A Danced Rituel
When Frank Gehry was tapped to be the architect of Walt Disney Concert Hall, home to both the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the Los Angeles Master Chorale, he envisioned the space to be “a living room for the city.”
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“The Rite of Spring” is celebrated as much for its infamy as it is for its groundbreaking aesthetic and influence on twentieth-century dance and music. The uproar the avant-garde ballet—scored by Igor Stravinksy and originally choreographed by Vaslav Nijinsky for Sergei Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes—provoked during its 1913 premiere in Paris has enticed many a dancemaker to tackle it in the century since, with choreographers as diverse as Kenneth MacMillan, Martha Graham, Glen Tetley and Pina Bausch trying their hand. In fact, the work has undergone more than 150 interpretations since its debut, and while some are more liberal than others, two components remain in virtually every version: Stravinsky’s strident score and a libretto centred on the Chosen One, a sacrificial victim fated to dance herself to death.
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Sasha Waltz & Guests in “Sacre.” Photograph by Bernd Uhlig
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When Frank Gehry was tapped to be the architect of Walt Disney Concert Hall, home to both the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the Los Angeles Master Chorale, he envisioned the space to be “a living room for the city.”
Continue ReadingSan Francisco’s War Memorial Opera House is a grand, gracious theater, so it was a big deal to see the San Francisco Ballet School hold its end-of-year performances in that hall for the first time since at least 1985.
Continue ReadingAt its heart, “Sylvia” is a ballet about the resistance to love—a theme that continues to resonate deeply, as the human spirit often recoils from love, driven by fear, pride, a need for control, or the weight of duties and moral constraints.
Continue ReadingSince the 1970s, the Paris Opera Ballet has cultivated a distinctive tradition of nurturing its own dancers as emerging choreographers.
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