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INTERVIEWS | By Marina Harss

Taylor Stanley: The Space to Think

Like all the dancers at New York City Ballet, Taylor Stanley has been away from the company’s studios for much of the last year. Most of that time, he’s been in New York, where he lives with his sweet dog, Theo. The break has given him time to reflect, but that’s nothing new. Stanley is as thoughtful offstage as he is internal onstage. He dances as if he were digging toward some very deep and quiet place within. For a few years, he has been exploring different ways of moving, outside of ballet. He’s attracted to Ohad Naharin’s Gaga technique,...

DANCE FILM | REVIEWS | By Lorna Irvine

Fragility and Fallibility

The wavering, crepe paper-thin voice of an old man sings on a loop: “Jesus' blood never failed me yet, never failed me . . . yet, Jesus blood . . . never failed me yet / This one thing, I know, for he loves me . . . . So.” This is the first track of the soundtrack of the delicate, beautiful film Worn, screened through the Byre Theatre St Andrews, and could only be an appropriate choice to open. The heartbreaking track, by composer Gavin Bryars, samples the singing of a homeless man recorded on the streets, a vulnerable...

REVIEWS | By Faye Arthurs

All Ratmansky

The American Ballet Theatre aired a pre-filmed, all-Ratmansky program this week on City Center’s digital platform. For $25, it is accessible on demand through April 18th. I highly recommend it. There were three works offered in excerpt and one world premiere, “Bernstein in a Bubble,” created recently in a working quarantine at the Silver Bay YMCA in upstate NY. During a pleasant intermission interview between Linda Murray (Curator of the Jerome Robbins Dance Division at the NY Public Library) and Alexei Ratmansky, he explained that the new ballet used music which had been composed by Leonard Bernstein to fête the...

DANCE FILM | REVIEWS | By Marina Harss

Back to the Barre

William Forsythe is a dancers’ choreographer. Dancers love working with him, he challenges their minds and their bodies, his knowledge and understanding of the vocabulary of ballet is profound. In the studio, the atmosphere is one of co-conspirators, playmates. All this comes through in his most recent creation, a collaboration with New York City Ballet’s Tiler Peck called “The Barre Project (Blake Works II)” released on March 25, with a repeat performance on March 27. (The platform is CLI Studios, an online clearinghouse for dance classes.)

INTERVIEWS | By Lorna Irvine

Rise from the Ashes

Penny Chivas is a superb Glasgow-based dancer and activist whose work is graceful, insightful and challenging. Her current project, “Burnt Out,” interrogates the effects of Australian bush fires, with particular emphasis on trauma, in terms of both body and the environment. Plans for the piece were put on hiatus because of travel restrictions in the wake of the pandemic. Lorna Irvine caught up with her—socially distanced, outdoors—to talk with her about her career so far, and plans for when current restrictions are lifted in the UK.

INTERVIEWS | By Victoria Looseleaf

Toni Basil, Dancing through the Decades

Quentin Tarantino called her the “Goddess of Go-Go.” Indeed, when the acclaimed director hired dancer, choreographer, singer, and actress Toni Basil to make dances for his 2019 film, Once Upon a Time . . . in Hollywood, choosing Basil was a no-brainer. After all, this polymath, who was born in 1943 and is still going strong at 77, not only has cred in the swinging ‘60s, but has also been relevant for six—count ‘em, yes six—decades.

DANCE FILM | REVIEWS | By Lorna Irvine

Extremes of Choreography: Wim Vandekeybus

Belgian choreographer and film maker Wim Vandekeybus’ work is characterised by absolute extremes: jaw-dropping theatricality; the use and abuse of unusual props, athleticism, frenzy, danger and discomfort. He doesn't deal in soft options; rather, he credits his audience with enough intelligence to enjoy, pick apart and understand his challenging, often dreamlike pieces. The scenography and sound are as integral to the work as the steps.

FEATURES | By Merilyn Jackson

Next stop, Tanz Station

Pascal Merighi’s raffish confidence dazzled when I first saw him dance in Pina Bausch’s “For the Children of Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow” at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. He all but hurled dancer Ditta Miranda Jasjfi around his waist as if she were a lifeless rag doll.

REVIEWS | By Paul McInnes

Beauty in Japan

The National Ballet of Japan's performance of “The Sleeping Beauty” at Hatsudai's mammoth New National Theatre Tokyo was actually a late replacement for artistic director Miyako Yoshida's “selection” which was scrapped near the end of last year.

DANCE FILM | REVIEWS | By Lorna Irvine

Reframing

As Glasgow's famous Tramway venue remains closed until further notice, Unlimited have commissioned a short film screening for those missing this superb live dance festival. This particular film is a superb example of the artists who would be participating on the stage throughout the spring, and feels entirely apposite, given its overarching theme.

REVIEWS | By Claudia Lawson

Fleeting Beauty

And here we are—in Sydney’s Roslyn Packer Theatre. Everyone is wearing masks, yet the theatre is buzzing. The anticipation is palpable—the Sydney Dance Company is about to take the main stage for the first time since late 2019. The work is Rafael Bonachela's “Impermanence.”

REVIEWS | By Rachel Howard

Love & Strife

The task at hand is a review of “Romeo and Juliet,” but more on that in a minute. What needs to be said first is this: In our moment of political and pandemic chaos, Peter Boal is doing an extraordinary job of connecting his company to its public with a spirit of empathy, vulnerability, and humility.

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.