Talking Pointes Season Two
Talking Pointes Podcast is back for another season: another 10 beautiful conversations about life in dance with your host Claudia Lawson.
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Amy Harris, One Fine Day
Today we're speaking with the magnificent Amy Harris, principal dancer with the Australian Ballet. Amy, grew up in the small town of Ararat in rural Victoria, and along with her two sisters, learnt tap, ballet and jazz at her local hall. From there it was the dream run—at 15, Amy was accepted into the Australian Ballet School, before being offered a contract with the Australian Ballet Company on graduation—by the newly appointed director David McAllister no less. For many aspiring dancers, it was the dream run. But from here, Amy’s journey changed speeds. In this beautifully candid interview Amy talks about...
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Under a Painted Sky
Battery Dance Festival's closing night of outdoor performances harmonized perfectly with the sky. The festival celebrated its 41st anniversary at home in Battery Park City's breathtaking Robert F. Wagner Park, and as the sun set, the sky turned from baby blue to pinks, oranges, and navy. Like the New York harbor which glistened from below, the five performing companies of the evening reflected this changing background remarkably, with costumes which coordinated with the natural color palette and movement that complimented the shifting backdrop of sailboats and seagulls.
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Ashton in New York
In summarizing Sir Frederick Ashton’s oeuvre in 1961, celebrated critic Clive Barnes writes, “For all this his ballets are best seen from above.” In Covent Garden, Barnes continues, his favorite seat from which to view Ashton’s work is “from gallery right at the top of the house.” Although New York City audiences had the chance to catch a rare glimpse of Ashton’s choreography last week, thanks to Sarasota Ballet, the venue—the Joyce Theater—lacked the depth and perspective to really do his ballets justice. With its unadulterated sight lines, the intimacy of the Joyce is usually a joy for viewers. But...
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BAAND's Toddlerhood
For the second year in a row, Ballet Hispánico, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, American Ballet Theatre, New York City Ballet, and Dance Theater of Harlem came together for a week of free performances at the Damrosch Park Bandshell. There were way too many titles and slogans involved: it was officially the BAAND Together Dance Festival within Lincoln Center’s Summer for the City Festival, for which the tagline was: Remember, Reclaim, Rejoice. These phrases were plastered around the stage and surrounding areas. More simply, these shows are Lincoln Center’s attempt to create a summertime version of City Center’s successful Fall...
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For Mythili Prakash, Bharatanatyam is Personal
Squeezing in as much time as possible together in the dance studio, Mythili Prakash and her collaborating musicians are rehearsing their new work “Poo | Poo” for the Erasing Borders Dance Festival. Presented annually in New York City by the Indo-American Arts Council, the festival, this year, is celebrating India’s 75th anniversary of independence. Four days away from the premiere, Prakash and her musicians are still figuring out the ending. But that may be because of the collaborative nature of this endeavor (as well as the fact that half of them were stricken with Covid during one of their dedicated...
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Every Witch Has a Story
Some might consider that a circus tent deep in the Berkshire mountains, with a full moon rising, might prove adequate to evoke a gathering of witches. With the tent sides propped open to frame glowing sections of the woods outside, it was as if we had indeed joined a witches celebration in the forest. Despite this setting for her sold-out premiere of a long anticipated “Wicked Bodies,” Liz Lerman wasn’t taking any chances of leaving her audience in the dark. The evening began as an interactive experience to prepare us. Approaching the performance tent, we first encountered an altar designed...
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Inspiration in Mexico
On a hot July Sunday in Monterrey, Nuevo León, Mexico, young dancers and their families are crowded outside the Teatro de la Ciudad awaiting to take master classes with renowned Mexican dancer, Isaac Hernandez. The excitement is palpable. A proud father captures video of his son on his phone, as he tells the camera about the class he is about to take. Scenes like this may be common in cities like New York or London, where ballet, and the arts in general, have found their stronghold. But for Hernandez, it’s something he has devoted the last decade to forging.
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New Verse
Under a sturgeon supermoon, I head to Transit Dance in Brunswick, to see the Australian Ballet’s annual Bodytorque program of new contemporary works. Were I in a different hemisphere, such a bright night would symbolise the start of the harvest season, which, I guess, is true of the Bodytorque choreographic showcase: a gathering of crops, this year from Jill Ogai, Mason Lovegrove, Timothy Coleman, Serena Graham, Benjamin Garrett, and winner of the 2020 Emerging Female Classical Choreographer, Xanthe Geeves.
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Art Meets City
I will see anything with the choreographer Kyle Abraham’s name attached to it, and so I attended the premiere of “Reunions”—a free, outdoor dance festival set on a makeshift stage squeezed between the edge of the Paul Milstein Pool and Hearst Plaza at Lincoln Center. That Abraham’s name was attached was pretty much all I knew going in. He curated the program, which consisted of new works made by alumni from his company, A.I.M. It is rare, as a reviewer, to have so little foreknowledge of an assignment. And it was more mysterious yet when I arrived to check in...
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Into the Wild
Dancer, choreographer and musician Mavin Khoo's career straddles many disciplines, from Bharatanatyam (he is a leading soloist in the artform) and Odissi, to classical dance, and Cunningham technique at the Cunningham Studios, New York. He has worked with Wayne McGregor, Christopher Bannerman and most recently, has become the coach and creative associate to Akram Khan as part of the prestigious Akram Khan Company. Lorna Irvine caught up with him ahead of the live performance of “Jungle Book reimagined” at Edinburgh Festival Theatre as part of Edinburgh International Festival in August 25-28, 2022.
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In the Night
That eerie post-Covid time warp—are we moving forward or stuck in a loop?—prevailed on a windy summer night as former San Francisco Ballet artistic director Helgi Tomasson took the stage of Stanford University’s Frost Amphitheater and explained that the program would begin with his old staple set to Bach keyboard works, “7 for Eight.”
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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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