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REVIEWS | By Josephine Minhinnett

Seeing in the Dark

I had high expectations going into the National Ballet of Canada’s mixed program on opening night. What was on the table for being the greatest highlight of the evening was Greta Hodgkinson dancing her final role before retirement in the historically star-studded “Marguerite and Armand” (originally created for Fonteyn and Nureyev by Sir Frederick Ashton). The gesture was well-considered to celebrate the ballerina’s 30-year career, but the program did not gel as I had hoped. Alongside the contemporary “Chroma” set to music from the White Stripes and a world premiere by Crystal Pite, the three pieces seemed worlds apart. In...

REVIEWS | By Lorna Irvine

Black Eyes and High Tide

BalletBoyz' twenty year anniversary is celebrated with elan with this superb double bill which showcases two world class choreographers, and the boldness and adaptability of the company. After a short cheeky film, created by Sarah Golding with all of the dancers freestyling and vying for attention, the first piece of the evening unfolds explosively, created by choreographer Maxine Doyle from Punchdrunk and featuring music from the jazz artist Cassie Kinoshi from the SEED Ensemble.

REVIEWS | By Faye Arthurs

Rotunda

The final week of the New York City Ballet’s winter season showcased a world premiere: Justin Peck’s “Rotunda,” to a commissioned score by Nico Muhly. Few companies would try to pull off a new work at the close of a season that commences after six weeks of “Nutcrackers,” and immediately after a grueling two-week run of “Swan Lake.” So it wasn’t surprising that by Friday night there were some casting replacements due to injury. But NYCB always operates on the edge of what is physically possible—in terms of both stylization and scheduling.

REVIEWS | By Sara Veale

Celebrating the Mother of Modern Dance

When you’ve seen a hundred modern (and postmodern and contemporary) dance productions, with their twisted postures and gasping contractions, it’s easy to forget where it all started. When Isadora Duncan took to the stage at the turn of the twentieth century, she dazed the establishment by rejecting the upright postures of ballet, insisting that beauty—and with it, artistic dignity—could be found in a looser, more grounded form. “Isadora Now” spotlights Duncan’s vision, celebrating her work as the Mother of Modern Dance and contemplating its impact today. That it’s been produced by a distinguished classical dancer, Viviana Durante, is proof positive...

REVIEWS | By Rachel Howard

The Future is Green

If there is a downside to San Francisco Ballet’s zeal for commissioning international choreographers, it is that we do not often have the luxury, here in Northern California, of considering the dancers over the dance.

REVIEWS | By Gracia Haby

Revolution & Resilience

Pollen grains can be dispersed by wind, insect, bird, or animal, and in the case of Akira Kasai’s “Pollen Revolution,” they can even be liberated within and dispersed by a dancer. Kasai’s “Pollen Revolution,” one of three performances presented within Dancehouse’s Japan Focus, alongside Ruri Mito’s “Matou” and Takao Kawaguchi’s “Good Luck,” as part of the 2020 Asia TOPA: Asia-Pacific Triennial of Performing Arts dance program, pollinates and vibrates the imagination in a way that only the “Nijinsky of Butoh” can.

REVIEWS | By Sara Veale

Oceans of Sentiment

Alina Cojocaru’s technical fluency and stirring artistry have propelled her to starred ranks at both the Royal Ballet and English National Ballet. The Romanian luminary’s new self-assembled programme at Sadler’s Wells highlights this eloquence, taking a look at the many languages of ballet she’s perfected in her two decades on stage, from soft classical displays to exuberant contemporary tangles. Interestingly, there are no glimpses of Giselle or Aurora or the other marquee roles Cojocaru has built her name on; instead it’s mostly short pieces created on her in recent years, topped off with Frederick Ashton’s one-act “Marguerite and Armand”—a Royal...

REVIEWS | By Sara Veale

A Bold Arrival

Cathy Marston has arrived. Actually, the British choreographer has been doing exciting work for decades now, but the Royal Ballet has finally given her a main stage commission, which is another way of punching her members’ card. Marston’s new ballet follows in the steps of a string of ambitious narrative productions for the likes of Bern Ballett and Northern Ballet, from “Wuthering Heights” to “Jane Eyre” to “Victoria.” Her passion (and gift) for dramatising left-field subjects hits a high note here: the focus is Jacqueline du Pré, a prodigious British cellist whose talent sadly dissolved in the clutch of multiple...

REVIEWS | By Victoria Looseleaf

The Still Point

Time. One of life’s great imponderables becomes one of the topics in a soaring meditation in the T.S. Eliot literary masterpiece, Four Quartets. First published in 1943, the work, divided into four sections/poems, served as the starting point for the brilliant dance of the same name choreographed by the celebrated New York-based dancemaker Pam Tanowitz. First presented in 2018 at Bard College—a co-commission between Bard Fisher Center, Barbican London, Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts and CAP UCLA, where it was seen over the weekend—the work was hailed by the New York Times’ Alastair Macaulay as “dance theater of the...

FEATURES | REVIEWS | By Faye Arthurs

Odette vs Odile x 3

The ink is barely dry on year-end top ten lists, yet the first months of the new year bring no respite from heady contest. In sports (the Super Bowl), cinema (the Golden Globes through the Oscars), and politics (the primaries), winter in America is rife with competition. Why should the ballet world be any different? In the span of roughly a month, NYC dancegoers had to choose between three major productions of that classic synecdochical of the art form: “Swan Lake.” Actually, there were four—but in this review I won’t cover the St. Petersburg Ballet Theater’s two shows at BAM....

REVIEWS | By Rachel Elderkin

The Space Between

“maliphantworks3” marks choreographer Russell Maliphant's third season of works performed at the Coronet, an intimate venue in London's Notting Hill characterised by its dimly-lit corridors and eclectic collection of objects and memorabilia. Like the previous two programmes, “maliphantworks3” presents a selection of short works by the choreographer and his collaborators, including three world premieres and the return of 2018's “Duet” performed by Maliphant and long-term collaborator, Dana Fouras. Significantly, this third season also marks Fouras’ last performances with Russell Maliphant Dance Company.

Scottish Dance Theatre Antigone, Interrupted

REVIEWS | By Lorna Irvine

Herstory

It starts with a hand—a fist, clenching, pulsing as a heartbeat. Sinews and muscles are taut, the arm outstretched. The hand gives, but can also take away. The hand strikes, punches, slaps, caresses, pulls. So, too, the hand crowns kings and queens. This is the jumping-off point for French dancer Solène Weinachter's incredible new solo performance, “Antigone, Interrupted.” Human fragility is, Weinachter suggests, one side of the same coin, where strength is another. It is both meditation on Antigone, princess of Thebes and doomed daughter of Oedipus, from a feminist perspective; and also a personal journey between Weinachter and director...

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.