The OG: Original Giselle
It’s customary at La Scala to stage “Giselle” every season, and almost always the same production from 1950 to the present day.
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The Ghosts of London
For a Jewish man, Jerome Robbins sure had a clear idea of heaven—in the ballet realm, anyway. In two elegiac dances made less than a year apart, “In Memory Of…” and “Quiet City,” he had dancers in white doing low arabesque flies in a shaft of light emanating from the back left corner of the stage.
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In Orbit
To travel around, like the Earth in its recurrent, elliptical revolution around the sun, is no mean feat. Touring is a complicated, lengthy and costly affair.
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Myth Meets Grit
“Specky Clark” opens with a bang, then a whimper. The bang is the titular Specky’s mother, dropping dead onto the kitchen floor.
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Bending the Process
The sought-after choreographer Aszure Barton and award-winning composer Ambrose Akinmusire bend their individual arcs toward one another in their collaborative, multi-disciplinary work titled “A a | a B : Bend,” presented as part of Lincoln Center’s Pasculano Collaborative for Contemporary Dance.
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Dreamscapes
There's a wonderful collection of photographs from 1911 of Nijinsky taken by Auguste Bert. Nijinsky was 21 and at the peak of his dance career.
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Love’s Labors Lost
The love story is foundational to ballet, versions both tragic and not. This is the tradition in which “Trio Élégiaque,” Brady Farrar’s first choreographic commission for American Ballet Theatre, fits most comfortably. But beyond this, the Rachmaninoff-set ballet eschews convention.
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Full Throttle Dancing
Philadelphia Ballet’s artistic director Ángel Corella made a daring program decision with this triple bill, called “Dance at High Velocity.”
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A Divergent Dracula
Unlike the bloodthirsty monster of many “Dracula” ballets, Carolina Ballet's new production frames the title character as a tragic figure with some classic story-ballet Prince qualities.
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First Snow
There must be snow lightly dusting the shoulders. Mirlitons spin spritely and a striped, delectable flute. There must be magic and awe, in all its guises, and the reassurance that though the King Rat is nearby, crown askew, all is right in the world.
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Ballet Opposites Attract
Since 2013, the American Ballet Theatre has moved into the David H. Koch Theater for a Fall Season as soon as the New York City Ballet has moved out.
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Charlie Chaplin at the Ballet
“City Lights,” choreographed by Alastair Marriott for the National Ballet of Japan under artistic director Miyako Yoshida, made its world premiere this month in Tokyo, spinning the iconic 1931 Charles Chaplin movie of the same name to pure balletic gold.
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Firebird Rising
Long before the dancers take the stage, Dance Theatre of Harlem’s season at New York City Center feels like one of the most energizing cultural events of the spring.
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Rare Birds
It is rare for George Balanchine’s grand, bedazzled “Symphony in C” to open a program. Its champagne-popping finale for 52 dancers tends to be a nightcap.
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The Spring is Blooming festival, by Dance Reflections by Van Cleef & Arpels, now in its fifth year, has become a highlight of the spring dance circuit.
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Jack of Hearts
As the audience come to their feet at the end of this ballet there is a noted difference to be seen on stage. Three women stand with joined hands, taking their call as the romantic leads of a loud and proud lesbian ballet.
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School Report
One of San Francisco Ballet’s greatest assets is its home venue, the Beaux-Arts style War Memorial Opera House, with four rings of seating that require performers to project their energies practically to the exosphere.
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