★★★✰✰ "Sometimes, American Ballet Theatre is a conundrum... The repertory can be so uneven that from one day to the next, one’s opinion of the entire company shifts."
Tag - Duke Ellington
★★★✰✰ Light on tap and heavy on concept, the show is inspired by an imaginary conversation between Glover and Gregg Burge – a multi-talented artist lost too young (23 years ago this 4 July) to brain cancer.
Jasper Conran is producing new designs for Christopher Wheeldon’s "Within the Golden Hour", to be premiered by the Royal Ballet on the 8 May 2019. Jann Parry talks to Conran about the designs and his earlier and extensive work for David Bintley at Birmingham Royal Ballet…
★★★★✰ Austin McCormick’s Company XIV continues to maintain the highest bar in balletic, baroque burlesque.
★★★✰✰ The fall season is too brief, particularly because it always feels as though it takes the company a few days to warm itself up. The dancing at the gala on Oct. 17 was a little slapdash, but by Friday things had begun to settle.
★★★✰✰ The dance comments, illustrates and riffs on ideas and sounds in the music. Like Marsalis’s compositions, it’s neither banally literal, nor thoroughly abstract, but lies somewhere in the middle, deriving its inspiration and energy from currents in the music.
★★★★✰ Ronald K. Brown is one of those choreographers who returns to a similar mode in piece after piece, so it’s easy to take him for granted. But what a powerful mode it is.
★★★★✰ Nutcracker Rouge is a lush, flesh-fueled frenzy of sensuality and spectacle. McCormick’s gift for erotic elegance is mesmerizing. Any raunch manages to be a good dose of the subversive while also being good plain fun.
★★★★✰ Wink, best seen from above, is a valuable addition to BRB’s repertoire. So is José Limon’s The Moor’s Pavane, created in 1949.
★★★✰✰ Jessica Lang's Wink is an attractive piece, well designed and well made with a clear structure.
Warmth, exuberance, power, finesse – all these qualities infuse everything they do.
There are many alternative Nutcrackers out there, but hands down, Nutcracker Rouge has got to be one of the all-time best.
The second night... this was by far the best program I’ve ever seen Ailey offer: five pieces, each as good as the others in its different way...
Since becoming artistic director at Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater in 2011, Robert Battle has been steadily mixing up the company’s repertory, adding works by choreographers beyond its usual range: Paul Taylor, Ohad Naharin, and Wayne McGregor, to name just three.
Smythe’s Harlem was a riot of imagination, movement and color. The choreography blended together three seemingly unmixable styles of dance – classical ballet, jookin’ and flamenco...
But stuck in the middle of all this brightness was Ivesiana, like a ghost at a birthday party. It is a most unsettling ballet.
The evening felt like a big party, with the Opera House filled to the brim by a cheering, adoring audience. ..."Renee Robinson, We celebrate her tonight!" said Robert Battle, artistic director of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater.
Oksana Khadarina talks to one of Alvin Ailey company's leading lights on the eve of her retirement...
Sean Kelly enjoyed a nearly two decades-long career as a principal dancer with Houston Ballet, and then decided to try his hand at Musical Theater. He joined the casts and/or became Dance Captain in such shows as Carousel, Swing, Moving On and Billy Elliot. He was recently in the San Francisco Bay Area to set a new holiday swing-themed premiere on Diablo Ballet...