Answer: "Do it!" Question: "What advice would you give to a young dancer who aspires to choreograph?"
Author - Oksana Khadarina
Oksana Khadarina is a Washington, DC–based dance writer and a long-time contributor to DanceTabs. She has been covering dance at The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, as well as in New York City and internationally, since 2006. She has written for Dance Magazine, Pointe and Fjord Review, among other publications.
★★★★✰ It was a pleasure to see this company in such a smart and wide-ranging program. It was even more rewarding to see the Washington Ballet dancers masterly navigating the numerous challenges...
★★★✰✰ To watch works created by the 29-year old Justin Peck, resident choreographer of New York City Ballet, is to experience what it feels like to be young.
★★★★★ Alexei Ratmansky’s Odessa left me breathless. The dancing (I saw both casts) was phenomenal on all levels: assured, expressive, and thoroughly dramatic.
★★★✰✰ Ethan Stiefel’s Frontier, his first significant commission, had all the right ingredients... Yet the ballet, with its space travel theme, didn’t leave much of an impression...
★★★✰✰ Their hunger for dance – that sense of palpable excitement to be onstage and in the moment – was particularly evident during the company’s premiere of Ratmansky’s Seven Sonatas.
★★★★✰ Ballet Across America – a festival that showcases the stylistic, creative and geographical diversity of American ballet – returned to the Kennedy Center this month...
★★★✰✰ Forsythe’s emblematic In the Middle, Somewhat Elevated was created 30 years ago. Still, the ballet retains its explosive spirit and irresistible urgency, as well as its ability to thrill.
★★★✰✰ It’s a somber and dark story; yet in Neumeier’s hands it gets even darker. Don’t expect Disney’s happily-ever-after – this Little Mermaid is certainly not for children.
★★★✰✰ On Friday night, the title role was danced by EunWon Lee, a new name on the Washington Ballet’s roster...
★★★★✰ Who knew the Mariinsky dancers are a group of profoundly entertaining comedians?
★★★★✰ Making her debut in the role of Odette/Odile 28-year-old soloist Devon Teuscher emerged as a shining star in American Ballet Theatre’s Swan Lake at the Kennedy Center Opera House last week.
★★★★✰ From start to finish, this Giselle was superbly realized: stylistically accurate, visually enchanting and emotionally poignant.
★★★✰✰ Yet for all its narrative surprises and witty designs, this Cinderella is a curiously underwhelming work when it comes to the choreography.
★★★★✰ Watching this immensely entertaining program one realizes that even a minor Balanchine ballet is still a great ballet.
★★★✰✰ “Hi! I am Julie Kent, artistic director of the Washington Ballet.” Looking ravishing in her long strapless slivery-white gown, her hair immaculately styled, the new director of the Washington Ballet introduced herself to the audience of the fully-packed Eisenhower Theater...
★★★★✰ On opening night, Svetlana Lunkina in the title role gave one of those unique performances in which the ballerina completely disappears into her heroine, putting her entire living self into the role.
★★★✰✰ Since its publication nearly 75 years ago, de Saint-Exupéry’s “Le Petit Prince,” a short illustrated novella about an improbable encounter between an aviator and a young space traveler, has captivated the hearts of millions of children and adults alike...
★★★✰✰ The production nevertheless intrigues the eye and is fueled by the exceptional dancing of the company’s talented and dedicated dancers.
★★✰✰✰ There is, however, one undeniably compelling personage in this somewhat flat production of Hamlet - the quiet and fragile Ophelia, as portrayed by Venus Villa...