All – Tagged "REVIEWS" – Page 71

Latest

REVIEWS | By Rachel Howard

Wild (Pacific North)West

I’m having a pandemic love affair with Pacific Northwest Ballet. It’s most unexpected, as so many of the emotional complexities of the past year have been. I live in California’s Bay Area; San Francisco Ballet has been my “home” company for two decades; I feel a loyalty to them. Yet it cannot be denied that when it comes to meeting the many challenges of these times with grace, authenticity, and whole-heartedness, Pacific Northwest Ballet has proven not just impressive but exceptionally endearing. It’s their behind-the-scenes glimpses of the dancers in each program’s “Five Minute Call” that carve a place in...

REVIEWS | By Paul McInnes

Afternoon of Fauns and Nymphs

It's always fascinating when a production asks serious and intellectual questions of the audience. What is the role of dance? How does it reflect our lives and the world in which we live? How can it viscerally change us as human beings?

DANCE FILM | REVIEWS | By Lorna Irvine

Fragility and Fallibility

The wavering, crepe paper-thin voice of an old man sings on a loop: “Jesus' blood never failed me yet, never failed me . . . yet, Jesus blood . . . never failed me yet / This one thing, I know, for he loves me . . . . So.” This is the first track of the soundtrack of the delicate, beautiful film Worn, screened through the Byre Theatre St Andrews, and could only be an appropriate choice to open. The heartbreaking track, by composer Gavin Bryars, samples the singing of a homeless man recorded on the streets, a vulnerable...

REVIEWS | By Faye Arthurs

All Ratmansky

The American Ballet Theatre aired a pre-filmed, all-Ratmansky program this week on City Center’s digital platform. For $25, it is accessible on demand through April 18th. I highly recommend it. There were three works offered in excerpt and one world premiere, “Bernstein in a Bubble,” created recently in a working quarantine at the Silver Bay YMCA in upstate NY. During a pleasant intermission interview between Linda Murray (Curator of the Jerome Robbins Dance Division at the NY Public Library) and Alexei Ratmansky, he explained that the new ballet used music which had been composed by Leonard Bernstein to fête the...

DANCE FILM | REVIEWS | By Marina Harss

Back to the Barre

William Forsythe is a dancers’ choreographer. Dancers love working with him, he challenges their minds and their bodies, his knowledge and understanding of the vocabulary of ballet is profound. In the studio, the atmosphere is one of co-conspirators, playmates. All this comes through in his most recent creation, a collaboration with New York City Ballet’s Tiler Peck called “The Barre Project (Blake Works II)” released on March 25, with a repeat performance on March 27. (The platform is CLI Studios, an online clearinghouse for dance classes.)

DANCE FILM | REVIEWS | By Lorna Irvine

Extremes of Choreography: Wim Vandekeybus

Belgian choreographer and film maker Wim Vandekeybus’ work is characterised by absolute extremes: jaw-dropping theatricality; the use and abuse of unusual props, athleticism, frenzy, danger and discomfort. He doesn't deal in soft options; rather, he credits his audience with enough intelligence to enjoy, pick apart and understand his challenging, often dreamlike pieces. The scenography and sound are as integral to the work as the steps.

REVIEWS | By Paul McInnes

Beauty in Japan

The National Ballet of Japan's performance of “The Sleeping Beauty” at Hatsudai's mammoth New National Theatre Tokyo was actually a late replacement for artistic director Miyako Yoshida's “selection” which was scrapped near the end of last year.

DANCE FILM | REVIEWS | By Lorna Irvine

Reframing

As Glasgow's famous Tramway venue remains closed until further notice, Unlimited have commissioned a short film screening for those missing this superb live dance festival. This particular film is a superb example of the artists who would be participating on the stage throughout the spring, and feels entirely apposite, given its overarching theme.

REVIEWS | By Claudia Lawson

Fleeting Beauty

And here we are—in Sydney’s Roslyn Packer Theatre. Everyone is wearing masks, yet the theatre is buzzing. The anticipation is palpable—the Sydney Dance Company is about to take the main stage for the first time since late 2019. The work is Rafael Bonachela's “Impermanence.”

REVIEWS | By Rachel Howard

Love & Strife

The task at hand is a review of “Romeo and Juliet,” but more on that in a minute. What needs to be said first is this: In our moment of political and pandemic chaos, Peter Boal is doing an extraordinary job of connecting his company to its public with a spirit of empathy, vulnerability, and humility.

REVIEWS | By Faye Arthurs

Winter Festival

The American Ballet Theatre Studio Company aired performances of new works and excerpted classics over two nights this week, for free on YouTube. Actually, the shows were billed as two halves of one Winter Festival performance, separated by a 23-hour intermission. I appreciated the digestibility of this scenario, for watching ballet online is not the same as watching it in person—it is much harder to focus on a computer screen than a massive stage.

DANCE FILM | REVIEWS | By Róisín O'Brien

Dancing Out Loud

Come for the choreographers, stay for the dancers. A collaboration between Sadler’s Wells and BBC Arts, Dancing Nation presents a selection of new and restaged works from emerging and established artists across the UK over 3 hour-long episodes. Most of the pre-recorded performances were filmed on grand stages across the UK (including the Sadler’s Wells main stage), but some pop up in the foyer or, in the case of Oona Doherty’s seminal work Hope Hunt & The Ascension into Lazarus, explode onto the streets of Belfast.

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.