The Music Within
Cleveland native Dianne McIntrye received a hometown hero's welcome during her curtain speech prior to her eponymous dance group thrilling the audience in her latest work, “In the Same Tongue.”
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World-class review of ballet and dance.
Cleveland native Dianne McIntrye received a hometown hero's welcome during her curtain speech prior to her eponymous dance group thrilling the audience in her latest work, “In the Same Tongue.”
Continue ReadingA man, much to his wife’s chagrin, has a nasty little habit: at night, he turns into a bat and flies out of their marital bed to partake in all kinds of infidelities.
Continue ReadingThe Japan Society continued its Yukio Mishima Centennial Series with a newly commissioned dance work titled “The Seven Bridges (Hashi-zukushi)” based on Yukio Mishima’s short story by that name originally published in 1956.
Continue ReadingLondon is a changed city this week. The cold front has come, and daylight hours have plummeted. The city is rammed with tourists, buskers, and shoppers.
Continue ReadingThe Royal Ballet’s new restaging of “Everywhere We Go”—the Sufjan Stevens-scored ballet that secured Justin Peck his appointment as resident choreographer at New York City Ballet in 2014—challenges the company’s dancers to adopt a specifically American brand of pizzazz.
Continue ReadingQuadrophenia is about young men . . . and I do weep for young men still, because we are still struggling,” Pete Townshend—80 years old—playfully told Stephen Colbert while promoting the latest incarnation of the Who’s 1973 rock opera and 1979 film: “Quadrophenia: A Rock Ballet,” which ran last weekend at City Center.
Continue ReadingThe surge protectors needed replacement after the Hofesh Shechter Company’s concluded four nights performing “Theatre of Dreams” at the Powerhouse: International festival in Gowanus, Brooklyn.
Continue ReadingIn the 1996 comedy Multiplicity, Michael Keaton plays a man who decides to clone himself several times over in order to meet the demands of work and family. Chaos ensues. On November 14, San Francisco Opera premiered “The Monkey King” by Huang Ruo and David Henry Hwang. While the narrative features chaos, the line drawn between the 30-year-old film and this new opera is that the titular Monkey King is played by three performers; or one singer, one dancer, and a puppet; or, six performers total, because the puppet Monkey King requires three puppeteers. The Monkey King is an agent...
Continue ReadingIf classical ballet training—from Vaganova to Cecchetti—idealises effortlessness, silence, and a body almost freed from its own weight, modern dance insists on the opposite: the blunt truth that we are made of flesh and bone, and that this matter can itself become an instrument of power.
Continue ReadingTides and the gravitational pull of the moon informed the latest work of Denison University of Ohio dance faculty members Marion Ramirez and Ojeya Cruz Banks.
Continue ReadingWhat drives the creative force in the universe? What impels motherhood? These are some of the questions that provoked the bold and colorful work that unfolded onstage as Gallim premiered “Mother” at the Joyce the first week of November.
Continue ReadingIt’s a law of the universe, immutable as gravity: if you’re a ballerina, in December you’re dancing “The Nutcracker.”
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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