World-class review of ballet and dance.
Dressed in hot pink ruffles and five-inch heels, a tiara perched on his shaved head, Arthur Aviles entered the stage as Maéva, a “Latino ghetto matriarch,” who launched into rapid fire Spanglish as a welcome to the Abrons Art Center audience for “Naked Vanguard: Works.”
Plus
Époustouflant! Indeed, breathtaking is the word for Diavolo|Architecture in Motion’s world premiere, “Existencia,” the 70-minute commissioned work seen at the Soraya for two performances in mid-January.
Plus
Works & Process has been part of the New York dance ecosystem for 35 years—championing performing artists and supporting their creative process from studio to stage and beyond.
FREE ARTICLE
How does a gifted choreographer become an artist? I thought about this question a lot after seeing “Blooming Flowers and the Full Moon,” former ODC/Dance member Natasha Adorlee’s first full-length piece.
Plus
Days away from presenting and performing in her own company’s first full-length ballet, Alina Cojocaru is at the height of her powers. And what powers they are.
Plus
“There will be blood,” says Jacques Heim, founder and creative director behind Diavolo|Architecture in Motion, the hyperphysical dance company he began in 1992. But he wasn’t referring to the Daniel Day-Lewis saga directed by P.T. Anderson, but rather to his latest opus, “Existencia,” which has its world premiere at the Younes and Soraya Nazarian Center for the Performing Arts (the Soraya), January 17 and 19, and involves an extreme, risk-taking movement vocabulary.
FREE ARTICLE
Some stories take hold of you and just will not let go. The film Call Me Dancer tells such a story—the true-life story of Manish Chauhan, a Mumbai street dancer, who nurtures the dream of becoming a ballet professional against daunting odds.
Plus
Ever since Thomas Edison hand-tinted the swirling skirts of modern dance pioneer Loïe Fuller in the film version of the 1905, Danse Serpentine, there’s been an interest in capturing this most ethereal art form on celluloid.
FREE ARTICLE
I was nowhere near the Theater District last week, yet I saw a variety of Broadway-inspired dancing.
Plus
Packing 31 performances into just over two weeks, San Francisco Ballet’s “Nutcracker” season is a grueling marathon for the corps dancers, and at the same time a field of opportunity for rising talents.
FREE ARTICLE
“Love and Legacy”—a fitting title to honour the end of Li Cunxin’s tenure as artistic director at Queensland Ballet.
FREE ARTICLE
It may be unusual to imagine an ostrich in New York City, but it's certainly not unbelievable. New York's not all pigeons and rats.
FREE ARTICLEWatching 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,...
PlusThe choreographer Alexei Ratmansky reflects on the war in Ukraine, the connection between geopolitics and ballet, and joining the house of Balanchine.
Plus
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.
PlusAfter 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.
PlusAn “Ajiaco” is a type of soup common to Colombia, Cuba, and Peru that combines a variety of different vegetables, spices, and meats.
Plus