Love, Lust and Death
Rambert are a formidable, ambitious company indeed. Who else could dance to soundtracks as diverse as Scanner, Arnold Schoenberg and South American pan pipes, all on the same bill?
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Bella-rina
At a recent All Star Ballet Gala in Toronto, you could watch Isabella Boylston melt into a role, and then, distinctly, conquer it. The American Ballet Theatre principal, Bella to her friends, showed off her fleet footwork in the pas de deux from Bournonville's “Flower Festival in Genzano,” before literally diving into Balanchine's “Tschaikovsky Pas de Deux,” smiling all the while. The crowd roared its appreciation.
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Flowing fabric and ink
It is always an exhilarating experience to leave a dance concert eagerly chatting in agreement with those around you about that one favorite piece. Yet it is perhaps the sign of an even stronger concert when those around you are instead in amicable disagreement, each passionately arguing why his or her favorite piece was the “one.” So was the case with Jessica Lang Dance, presented by Celebrity Series of Boston at the Boch Center Shubert Theatre last week. Highlighting six works from 2006-16, the concert offered a satisfying range of visual intrigue—from the purity of a Bach-accompanied solo with an...
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Pivotal: Jonah Bokaer
The last time New York-based dancer/choreographer/media artist Jonah Bokaer performed in Los Angeles, it was with Merce Cunningham Dance Company, more than 10 years ago. Indeed, the multi-hyphenate was 18 when he had the distinction of being the youngest dancer ever to join the iconic troupe in 2000, staying until 2007.
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Sadler's Wells Sampled
For the past decade, Sadler’s Wells has kicked off each year with “Sampled,” a two-hour tasting menu of the London dance house’s diverse programming. The show is aimed at new and existing audiences alike, and features snippets from both past commissions and upcoming premieres. Eight performances were on offer for 2017, including ballet, tap and tango numbers, plus a smattering of pre- and post-show music, demonstrations and workshops. The line-up wasn’t as strong as in previous years, but it was high-spirited and suitably varied, celebrating the range of dance styles Sadler’s promotes.
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A Bowie Kaleidoscope
“The Bowie Project,” the brainchild of Austin-based choreographer Andrea Ariel, whose other credits include the choreography for the film Waiting for Guffman and a three-part dance-theatre series on the floating garbage patch in the North Pacific Gyre, was an exercise in personae, layering, fragmenting, and improvisation. The performance, which incorporated three dancers, the David Bowie tribute band Super Creeps, and three members of New York’s Strike Anywhere Performance Ensemble, utilized Soundpainting, a “composing sign language” invented by musician Walter Thompson. Working with Thompson, Ariel adapted and expanded the vocabulary of music-focused conducting gestures—they look a bit like the gestures one...
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Silent Disco
Singing and dancing together usually add up to fun. Musicals, Broadway and Hollywood's golden era, are bound to put a spring in your step and a song on your lips. Recently, Damien Chazelle's award winning La La Land with Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone tapping and singing sweetly shows reverence for the coupling and says we're willing to abandon ourselves to song and dance yet.
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Short Stories
George Balanchine was a supreme master of choreographic abstraction, yet when he wanted to tell a story he did so with relish and theatrical flair, shaping his narratives with unique dramatic insight and wit. New York City Ballet’s “Balanchine Short Stories”—a triple bill featuring “La Sonnambula,” “Prodigal Son,” and “Firebird”—offered the audience a fascinating journey into the world of Balanchine’s storytelling.
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Daring and Romance
“Allegro Brillante,” “Swan Lake,” and “The Four Temperaments” comprised the all-Balanchine bill which New York City Ballet presented during its six-week winter season at David H. Koch Theater. A perfect Balanchine sampler, the program was golden from start to finish, offering something for every taste: an effervescent classical abstraction, a heartbreaking romance and a spellbinding foray into modernism.
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A Civil Affair
More than three decades at the helm of San Francisco Ballet has sharply attuned Helgi Tomasson to the political mood of his high society season opening gala attendees.
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A Beautiful Vision
Jean-Guillaume Bart isn’t one of those nostalgic choreographers, nor is he a French Ratmansky. He’s more of a ballet archeologist crossed with a dance philosopher, influenced by Paul Valéry. He doesn’t really revive steps from the past (most of the steps are his own invention), his concern is to bring a dying tradition alive. A tradition that is dear to his heart and a spirit that is nowhere to be seen on the world stage must be restored. According to him, now an empty art, ballet should make sense. Every move has to be infused with an inner meaning, aesthetically...
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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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