World-class review of ballet and dance.
The lights dim and the mystical Eye of Horus commands our focus. Hieroglyphics and distinctive carvings flank the famous Egyptian symbol of resurrection as the overture swells and the drop curtain morphs into a portal to the past.
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Fresh from performing the concert version of George Balanchine’s “Who Cares?” at the Hollywood Bowl earlier this month, Los Angeles Ballet mounted a tribute to “American Icons” which included Jerome Robbins “The Cage,” Paul Taylor’s “Dilly Dilly,” and the return of artistic director Melissa Barak’s “Wavelength” for an evening at the Broad Stage in Santa Monica.
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Born in 1969 to a pair of gifted dancers—Marilyn Jones and Garth Welch—in Melbourne, Australia, it only seemed natural that their son, Stanton Welch, would follow in his parents’ balletic footsteps.
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Malandain Ballet Biarritz is approaching the end of an era. After nearly three decades at its helm, Thierry Malandain will hand over the direction of the Centre Chorégraphique National to Martin Harriague in January 2027.
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After a quiet August, the New York City dance calendar fills up almost impossibly quickly, with one particular program generating ample, and justified, hype. With its first program, New York City Center’s Fall for Dance Festival kick-starts the season with a jolt of energy.
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“Blue is the colour of the open sky, of water, freedom and depths we cannot fathom.” This is the mission statement for tonight’s bill from National Dance Company Wales, the first curated programme from new artistic director Bakani Pick-Up.
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Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker hit the Théâtre de Chaillot like a bomb, as “Rosas danst Rosas” took over the theatre for a sold-out run this September, bringing with it the irreverence of the Belgian avant-garde of the 1980s.
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When London’s Dance Umbrella festival launched in 1978, its future was uncertain. Would festival-goers and funders love or loathe the radical contemporary dance it presented?
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Dance has always captivated me, but it very rarely grips me in the same way as the other things I like to watch—horror movies and cult documentaries—do.
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With a soundtrack of crashing ocean waves, the opening 30 seconds of the stunning dance short Heartache codirected by Iker Karrera and Alberto D. Centeno delivers a series of singular and seemingly random yet intriguing images that lure the viewer in: A shirtless man, unsteady on his feet, flailing as he attempts to make his way up the staircase of an old building. A pair of legs seated on a bench—their owner hidden by the camera angle. An upstairs POV looking down on a huge, mysteriously beautiful, and darkened room empty of any furnishings, with old and muted walls of peeling...
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BalletMet has joined the ranks of ballet companies who have added a choreographic competition to their season.
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What form might radical compassion take? If you tease apart an acronym for cultivating mindfulness, and allow a herd of horses to gallop through the middle, what might arise?
Continue ReadingLong before the dancers take the stage, Dance Theatre of Harlem’s season at New York City Center feels like one of the most energizing cultural events of the spring.
Continue ReadingIt is rare for George Balanchine’s grand, bedazzled “Symphony in C” to open a program. Its champagne-popping finale for 52 dancers tends to be a nightcap.
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The Spring is Blooming festival, by Dance Reflections by Van Cleef & Arpels, now in its fifth year, has become a highlight of the spring dance circuit.
Continue ReadingAs the audience come to their feet at the end of this ballet there is a noted difference to be seen on stage. Three women stand with joined hands, taking their call as the romantic leads of a loud and proud lesbian ballet.
Continue ReadingOne of San Francisco Ballet’s greatest assets is its home venue, the Beaux-Arts style War Memorial Opera House, with four rings of seating that require performers to project their energies practically to the exosphere.
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