World-class review of ballet and dance.
When Ratmansky’s reconstruction of “Swan Lake” premiered in Zurich earlier this year, dancers were still taming a new vocabulary. Except for Viktorina Kapitonova’s sure-footed agility, the outcome was a bit messy on stage. It was hard to capture the essence of the new-old dance language that Russians could enjoy in 1895.
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Phoenix Dance Theatre is one of the UK’s oldest contemporary dance companies outside of London. The Leeds-based troupe was founded in 1981 by three graduates, and has since evolved into a ten-member professional ensemble with a sizeable repertory—including works from the likes of Richard Alston and Didy Veldman—and bevy of stage credits around the UK and abroad. Its latest bill, devised to celebrate its 35th anniversary, revives a 1997 work from Dutch-Israeli choreographer Itzik Galili alongside two recent pieces from British dancemakers Kate Flatt and Caroline Finn—a selection that shows off the range of styles the company has to offer...
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Forget the merry folk jigs and wispy waltzes; Akram Khan’s “Giselle” entertains none of the levity associated with its 1841 predecessor, one of the most famous ballets to emerge from the Romantic era. The new production, created for English National Ballet, is an angry rebuke of inequality and social stratification, perceptive in its condemnation and admirable in its intensity. Khan has preserved the broad strokes of Théophile Gautier’s original narrative—the lovers from different worlds, the devastating betrayal, the supernatural revenge—but overhauled its setting and tone to present a dark parable about the failures of globalisation. The first half reveals our...
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Darkly, silvered, a grassland of manmade forms grows. It grows in the North Melbourne Town Hall. It is, for now, neatly contained within the designated performance space, but like all things in nature, it is as predictable as it is unpredictable. This constructed grassland of “over 270 poles, strips, or sheets of aluminium, brass, copper and sprung steel”[note]Ashley Dyer, Artist Statement, “Tremor” programme, Arts House, North Melbourne, Victoria, November 2016[/note] hums with life. Its presence felt from the moment I enter the space.
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It happened six days ago; it happened in a different age. An age in which we believed a racist, misogynist sociopath like Donald Trump could never be president. The audience at San Francisco’s Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Theater rose immediately, en masse, and poured forth solemn, awed applause for the LINES Ballet dancers.
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“I know they think I am a sick man. I am sorry for them because they think I am sick. I am in good health, and I do not spare my strength. I will dance more than ever. I want to teach dancing and will therefore work a little every day. I will also write.”
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“Anastasia” may be one of the few full length ballets Kenneth MacMillan created but it is rarely performed. Yet this carefully constructed work feels deserving of a place in company repertoire. If you accept the slow pace, it is an enjoyable, strikingly modern ballet and, in the hands of the Royal Ballet, it is danced with an easy elegance.
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What is it about a girl in stilettos—those near lethal heels generally designed by men: think Jimmy Choo, Manolo Blahnik and Christian Louboutin—that make a woman feel both seriously sexy and über-vulnerable at the same time? In her, “Girl Gods” (we prefer the term ‘Goddesses’), a dance three years in the making and a Los Angeles premiere, choreographer Pat Graney ventures into the terrain of feminine tropes with mordant wit, alarming candor and reservoirs of rage.
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In case you missed it, during his short tenure as a ballet director, Benjamin Millepied tried to force-feed the Parisian audience with an all-you-can-eat Balanchine menu.
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In his 1881 guide Our Etiquette and Social Observances, writer Hudson K. Lyverthey aims to outline the “rules for the conduct of a person in all of his relations to society.” He uses drawing rooms, street corners, social dances, and even church as settings for this discussion. His booklet, he explains, is unique because it “is designed for both ladies and gentlemen; the advantages of this plan will be evident.”
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A Russian, a Dane and a Canadian—all choreographers—may never have walked into a bar together, but their works made for a magnificently diverse program presented by Los Angeles Ballet to kick off the troupe’s 11th season. The three dancemakers, George Balanchine, August Bournonville and Aszure Barton, represent three distinct styles, and showcased the company’s commitment to preservation as well as being cleverly hip in the moment.
Continua a leggereWatching 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,...
Continua a leggereThe 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.
Continua a leggereAfter 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.
Continua a leggereAn “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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