Star-crossed Lovers
It seems the only way to see Shakespeare set in the Elizabethan era these days is to go to the ballet. Especially in Washington, D.C.
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Inspired Steps
I don’t think I can avoid beginning this review on a personal note. I found Episcopalian Grace Cathedral at age 25, because I lived two blocks down Nob Hill and couldn’t figure out what else to do on Easter morning, never guessing I would convert and still worship at Grace 18 years later. KT Nelson, cofounder and one of two main choreographers at ODC/Dance, San Francisco’s most prominent contemporary company, found Grace via a more circuitous route. Hearing Joby Talbot’s choral score “Path of Miracles,” which dramatizes a pilgrimage along Spain’s famous Camino de Santiago, led Nelson to a five-week...
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Universal Yearning
When Pina Bausch embarked on her World Cities series in the ’80s, striking up temporary residencies in locales as far-flung as São Paulo and Santiago, she sought to capture the wrenching needs, desires and fears that unite people the world over. The dance theatre works created during these sprees are searching and seductive, mingling lust and passion with darker human instincts. Some relay literal imagery and music picked up during the company’s travels, while others revel in abstraction, foregrounding sentiments inspired by their stay but only occasionally reflecting a city’s particular history and ambiance.
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A Numbers Game
“Project 7,” choreographer and director Kylie Thompson revealed, was the working title of her new piece, named for the seven dancers of her eponymous pick-up company. On the meaning of the ultimate title, “33/33,” she was less forthcoming, hinting only at numerology as a driving theme. In the post-performance chat, lighting and projection designer, Simon Clemo reminded us: “Everything you need to know about the work is contained in the work,” his words and designs taking cues from the Russian avant-garde, and the Suprematism movement of 1930s.
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Disruptions
On the face of it, these two short pieces performed by the mighty Scottish Dance Theatre have little in common. They create two very distinct worlds. Yet they both deal in disruption of form, and riff on well-known themes which touch our lives. Artistic director Fleur Darkin invites the audience to spot the link between two such disparate works, and as both pieces expand, so the similarity is revealed.
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Wild Variety
For a colourful cross-section of the UK dance scene, you can hardly do better than “Sampled.” The annual event is a glimpse into the range of productions that grace the Sadler’s Wells stage over the year, pitching ballet alongside contemporary, hip-hop, flamenco and more. With its diverse line-up and proms-style standing tickets, the show caters to the devoted and the uninitiated alike, drawing a dynamic and often chirpier-than-usual crowd.
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Musing about Balanchine
George Balanchine created “Apollo” 90 years ago. Set to Igor Stravinsky’s score, this ballet—seminal and historic on many levels—signified a major point in development of Balanchine’s aesthetics and principles as a choreographer. “Apollo” is regarded as one of signatures of New York City Ballet.
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Mass for Everybody
This may be the Chinese year of the dog, but in music, 2018 is the 100th anniversary of the birth of Leonard Bernstein, the conductor, composer, pianist, lecturer, broadcaster and writer who died at age 72 in 1990. In politics, Hollywood and in some concert halls, this year is also shaping up to be the year of the woman, with marches, protests and the #MeToo movement still going strong, and the rise of the female conductor becoming, er, somewhat more apparent.
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Love and Loss
English National Ballet has launched the New Year with two double bills anchored by August Bournonville’s beloved “La Sylphide.” Over the course of a two-week run, the Romantic staple—a flutter of forest sprites and lively Highlanders—is alternately paired with Kenneth Macmillan’s “Song of the Earth” and Roland Petit’s “Le Jeune Homme et la Mort,” both of which dedicate a principal role to Death.
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Tango 'Til They're Sore
Has there ever been a sexier dance than the tango? From its origins in the 1880s in the River Plate, the border between Argentina and Uruguay, through the slums and bordellos to ballrooms—becoming a worldwide phenomenon during the Depression and extending far beyond the jazz era—its legacy still endures. It's simply a classic genre, because its romance, fire and passion are timeless.
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Stars and Stripes
“What is dance now?” artistic director Helgi Tomasson asked in the middle of San Francisco Ballet’s gala, making a pitch for the massively ambitious Unbound Festival that will crown this company’s 85thseason with 12 world premieres by 12 international choreographers unveiled in four days. If we may recast Tomasson’s question a bit more specifically, to “What is ballet now?” this was a perfect question for the moment.
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Teenage Angst and Institutions
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,...
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The Me of Today
The 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.
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America, F**K Yeah
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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Acosta Danza’s Choreographic Soup
An “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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