World-class review of ballet and dance.
Six years ago, when I began teaching at the Fashion Institute of Technology for applied and not-so-applied arts, the professors hiring me asked if I might like to try my hand at a course that prepared graphic design students for the workplace—or at least got them in the door.
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No extravagant gestures accompanied the final curtain of Sylvie Guillem’s farewell performance at the London Coliseum, which marks the end of her 39 prolific years on the stage—no lavish bouquets of roses were presented, no encores demanded or tearful hand-on-heart curtseys obliged. The iconic ballerina simply took a few bows, raised a hand to her adoring audience and marched into the wings.
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If it’s summer in Los Angeles, it’s time for REDCAT’s annual three-week NOW festival. Featuring nine premieres by some of the city’s foremost dance, theater, music and multimedia artists, the 13th edition was launched with a mostly thoughtful, provocative and awe-inspiring trio of works that happily confirm this burg’s reputation as a hotbed of creativity.
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A single bicycle wheel upturned and mounted upon a stool (Bicycle Wheel, 1951, third version, after lost original of 1913). A snow shovel (In Advance of the Broken Arm, 1964, fourth version, after lost original of 1915). A painted window (Fresh Window, 1920). When Marcel Duchamp placed a mass produced ‘readymade’ before us and disrupted how we thought about and interpreted art, the “ordinary object [was] elevated to the dignity of a work of art by the mere choice of an artist.”[note]Marcel Duchamp, as quoted in The Art of Assemblage: A Symposium, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, October...
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Los Angeles, often dubbed the ‘city of the future,’ is not a town known for honoring its past. But with the Music Center having recently celebrated its 50th anniversary, it seemed the ideal venue for four local dance troupes to perform simultaneous, site-specific works on and around its Grand Avenue campus, one that’s been, on occasion, likened to New York City’s Lincoln Center.
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Anyone who has visited Cuba will know it is a country full of music and movement. The country’s first ballet company, the Ballet Alicia Alonso, was founded in 1948 by the renowned ballerina of the same name, Alicia Alonso (the company went on to become the Ballet Nacional de Cuba). Contemporary or modern dance, as it is known in the West, was only introduced in the early 60s after Cuba’s revolution. With trade embargos meaning the world has seen little of the Cuban dance scene, when Cuban dance company Ballet Revolución decided to include Australia in its world tour, the opportunity to attend opening night...
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As befits the dreamscape of a fairy tale, the chance to revisit an encore Melbourne-only 2015 season of Alexei Ratmansky’s “Cinderella”[note]I wondered what I would see this time around—would the frame within a frame staging still toy with my sense of space and time? Would the celestial planets, in lieu of a pumpkin coach, continue to entrance with their circular orbit about the stage/through the cosmos? Would the ticking of the clock as time is suspended, chased, and distorted remain visible in the choreography melded to the score?—and I marvelled at the clever sorcery that made October 2013 feel like...
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In the Facebook, Twitter and Instagram era, everyone can rack up ‘friends,’ followers and ‘likes.’ But in the real world of ballet, bringing together 18 major stars from 12 foreign countries to dance on one stage is no easy feat. Don’t tell that to Roberto Bolle or Herman Cornejo, however, as this dynamic duo—both principals with American Ballet Theatre—are doing just that with the world premiere of BalletNow.
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An energetic air rippled through the crowd on opening night of “Platform,” a showcase of recent work assembled by Just Us Dance Theatre. The bill marks one of the Greenwich-based collective's first full-length offerings on a London stage, and a quick introduction by co-founders Joseph Toonga and Ricardo Da Silva, in which they implored the audience to “please be open about our efforts,” suggested a lot was riding on its reception.
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American Ballet Theatre’s brand new production of “The Sleeping Beauty” proved the most anticipated and talked about event of the ABT’s spring season at the Metropolitan Opera House, and the highest point of the company’s 75th anniversary celebrations. This birthday gift was orchestrated by Alexei Ratmansky, one of the most prominent and prolific choreographers in today’s ballet. Russian-born Ratmansky has been ABT’s artist-in-residence since 2009; “The Sleeping Beauty” is his most ambitious undertaking for the company to date.
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Last week Richard Alston Dance Company came full circle in its national tour, rounding off its recent string of performances around the UK in London, the same city where it had kicked off proceedings. The 'at home' bit of “Alston At Home” doesn't just refer to the company's hometown; it's a specific credit to The Place, where Richard Alston started his career as a dancer (as one of the first students at London Contemporary Dance School) and is now artistic director. The bill commemorates the twentieth anniversary of RADC, which Alston launched following, among many other successes, a twelve-year tenure...
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New York City Ballet culminated its spring season at the David H. Koch Theater with George Balanchine’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”—a masterpiece of witty comedy and brilliant dancing.
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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