World-class review of ballet and dance.
Until March 2022, Olga Smirnova was one of the top dancers at the Bolshoi, performing roles in a large swathe of the repertory, everything from Odette in “Swan Lake” to Marguerite Gauthier in John Neumeier’s “Lady of the Camellias” and Bianca in Jean-Christophe Maillot’s “Taming of the Shrew.”
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Talk about the marriage of music and dance! Following in the footsteps of George Balanchine, whose works with Igor Stravinsky stretched across decades, Lincoln Jones, artistic director and choreographer of American Contemporary Ballet, continues the tradition when his company dances the world premiere of “The Euterpides.”
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One of the most important questions for any director who inherits a dance company from its founding choreographer is how to keep the repertory alive.
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Jennifer Archibald’s choreography credits extend from ballet companies to commercial work, reflecting her signature ability to blend classical dance with hip hop.
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Listening to John Cage’s “Three Dances (for prepared piano)” is a wonderfully contradictory experience. The composer disrupts our auditory expectations by placing an assortment of small objects such as erasers, screws, and bolts, among the piano strings. A musician plays the piano in the typical manner, but instead of a harmonic tone, we hear more percussive sounds of kettle drums, timpani, xylophone, tin cans, even bells. One can imagine how an artist like Lucinda Childs, who was part of the Judson Dance Theater radicals in the ‘60s, might be attracted to such a composition. The choreographer is perhaps best known...
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If ballet and politics were ever a thing, Houston Ballet principal Harper Watters is, perhaps, one of its staunchest advocates.
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Petite in stature, with beautiful, delicate features, Scottish dance artist Suzi Cunningham is nonetheless a powerhouse performer: an endless shape shifter whose work ranges from eerie to strange, to poignant, or just absolutely hilarious.
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Oona Doherty is a choreographer that increasingly needs no introduction. The London-born Belfast native, who worked as a dancer across Europe, roared onto the scene as a choreographer with her solo work “Hope Hunt and the Ascension into Lazarus,” a searing examination of masculine culture that had the contemporary dance world abuzz.
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In a career spanning almost 30 years, American dancer-choreographer Trajal Harrell has created a body of work borne of a rich imagination and an enquiring mind.
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In 2017 Virginie Mécène reimagined the lost Martha Graham solo “Ekstatis.” A review from that Martha Graham Dance Company premiere ended with a strong vote of confidence from critic Gia Kourlas: “Ms. Mécène should keep going.”
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On one of the first spring-like days this year in NYC, I arrive at Barnard College to observe rehearsal for John Jasperse’s new piece, “Tides,” which will open the LaMama Moves! Dance Festival on April 10.
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Houston Ballet has announced its vibrant programme for 2025-2026, with luminary contemporary ballet choreographer, Alice Topp, formerly of the Australian Ballet and the Royal New Zealand Ballet as a headliner.
Continue ReadingTwo performers crawl in on hands and knees wearing neon green, hooded coveralls—the lightweight papery kind made for working in a sterile environment—and clusters of balloons pinned to their backs.
Continue ReadingWill Rawls makes boundaries visible by defying them. Known for the disciplinary and topical range of his projects, the choreographer, director, and performer approaches issues of representation in “[siccer],” a multi-part, multi-site work co-presented by L’Alliance New York’s Crossing the Line Festival. A live performance at Performance Space New York...
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It is always interesting when multiple theme steps emerge over the course of a mixed repertory evening, but it is uncanny on one featuring five different ballets, each with a different choreographer and composer, covering a twenty-year span (2005-2025).
Continue ReadingZvidance premiered its new work “Dandelion” mid-November at New York Live Arts. Founded by Zvi Gotheiner in 1989, Zvidance has been a steady presence in the New York contemporary dance scene, a reliable source of compositional integrity, and a magnet for wonderful dancers.
Continue ReadingCleveland native Dianne McIntrye received a hometown hero's welcome during her curtain speech prior to her eponymous dance group thrilling the audience in her latest work, “In the Same Tongue.”
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