World-class review of ballet and dance.
When Richard Move enters from stage left, their presence is already monumental. In a long-sleeved gown, a wig swept in a dramatic topnot, and their eyes lined in striking swoops, the artist presents themself in the likeness of Martha Graham—though standing at 6’4, they have more than a foot on the late modern dance pioneer.
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Perhaps not since Mikhail Fokine’s 1905 iconic “The Dying Swan” has there been as haunting a solo dance depiction of avian death as Aakash Odedra Company’s “Songs of the Bulbul” (2024).
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Dance, at its best, captures nuance particularly well, allowing us to feel deeply and purely. In its wordlessness, it places a primal reliance on movement and embodied knowledge as communication all its own. It can speak directly from the body to the heart, bypassing the brain’s drive to “make sense of.”
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“Racines”—meaning roots—stands as the counterbalance to “Giselle,” the two ballets opening the Paris Opera Ballet’s season this year.
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“Giselle” is a ballet cut in two: day and night, the earth of peasants and vine workers set against the pale netherworld of the Wilis, spirits of young women betrayed in love. Between these two realms opens a tragic dramatic fracture—the spectacular and disheartening death of Giselle.
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Michele Wiles’ Park City home is nestled in the back of a wooded neighborhood, hidden from the road by pines and deciduous trees that are currently in the midst of their autumn transformations.
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It was a grand night of show and—well, show more—as eight members of L.A. Dance Project strutted their gorgeous, technically brilliant stuff in the US premiere of “Gems.”
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During the summer, two Chinese dance productions came to Koch Theater at New York’s Lincoln Center: “Lady White Snake” from Shanghai Grand Theater in July and “Butterfly Lovers” from Hong Kong Ballet in August.
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I walk into Roulette, a rough-around-the-edges world music venue, a couple of blocks from the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM). I am attending “Dambudzo,” presented as part of BAM’s Next Wave Festival, brought to the neighborhood by the bold imagination and creative enterprise of Zimbabwe performing artist Nora Chipaumire.
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A rehabilitated 117-year-old power plant situated on the Gowanus Canal in Brooklyn, once a toxic waste site, now houses an amazing new contemporary arts hub—Powerhouse Arts.
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To say the least, the true story of a juvenile axe murderer seems unlikely to inspire a ballet. But the legends surrounding the late nineteenth-century murders of Lizzie Borden’s father Andrew and her stepmother, Abby persist, perhaps because Lizzie was ultimately acquitted, and no other suspect was ever identified or brought to justice.
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The National Ballet of Japan’s rendition of the Frederick Ashton classic, “Cinderella,” offers an authentic taste of English tradition, subtly flavored by Japanese aesthetics.
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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