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.

Man in the Mirror

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, and it pulls no punches.

Sparkles, Scraps and Spandex

Overheard after the curtain drop on “Theme and Variations,” the opener of English National Ballet’s latest mixed bill: “Well, it was very Balanchine!” 

Dance of Death

Smaïl Kanouté is a French-Malian graphic designer, dancer, and choreographer based in Paris, and the founder of a Compagnie Vivons, which combines visual art, film, and live performance. 

Dancing over Ashes

Rosalind Crisp on DIRt (Dance In Regional disasTer zones) and how dance and collaborative arts practice might respond to the unfolding extinction crisis. 

Dance to the Letter

Looking to the alphabet, many letters have been used to describe a swan, from the S of their long necks to the letters V and J to describe the overhead appearance of the flock echelons of them in flight.

The Walking Dance

The past week has been one of celebration at New York City Ballet. The company is marking seventy-five years of existence with a season devoted to the ballets of its founding choreographer, George Balanchine.

Talking Pointes Season 3

Show and Tell

The Guggenheim Museum’s beloved behind-the-scenes New York dance series, Works & Process, was founded in 1984 by philanthropist Mary Sharp Cronson. 

Turbulent and Extraordinary

The late Alvin Ailey famously set his sights on creating “the kind of dance that could be done for the man on the streets, the people.”

Contrasting Paths

Few dance companies would dare to put such disparate pieces together. But such is the audacious, experimental spirit of Scottish Ballet.