World-class review of ballet and dance.
Although audience members shivered in the first cold night as they entered one of Philadelphia’s finest downtown performance palaces, the Wilma Theater, Ballet X offered them a program of warm memories, thoughtful reflections and a touch of nostalgia on November 30.
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Dwight Rhoden might be the only person in the world who likes a high leg as much as I do, so I have a fondness for his work. Wacked-out extensions are the defining feature of the troupe he co-directs with Desmond Richardson, the Complexions Contemporary Ballet. But aside from this undeviating, extreme pliancy, the Complexions roster is one of the most diverse groups working today in terms of race and gender, and especially size and shape. There’s Jillian Davis, who towers even on flat, at 6’2”, and whose powerful, shapely legs could’ve used a bigger stage. And then there’s Vincenzo Di...
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Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater is once again ensconced New York City Center for its annual December season. The programs offer the usual mix of dances by Ailey, pieces by twentieth-century masters—which this year include Twyla Tharp’s “Roy’s Joys”—and new works commissioned from contemporary choreographers. And, of course, “Revelations.” At a recent performance, the patron behind me sighed unhappily upon hearing that Ailey’s 1960 masterpiece was not on the program.
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What is it about Emanuel Gat’s “Lovetrain2020” that is so captivating? The piece, which came to the Brooklyn Academy of Music this week, is set to songs by the emo-electronica band Tears for Fears, and that is certainly part of its charm, at least for members of my generation (Generation X), which, let’s face it, constitutes a significant portion of BAM’s audience. But it’s hardly one of those jukebox medleys that basks in the beats of a previous era. Nostalgia is part, but not all, of the story.
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Roderick George paints maps with his movement. In "asinglewordisnotenough," his body trickles like delicate tributaries then trembles as if moving over rocky terrain. His legs extend to point in all directions—north, south, east, and west—and his arms carve out pathways, inviting travelers.
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While the intersection of film and dance has been on the rise, most recently because of the global pandemic, Los Angeles-based Bridget Murnane has been working in those two arenas for years: She was not only a professional dancer in the 1980s, having performed with, among others, Gloria Newman, but she also earned a master’s degree in dance from UCLA in 1985, where her thesis was video as a choreographic tool.
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I woke this morning realizing I had dreamt extensively about Crystal Pite’s “The Seasons’ Canon,” and I’d wager that anyone who saw the work on the second repertory program of Pacific Northwest Ballet’s 50th anniversary season in Seattle is still dreaming about it, too. Even viewed on screen as a digital stream, which I settled for as a distant admirer of the company (thank you, PNB, for extending your pandemic video options!), this 54-dancer spectacle leaves lingering questions. Whether those questions lead to the kind of contemplation we seek from art or send us spinning in surface ruminations is another...
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Everyone knows that Sarasota Ballet is Frederick Ashton’s unlikely home-away-from-home, on the Gulf Coast of Florida. Or not so unlikely, given that it is directed by Iain Webb and his wife Margaret Barbieri, both of whom danced for the Royal Ballet in London. Barbieri, in particular, worked directly with Ashton, as well as with Kenneth MacMillan, whose ballets are also performed here. The company’s second repertory program of the 2022-2023 comprised works by both, including two early ballets seldom seen anywhere. Each is a curiosity.
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Out Innerspace Dance Theatre is devoted to creating exciting and integral contemporary-dance works. Through their research and experimentation, the Vancouver-based company celebrates the importance of challenging preconceptions of what is to be experienced and expounded in contemporary dance-theatre. The company was officially formed in 2007 by David Raymond and Tiffany Tregarthen, after years of various collaborative endeavours together. During a pleasant conversation with Raymond, I had the opportunity to ask him for some more detailed information about the company, the process of creation of their last work, their methodology, and upcoming productions.
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At La Scala the 2021/2022 season closed with a very beloved ballet, “Onegin,” a mainstay of the Milanese repertory for some thirty years. Roberto Bolle, La Scala's iconic Onegin, was greeted by his fans who feared that this could be his last performance in Cranko’s ballet, once again partnered by Marianela Nuñez as Tatiana. For the subsequent performances, ballet director Manuel Legris decided to cast dancers debuting in the leading roles for one night each (aside from aside from principals Marco Agostino and Nicoletta Manni who debuted three years ago). We talked to each couple to discover how they prepared...
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On the evening of Tuesday November 8th, 2022, I was not up for a night out. An existential dread, induced by the U.S. midterm elections, had finally caught up with me as I was walking up to Brooklyn Academy of Music’s Harvey Theater. A friend texted me a list of soothing cures which included plunging your face into a bowl of ice water for 15-30 seconds. A little over an hour later, I added another item to that mood-lifting list: Lia Rodrigues’s “Encantado.”
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Dimitris Papaioannou's “Transverse Orientation” starts with a joke: Entering from a single door in a blank white wall, several tall, pin-headed figures rush onstage with ladders. Dressed in all black, they skitter towards a lone, flickering fluorescent light. How many of the faceless shadow people does it take to change a lightbulb? They put their shrunken heads together to find out.
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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