Some Memorable Performances of 2018 – New York
Other years have been more exciting, I think, but this one has had its share of remarkable performances, including a few thrilling ones. Here, in no particular order, are the ones that really stood out, for one reason or another.
Staatsballett Berlin – La Bayadère (premiere of Ratmansky reconstruction) – Berlin
★★★★✰ In the last several years, the choreographer Alexei Ratmansky has developed a sideline to his main choreographic efforts: the reviving of ballets by Marius Petipa in a way that represents the original choreography with as much fidelity as possible…
American Ballet Theatre – Fall Gala + Symphonie Concertante & Garden Blue 3bills – New York
★★★✰✰ 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.
Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo (Trocks) – Programme A, Swan Lake bill – London
★★★★★ The Trocks’ version of Swan Lake (or Lac, as it used to be known) restores some Soviet era removals. Benno, the hero’s best friend and supporter, is back, as are mime sequences, mostly mystifying the participants…
Natalia Osipova – Pure Dance – London
★★★✰✰ No trade description problems, here. This was exactly what it said on the tin: Natalia Osipova performing pure dance, enhanced only by recorded music and lighting designs varying from the merest of subtle tints to an explosion of floodlights…
Natalia Osipova – ISADORA: A Tribute to Isadora Duncan in Two Acts (world premiere) – Costa Mesa
★★★✰✰ Half-narrative and semi-abstract, ISADORA hop-skips through the dancer’s life; it’s described in the program notes as a “freely interpreted biography,” and it cherry-picks around unsavory elements…
American Ballet Theatre – Whipped Cream – New York
★★★★✰ The audience laughs, the company looks great, the orchestra… sounds full and vibrant, and you leave the theatre with a rare feeling of joy. Lightness of spirit and complexity of execution in one delightful package.
Zurich Ballet – Swan Lake – Zurich
★★★✰✰ But, at least to my eye, the production’s triumph is its final lakeside act. There, the formations of swans, as originally choreographed by Lev Ivanov, become intricate, delicate, lyrical, and intensely moving.
American Ballet Theatre – Harlequinade (premiere) – New York
★★★★✰ Harlequinade is pure entertainment, a work of art whose entire raison d’être rests on its charm and stylishness. If you require that your art contain deeper meanings, read no further…
American Ballet Theatre – 3 Bills: Giselle, Gala, Firebird/Afterite – New York
★★★★✰ After a week of Giselle, during which Natalia Osipova and David Hallberg had their much-awaited re-match, the company began its season in earnest on May 21, with a spring gala that included two new works and excerpts from a third…
New York City Ballet – Dance Odyssey, The Red Violin, Russian Seasons – New York
★★★✰✰ Like Walker’s first work for the company “Dance Odyssey” shows a lot of promise. It has warmth and humor, a good grasp of stage geometry and a sensitive musicality.
Yacobson Ballet – Don Quixote – St. Petersburg
★★★★✰ Kobborg has deconstructed the work; mixing up the narrative’s building blocks before reassembling them in a masterpiece of balance that remains recognisably traditional but is also refreshingly new.
Catching up with Morphed – Tero Saarinen Soul Shifting in New York
Some dance can be really thought provoking and that seems to have been the case with Tero Saarinen’s “Morphed” – at least for Millicent Hodson and Kenneth Archer who recently caught up with the work at the Joyce in New York.
Memorable Performances of 2017 – New York
Six Performances That Stayed with Me in 2017 – Marina Harss with her personal selection of New York dance memories this last year.
American Ballet Theatre – Souvenir d’un Lieu Cher, I Feel the Earth Move, Daphnis and Chloe – New York
★★★✰✰ The choreographer and L.A. Dance Project director Benjamin Millepied is a mover and a shaker, a clever curator, a man of taste, a force in the dance world. But is he good choreographer?
American Ballet Theatre – Her Notes, Symphonic Variations, Other Dances, Serenade After Plato’s Symposium – New York
★★★✰✰ The program opened and closed with the most recent works: Jessica Lang’s Her Notes and Alexei Ratmansky’s Serenade after Plato’s Symposium. Both premiered at ABT in 2016, and both are works whose inspiration largely comes from their scores.
American Ballet Theatre – The Gift, Songs of Bukovina, Thirteen Diversions – New York
★★★✰✰ In between the speeches and the short films came the dancing. The main attraction was the new Ratmansky work, Songs of Bukovina…
Washington Ballet – Les Sylphides, Le Corsaire pdd, Bolero, Prodigal Son – Washington
★★★★✰ 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…
‘The Dreamers Ever Leave You’ – Karen Kain on a unique Royal Ballet & National Ballet of Canada collaboration…
Karen Kain, Artistic Director of the National Ballet of Canada, on celebrating Canada’s 150th with a joint work that includes NBoCanada and Royal Ballet dancers in a unique London Docklands event on the 12/13 October… that and lots more
New York City Ballet – Liturgy, Polyphonia, Odessa, The Times are Racing – New York
★★★★✰ The oldest piece on the program is Wheeldon’s Polyphonia. Made in 2001, it has stood the test of time. Just last week it was performed at the Fall for Dance festival…
