★★★★✰ New York City Ballet is off to a fine start when it opens the winter season with a very well-danced all Balanchine, all Stravinsky program.
Tag - Danses Concertantes
★★★★✰ All credit to Viviana Durante (supported by Royal Ballet, Ballet Black and Scottish Ballet dancers) for contributing to the 25th anniversary of Kenneth MacMillan's death with recreations of his early work.
Viviana Durante on her company and its showcasing of early Kenneth MacMillan works at London's Barbican on 18 — 21 Apr 2018. Bruce Marriott talks to one of the foremost MacMillan interpreters about her MacMillan celebration showcasing 3 very rarely seen works.
Scottish Ballet will be performing Kenneth MacMillan’s "Le Baiser de la fée" as part of the celebrations marking the 25th anniversary of his death. It will be the first revival of the ballet in 30 years - Jann Parry on the return of an important work.
★★★★✰ Watching this immensely entertaining program one realizes that even a minor Balanchine ballet is still a great ballet.
★★★★✰ Each spring, the School of American Ballet, New York City Ballet’s breeding-ground, holds a series of “Workshop” performances to show off the crème de la crème of its upper-level students.
Jeu de Cartes, by Peter Martins, is jaunty and busy, a cross between the pas de deux in Balanchine’s Rubies, the trios in Danses Concertantes, and the non-stop action of Martins’ Fearful Symmetries....
When watching them perform one understands what dance critic Joan Acocella meant when she said: “Every single time Suzanne Farrell sets a Balanchine ballet – it rises from the dead.”
“It’s very special to dance. And it’s even more special to dance a Balanchine ballet” - Suzanne Farrell
The highlight of the program was the seldom-performed Divertimento from “Le Baiser de la Fée”. It is a deceptively shadowy work, a fairy tale in the guise of a conventional divertissement.