World-class review of ballet and dance.
Miami City Ballet concluded its 2017/18 season at Fort Lauderdale’s Broward Center for the Performing Arts in style with a program that featured ballet’s greatest hits of past and present: George Balanchine’s historic “Apollo” and his darkly enchanting and haunting dance-drama, “La Valse,” plus the company’s premiere of Alexei Ratmansky’s exuberant and nostalgic “Concerto DSCH.”
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A festival of new works in search of ballet’s future must be valued as much for the conversation it catalyzes as the new dances themselves, and on this count alone, San Francisco Ballet’s Unbound festival ranks as a landmark success. Heated, giddy, disappointed, perplexed: Talk echoed through the War Memorial Opera House lobby all last week, as audiences rushed from candid panel discussion to curtain time, and the 12 international choreographers commissioned for this sweeping, questing survey paced the aisles, and glamorous visitors like Julie Kent flitted through the crowds. Ballet diehards and newcomers alike compared knee-jerk reactions. And the...
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Presented by World Music/CRASHarts, “Sutra” highlights one of the finest most recent collaborations of Eastern music with Western dance, showcasing the innovative melodies of composer Zakir Hussain and contemporary ballet choreographer Alonzo King. “Sutra” is not only World Music/CRASHarts’ first commissioned work, but marks the 35th Anniversary of Alonzo King LINES Ballet as well, and made its world premiere in the company’s home city of San Francisco, Calif. before making its East Coast debut at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston, Massachusetts.
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From modern Latin, from the Greek words sumbiōsis, ‘a living together,’ sumbioun, ‘live together,’ and sumbios, ‘companion’ comes the word symbiosis, an interaction between two different organisms living in close physical association, typically to the advantage of both. In the dictionary, the very definition of a symbiotic relationship, why, it almost sounds like a pas de deux. A ‘step of two’ performed by dancers working together, dependent upon each other, with each other, in synchronicity, aware, at all times, of the other.
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I wonder if it’s been like this for New Yorkers: You see one Justin Peck ballet, set to an orchestra score written by a pop musician, and you’re half-charmed by the youthful exuberance, and appreciate the influence of Jerome Robbins, but keep a healthy reserve of skepticism because somehow the whole package seems to lack substance. But then you see a more classical Peck ballet—“In Creases,” say, set to Philip Glass’s score for two pianos—and the formal intelligence is undeniable, but the exuberance remains, and you think, OK, he’s not just a pop-culture re-packager. And then maybe you see his...
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There are angels on earth, and they are the dancers, choreographers, composers and artistic directors who help collectively elevate the hearts and minds of concert-going mortals-if only for a brief respite—especially in these very troubled times. To be more specific: Dance Theatre of Harlem, under the assured and loving hands of Virginia Johnson, made a triumphant debut at the Broad Stage in a program of three disparate—and emotionally charged—works.
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“Manon” is perhaps one of Kenneth MacMillan's most celebrated works, so it is fitting that it draws to a close a Royal Ballet season that has seen a number of performances in commemoration of the 25th anniversary of the choreographer's death.
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There was much to admire about the Washington Ballet’s program titled “Mixed Masters” which the company brought to the Kennedy Center Eisenhower Theater in April. This sophisticated, ambitious and highly enjoyable triple bill included signature ballets by the 20th century great choreographers: George Balanchine, Frederick Ashton, and Jerome Robbins—the masters “whose genius has shaped our art form immeasurably,” artistic director of the Washington Ballet Julie Kent wrote in the program notes.
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English National Ballet has spent recent months fighting off rumours about its cohesion, or purported lack thereof, under Tamara Rojo’s leadership; whispers have abounded alleging a hostile environment and a worrying degree of turnover, with around a third of ENB’s dancers having left the company in the last two years. That said, the company’s latest bill betrays no signs of such disquiet, presenting a troupe that looks assured, energetic and game to try its hand at a an increasingly diverse array of styles.
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Men. You can’t live with ’em and you can’t let ’em die. At least that’s the thinking in “Giselle,” the Romantic gold standard of any traditional ballet company in which the heroine falls for the wrong man, goes insane, perishes and is reborn as a Wili, a vampire-like creature that takes revenge on her fraudulent beau, only to let him live in the end.
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The Royal Ballet’s centenary celebration of composer Leonard Bernstein’s birth has resulted in a compelling triple bill that features premieres by Wayne McGregor and Christopher Wheeldon, alongside a revival of Liam Scarlett’s “Age of Anxiety.”
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In less than a month, New York City Ballet will unveil its “Robbins 100” festival at David H. Koch Theater in New York to commemorate the centennial of Jerome Robbins’ birth. In the course of a three-week period, the company will present six distinctive programs, featuring 19 ballets by Robbins, plus two world premieres, including a new ballet by Justin Peck choreographed to the music by Leonard Bernstein.
PlusTwo performers crawl in on hands and knees wearing neon green, hooded coveralls—the lightweight papery kind made for working in a sterile environment—and clusters of balloons pinned to their backs.
PlusWill Rawls makes boundaries visible by defying them. Known for the disciplinary and topical range of his projects, the choreographer, director, and performer approaches issues of representation in “[siccer],” a multi-part, multi-site work co-presented by L’Alliance New York’s Crossing the Line Festival. A live performance at Performance Space New York...
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It is always interesting when multiple theme steps emerge over the course of a mixed repertory evening, but it is uncanny on one featuring five different ballets, each with a different choreographer and composer, covering a twenty-year span (2005-2025).
PlusZvidance premiered its new work “Dandelion” mid-November at New York Live Arts. Founded by Zvi Gotheiner in 1989, Zvidance has been a steady presence in the New York contemporary dance scene, a reliable source of compositional integrity, and a magnet for wonderful dancers.
PlusCleveland native Dianne McIntrye received a hometown hero's welcome during her curtain speech prior to her eponymous dance group thrilling the audience in her latest work, “In the Same Tongue.”
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