Hard (Nut) Facts
I couldn’t stop thinking about hockey at the New York City Ballet’s “Nutcracker” this year, and not only because the stage appeared to be made of ice: there were a slew of spectacular falls one night I attended.
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American Ballet Theatre’s fall season has been brief, too brief to form a sense of the new director Susan Jaffe’s tastes and intentions. That will come in time. This fall, we got a roundup of some of the company’s past repertory, from Balanchine’s 1941 “Ballet Imperial” to last year’s “Single Eye,” by the San Francisco-based Alonzo King. In the final program of the season, which ended on Oct. 29, the latter was paired with Alexei Ratmansky’s 2009 “On the Dnipro,” the first work for the company by its former choreographer in residence. Between the two, almost as a palate cleanser, came a short pas de deux by Gemma Bond, set to a rapturous aria from Gustave Charpentier’s opera “Louise.” I caught two performances, on Oct. 27 and at the Oct. 29 matinee.
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I couldn’t stop thinking about hockey at the New York City Ballet’s “Nutcracker” this year, and not only because the stage appeared to be made of ice: there were a slew of spectacular falls one night I attended.
PlusLast week, during the first Fjord Review Dance Critics’ Festival, Mindy Aloff discussed and read from an Edwin Denby essay during “The Critic’s Process” panel.
PlusThere are “Nutcrackers,” and then there’s American Contemporary Ballet’s “The Nutcracker Suite.”
PlusIs it as traditional as there being “The Nutcracker” or the British pantomime on at Christmas time, for there to be an alternative offering?
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