Tetsuya Kumakawa, In the Comfort Zone
For a man considered an icon in Japan’s performing arts world, Tetsuya Kumakawa, in person, is surprisingly down-to-earth.
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I woke up this morning to the tragic news of Aleksei Navalny’s death in a Russian prison, and the first thing I thought of was the ballet premiere from the night before. That’s new. The New York City Ballet stage is not where one goes for current events, but Alexei Ratmansky’s latest work for the troupe directly addresses the fallout from the war in Ukraine, and movingly so. For this piece, “Solitude,” Ratmansky took inspiration from a newspaper photograph. In July of 2022, a 13-year-old boy was killed by a missile strike in Kharkiv while waiting at a bus stop. His father sat with his body for hours afterward, holding his hand. Ratmansky has turned this haunting, still image of paternal vigil into a vivid and impressionistic portrait of grief.
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For a man considered an icon in Japan’s performing arts world, Tetsuya Kumakawa, in person, is surprisingly down-to-earth.
Continue ReadingAmelie Ravalec is a London-based French film director and producer, photographer, publisher and colourist. Her internationally screened films include Art & Mind, Paris/Berlin: 20 Years Of Underground Techno and Industrial Soundtrack For the Urban Decay.
Continue ReadingA stool, a clothesline, a hanging sheet. But for these three things, the stage set for “Woolgathering” was largely empty. “Woolgathering” is a ‘spoken word opera’ directed and composed by Oliver Tompkins Ray with choreography by John Heginbotham, inspired by the poetic memoir by Patti Smith.
Continue ReadingThe American Ballet Theatre’s opening bill was not a hole-in-one, but the ideas behind the programming were sound: feature a new work that builds upon company traditions (Gemma Bond’s “La Boutique”), push the dancers in a different style by a hot choreographer (Kyle Abraham’s “Mercurial Son”), and show off the troupe’s prodigious technical chops in a grand manner (Harald Lander’s “É tudes”).
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