World-class review of ballet and dance.
“THERE ARE NO STORIES TO ANY OF THE DANCES IN ‘DANCES AT A GATHERING,’” the American choreographer Jerome Robbins reportedly wrote in a missive to a prestigious dance magazine in advance of the ballet’s New York City Ballet premiere of “Dances at a Gathering” in 1969. “THERE ARE NO PLOTS AND NO ROLES. THE DANCERS ARE THEMSELVES DANCING WITH EACH OTHER TO THAT MUSIC IN THAT PLACE.”
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“I am not talking to you now through the medium of custom, conventionalities, nor even of mortal flesh: it is my spirit that addresses your spirit; just as if both had passed through the grave, and we stood at God's feet, equal—as we are!”
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Katharine Hepburn once quipped of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers: “Fred gave Ginger class, and Ginger gave Fred sex.” Ballroom champs and married couple Janette Manrara and Aljaž Skorjanec share a more even split of both in this charming homage to Astaire's dazzling, game changing career. They simply ooze personality, wit and sex appeal. Far more meta and clever than a Hollywood homage should be, the show is bursting with insights on Astaire's rise to the top, and features brilliant choreography from director Gareth Walker and assistant choreographer Scott Coldwell.
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Miami City Ballet concluded its 2017/18 season at Fort Lauderdale’s Broward Center for the Performing Arts in style with a program that featured ballet’s greatest hits of past and present: George Balanchine’s historic “Apollo” and his darkly enchanting and haunting dance-drama, “La Valse,” plus the company’s premiere of Alexei Ratmansky’s exuberant and nostalgic “Concerto DSCH.”
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A festival of new works in search of ballet’s future must be valued as much for the conversation it catalyzes as the new dances themselves, and on this count alone, San Francisco Ballet’s Unbound festival ranks as a landmark success. Heated, giddy, disappointed, perplexed: Talk echoed through the War Memorial Opera House lobby all last week, as audiences rushed from candid panel discussion to curtain time, and the 12 international choreographers commissioned for this sweeping, questing survey paced the aisles, and glamorous visitors like Julie Kent flitted through the crowds. Ballet diehards and newcomers alike compared knee-jerk reactions. And the...
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Presented by World Music/CRASHarts, “Sutra” highlights one of the finest most recent collaborations of Eastern music with Western dance, showcasing the innovative melodies of composer Zakir Hussain and contemporary ballet choreographer Alonzo King. “Sutra” is not only World Music/CRASHarts’ first commissioned work, but marks the 35th Anniversary of Alonzo King LINES Ballet as well, and made its world premiere in the company’s home city of San Francisco, Calif. before making its East Coast debut at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston, Massachusetts.
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From modern Latin, from the Greek words sumbiōsis, ‘a living together,’ sumbioun, ‘live together,’ and sumbios, ‘companion’ comes the word symbiosis, an interaction between two different organisms living in close physical association, typically to the advantage of both. In the dictionary, the very definition of a symbiotic relationship, why, it almost sounds like a pas de deux. A ‘step of two’ performed by dancers working together, dependent upon each other, with each other, in synchronicity, aware, at all times, of the other.
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I wonder if it’s been like this for New Yorkers: You see one Justin Peck ballet, set to an orchestra score written by a pop musician, and you’re half-charmed by the youthful exuberance, and appreciate the influence of Jerome Robbins, but keep a healthy reserve of skepticism because somehow the whole package seems to lack substance. But then you see a more classical Peck ballet—“In Creases,” say, set to Philip Glass’s score for two pianos—and the formal intelligence is undeniable, but the exuberance remains, and you think, OK, he’s not just a pop-culture re-packager. And then maybe you see his...
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There are angels on earth, and they are the dancers, choreographers, composers and artistic directors who help collectively elevate the hearts and minds of concert-going mortals-if only for a brief respite—especially in these very troubled times. To be more specific: Dance Theatre of Harlem, under the assured and loving hands of Virginia Johnson, made a triumphant debut at the Broad Stage in a program of three disparate—and emotionally charged—works.
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“Manon” is perhaps one of Kenneth MacMillan's most celebrated works, so it is fitting that it draws to a close a Royal Ballet season that has seen a number of performances in commemoration of the 25th anniversary of the choreographer's death.
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Aaron Robison's dancing has taken him around the world and back again. The former principal at San Francisco Ballet and Houston Ballet soloist returned last year to his native UK to join Tamara Rojo's English National Ballet at the highest rank. He danced in the recent world premiere of William Forsythe's “Playlist (Track 1, 2)”—the first new Forsythe work mounted on a British company in more than two decades, and was the poster-child for the bill, “Voices of America.”
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There was much to admire about the Washington Ballet’s program titled “Mixed Masters” which the company brought to the Kennedy Center Eisenhower Theater in April. This sophisticated, ambitious and highly enjoyable triple bill included signature ballets by the 20th century great choreographers: George Balanchine, Frederick Ashton, and Jerome Robbins—the masters “whose genius has shaped our art form immeasurably,” artistic director of the Washington Ballet Julie Kent wrote in the program notes.
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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