Ballet Without Borders
“… for the only human race to which it is forbidden to sever the bonds of time is the race of those who create art.” –Alejo Carpentier, The Lost Steps
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Romance in the Dark
3,000 pink carnations standing upright on the stage. A dreamscape! My “spirit rose, … let it be glory, let it be ruin!” George Meredith[note]George Meredith, The Ordeal of Richard Feverel: A History of Father and Son (London: Penguin Classics, 1999), 42[/note]
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The Road to Golgota
It’s not every day that a theatre famed for dance lets four splendid horses grace its stage. Yet in “Golgota,” Bartabas’ second production for Sadler’s Wells, dance and equestrian theatre become one. Bartabas established Zingaro, his own equestrian theatre, in the mid-80s. They produce big-top style shows, living and working as a community in Aubervilliers, north-east of Paris. For the theatre stage he works on a more intimate scale and for “Golgota” he has joined forces with the talented flamenco dancer Andres Marin to create a performance with an artistic fusion you won’t find elsewhere.
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Golden Hours
Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker's take on Shakespeare's As You Like It opens on a bare stage. Brian Eno's “Golden Hours” plays on loop, her interpretation of Shakespeare's comedy a meeting between the play and Eno's album Another Green World. The track finishes one cycle without anything happening. When the cast do enter they edge forward, their slow walk barely moving. By the third loop phrases from the song begin to catch the attention, ‘how can moments go so slow?’
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Fagan on Fire
Garth Fagan Dance should be required viewing for the human race! Yes, that’s a brash statement, but the troupe is joy made palpable, with 15 dancers bringing it all on in a six-part program seen over the weekend: Virtuosity, stamina and love of life, not to mention technique to burn, are the hallmarks of this extraordinary group—attributes much needed in today’s dark world.
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Cracking Code
In a short interview in the program for her company's recent performances at the Joyce Theater, Pam Tanowitz speaks to her interest in eliminating elements of her dances in order to find moments of greater interest. As an aside, she says, “There's a joke in my company: don't miss a rehearsal or your quartet may become a trio.”
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Swan Lake and its Metaphors
In her 1978 book Illness as Metaphor, Susan Sontag examined how diseases become “awash in significance.” “Nothing is more punitive,” she wrote, “than to give a disease a meaning—that meaning being invariably a moralistic one.” Sontag identified tuberculosis and cancer as two diseases that have moralistic meanings. In 1989, Sontag added AIDS to this list. “The sexual transmission of this illness,” she wrote in AIDS and Its Metaphors,” is “considered by most people as a calamity one brings on oneself.” It is, therefore, “judged more harshly than other means—especially since AIDS is understood as a disease not only of sexual...
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The Next Generation
London’s the Place has been running its Resolution Festival for more than 25 years. The annual showcase, which presents a spate of new dance works throughout January and February, is a boon for emerging artists: along with a performance platform, the dancemakers who participate receive professional support and guidance throughout the production process—a valuable leg up in a dance scene as competitive as London’s. The festival’s track record for launching famous faces is another draw: some of the biggest names in contemporary British dance, including Wayne McGregor and Hofesh Shechter, got their start on the Resolution stage.
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One Giant Leap
Do you recall seeing your first ballet? No, says Francesco Gabriele Frola, first soloist with the National Ballet of Canada, but he does recall the first one he was in. “Every time my mother danced “La fille mal gardée,” she was pregnant,” he says. With two brothers and a sister, “after four times, she had enough,” he laughs.
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Trio Concert Dance
After taking her final bows as Juliet at the Metropolitan Opera House with American Ballet Theater in June of 2007, Alessandra Ferri may have left the storied company she had danced with since 1985, but, as she said in a recent phone interview from her home in Manhattan, she certainly did not retire.
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Rare Pearls
George Balanchine’s “Ballo della Regina” and “Kammermusik No. 2” were created approximately at the same time and premiered by New York City Ballet in January 1978. Both pieces are concise and small in scale; both are fascinating and unique; yet neither belongs to the pantheon of Balanchine’s greatest creations. Nevertheless, each ballet, precious in its own way, adds to our understanding and appreciation of the craft of the great ballet master. Dance critic Arlene Croce aptly summed up her attraction to “Ballo della Regina” in particular—and to a Balanchine ballet in general—simply and clearly: “Who cares if it isn’t great?...
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Featured Reads
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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