World-class review of ballet and dance.
Hailing from France and presented by not one but three organizations for its North American premiere, Raphaëlle Boitel’s “When Angels Fall” masterfully blends contemporary dance, theatre, and circus arts in a war against the machine—peering into a bleak future should our reliance on technology suffuse our natural ability to communicate as humans.
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BODYTRAFFIC, the ten-year-old Los Angeles-based dance troupe, is touring nationally and made a stop at Scottsdale Center for the Performing Arts recently. The show featured two choreographers with Philadelphia connections. Sidra Bell, who teaches at the University of the Arts, and BalletX co-founder and Pennsylvania Ballet resident choreographer, Matthew Neenan. BODYTRAFFIC returns to Philadelphia’s Annenberg Center in April with a slightly different program that includes the Philadelphia premiere of Neenan’s “A Million Voices.”
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There are few project-based companies (at least in the UK and outside of the ballet world) that focus on presenting the work of past masters alongside that of emerging choreographers. Yet Yorke Dance Project, now celebrating its twentieth year, has built its reputation by doing just that. Founded by artistic director Yolande Yorke-Edgell in Los Angeles, the company has been based in London since 2009, and this year was nominated for National Dance Award for best independent company.
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Sassy lasses and frisky creatures abound in this double bill from the Royal Ballet, which pairs a restaging of Frederick Ashton’s 1961 “The Two Pigeons” with the premiere of Liam Scarlett’s “The Cunning Little Vixen.” The latter has been created on students from the Royal Ballet School, and marks the first time since 2010 (and second time ever) that the institution has given its pupils a professional turn on Covent Garden’s main stage.
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Rambert's latest touring production is a slippery thing, with all the fragmentary structure of a fever dream and featuring enough dark imagery to induce night sweats. Inspired by Pedro Calderon de la Barca's 17th century baroque play, the original narrative focused on a Polish prince who is imprisoned by his father, only to escape for one day and see the perspective of another world. Danish born, Britain-based Kim Brandstrup's meta choreography uses this as a jumping off point. Here, he taps into the many hidden layers of the subconscious, the activity of the mind in its dreamlike state. This is both...
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We balletomanes don’t drink Champagne out of our favorite stars’ pointe shoes anymore, and maybe that’s a shame. If ever a performance warranted such tribute, it came at the last evening of San Francisco Ballet’s “Don Quixote,” with Mathilde Froustey and Angelo Greco. In nearly 20 years of watching this company, Saturday ranked as one of its greatest nights, the kind that makes instant converts of newcomers and re-inspires diehards—the kind dancers and their fans alike live for.
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Few narratives are as compelling as the love triangle. Throw in a baby bump and you’ve struck tabloid fodder gold. Such was the juicy premise of “Verklärte Nacht” (Transfigured Night) by Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker, performed by her company Rosas at the Baryshnikov Arts Center January 30 to February 3. It is danced to Arnold Shönberg’s 1899 string sextet of the same title, which in turn takes its name and inspiration from an 1896 poem by the German Symbolist Richard Dehmel. In the poem a woman in a moonlit grove confesses to the man she loves that she is pregnant with...
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Today, when democracy, some would say, is being attacked by various forces both large and small, it’s good to know that French choreographer Jérôme Bel is wholeheartedly embracing the democratization of dance. Or is it? In Bel’s 2015 work, “Gala,” which landed at the Theatre at Ace Hotel for one performance on a blustery and rainy Saturday night in Los Angeles, a mixed-ability cast of nineteen locals, including several professional dancers and together known as Company Company, performed a series of moves for some ninety minutes under a constantly leaky ceiling that provided an extra jolt of, well, weirdness.
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There is a photo of me dancing in the lounge room of my family home. My arms are flung wide overhead, making the Y shape to the Village People’s “Y.M.C.A.” My mouth is parted in a smile, mid pronunciation of the letter Y. Caught in a moment of bliss and expression on the imaginary dancefloor before the fireplace. I am dancing with my younger cousin, following the playful choreography. The letter M: let your elbows point like rabbit ears on your head. The letter C: hug a beach ball to the left-hand side. The letter A: arms overhead once more,...
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When “Asphodel Meadows” premiered in 2010, it marked choreographer Liam Scarlett’s first commission for the Royal Opera House main stage. The ballet received an enthusiastic response from both audience and critics, and won the National Dance Award for Best Classical Choreography. Although revived in 2011 it has not been shown since—Scarlett’s name and choreography is, on the other hand, now well associated with the company.
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L-E-V’s “Love Chapter II” at the Joyce Theater starts with a harsh knocking sound, and tender, sinewy bodies already holding vulnerable parts of themselves. With one hand protecting a throat, belly or rib, the other reaches up while bevelled feet root the six dancers to the floor. They grow and grow in (almost) unison tormented by the thumping beat of DJ Ori Lichtik’s thrilling live score.
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Watching Jack Ferver’s “Everything is Imaginable” is akin to armchair cliff diving. This thrilling dance/theater piece—which returned to New York Live Arts from January 7-12 after a critically acclaimed run last April—showcases both the highs and lows of queer experience. Act 1 closes on four men in colorful fringe dresses lip syncing for their lives and grinding on each other in glee. Act 2 closes on a solitary man (Ferver) in black contemplating his suicidal urges. Though vertigo-inducing, these two halves prove to be profoundly complementary.
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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