Stars of the International Ballet Stage
The IBStage Star Galas have a mission to unite the best and brightest for gala ballet evenings. As seen at New York City Center, New York. Photographs by Steven Pisano
Continue ReadingWorld-class review of ballet and dance.
For the fifty-seventh year of its summer residency in July at Saratoga Performing Arts Center (SPAC), upstate in Saratoga Springs, the New York City Ballet brought three programs. I was able to see all the programs and five of the six performances. Unlike the programming for the company’s tours, which presents a slice of its profile, its residency offers works that have been significant during recent seasons at Lincoln Center: spring premieres like Justin Peck’s full-length “Copland Dance Episodes”; the 2022 fall fashion gala’s premieres by Gianna Reisen and Kyle Abraham, and the 2022 Stravinsky Festival offerings of Balanchine’s “Firebird” and Peck’s “Scherzo Fantastique.” There is also the chance to see newly promoted principals—Isabella LaFreniere and Roman Mejia this year and Jovani Furlan, Peter Walker, and Chun Wai Chan last year—as well as many promising new dancers. All in all, both a synopsis and a continuation.
The summer setting of SPAC’s music and dance shed, which also hosts the Philadelphia Orchestra in August, bestows its own magic. Matinées take place with daylight entering the open sides, while evening performances begin during the long summer day and darken unnoticed into the evening.
Performance
Place
Words
“Uncommonly intelligent, substantial coverage.”
Your weekly source for world-class dance reviews, interviews, articles, and more.
Already a paid subscriber? Login
The IBStage Star Galas have a mission to unite the best and brightest for gala ballet evenings. As seen at New York City Center, New York. Photographs by Steven Pisano
Continue ReadingWhile Kendrick Lamar performed “Humble,” during his Super Bowl halftime set and was surrounded by dancers clad in red, white and blue—and in the process assumed the formation of the American flag (choreographed by Charm La’Donna)—so, too, did Faye Driscoll use performers who created slews of shapes/sculptures in her astonishing work, “Weathering,” seen at REDCAT on February 8, the last of three sold-out performances.
Continue ReadingLet’s start with the obvious, or maybe to some this notion will be highly disputable, even offensive. OK, then, let’s start with what kept repeating in my head as I walked out of UC Berkeley’s Zellerbach Hall, synapses abuzz with the wonders of Twyla Tharp Dance’s 60th anniversary “Diamond Jubilee” program: My God, Twyla Tharp really is the most brilliantly inventive choreographer now alive on the planet.
Continue ReadingIn Maldonne, French filmmakers Leila KA and Josselin Carré pose eleven women side by side on a barren stage. They’re dressed in floral patterns that hearken to the 1950s. The camera zooms in to frame their faces—each woman is in a state of distress.
Continue Reading
I enjoyed the review, especially since I had seen two of these performances, with some cast overlap, in the spring season in NYC. I agree completely with the comment about describing grown women as “girls”. This is definitely an unfortunate tradition that has to go.
Lovely review, thank you, and wonderful pictures —love the side-by-side placement of Anthony and Taylor, different costumes, different ballets, but almost the same cabriole(ish) moment! and love seeing Sara-as-swan, so in the moment, good to have you on the stage again, you lovely artist, and then, oh! that color-snap from the Peck/Copland extravaganza! (My small “huh?” question: any reason why one has to keep using the term “girl” or “girls” when referring to grown women, as happens here with reference to “Fancy Free”? I don’t think we have to adhere to what original program notes may or may not have said…right?)