World-class review of ballet and dance.
“Maybe this time, it won’t end that way . . .” A wishful sentiment shared, perhaps, by the audience as they watch a well-known classic. Romeo and Juliet: Beyond Words, written and produced by BalletBoyz founders Michael Nunn and William Trevitt in association with the Royal Ballet and Footwork Films, unfortunately does not manage to create this tension.
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For any dance aficionado, Sadler's Wells is a legendary location. From the first theatre built in the seventeenth century, to the present day, with the sixth theatre standing in the prestigious Clerkenwell area of London, countless numbers of dancers, actors, choreographers and directors have cut their teeth here. The series of short online films presented by Sadler's Wells and currently available on YouTube are as eclectic as anything from the venue's centuries of inspiration. They all show the diversity of performances as well as the progression of dance, in terms of both choreography and developmental film techniques on screen. Watching these...
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Since the middle of March, when St. Petersburg’s Mariinsky Theater closed its doors due to the Covid-19 pandemic, nearly 85 million people from all around the world have accessed a variety of high-quality streaming performances—symphonies, choral works, operas, ballets and ballet classes—which the company has offered on various online platforms, including Mariinsky.TV. This staggering number of viewers speaks for itself. In such unprecedented times for performing arts, Mariinsky Theater has demonstrated an exemplar way of outreach and engagement with their audiences.
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All around me, things are beginning to ‘return to normal’ which is misleading in both meaning and reality for things cannot return to normal; what was normal—what was before—was precisely the problem. In our separation from nature, and a balanced system of replenishment, driven by our greed and need for super-sized efficiency, our grand-scale consumerism, as Arundhati Roy writes, “another world . . . . She is on her way.” And how she forms, it is up to us all. “As the ice caps melt, as oceans heat up, and water tables plunge, as we rip through the delicate web...
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Royal New Zealand Ballet finished their “Live in Your Living Room” series with a tribute to old and new; their penultimate episode honoured the romantic roots of classical ballet whilst the season ended with a sweet and delicious encore of an audience favourite.
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Mariinsky Ballet’s spectacular production of “Raymonda,” presented on Mariinsky.TV as part of the company’s online season, is a real treat. Rarely seen in the West in its entirety, it’s a jewel of a ballet—the last great creation of Marius Petipa for the Imperial Russian Ballet.
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St. Petersburg’s Mariinsky Theater offers an exceptional online season during the time of Covid-19, streaming from its website, Mariinsky.TV, a wide selection of performances—ballets, operas, and classical music concerts—from its illustrious repertory, all impeccably recorded and presented.
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The next episode from Royal New Zealand Ballet’s “Live in Your Living Room” series diverges from their previous content. Up until now, the company has broadcast filmed productions such as “Romeo and Juliet,” or dress rehearsal recordings, “Cinderella” from their archives. This time, however, they decided to share something completely different. Instead of presenting a finished product—a performance with everything perfectly rehearsed and every detail finalised—RNZB chose to broadcast a documentary that focuses upon the rehearsal process. This episode shows how complicated and turbulent the creative process can be.
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As the coronavirus pandemic brought live performances to a halt, many ballet companies around the world turned to online platforms to present their work and to engage with their audiences, bringing dance performances straight into our living rooms. In fact, these trying times created an unprecedented opportunity for people all over the world to enjoy a wealth of ballet productions, new and old, which the majority of viewers would never be able to see otherwise.
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When it comes to restaging canonical works, the process is extraordinarily complex. A myriad of difficulties can emerge depending on how much or how little a new work differs from the original ballet. Every aspect of the restaging—from form to characterisation and plot—does not exist in isolation; the theatrical elements are irrevocably tied to and haunted by the canonical predecessor. How a choreographer, then, approaches a restaging is uniquely singular them and their creative practice.
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Memory is not linear. Have I told you this before? I saw this production of see Graeme Murphy’s “Romeo & Juliet,” filmed on Wednesday 21st September, 2011 at Arts Centre Melbourne with Orchestra Victoria, before I wrote my first piece for Fjord Review.
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The 25th of April is an important day for Australia and New Zealand—it is Anzac Day. It is a day where two countries come together and acknowledge the suffering that our servicemen and women have endured. This year, however, Anzac Day was quite different. There were not the usual migrations, no congregations and even the shores of Gallipoli—normally filled with thousands of visitors—were bare. Instead, people decided to commemorate at home. They lined their driveways at dawn and waited for the Reveille to play through the radio.
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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