World-class review of ballet and dance.
For many, the movement of the human body is something that can be innately understood. The shapes we make with our limbs have the power to share stories. And the meaning we find in these shapes—and in the dances we make when we combine them—is something that so easily speaks to the soul. Ballet West’s season closer triple bill, “The Wedding,” draws out each of these elements of dance’s ethos.
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It’s unlikely that when José Limón choreographed “The Winged” in 1966 he had the 200 different species of migratory birds that rely on Utah’s Great Salt Lake at the top of mind. And when Donald McKayle created “I’ve Known Rivers” in 2005, he was inspired by Langston Hughes’ poem “The Negro Speaks of Rivers,” and by Pearl Primus and Janet Collins, not the many river drainages that are being diverted from the Salt Lake. But, what’s wonderful about great art is that it’s timeless—it can conjure many things depending on who is watching and where they come from.
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Kyiv-born Iana Salenko, a principal dancer at the Staatsballett Berlin, together with Oleksandr Shpak created their second benefit gala to support humanitarian projects in Ukraine, especially for children. “We'll keep at it,” Salenko had promised after the overwhelming success of the first “Ballet for Life” in 2022. “The suffering and death in Ukraine continue, day after day, night after night. Again and again, children are the victims of war, and the numbers are growing,” says Salenko.
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We hear the dancers before we see them, and that's the point: “Not to watch, but to listen to,” the recorded voice of “Baby” Laurence Jackson instructs. We hear fluttering then see furious tapping as the curtain rises on “Hoofer's Memory Lab,” which opened New York City Center's latest “Artists at the Center” program curated by Ayodele Casel.
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As someone who did time in the jazz and tap competition circuit and then Regional Dance America festivals, I was curious to see the Gala performance for the Youth American Grand Prix, which has become one of the biggest dance competitions in the world. The YAGP, in its 24th year, holds annual events in 30 American cities and 15 international ones, giving out half a million dollars in scholarships. I’ve recently covered the more conventional pathways to a dance career: junior troupes and institutional workshops. The YAGP provides yet another route to professional employment, particularly for students who reside outside...
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Adapting to unforeseen circumstances has become a common occurrence for Queensland Ballet in recent years. Not only has the pandemic tested the company’s ability to adjust to change, but so too has extreme and catastrophic weather. “Giselle” was slated to return to the stage last year, for the first time in a decade. Yet, a few weeks out from opening night, a devastating announcement came—Queensland Ballet had to cancel their season due to the damages inflicted by recent floods, and the company’s ability to perform “Giselle” was swiftly washed down the storm drain. Thankfully, however, there was a silver lining....
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Tennessee Williams' most spiky love triangle, the ultimate study in late 1940s Southern American melodrama, is an interesting piece to adapt in the twenty-first century. Tackling issues around abuse, class and consent would undoubtedly be a challenge for any dance company. To that end, Scottish Ballet brought in an intimacy coach—ensuring all of the dancers feel comfortable, dealing with portraying the darker themes of sexual violence, addiction, suicide and domestic violence.
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How many ways to think about “Sleeping Beauty”? In the first written Italian and French versions, the plots outline the fate of a young girl as the object of family jealousy, trickery and, after being drugged asleep, ravishment. By the mid-19th century, the Brothers Grimm toned down the storyline, romanticized and adapted it as a story fit for children. Ivan Vsevolozhsky, Tchaikovsky, and Marius Petipa’s 1890 landmark ballet further refashioned it. But another few generations of scholarly research recognized the darker undertones and representations of girls in the fairy tale tradition. Apart from handsome swains or huntsmen who save damsels like...
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In a world in the midst of war, emerging from its post-pandemic slumber, themes and acts of unity, contact and harmony are more than welcome. The differences that make us human are also, dichotomously, the magic that brings us closer together. The subtle nuances of language, the freckles on your skin, the color and glorious hues of your eyes, the food you eat and the mannerisms and peculiarities that identify you as you, are the uncompromising glue that holds us together.
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It’s a bit shocking to see un-ironically religious art onstage in our age, and all the more so as Lent turns a corner toward Holy Week. The world premiere of Jessica Lang’s “Let Me Mingle Tears with Thee” at Pacific Northwest Ballet was not timed to the church calendar, though. Lang has been working with Pergolesi’s “Stabat Mater,” from 1736, for at least a decade, with ever deepening responsiveness. Her latest visual manifestation of this score for harpsichord, strings, and two voices capped a winner of a mixed bill that also unveiled a world premiere by Alejandro Cerrudo, in a...
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San Francisco Ballet is riding high this season, cruising onward from a new works festival that yielded some real keepers; a “Giselle” freshly energized by new artistic director Tamara Rojo’s coaching; and a mixed bill that scored a hit with the stage premiere of Myles Thatcher’s youthful “Colorforms.” Recently retired artistic director Helgi Tomasson handled all this programming before he stepped down, and it was surely smart of him, box-office-wise, to schedule Christopher Wheeldon’s family friendly “Cinderella” to coincide with spring break. A packed Wednesday night house was clearly delighted by the whole spectacle. I regret, then, to confess an...
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The style Kyle Abraham has honed over the years is unmistakable: a silken coordination of the body in which ripples and undulations pass through skin and sinew; an expressive use of the back; hands that touch, and really feel; impulses that start here but find their way there, and then there; a deep sensitivity to music coupled with an intelligent response to lyrics; a penchant for melancholy, leavened with sass. Abraham has a way of revealing his dancers to us without depriving them of mystery or coolness; he builds an atmosphere of intimacy, but something is held in reserve.
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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