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The Power of Performance

In New York, the year that is drawing to a close was marked by a true return to the pleasure of live performance. Going to the theater felt almost normal again. Sure, theaters were a bit emptier than before the pandemic, and that is understandable. Some people are still nervous about spending hours in close proximity to others, especially now that the masks are coming off. But many are returning, reacquainting themselves with the irreplaceable sensation of sharing time and space with extraordinary performers, knowing that what one is about to see will never again be repeated in quite the...

FEATURES | REVIEWS | By Victoria Looseleaf

A Movable Feast

With the global pandemic mostly in the rearview mirror, dance lovers once again enjoyed—literally—a movable feast. Indeed, the movers and shakers on this writer’s radar during the past year proved to be resilient, gorgeous and, happily, an embarrassment of riches.

FEATURES | By Cecilia Whalen

Difficult Grace

Roderick George paints maps with his movement. In "asinglewordisnotenough," his body trickles like delicate tributaries then trembles as if moving over rocky terrain. His legs extend to point in all directions—north, south, east, and west—and his arms carve out pathways, inviting travelers.

FEATURES | By Valentina Bonelli

Dancing from the Heart

At La Scala the 2021/2022 season closed with a very beloved ballet, “Onegin,” a mainstay of the Milanese repertory for some thirty years. Roberto Bolle, La Scala's iconic Onegin, was greeted by his fans who feared that this could be his last performance in Cranko’s ballet, once again partnered by Marianela Nuñez as Tatiana. For the subsequent performances, ballet director Manuel Legris decided to cast dancers debuting in the leading roles for one night each (aside from aside from principals Marco Agostino and Nicoletta Manni who debuted three years ago). We talked to each couple to discover how they prepared...

FEATURES | By Victoria Looseleaf

Reunited in Dance

In 2019, Xander Parish, then principal dancer with the Mariinsky Ballet—the first and only British dancer in the troupe’s history—was awarded an OBE for services to dance and to UK/Russia cultural relations. Fast forward to November 2022 and the world has, to say the least, radically changed. While a global pandemic still factors into daily life, in February of this year, Russia did the unspeakable by invading Ukraine.

FEATURES | By Chava Pearl Lansky

Art to Action

Dancers in mushroom hats frolicking in a forest; hands cupped around a sapling waiting for a lake’s lapping waters; a sandy pas de deux divided by a volleyball net; adolescent girls reaching earnestly toward the sky. These are some of the many impactful moments in Art 2 Action, Artists Climate Collective’s most recent film series aiming to bridge the gap between dance and climate change. The collection—featuring choreography by Cameron Fraser-Monroe, Yuri Zhukov (with direction by Emma Rubinowitz), Makino Hayashi, and Darian Kane—is available for viewing on Vimeo through November 7, with proceeds going to partner organizations GRID Alternatives, Sunrise...

FEATURES | INTERVIEWS | By Candice Thompson

Team Spirit

When the Paul Taylor Dance Company returns to Lincoln Center November 1-13, iconic Taylor dances like “Esplanade” and “Company B” share the stage with world premieres from Amy Hall Garner and newly-appointed resident choreographer Lauren Lovette. Other highlights of the programming include a special evening celebrating the collaboration between Taylor and the painter Alex Katz, Kurt Jooss’s classic anti-war ballet “The Green Table,” and live music from the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, led by maestro David LaMarche.

FEATURES | By Candice Thompson

Dance Reflections

Choreography is often described as a kind of drawing crafted from the materials of time, space, and flesh. In describing “Crowd,” choreographer Gisèle Vienne expands on this idea, likening her work for fifteen dancers taking part in a rave on a stage to “paintings where you have thousands of characters and the details are kind of overwhelming.” The dancers narrate their individual stories kinetically as the piece unfolds like an all night party, their movements modulating between different feelings of time.

FEATURES | By Cecilia Whalen

Reflections

At dawn on September 11th, the Josie Robertson Plaza at Lincoln Center was quiet and still. Only the fountain glistened in the subtle light of morning, and the tan and gray stone ground was cool to the touch. All of a sudden, at 8:15am, the stone began to heat up. The sun had risen, but the warmth was coming from somewhere else: A call was made from a pink conch shell whose sound expanded into the atmosphere and summoned a hurricane of white to encircle the plaza. Hundreds of bare feet dashed around and around the fountain, surrounding the space...

BOOKSHELF | FEATURES | By Sophie Bress

New Narrative

Meg Howrey isn’t interested in clichés. The professional dancer turned novelist’s approach to writing, especially when it comes to portraying ballet, is rooted in authenticity, nuance, and honesty. Her latest book, They’re Going To Love You, set to be released on November 15, 2022, is filled with these qualities.

FEATURES | INTERVIEWS | By April Deocariza

Inspiration in Mexico

On a hot July Sunday in Monterrey, Nuevo León, Mexico, young dancers and their families are crowded outside the Teatro de la Ciudad awaiting to take master classes with renowned Mexican dancer, Isaac Hernandez. The excitement is palpable. A proud father captures video of his son on his phone, as he tells the camera about the class he is about to take. Scenes like this may be common in cities like New York or London, where ballet, and the arts in general, have found their stronghold. But for Hernandez, it’s something he has devoted the last decade to forging.

FEATURES | By Apollinaire Scherr

Paul Taylor Forever

Paul Taylor’s early dances—confined to a handful of players whom he still couldn’t afford to pay—fit comfortably on the Joyce stage this June in the troupe’s first independent outing since the pandemic. (In March, the company appeared under the auspices of the City Center Dance Festival.) “Events II” (1957), three solos from “Images and Reflections” (1958), “Fibers” (1961), and “Tracer” (1962) also fit their long-ago moment and its strict avant-garde. But what they didn’t fit was the oft-told tale of how Taylor got from obscure beginnings to popular success.

Featured Reads

REVIEWS | Lorna Irvine

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,...

INTERVIEWS | Marina Harss

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.

REVIEWS | Rachel Howard

Starry Nights

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.

REVIEWS | Faye Arthurs

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.

REVIEWS | Emily May

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.