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Atlas Shrugged
REVIEWS | Par Victoria Looseleaf

Atlas Shrugged

No matter how many bells, whistles and special effects are deployed in a dance, if the choreography isn’t there, the exercise/event borders on being pointless. To wit: the two-act “Tesseract,” a collaboration between filmmaker Charles Atlas and choreographers Rashaun Mitchell and Silas Riener, who happen to be very good movers. That this trio also comes with a first-class pedigree—Atlas served as filmmaker-in-residence for Merce Cunningham for a decade from the early 1970s through 1983, and Mitchell and Riener both danced with the postmodern genius during the troupe’s final years—upped the expectation ante while falling short on its deliverables.

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Misty!
REVIEWS | Par Claudia Lawson

Misty!

In 2015 David McAllister, the Australian Ballet’s long time artistic director debuted his first full- length work at the Sydney Opera House: his lavish, and wildly successful, “The Sleeping Beauty.” At the time, the Australian Ballet keenly revealed that more than 70 per cent of the production costs (thought to be in the millions) were raised through 2000-plus philanthropic donations. The financial support was not only obvious, but allowed McAllister’s artistic vision to be fully realized; the stage dripped with beautifully ornate sets, luxurious costumes and intricate detailing—it was a financial and creative success.

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Light & Dark Matters
REVIEWS | Par Rachel Elderkin

Light & Dark Matters

This year marks the 25th anniversary of Sir Kenneth MacMillan’s death. To celebrate the life and work of the internationally renowned choreographer and former Royal Ballet director, the UK’s leading ballet companies joined together to perform a season of MacMillan’s work.

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Balletboyz
REVIEWS | Par Lorna Irvine

Balancing Delicacy and Deadlines

Details and the slightest intricacies are key to this showcase of BalletBoyz’ incredible work, displaying their versatility. A hand placed just so, a smile that is hard to read, bodies entwined, in conflict and pushed apart. With an audacious, challenging remit of creating brand new works for the company in just a fortnight, four choreographers bring pieces of delicacy and precision in collaboration with four composers. Balance and power structures is the theme threading through the evening, topped off by a critically acclaimed half hour long piece from 2013 by Russell Maliphant, called “Fallen” (the most balletic in the purest...

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Submerged
REVIEWS | Par Gracia Haby

Submerged

“Our past, our present, and whatever remains of our future, absolutely depend on what we do now. ” — Sylvia Earle, Oceanographer

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Unleashed
REVIEWS | Par Victoria Looseleaf

Unleashed

Arthur Janov, the recently deceased nonagenarian psychologist who developed primal scream therapy, would, no doubt, have felt right at home experiencing “Attractor,” a ritualistic, twerky-jerky rave directed and choreographed by Lucy Guerin and Gideon Obarzanek. Oh, and the unhinged neo-apocalyptic score, performed live by Indonesian duo, Senyawa (vocalist Rully Shabara and Wukir Suryadi on electrified “Bamboo Spear” and other instruments), was itself a gut-punching primal scream of, well, Mozartean proportions.

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The Stars Align
REVIEWS | Par Penelope Ford

The Stars Align

The first iteration of Canada's All Star Gala was presented in February of this year, showcasing work from the classical canon danced by gifted artists from around the world. Helmed by ballerina Svetlana Lunkina, it was a balletic treat, a confection of classicism, featuring gems rarely if ever performed in North America. A modern programme was promised, and ambitious as it seemed to present not one but two of these spectaculars within a year, the second All Star Gala took place on Saturday night at the Sony Centre.

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RAWdance
REVIEWS | Par Rachel Howard

Double Exposure

Aretha Franklin’s voice surges warm and bosomy from the sound system, singing the 1960’s Sam Cooke classic, A change is gonna come . . . As she sings, two dancers cavort below, an inane little chirping noise intrudes, and what we gather are tweets from the choreographer David Roussève appear above, emoticons and all. His favorite note from Aretha is about to come, he tweets. Listen for it . . . That one. The one that makes him feel mmmm. The way Wendy and Ryan are dancing, that’s the way that note makes him feel, he says. And he goes...

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Songs of Bukovina
REVIEWS | Par Oksana Khadarina

Songs of Bukovina

A world premiere of Alexei Ratmansky’s “Songs of Bukovina” was one of the highlights of American Ballet Theatre’s fall season at the Lincoln Center. The ballet is choreographed to the commissioned score by Leonid Desyatnikov, namely a selection of preludes from his newly-minted, incandescent Bukovinian Songs (24 Preludes for Piano). (The music in its entirety will be premiered in Russia next spring.) This is the sixth ballet of Ratmansky-Desyatnikov creative team and the third with the entirely new music. Previously, the choreographer made two ballets: “Lost Illusions” (2011) for Bolshoi Ballet and “Opera” (2013) for La Scala Ballet, for which...

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Salva Sanchis
REVIEWS | Par Merli V. Guerra

A Love Supreme

In early October, Princeton University hosted A Festival of the Arts, celebrating the grand opening of the university’s impressive new Lewis Arts complex. Presented by the Department of Music and the Lewis Center for the Arts, the festival boasted over 100 events in music, art, and dance, including daily sold-out performances of Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker and Salva Sanchis’s “A Love Supreme.”

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Mariinsky Ballet
REVIEWS | Par Victoria Looseleaf

Gifts from Fokine

Gobsmacked by beauty and the timelessness of ballet! Indeed, what a gift it was to witness terpsichorean history come alive—if only for several hours—when Segerstrom Center for the Arts presented the Mariinsky Ballet and Orchestra as its season opener in an all-Fokine program.

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Count Me In
REVIEWS | Par Gracia Haby

Count Me In

A performance that took place in a 7 x 4 metre box, covered in two-way mirrored Plexiglas film, offered the promise of, as then billed, “two bodies, a drum kit, and a melody.” Two years later, the melody has gone, but the two bodies and kit remain; “by doing away with narrative and melody, and making a constantly 'in flux' relationship to the public, attention is focused on the agency of the drumming and dancing and the audience.” Presented at the Substation as part of this year’s Melbourne Festival, the chance to walk around said mirrored box promised a little...

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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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