima's death, the Tokyo Ballet produced its latest version of “M,” choreographed by Maurice Béjart. After a generally terrible year for the arts, to see a nearly sold out production at the Kunio Maekawa-designed Tokyo Bunka Kaikan was extremely positive and served as a reminder that people need to see, feel and participate in art.
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Even in the midst of a global plague, the New York City Center found a way to put on its annual Fall for Dance Festival this year—with a virtually broadcast live performance—and for roughly an hour last night everything seemed right with the world. Well, sort of. Normally, the FFD performances are like rock concerts: whooping and hollering is a main component of the fun. With its populist $15 ticket price, the fest is as much an occasion for the NY dance community to get together and proclaim its love for itself as it is to showcase diverse troupes and...
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Some days, when I find myself spiraling down Twitter’s sewer drain of dystopian disinformation, I contemplate tweeting a stupid joke that goes like this: “I Used to Review Ballet and Now I Tend Chickens: My Pandemic Memoir.”
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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