★★★✰✰ The Washington Ballet new program titled Balanchine + Ashton showcased four works by the two great choreographers, who “forever shaped our art form,” as the company’s artistic director, Julie Kent, put it in her opening remarks.
Tag - Julie Kent
★★✰✰✰ For all Marston’s qualifications, I found her Jane Eyre to be a dreary affair, theatrically dutiful and choreographically thin.
★★★★✰ As if an Ashton rarity weren’t reason enough to catch this program, there was also the presence of Marcelo Gomes, former much-admired principal dancer from American Ballet Theatre, to recommend it.
★★★★✰ When Kent took the helm of Washington Ballet ...one of her goals was to raise the standard of classical technique and shape the company into a world-class ballet institution. Judging by this production, she is on the right track.
★★★✰✰ A strikingly beautiful ballerina, with a lissome body and expressive features, EunWon Lee is an ideal Juliet...
★★★★✰ 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...
★★★✰✰ 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...
American Ballet Theatre Giselle ★★★★✰ New York, Metropolitan Opera House 26,27 May 2017 www.abt.org Giselle Fever Like Swan Lake, Giselle is a centerpiece of the ballet repertoire; American Ballet Theatre performs it almost every spring season, for good reason. The company’s production is handsome and a bit shopworn, with sets by Gianni Quaranta that were originally designed for the 1987 film...
English National Ballet’s Emerging Dancer Competition is unique in British ballet in throwing the spotlight on more junior dancers or “tomorrow’s stars” as ENB put it. This year's competition is on the 25 May and ahead of the that we talk to 4 of the 6 finalists - Isabelle Brouwers, Rina Kanehara, Madison Keesler and Guilherme Menezes...
★★★✰✰ 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.
★★★✰✰ On Friday night, the title role was danced by EunWon Lee, a new name on the Washington Ballet’s roster...
★★★✰✰ “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...
José Manuel Carreño on being a great Cuban dancer, now director of Silicon Valley Ballet, and the strong relations developing between the USA and Cuba and what that means for ballet.
American Ballet Theatre know how to do a Gala and this was their 75th Anniversary as well - Everybody seemed to have a good time says Marina Harss...
American Ballet Theatre – Les Sylphides, Pillar of Fire, Fancy Free, Theme and Variations – New York
There are times when a dance lover just can’t believe her good fortune and one of those times comes around once a year in New York...
Both nights that I attended were blessed with an exquisite Cinderella. Gillian Murphy gave this production a beating heart with her tenderly expressive and incisive performance...
Following 3 years directing Royal New Zealand Ballet, Ethan Stiefel is now back in New York - which is where Marina Harss caught up with him...
Critics have compared the new Liam Scarlett to Jerome Robbins’ Dances at a Gathering; if so, it’s as if Dances had been set in an unhappy corner of the planet, for a group of lost souls...
To fully enjoy Ashton, one has to be willing to acquiesce to one’s own softer impulses, a sense of wonder and perhaps a little nostalgia, and to surrender the loveliness of small things.
This was an evening not to be missed. Newly appointed Artistic Director, José Manuel Carreño, made sure that the quality of the eighteen guest artists for Ballet San Jose’s Gala Performance would tantalise even the most skeptical dance fan.