World-class review of ballet and dance.
BalletX’s Summer Series 2018 programmed three easygoing world premieres at the Wilma Theater last week. With comic moves here and there to classical music, and gestures at more serious themes, except for Penny Saunders' “Rock-a-Bye,” there was not much to overheat the packed audience during these sultry dog days.
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Those feet! Those hands! Those insanely flat stomachs! This is American Ballet Theatre’s “La Bayadère,” Marius Petipa’s iconic 1877 ballet restaged in the West by Russian ballerina Natalia Makarova for ABT in 1980 and seen over the weekend with three different casts. (It’s also the 200-year anniversary of the birth of Petipa, a giant in the ballet world whose some 150 choreographies include his 1862 opus, “The Pharaoh’s Daughter,” his 1869 “Don Quixote” and “The Sleeping Beauty,” from 1890).
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Watching Sasha Janes’ “The Four Seasons” is like reliving the best year of your life, if your life was a ballet.
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Ah, Venice—one of the world’s most gorgeous cities. Known for its spectacular art, music and architecture, the town with its famed Grand Canal and Rialto Bridge, also plays host to an edgy international dance festival. The terpsichorean portion of the Venice Biennale—the doyenne of contemporary art exhibitions founded in 1895, one that has also included a film sector since 1932 (cue A-list movie stars each August)—is now celebrating its 12th edition. Currently under the auspices of the eminent Canadian-born dancer/choreographer Marie Chouinard, whose troupe Compagnie Marie Chouinard, was founded in 1990, the festival proved a worthy showcase for performers and...
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An octopus named Octavia learns how to communicate with a human, and begins to blush in her presence. Certain fish like to be petted like housecats. Moray eels enjoy being cuddled, and manta rays can recognize their reflections in the mirror.
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For the 71st edition of the prestigious Holland Festival, which took place at various venues around Amsterdam for three weeks last month, artistic director Ruth Mackenzie chose the theme, “Borders and Boundaries,” one that is especially relevant today. In addition to music (with the focus on European composer George Benjamin), film, multimedia, theater, workshops and master classes, modern dance has also been a vital element of the Netherlands’ oldest and largest performing arts festival.
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Any performance of a work by William Forsythe comes with a certain degree of technical expectation—an all-Forsythe triple bill is, in this respect, a bold statement of confidence.
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Like Leonard Cohen’s lamentation, “Anthem.” Like the Japanese art of repair, ‘kintsugi.’ Like you and me, the human condition. Like all of these things, Alice Topp’s brand new work, “Aurum” was presented as part of the Australian Ballet’s “Verve” program.
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From the first few minutes of the show, I knew Clare Barron’s new play “Dance Nation” deserved its hype. In an opening scene, a group of dancers stands at attention at the center of their small studio in Liverpool, Ohio; arms straight at their sides, faces frozen in abject terror, waiting for Dance Teacher Pat to tell them to move their bodies. This is a team of 13-year-old competition dancers heading to the Star Power USA competition, vying for a chance to make it to nationals in Tampa, Florida. (Along their way are stops in Akron, Ohio, and the “Boogie...
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Ballets don’t come much sweeter than “The Sleeping Beauty.” The Petipa classic is a sparkling confection of sequins and tulle, its three acts fizzing with dulcet duets and variations. Kenneth MacMillan’s 1987 version, staged here by English National Ballet, cuts through some of the fluff but is honeyed all the same, with plenty of sugary frolics swirled in. And the cherry on top? A guest turn from former Bolshoi Ballet prima Maria Alexandrova, whose perky expressiveness and top-notch technique impress mightily.
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At the Paris Universal Exhibition at the turn of the twentieth century, where it was said Debussy first heard Javanese gamelan music, near everything newly discovered or newly made could be found. The Eiffel Tower, now synonymous with Paris, for one; the world-encompassing scale of the Galerie des machines where visitors could delight in discovering such things as atmospheric hammers, cigarette makers, phonographs, and telephones. Add to this a colonial exhibition of the ‘other’ from across land and sea masses; the Imperial, the largest diamond in the world; and a giant wooden and stucco elephant, which was later purchased and...
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American Ballet Theatre unveiled world premiere of Alexei Ratmansky’s “Harlequinade”—an opulent reconstruction of Marius Petipa’s “Les Millions d’Arlequin”—at the Metropolitan Opera House on Monday, June 4. This is yet another large-scale production by Ratmansky for ABT, where he is artist in residence. Last year, the company premiered his evening-long take on Richard Strauss' ballet “Whipped Cream,” which was part of ABT’s Ratmansky Project: “a five-year, $15 million fund-raising drive to support the creation of at least one new work a year by Mr. Ratmansky,” according to the New York Times.
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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