Marina Harss with her personal selection of New York dance memories this last year...
Archive - December 2016
★★★✰✰ For all the recent innovations that Tamara Rojo has brought to the English National Ballet, including three stunning full-evening programmes of her own devising, the Nutcracker is still the heart of every season...
Though Rauschenberg’s designs have no apparent connection with the dances they accompany, and even compete for the audience’s attention, they have become inescapably part of the experience of each work.
★★★✰✰ Set in early-20th-century Vienna, this Nutcracker is welcoming and unpretentious, and it moves as briskly as a storybook.
★★★✰✰ If you remember the 1948 film, the plot is easy to follow. If you don’t, and can’t pick up the references to ballets, a printed scenario would be helpful, as would job-descriptions of the characters...
Gallery by Foteini Christofilopoulou...
★★★★✰ Few alternative takes on tradition survive this long and The Hard Nut remains as subversive as it is satisfying.
★★★★✰ The Little Match Girl is small-scale, but it’s pretty spectacular all the same – a sweet and witty alternative to the typical Christmas family fare.
Gallery by Dave Morgan...
Gallery by Foteini Christofilopoulou...
★★★★✰ There is no limit to how often one can see Ailey’s 1960 masterpiece Revelations. The elation is always the same.
★★★✰✰ In truth, the ballet is up and down (or, more accurately, down and up) for, overall, the second act is a huge improvement on the first.
★★★✰✰ Evaluating works in progress is a peculiar exercise. Without knowing what parts of a dance are complete or still conceptual, or where they fit within the context of a larger yet to be created piece a review is a guessing game.
Gallery by Foteini Christofilopoulou...
★★✰✰✰ Sad to say, then, that I found Art of Age II rather disappointing...
How do you review a world premiere that you have spent seven hours flying to, and then find that it has been postponed until you are back home after another eight hours of travel?
★★★✰✰ It is rare to find young choreographers developing a distinctive movement language and Seva is certainly one of the most original emerging talents in UK.
★★★✰✰ The post-modernist Lucinda Childs is experiencing a bit of a comeback here in the US, after years of working abroad.
★★★✰✰ Peony Pavilion has become a signature work for the National Ballet of China and it’s easy to see why it has come back.