A Journey of Healing
Across North Africa, the all-night music-dance-trance ritual called lila (pronounced lee-lah) is celebrated as a means for spiritual healing.
FREE ARTICLEWorld-class review of ballet and dance.
Wings have long held a special significance in ballet. In “Swan Lake,” Odette’s feathery port de bras become a devastating symbol of her captivity; in “La Sylphide” the titular sylph loses her wings, and her life, in an ill-fated embrace. Annabelle Lopez Ochoa’s “Broken Wings” is one of the latest ballets to harness this freighted imagery, albeit more loosely. Created in 2016 for English National Ballet and reprised as part of ENB’s new “She Persisted” bill, the production is a vibrant tribute to the painter Frida Kahlo, capturing the existential heartbreak she suffered when a bus crash at the age of 18 decimated her health, and along with it her dream of becoming a doctor. Over the course of Ochoa’s half-hour piece, Frida finds new ways into identity, femininity, love and art, eventually recovering the wings she thought had been clipped forever.
Performance
Place
Words
Katja Khaniukova as Frida with English National Ballet in Annabelle Lopez Ochoa's “Broken Wings.” Photograph by Laurent Liotardo
“Uncommonly intelligent, substantial coverage.”
Your weekly source for world-class dance reviews, interviews, articles, and more.
Already a paid subscriber? Login
Across North Africa, the all-night music-dance-trance ritual called lila (pronounced lee-lah) is celebrated as a means for spiritual healing.
FREE ARTICLEThe Fall for Dance Festival programming formula runs roughly thus: feature a new troupe, include a pet (or vanity) project of a big NYC star, and end with a feel-good group showcase.
Continue ReadingAs the fight for greater visibility for women choreographers continues, it was encouraging to see Carlos Acosta, director of Birmingham Royal Ballet, commission an all-female creative team for “Luna,” the final piece in his trilogy celebrating the company’s hometown.
Continue ReadingHe is the love of your life. You are his one-and-only. The pair of you is doomed: Obligations to the social order make your relationship impossible. The only way out—double suicide. Actually, this being eighteenth-century Japan, you let him literally do it all; still, you are his forever and there is no turning back.
Continue Reading
comments