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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.

REVIEWS | By Gracia Haby

New Verse

Under a sturgeon supermoon, I head to Transit Dance in Brunswick, to see the Australian Ballet’s annual Bodytorque program of new contemporary works. Were I in a different hemisphere, such a bright night would symbolise the start of the harvest season, which, I guess, is true of the Bodytorque choreographic showcase: a gathering of crops, this year from Jill Ogai, Mason Lovegrove, Timothy Coleman, Serena Graham, Benjamin Garrett, and winner of the 2020 Emerging Female Classical Choreographer, Xanthe Geeves.

REVIEWS | By Faye Arthurs

Art Meets City

I will see anything with the choreographer Kyle Abraham’s name attached to it, and so I attended the premiere of “Reunions”—a free, outdoor dance festival set on a makeshift stage squeezed between the edge of the Paul Milstein Pool and Hearst Plaza at Lincoln Center. That Abraham’s name was attached was pretty much all I knew going in. He curated the program, which consisted of new works made by alumni from his company, A.I.M. It is rare, as a reviewer, to have so little foreknowledge of an assignment. And it was more mysterious yet when I arrived to check in...

INTERVIEWS | By Lorna Irvine

Into the Wild

Dancer, choreographer and musician Mavin Khoo's career straddles many disciplines, from Bharatanatyam (he is a leading soloist in the artform) and Odissi, to classical dance, and Cunningham technique at the Cunningham Studios, New York. He has worked with Wayne McGregor, Christopher Bannerman and most recently, has become the coach and creative associate to Akram Khan as part of the prestigious Akram Khan Company. Lorna Irvine caught up with him ahead of the live performance of “Jungle Book reimagined” at Edinburgh Festival Theatre as part of Edinburgh International Festival in August 25-28, 2022.

REVIEWS | By Rachel Howard

In the Night

That eerie post-Covid time warp—are we moving forward or stuck in a loop?—prevailed on a windy summer night as former San Francisco Ballet artistic director Helgi Tomasson took the stage of Stanford University’s Frost Amphitheater and explained that the program would begin with his old staple set to Bach keyboard works, “7 for Eight.”

REVIEWS | By Victoria Looseleaf

Booksmart

While books are being banned and burned in the States, and the political climate continues to roil, one can take solace in art. Especially the art of Butoh master and Los Angeles treasure, Japanese rice-farmer-turned-dancer Oguri, who’s been making dances in Southern California since 1990. And what dances they are: From site-specific work that has included the phenom exploring the connection between humans and the Getty Center’s architectural environment, to his ongoing series, “Flower of the Season,” in which he tackles subjects as diverse as Ikebana, the Japanese art of flower arranging, to “Caddy! Caddy! Caddy!” inspired by William Faulkner’s...

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.

REVIEWS | By Candice Thompson

How It Started, How It’s Going

In the archives at Jacob’s Pillow a 1948 video of Talley Beatty performing “Mourner’s Bench,” plays on a loop. In the space of a couple minutes, Beatty moves fluidly through wave-like motions, contracting and extending his body with a coiled intensity searching for release. The black and white footage is silent and flickering, and it is difficult to make out the expression on his face. Watching it over and over, I am struck by how Beatty continues to rise up with a Phoenix-like quality, eventually lifting up so much he executes a precarious one leg balance and promenade on top...

REVIEWS | By Karen Greenspan

Down to Earth

The Vertigo Dance Company from Israel performed "One. One & One"─a work of incisive sensitivity and raw physicality at PS 21 (Performance Spaces for the 21st Century). Just a 3-hour drive north of New York City, the expansive conservancy with its singular, open-air pavilion theater is arguably the most perfect space to experience Vertigo’s earthy masterpiece. The 300-seat, open-air, state-of-the-art theater sits at the apex of a 100-acre preserve of apple orchards, meadows, and woodlands with trails. As the drama of sunset over New York’s verdant Hudson Valley played out in full view, the spectacle of Vertigo’s nine amazing dancers...

FEATURES | By Valentina Bonelli

From Verona to Venice

In very hot Italian summer, travelling between Verona and Venice could reveal the tastes and manias of “the beautiful country” in the field of dance. In Verona, stormed by tourists this year more than ever, dance has a great tradition, as this writer remembers looking back at her childhood. At the Arena di Verona, you could admire the best of the then international dance scene, such as Maurice Béjart’s Ballet du XXème Siècle or classic ballets with stars like Rudolf Nureyev and Carla Fracci, Vladimir Vasiliev and Ekaterina Maximova, while at Teatro Romano more contemporary programs introduced companies such as...

FEATURES | REVIEWS | By Veronica Posth

Bright Colours

The international dance festival Colours in Stuttgart is a fairly young endeavour. Commencing in 2015, it repeated every two years through 2019 and restarted this year with a grand program. Launched by Eric Gauthier together with Claudia Bauer and Meinrad Huber, the festival has received international acclaim since its conception. As often dance festivals do, it brings together dance professionals, amateurs and enthusiasts in a friendly environment where it’s possible to relish in a vibrant and colourful atmosphere.

REVIEWS | By Madelyn Coupe

Veiled Anonymity

Once a year, Queensland Ballet stages “Bespoke,” the company’s main contemporary program. It presents three new works created by three different choreographers that experiment with the creative process. “Bespoke” holds a unique place in Queensland Ballet’s season. It acts as a platform that exposes audiences to a wider variety of works (ones that are not just classical). More importantly, however, it also allows us to witness the wide spectrum of abilities the company dancers have to offer—abilities that are, sometimes, overlooked when staging more traditional productions.

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.