World-class review of ballet and dance.
“State of Heads” opens with a blaze of white light and loud clanking onto a white-suited Levi Gonzalez, part Elvis, part televangelist addressing his congregation. A pair of women sidle in—Rebecca Cyr and Donna Uchizono—dressed in ankle-length white dresses and cowered posture.
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The late John Ashford, a pioneer in programming emerging contemporary choreographers across Europe, once told me that he could tell what sort of choreographer a young artist would turn into when watching their first creations.
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Last weekend, the Royal New Zealand Ballet hosted two nights of performance in collaboration with the Scottish Ballet at the St. James’ Theatre in Wellington, New Zealand. The bill included two works by choreographers affiliated with Scottish Ballet, and two by RNZB choreographers. There was welcome contrast in timbre and tempo, and common themes of self-actualisation and connection, through a love of dance. As RNZB artistic director Ty King-Wall announced in the audience address, the two-night only performance was in the spirit of “bringing the companies together in mutual admiration and respect.”
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Who knew that a PB & J sandwich could conjure Proust’s madeleine? Certainly not this writer. But it’s not farfetched to think that Lincoln Jones, the artistic director, choreographer and conceptual guru of American Contemporary Ballet, had the idea of memory in mind when he conceived “Homecoming.”
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The Korean Cultural Center New York presented the ChangMu Dance Company this past week and treated the public to an artistic gem. ChangMu Dance Company, currently with fourteen dancers, was founded in 1976 by Kim MaeJa, a pioneer of Korean “creative dance.”
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At the New National Theatre in Tokyo last week, the National Ballet of Japan’s (NBJ) triple bill, “Ballet Coffret,” indeed offered up three jewels of dance: the traditional, the modern, and the multi-faceted.
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Bangarra Dance Theatre first brought this cross-cultural work to the main stage of the Sydney Opera House in June 2024. “The Light Inside” is a wondrous collaboration between leading Māori choreographer Moss Te Ururangi Patterson and Bangarra choreographer, Deborah Brown.
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Tamara Rojo’s ambitious “Raymonda” was the last thing she did at English National Ballet before assuming the directorship in San Francisco three years ago, so it was natural that she would want to bring it here early in her tenure.
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With each dance season’s new ballets, some become memorable with audiences and critics for their artistry and emotional connection, fewer reveal themselves as hits, and even fewer have the potential to become box office record breakers. Tulsa Ballet's new “Alice in Wonderland” is the rare gem that does all three.
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Dreadlocks are not the first thing that come to mind, looking at UK artist Nicola Turner’s fibre sculpture currently installed at Carvalho Park gallery in East Williamsburg. But I hesitate to open a review with a vision of the poop emoji.
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Inspired by breaking, neo-classical ballet and dance theater, Rubberband, founded in Montreal in 2002 by Victor Quijada, presented two works at BroadStage over the weekend in what was seen as a homecoming of sorts for Quijada.
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The Batsheva Dance Company returned to the BAM Opera House this week bringing their latest evening length work, “Momo.” This was the ninth Batsheva production that BAM has presented since 2002. New York City dance lovers packed the venue amid tight security and outdoor protestors to see this foremost contemporary dance company perform a masterpiece of haunting and reflective beauty.
Continue ReadingWatching 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,...
Continue ReadingThe 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.
Continue ReadingAfter 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.
Continue ReadingAn “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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