World-class review of ballet and dance.
It happened six days ago; it happened in a different age. An age in which we believed a racist, misogynist sociopath like Donald Trump could never be president. The audience at San Francisco’s Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Theater rose immediately, en masse, and poured forth solemn, awed applause for the LINES Ballet dancers.
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“I know they think I am a sick man. I am sorry for them because they think I am sick. I am in good health, and I do not spare my strength. I will dance more than ever. I want to teach dancing and will therefore work a little every day. I will also write.”
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“Anastasia” may be one of the few full length ballets Kenneth MacMillan created but it is rarely performed. Yet this carefully constructed work feels deserving of a place in company repertoire. If you accept the slow pace, it is an enjoyable, strikingly modern ballet and, in the hands of the Royal Ballet, it is danced with an easy elegance.
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What is it about a girl in stilettos—those near lethal heels generally designed by men: think Jimmy Choo, Manolo Blahnik and Christian Louboutin—that make a woman feel both seriously sexy and über-vulnerable at the same time? In her, “Girl Gods” (we prefer the term ‘Goddesses’), a dance three years in the making and a Los Angeles premiere, choreographer Pat Graney ventures into the terrain of feminine tropes with mordant wit, alarming candor and reservoirs of rage.
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In case you missed it, during his short tenure as a ballet director, Benjamin Millepied tried to force-feed the Parisian audience with an all-you-can-eat Balanchine menu.
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In his 1881 guide Our Etiquette and Social Observances, writer Hudson K. Lyverthey aims to outline the “rules for the conduct of a person in all of his relations to society.” He uses drawing rooms, street corners, social dances, and even church as settings for this discussion. His booklet, he explains, is unique because it “is designed for both ladies and gentlemen; the advantages of this plan will be evident.”
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A Russian, a Dane and a Canadian—all choreographers—may never have walked into a bar together, but their works made for a magnificently diverse program presented by Los Angeles Ballet to kick off the troupe’s 11th season. The three dancemakers, George Balanchine, August Bournonville and Aszure Barton, represent three distinct styles, and showcased the company’s commitment to preservation as well as being cleverly hip in the moment.
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The dancers and musicians gather on the stage, the chorus of their voices rising through the auditorium. There’s a Middle Eastern influence to their music, a complex layering of sound that comes from the diversity of styles choreographer Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui has brought together. Each of his dancers and musicians are experienced in different disciplines and this crossing of skills provides a rich palette for Cherkaoui to draw from. The result is a carefully crafted work that emerges from a maelstrom of music, movement, voice and image.
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In Jane Austen’s 1803 novel Northanger Abbey, seventeen-year-old Catherine Morland spends the winter in Bath, a town tucked away in the English countryside. While there, Morland finds herself at a series of balls and social dances. She also finds herself in the company of new friends—and suitors. One is Isabella Thorpe, a society sweetheart who deals—and delights—in gossip. Another is her brother John Thorpe, a wealthy young man whose arrogance and entitlement is evident even when he dances. As Morland spends more time with these characters at community dances, her view of wealthy English society evolves: although society culture at...
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From the opening moments, Jasmin Vardimon's “Pinocchio” resonates with the kind of magic you only encounter in theatre. One after the other the performers rise from the floor, hand in hand, their bodies straight and stiff, mechanically tipping in turn like the wooden figurines of an old town square clock. It’s an enduring image of this show—and it is one of many.
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Think of it as the terpsichorean equivalent of a mic drop—times four, or Beyoncé before Beyoncé (but a decided precursor to “Formation”). However one chooses to look at it, William Forsythe’s “Artifact Suite,” performed over the weekend by Houston Ballet (who premiered it just last month), was an anarchic, jaw-dropping stunner. One third of a unique bill—a trio of American ballet troupes each performing a Forsythe opus—“Artifact” is a one-act, forty-minute abstraction of the his 1984 “Artifact,” the first piece the American-born choreographer made for his now disbanded troupe, Ballett Frankfurt.
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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