World-class review of ballet and dance.
Quadrophenia is about young men . . . and I do weep for young men still, because we are still struggling,” Pete Townshend—80 years old—playfully told Stephen Colbert while promoting the latest incarnation of the Who’s 1973 rock opera and 1979 film: “Quadrophenia: A Rock Ballet,” which ran last weekend at City Center.
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The surge protectors needed replacement after the Hofesh Shechter Company’s concluded four nights performing “Theatre of Dreams” at the Powerhouse: International festival in Gowanus, Brooklyn.
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In the 1996 comedy Multiplicity, Michael Keaton plays a man who decides to clone himself several times over in order to meet the demands of work and family. Chaos ensues. On November 14, San Francisco Opera premiered “The Monkey King” by Huang Ruo and David Henry Hwang. While the narrative features chaos, the line drawn between the 30-year-old film and this new opera is that the titular Monkey King is played by three performers; or one singer, one dancer, and a puppet; or, six performers total, because the puppet Monkey King requires three puppeteers. The Monkey King is an agent...
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If classical ballet training—from Vaganova to Cecchetti—idealises effortlessness, silence, and a body almost freed from its own weight, modern dance insists on the opposite: the blunt truth that we are made of flesh and bone, and that this matter can itself become an instrument of power.
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Tides and the gravitational pull of the moon informed the latest work of Denison University of Ohio dance faculty members Marion Ramirez and Ojeya Cruz Banks.
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What drives the creative force in the universe? What impels motherhood? These are some of the questions that provoked the bold and colorful work that unfolded onstage as Gallim premiered “Mother” at the Joyce the first week of November.
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Bird-themed dances are nothing new. In addition to the likes of “Swan Lake” (in its numerous iterations, Hello, Matthew Bourne!), “The Firebird” and “The Dying Swan,” there was also Merce Cunningham’s 1991 “Beach Birds.”
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Juliana F. May’s “Optimistic Voices,” which premiered last week at BAM Fisher, was pitched as an exploration of the “tangled contradictions of family, eroticism, and motherhood.”
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Move over, Matthew Bourne, there is a new voice in theatrical dance plays. Choreographer Penny Saunders' bespoke production of “Sherlock,” performed by Grand Rapids Ballet, was not only a triumph in bringing literature’s favorite super sleuth to the stage in dance form, but is an early contender as one of the 2025-26 dance season’s very best.
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On the night of Halloween in South Bend, Indiana, I weave through costumed partygoers as I make my way to a special double bill at the University of Notre Dame’s DeBartolo Performing Arts Center.
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This fall, Japan Society is celebrating the centenary of legendary Japanese post-war author Yukio Mishima (1925-1970) with a series of works in theater, film, and dance inspired by his oeuvre.
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Powerhouse: International, the newly launched arts festival in Gowanus, Brooklyn, continued its fall offerings with the multidisciplinary work “Fampitaha, fampita, fampitàna,” co-presented with L’Alliance New York’s Crossing the Line Festival.
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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