All – Tagged "REVIEWS" – Page 118

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REVIEWS | By Sara Veale

Fire and Ice

Mystic, vibrant, violent, feminist—Akram Khan’s newest work is all this and more. The hour-long piece stars Khan himself alongside Ching-Ying Chien and Christine Joy Ritter, and takes its inspiration from Karthika Naïr’s 2015 collection of poems Until the Lions, a reinterpretation of the Mahabharata, the ancient Sanskrit epic. This postmodern narrative layering—in which mythology is reframed through a modern literary lens and then channeled through a prism of contemporary dance, itself informed, in this case, by kathak tradition—lends a rich complexity to the work, one that’s felt in many aspects, from the stratified music to the mosaic sequencing.

REVIEWS | By Victoria Looseleaf

Rain Dance

Inspired by Shakespeare’s The Tempest and Oya, the Afro-Cuban deity of, among other elements, wind, storms, fertility and magic, Ana María Alvarez’ world premiere, “Agua Furiosa,” was, in fact, frantic, frenetic and infuriating—to this reviewer. Alvarez, a Cuban-American in her late 30s, has been crafting the soggy opus for more than two years. Possessed of the DNA activist gene (her parents were both union organizers and also involved in civil rights), Alvarez founded CONTRA-TIEMPO (literally, “against the times”), in 2005.

Scottish Ballet in Christopher Hampson’s “Cinderella.” Photograph by Andy Ross

REVIEWS | By Lorna Irvine

Grace and Pistachio Flavour

Chief executive and artistic director of Scottish Ballet, Christopher Hampson, has spoken of a desire to reimagine the classic fairytale as being a place populated by people who are “not defined by material things, or by who they have married.” Job done. It's an idiosyncratic, witty foray into scenes evocative of MGM's golden age, with a pinch of film noir at the start and an undercurrent of German Expressionism also thrown in, but moreover, his main remit is to weave a morality tale of eschewing worldly goods for inner beauty. The disparity between rich and poor is alluded to in...

REVIEWS | By Madison Mainwaring

Growing Pains

This fall, NYCB’s bill of newly commissioned works was something of a gamble. Save for Justin Peck, the choreographers were dark horses, relative unknowns outside of their company and locale. I suspect this has to do with age more than anything else; four of the five (the exception being Kim Brandstrup) have yet to reach their thirtieth birthday. Peck, Myles Thatcher, Robert Binet, and Troy Schumacher are young men with corps de ballet experience (Peck was only recently promoted to the soloist rank) who have been given a platform, one of the most prestigious in the ballet world, in order...

REVIEWS | By Victoria Looseleaf

A New Nutcracker

It’s no secret that “The Nutcracker,” a children’s book written by E.T.A. Hoffman and originally choreographed in 1892 by Marius Petipa and Lev Ivanov to the glorious music of Tchaikovsky, has been a cash cow for ballet troupes worldwide—at least since George Balanchine created his beloved version in 1954 for New York City Ballet, with other major (and minor) companies following suit.

REVIEWS | By Claudia Lawson

New Breed

“New Breed” is the brain child of Sydney Dance Company's artistic director Rafael Bonachela. Now in its second year, the “New Breed” programme gives four up-and-coming choreographers the opportunity to create works on the dancers of the Sydney Dance Company. For these chosen four, “New Breed”provides a springboard to transition from dancer to choreographer. The initiative comes with all the creative support and infrastructure of the Sydney Dance Company—the choreographers have access to dancers, studios, costume and lighting design, and all four works premiere at Sydney’s Carriageworks theatre. The concept is beautifully simple, but still astonishingly rare in performing arts.

REVIEWS | By Rachel Elderkin

Dancing in the Light

“Conceal | Reveal” marks the twentieth anniversary of the collaboration between choreographer Russell Maliphant and lighting designer Michael Hulls. The programme featured two new works alongside their past work, “Broken Fall” originally performed by Sylvie Guillem and BalletBoyz. Bayerisches Staatsballett also makes a guest appearance with “Spiral Pass,” a work Maliphant was commissioned to create on the company in 2014.

REVIEWS | By Claudia Lawson

Ochres

“Ochres” was a watershed production for Bangarra Dance Theatre, Australia’s first Indigenous dance company. First performed in 1994, it was a defining moment for the then fledgling company, leading to sell-out shows and critical acclaim. At the time, the work was a bold statement, blending traditional and contemporary dance, while bravely highlighting modern day struggles overlaid on a rich cultural history. Two decades later, and the company’s artistic director, the indomitable Stephen Page, has revived the iconic work in to mark both the production and the company’s 21-year milestone.

REVIEWS | By Victoria Looseleaf

Social Dance

Small but mighty is an apt description for the spitfire dancer/choreographer, Camille A. Brown, whose latest work made its West Coast debut last weekend in the City of Angels. (The piece, currently on a 10-city tour, bowed in September at New York’s Joyce Theater to kick off that venue’s fall season.) Drawing upon childhood games, nursery rhymes and call-and-response chants, as well as being inspired by Kyra D. Gaunt’s book, The Games Black Girls Play, Brown, who also directed the cast of six women, explores black female identity and empowerment.

REVIEWS | By Rachel Elderkin

A Passing Cloud

Royal New Zealand Ballet returned in November to the UK for the first time in four years with a mixed programme celebrating New Zealand’s heritage and culture. The four works switch effortlessly between contemporary and classical dance showcasing the versatility of this young and energetic company of dancers.

REVIEWS | By Sara Veale

Womanpower

Together self-declared “dance artists” Eleanor Sikorski and Flora Wellesley Wesley are Nora, a spirited double act with a deliciously irreverent feminist streak. The pair studied together at London Contemporary Dance School and recently premiered their first evening-length programme, a triple bill of duets they conceived in conjunction with four guest choreographers: Jonathan Burrows, Matteo Fargion, Simon Tanguy and Liz Aggiss.

REVIEWS | By Apollinaire Scherr

The intrigues of Brian Reeder

When American Ballet Theatre principal Michele Wiles founded BalletNext with New York City Ballet alum Charles Askegard shortly after decamping from ABT in 2011, the plan seemed to be the usual ballet-star vanity project: gala fare alternating with good to terrible contemporary vehicles for the dancer-directors and their guests. This proved true for the first season. But by 2014 Wiles, now alone at the helm, had largely given up on other choreographers, taking on the job herself with an assist from Brooklyn flexmeister Jay Donn in a cartoonish play of opposites.

Featured Reads

REVIEWS | Lorna Irvine

Teenage Angst and Institutions

Watching 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,...

INTERVIEWS | Marina Harss

The Me of Today

The choreographer Alexei Ratmansky reflects on the war in Ukraine, the connection between geopolitics and ballet, and joining the house of Balanchine.

REVIEWS | Rachel Howard

Starry Nights

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.

REVIEWS | Faye Arthurs

America, F**K Yeah

After 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.

REVIEWS | Emily May

Acosta Danza’s Choreographic Soup

An “Ajiaco” is a type of soup common to Colombia, Cuba, and Peru that combines a variety of different vegetables, spices, and meats.