★★★✰✰ Kudos to Lovette for really going out on a limb... The Shaded Line feels truly her own, and it’s clear that she has much to say about her chosen profession...
Reviews
Reviews of Dance and Ballet Performances
★★★★★ Everything about this production is topical, very real and will probably be so for many years to come. Absolutely five stars to the company...
★★★★✰ It makes a noticeable difference when Litton, music director of the company, is in the pit; the orchestra has presence and sings, providing a convincing counterpart for the dancing.
★★★★✰ Mozart Dances goes far beyond a basic choreographic rendering of the score, instead inviting an active dialogue between disciplines.
★★★✰✰ The extremely good-looking company members are well-trained, versatile dancers...
★★★★✰ Friday the 13th was auspicious for San Francisco dance: Margaret Jenkins Dance Company premiered Trace Figures, a site-specific performance immersion that could be done by no other company or permutation of artists.
★★★★✰ Having watched the company since childhood, I find it is impossible not to instantly appreciate the sheer beauty and energy they radiate...
★★★✰✰ In the event, the levels of polish and invention were quite remarkable given the circumstances.
★★★★✰ Starwise, Bejart's Wayfarer bumps this program from two stars to four.
★★★★✰ Falling Man is a huge achievement, performed with intensity and charisma, and we really need to see it again in our theatres.
★★★★✰ SF choreographers Maurya Kerr, Dazaun Soleyn and Slender-White, and the visiting duo of Joy Davis (Boston) and Eric Mullis (Charlotte, North Carolina), presented new works of 10–20 minutes in length.
★★✰✰✰ I hadn’t seen much of the well-regarded Cuthbertson, so I was looking forward to this chance to get to know her (she appeared in four of five pieces), as well as the not-always-dubious introduction to new works by new choreographers...
★★★✰✰ ...the most apt descriptor for the entire program was joyful.
★★★★✰ The reason the Bolshoi's Don Quixote is so enjoyable is the gusto with which it is performed. It doesn't aim to be remotely authentically Spanish or even respectful of the original 1869 version...
★★★★★ Scottish Ballet has a major critical hit on their hands - this is compelling 21st century watching. It was the premiere you want to see, but so very often don't, with everybody, but everybody, at the top of their game...
★★★✰✰ Our setting is the Verona Institute in the near future. Here disturbed young people have been locked up for an opaque purpose under the eye of a sadistic jailer... A traumatised Juliet meets a troubled Romeo, and it ends as badly as you might expect.
★★★✰✰ Program A consisted of a string of solos and duets representing a slice of the company’s choreographic trajectory, from Frederick Ashton through Kenneth MacMillan to Liam Scarlett, Wayne McGregor, and Charlotte Edmonds.
★★★★★ A wildly surreal comic turn involves a dog riding a bicycle, both cunningly choreographed. He's actually a tractor driver in disguise, disrupting sexual assignations.
★★★★★ I’ve never seen a more vivid performer; her large eyes seem to touch each person in the audience...
★★★✰✰ A 3 star production with 4 star performances...