World-class review of ballet and dance.
At the hands of choreographer Stephen Petronio, a return to the stage after two years away becomes an occasion to both honor the past and contemplate the current moment. Opening night of the Stephen Petronio Company’s weeklong engagement at the Joyce Theater includes a new work, a restaging of vintage Trisha Brown, and an emotionally redeeming piece from company repertory, “Bloom,” accompanied live by the Young People’s Chorus of New York City.
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To many dancers, Balanchine is a figure so imbued with history, he’s almost not real. He lives on through his 465 works, which we study in dance history classes, watch onstage, and—if we’re lucky—learn ourselves. He’s almost been stripped of humanity, raised up to such a high status that it’s easy to forget that he—in his own words—“pulled the toilet chain for the same reason you do.” Toni Bentley, and her latest book, Serenade, are here to remind us.
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Abdel R. Salaam met Dr. Charles R. Davis in 1969. Known as Baba Chuck (“Baba” being a term of endearment for patriarchal figures in communities worldwide), he founded the DanceAfrica Festival at BAM in 1977. Baba Salaam, the current artistic director for DanceAfrica, danced in those inaugural performances with the Chuck Davis Dance Company.
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As bells sounded the theme opening Georges Bizet’s Carmen Suite, Simon Le Borgne sat slumped on an exercise ball, facing upstage, his head drooped so low he appeared in the spotlight as an almost headless Don José. Others entered, including Ida Viikinkoski as M., Don José’s betrothed. Trying to conjure him awake with sharp motions that ticked like a clock, she left him to the battalion of soldiers, lining up to serve as his firing squad. The effect was one of a bad dream, a premonition that was both the beginning and ending of Mats Ek’s “Carmen,” created for Cullberg...
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Dutch sibling duo and NDT alumni Imre and Marne van Opstal’s “Eye Candy” was first presented to audiences as a digital dance work last summer. Almost a year later, it made its live UK theatre debut last week as the opening performance of Rambert’s latest triple bill of works. Exploring the theme of body politics, “Eye Candy” features a cast of eight dancers dressed in synthetic moulded torsos giving the impression of nudity. Adding stiff, perky breasts and tight six packs to the performer’s already toned and athletic bodies, these costumes cleverly introduce conversations around unattainable beauty standards even before...
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The first time the scope of Balanchine’s Stravinsky Festival hit me, it was physical; I recognized it in my dancing body. I was learning the finale of “Divertimento from ‘Le Baiser de la Fée,’” an infrequently performed work I had never seen, and, as if by fairy-kiss magic, I already knew many of the steps. Sweaty and panting on a five, I asked Rosemary Dunleavy, the senior repertory director who was teaching the ballet, why there were so many of the same steps—but out of order—from the Five Couples' dances in “Symphony in Three Movements” (which we performed frequently). She...
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We don’t usually associate the choreographer Jerome Robbins with the music of Tchaikovsky. But on occasion, Robbins did choreograph to music by the Russian composer. One of these works, “Piano Pieces,” was made for New York City Ballet’s 1981 Tchaikovsky Festival. This week it returns to the repertory for the first time since 2008, paired with Robbins’ tongue-in-cheek Verdi ballet “The Four Seasons.” The combination makes for a light, bright, and relatively brief evening, something of a relief after the two-week Stravinsky Festival.
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Having choreographed more than 100 works for companies worldwide, including American Ballet Theatre, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater and the National Ballet of Japan, Jessica Lang, who grew up in Bucks County, PA, began studying ballet as a child. At the tender age of 13, realizing that dance was her true calling, she never looked back, becoming a creative force in the process.
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San Francisco Ballet capped artistic director Helgi Tomasson’s departing season with his “Swan Lake,” headlined by four promising casts. On opening night I saw Frances Chung as Odette/Odile, and she was technically impeccable, emotive without crossing over into camp, and athletically powerful—but she didn’t believably click with Joseph Walsh’s playboy-esque Siegfried. Then I received emails from strangers reporting that Sasha De Sola’s debut in the role had left them dazzled. So I returned to see her second go at it with Max Cauthorn as Siegfried, and am I ever glad I did. Growing up in Fresno, California, I used to...
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There was nothing new about the trio of works on show at New York City Ballet on May 10—“Apollo,” “Orpheus,” and “Agon,” except the pairing with a brief orchestral suite by Stravinsky at the start of the evening. Stravinsky’s “Suite No. 2 for Small Orchestra” is a charmer, in the composer’s neoclassical style of the 1920’s, light, sparkling. Its second movement, a jaunty waltz for the flute, is like a playful out-take from “Petrushka.”
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Spring Forward Dance Festival is a project born ten years ago by Aerowaves, a European network which promotes emerging contemporary dance artists in Europe and abroad. Aerowaves began in 1996 with a small group of European dance colleagues at the Place in London, where John Ashford was director, presenting ten promising short pieces at the Place Theatre. It expanded into a network of 44 partners and presenters from 35 European countries showing 20 emerging choreographers each year.
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L.A. Dance Project's two-week run at the Joyce Theater opened May 3 with a program of mainly post-modern works by three female choreographers. Founded in 2012 under the artistic direction of former Paris Opera Director of Dance and New York City Ballet star Benjamin Millepied, the Los Angeles-based dance company celebrates its 10th anniversary this year. Since its inception, the company has presented over 40 works, both new and restaged, from a diverse array of choreographers including Justin Peck, Merce Cunningham, Kyle Abraham, Ohad Naharin, and Martha Graham.
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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