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Monumentum pro Gesualdo
REVIEWS | Par Oksana Khadarina

Balanchine in Black & White

“Balanchine Black & White,” a three-program celebration of the great ballet master’s most exalted and extreme aesthetics, offered a unique opportunity for ballet-goers to appreciate and experience anew the breadth, depth and extraordinary invention of Balanchine’s trademark style of neoclassical ballet. The festival, which opened New York City Ballet’s spring season, featured twelve abstract one-act ballets, stark and minimalist, entirely liberated from any kind of stage décor, theatrical pantomime or elaborate attire, with the dancers wearing stylized practice costumes predominantly in black and white. In each of these ballets only music and movement create a nucleus of the action, expressing...

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An American in Paris
REVIEWS | Par Madison Mainwaring

Innocent Abroad

When the American is in Paris he undergoes an education. Sure he arrives in ill-fitting clothes, pronouncing "coin" as if it were currency, but when he leaves he is a Man of the World. So we will forgive Jerry Mulligan, the ex-G.I. played by Robert Fairchild in “An American in Paris” at the Palace Theater, for appearing a little shallow. He's in the works. And underneath those clipped lines and long silences there is probably a fine mind; he is just more reserved, that’s all, and it serves the French—who tend to sound much smarter than they are—right.

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Sydney Dance Company
REVIEWS | Par Gracia Haby

Physical Framework

“The impulse to feel, experience and understand a dance work in the theatre should be an individual one—beginning in the heart and contemplated in your mind. It is your frame of mind which colours your world, and the same should be true of art. When all explanations have been exhausted and you find yourselves outside of definition but immersed in sensation—the only thing left is to feel.”[note]Rafael Bonachela, Sydney Dance Company “Frame of Mind” programme, Southbank Theatre, Melbourne, Australia May 7 2015, 14[/note]

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James Wilton
REVIEWS | Par Sara Veale

Mortal Coil

There's a strong element of isolation to James Wilton's “Last Man Standing,” a moody two-act work that ruminates on mortality and the existential crises it inspires. The choreography constantly links the six dancers together in tight-grip grasps only to dismantle their connections, a reminder that death is never anything but an individual journey. It's a dark piece to be sure, made even more so by its soundtrack, a tempestuous medley of Tool songs, but the six-strong group (which includes Wilton himself) breathes an indelible radiance into it, lifting the mood out of desperation and into quiet introspection.

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JV2
REVIEWS | Par Sara Veale

On Verve

Last month Hofesh Shechter, Akram Khan and Lloyd Newson—three giants of the UK's contemporary dance scene—issued a damning edict on the quality of British contemporary training, claiming they regularly struggle to recruit home-grown talent “of sufficient calibre.” Their criticism raises some interesting questions about how we measure quality in the contemporary sphere, where technique is not codified as definitively as it is in ballet, and valuable performance skills can range from improvisation to gymnastics to vocals. What makes a good contemporary dancer? Is it strength? Precision? Versatility? Emotion? Intent?

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The Australian Ballet
REVIEWS | Par Claudia Lawson

Triple Ashton

It’s been a huge month for the Australian Ballet. Long time and much loved principal artist Madeleine Eastoe announced her retirement after 18 years with the company. A few weeks earlier, senior artist Reiko Hombo had also announced her departure. The loss of senior ranked artists is a big deal in ballet companies. But with change comes opportunity. Earlier this month, following her debut performance as Giselle, Ako Kondo, was promoted to principal artist—the company’s highest rank. She is just 24 years old. With more promotions inevitable, and a wealth of talent among the more junior ranks, there is the opportunity to witness rising stars...

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Ballet 422
DANCE FILM | Par Madison Mainwaring

Ballet Vérité

There's something about the formalisms of the ballet world that gives one an almost racy feeling when its backstage doors open up. One of the great strengths of Ballet 422, directed by Jody Lee Lipes and produced by Ellen Bar (the latter a former soloist with NYCB; the two are married): all that takes place backstage remains unadorned. There are no back-stories, no interviews, and we're left not knowing the names of some of the dancers. Then again, ballet is about "showing and not telling," Bar told me over the phone. A dance doesn't come with footnotes or appendixes attached;...

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Paul Taylor
REVIEWS | Par Madison Mainwaring

Ham and Eggs

Paul Taylor's "Death and the Damsel," one of two premieres during his season at Lincoln Center has been labeled by many critics as a piece about sex-trafficking. There's one scene in particular in which the ingénue (Jamie Rae Walker) is passed between the hands of leather-wearing men, all of them forcing her into the same compromising position. Each throws her over his shoulder before straddling her to the ground and parting her legs in order to look at the crotch between. There's no touching involved, but this restraint almost makes it seem even more unfeeling and inhumane. I've never seen...

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Mia, A Dancer’s Journey
DANCE FILM | Par Victoria Looseleaf

Mia, A Dancer’s Journey

“I didn’t make this film to figure out my relationship to my mother. I did it because I wanted her to know when she left this world that what she had done in her life would not just disintegrate and disappear. I also promised my mother before she died,” explained Maria Ramas, daughter of ballerina/teacher, Mia Slavenska, “that I would complete the process that she had started.  Telling her story would be a coherent record and her view of her art.”

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Streetcar Named Desire
REVIEWS | Par Sara Veale

Real Magic

Scottish Ballet has a long history of adapting literary works for the stage, and not just the usual fairy tales and Shakespeare plays either; texts by writers as uncharted (in the ballet world anyway) as Friedrich Rückert, Dylan Thomas, Alain Robbe-Grillet and Arthur Miller have all served as source material for the Glasgow-based company over the years.

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Robert Cohan
REVIEWS | Par Sara Veale

In the Moment

“Dance is a fragile thing—it only exists in the moment you do it, and then it’s gone.” So Robert Cohan reminded us when he took to the stage at the end of this gala, organised to celebrate his 90th birthday and honour his many achievements on stage and in the studio. The American choreographer—who trained with Martha Graham and famously went on to partner her in some of her biggest works—has a devoted following the world over, but he’s especially beloved in the UK, where the dance scene would look distinctly different had he not teamed up with Robin Howard...

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Sue Healey
REVIEWS | Par Gracia Haby

Type Wilderness

Thirteen performances in thirteen days: my exhaustive, intense, yet not-nearly-enough, Dance Massive 2015 experience. Dance Massive remains a celebration and exploration of the body in movement and in stillness; the body shown on a screen, through a screen, and in response to a screen; the body pushed, and the body pulled; the body grounded, and the body weightless; the body as a tool for communication, as a vessel, and equally as a red herring; the body vs. the machine, and as a machine; the body’s very matter decomposing right before my eyes in glorious time lapse. This is all fodder...

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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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