World-class review of ballet and dance.
Two men enter the stage and hang suit jackets on the backs of chairs. They begin with a short movement phrase in staccato unison—an elbow juts over the shoulder as if an arrow sticking out of a quiver, then an arm slices cross-body like a sword.
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In the canon of classical ballet, star-crossed love is an integral theme. With its US debut of “The Butterfly Lovers”—a new full-length work inspired by a Chinese folktale that dates back to the Tang Dynasty—Hong Kong Ballet brings an artfully rendered addition to this tradition
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They begin to move without warning, slowly, as if awakened from some eons-long slumber. A mass of 18 dancers, all dressed in varying bright tones, moves just at the edge of the rising tide in front of a U-shaped crowd sitting against the dunes of Rockaway Beach.
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Houston Ballet is the fourth largest ballet company in the United States, but when it comes to the talent of its top dancers, they are the equal of any American company.
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The height of summer has arrived to New York’s lush and idyllic Hudson Valley. Tonight, in addition to music credited on the official program, we are treated to a chorus of crickets and tree frogs in the open-air pavilion of PS21 Center for Contemporary Performance.
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Eschewing a conventional film narrative, Labyrinth of the Unseen World created in collaboration by French filmmaker Amelie Ravalec and Scots/Irish dance artist Paul Michael Henry, instead fuses visual poetry with dance performance, creating a hallucinatory, disturbing, yet beautiful dreamscape.
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Why does “Giselle,” a ballet that premiered in 1841, still captivate audiences today? At first glance, the story feels outdated: a peasant girl, Giselle, is deceived by the nobleman Albrecht and dies of heartbreak.
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Time to step on the moving staircase once more—“Escalator,” an evening showcasing new choreographic work curated by the Stephanie Lake Company, in association with the Abbotsford Convent, is back.
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The BAAND Together Dance Festival was created in 2021 to reintroduce dance to New York City after the pandemic.
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Ballet Asteras, the National Ballet of Japan’s annual summer gala launched in 2009 as an opportunity for Japanese dancers working overseas to perform for their home audience.
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“Vástádus Eana—The Answer is Land” opens outdoors, where the audience has gathered around a grassy area. Seven women in black skirts, ankle boots, red capes, and bonnets approach toting megaphones above their heads.
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Inspired by her fascination with microphotography, Noelle Kayser’s “Scales on the Wings of a Butterfly” at BalletX’s midsummer series opened with a pyramid of 16 bodies under Drew Billiau’s shadowed lighting.
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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