★★★★★ The house was abuzz on Friday evening for the opening performance of Mark Morris Dance Group’s The Hard Nut. It’s been five years since Cal Performances hosted the production, and clearly fans had been anxiously awaiting its reappearance.
Reviews
Reviews of Dance and Ballet Performances
★★★✰✰ One of the ballet’s biggest departures from tradition is having the same dancer play Clara and the Sugar Plum Fairy. The reasoning is unclear, but Kase proves versatile enough to pull it off...
★★★★✰ A charming, uplifting ballet that truly sets the scene for Christmas. A large part of the heart-warming effect was Darrell’s decision to populate the stage with children...
★★★★✰ Roberts’ "Members Don’t Get Weary" is very much a mature work with a strong emotional charge and esthetic signature.
★★★★✰ 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.
★★★✰✰ The MCB dancers exude Balanchine brio and delight in performing his intricate steps, but they had to give their all to keep up with the youngsters.
★★✰✰✰ In truth Polunin's latest show at the London Coliseum, although it has its moments, isn't such a great advertisement for him as a dancer or as a creative mixer of the ballet pot.
★★★★★ When Peter Wright’s production of The Nutcracker for the Royal Ballet was given its premiere on 20th December 1984, gala guests were treated to free champagne and souvenir booklets. No expense was spared...
★★★✰✰ What to take away from this evening? It seemed odd to present sampling as something that needed explaining – but maybe that’s me showing my age.
★★★★✰ Gerring's dances may be spare – she doesn’t go in for complicated designs or music – but they certainly don’t feel dry. They teem with energy and life.
★★★✰✰ This is Swan Lake in name only. There is no Tchaikovsky... there are no tutus... there is no-one called Odette, Odile, Siegfried or Rothbart, although there are several characters called McLoughlin...
★★★✰✰ I very much like Brooks’ work, particularly his approach to rebound, points of contact in partnering and his nuanced use of accumulation...
★★★✰✰ Shut Down is a hard-hitting work about men. Actually white privileged men. It portrays a bleak landscape of absent fathers, depressed teenagers and confused blokes.
★★★✰✰ All up, I think this production demonstrated the strengths and weaknesses of "Raymonda" as a ballet. It certainly is a fabulous looking (and listening) calling card which might tour well...
★★★★✰ Sylvia makes a welcome return to the repertoire, reacquainting dancers and audiences with Ashton’s sensibility and complex choreography. It’s a joy but not a masterpiece, as he well knew...
★★★★✰ Designed, curated and hosted by RAWdance’s co-Artistic Directors Ryan T. Smith and Wendy Rein, the CONCEPT series invites San Francisco dance enthusiasts to experience an intimate showing of local performances and choreography.
★★★★✰ There is a cocksure, swaggering confidence about this company and these dancers, in this programme.
★★★✰✰ Happy for Zakharova who ultimately curated an interesting night, very happy to see her retinue of Bolshoi dancers and happy to see Donlon provide such final good cheer.
★★✰✰✰ All the ingredients seemed promising but the evening was disappointing, struggling to recover from the tedium of the dire opening item...
★★★✰✰ Pavement, from 2012, takes as its touchstone the 1991 film Boyz n the Hood, John Singleton’s hard-hitting coming-of-age drama...