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Lines for Winter
Tonight as it gets coldtell yourselfwhat you know which is nothingbut the tune your bones playas you keep going. And you will be ablefor once to lie down under the small fireof winter stars.[note]Mark Strand, “Lines for Winter” from Selected Poems (1979) accessed on Poetry Foundation: http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poems/detail/50977[/note]
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Hidden Gems
Benjamin Millepied—known in the ballet world for his 16 years at New York City Ballet and recent tenure as director of the Paris Opera Ballet, and beyond it for his choreographic turn in Darren Aronofsky’s Black Swan and subsequent marriage to Natalie Portman—co-founded LA Dance Project in 2012 with four other creatives. In its four years, the collective has struck up some powerful relationships, including one with Van Cleef & Arpels, the jewellery brand associated with Balanchine’s legendary “Jewels.” Van Cleef & Arpels is now LADP’s principal sponsor, and the influence behind two of three pieces recently shown in London:...
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Le Corsaire anchors in Paris
Although it was born in Paris (Vernoy de Saint-Georges/Mazilier, 1856), “Le Corsaire” is no prophet in its own land. Its lascivious oriental patterns could have been fashioned out by Nerval, Chateaubriand or Dumas' literary orientalism. Yet “Le Corsaire” was based on an eponymous poem by a hereditary frenemy's icon: the Englishman Lord Byron. In spite of its roaring success, in the upper spheres of the Second Empire, the exotic ballet soon started to sail away “over the glad waters of the dark blue sea,” thus falling into disuse at the Paris Opera.
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Golden Hours
The Royal Ballet's mixed programme for the 2015/16 season combines a selection of three very different works. Resident choreographer Wayne McGregor's new one-act ballet, “Obsidian Tear,” sits alongside a revival of Kenneth MacMillan's “The Invitation” and the return of Associate Choreographer Christopher Wheeldon's “Within The Golden Hour.”
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Glitter Garden
In Jennifer Hart’s sensitive and contemporary “Camille: A Story of Art and Love,” narrative, chorus, and drama resurfaced like friends lost long ago to the seas of neoclassicism. The forty-minute ballet, the final work on the program of four presented by Hart’s pickup company Performa/Dance, was like a polished stone: a composition of epochs, worn smooth.
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Modern Love
There’s no way around it: We are living in a violent, hate-infested world, where moral bankruptcy can—and often does—lead to heinous crimes, and humanity takes another collective plunge into an unfathomable abyss. In other words, the city of Orlando, Florida, will no longer be thought of as a theme park utopia (home to Disney World, Sea World, Universal and the like), but as the site of an unspeakable tragedy.
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Jane Eyre
Northern Ballet’s brilliance at narrative dance is proven once again in their new adaptation of Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre. The company's clear and expressive style, in which classical steps merge with the fluidity of contemporary dance, quickly draws you in to the story, each step they perform filled with meaning and emotion. In narrative ballets there are so often moments where movement is indulged at the expense of the story, but in choreographer Cathy Marston's hands, this short, two-act ballet keeps its focus.
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Close Up
Tragic, fallen, everyday. Burning bright, buffed, and admired: heroes come in myriad forms. Sporting capes or a guitar slung over the shoulder, some become intertwined with idols to worship. And all can be distilled to an inspirational quote to share on Instagram.
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Prickly by Nature
Alexander Ekman’s “Cacti,” created for Nederlands Dans Theater in 2010, is a playful sendup of contemporary dance as Stella Gibbons’ 1932 novel, Cold Comfort Farm, is a delicious flapdoodle cliché.
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Abstraction & Americana
“NYCB Classics II” program which the company performed during its spring season at David H. Koch Theater included four dances: George Balanchine’s “Serenade,” “Duo Concertant,” and “Western Symphony” as well as Peter Martins’ “Hallelujah Junction.” All these pieces, with their own strength and merits, are the company’s staples, loved by the audiences and performed with affection and competence by the dancers; yet, in my opinion, only “Serenade”—a ballet of unparalleled beauty and invention—can be rightfully regarded as a timeless classic. Given the selection of the works, “NYCB Favorites” would have made for a more appropriate name of this musically and...
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Smoke & Mirrors
“Mirrors” opened with a work previously set on Boston Ballet. “Resonance”—choreographed by José Martinez and recently revived through the support of the Krupp Endowment for Contemporary Dance—is a moving work in which audience members can continue to find additional layers of depth upon second viewing. With costumes and set cloaked in shades of grey, the choreography unfolds with an emphasis on lines, partnering, and shadows. Most memorable of this work is its roaming walls—a series of large panels which shift effortlessly throughout the stage, at times revealing a second pianist, at others concealing a duet in motion.
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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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