The Jacob’s Pillow website contains an important and incredibly diverse dance archive under the banner "Dance Interactive" - Susanna Sloat introduces an important resource and calls out many video gems...
Tag - Alicia Alonso
★★★★✰ The fewer the speeches, the better the gala – this universal truth seems to have bypassed the organizers at American Ballet Theatre...
★★★✰✰ English National Ballet School is celebrating 30 years since its inception in 1989 - it had just 12 students in that inaugural year. The numbers are ever increasing and there is evidence of significant talents among the graduates this year.
★★★✰✰ Ultimately, the best thing about Alonso’s Giselle is that it’s danced by Cubans, and that’s good enough for me.
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.
This time, I made 15 trips to the theatres – there were performances at 5pm and 9pm each day - and saw 82 different full-length ballets or extracts in the eight days I was in Havana.
While some of the views expressed may not chime with your own, the fascination of this book is to understand how contentious maintaining and developing ballet as vibrant theatre often is.
It’s good to see the company perform Sylphides again after a hiatus of eight years. The style hasn’t eroded. ...The dancers believe in it.
This book serves as a timely tribute to an incredible man whose vision and dedication to his art has established one of the world’s finest classical ballet systems.
Alonso trained the first generation of Cuban dancers, among who there were many standouts, but the most well-known in Cuba were the “Four Jewels” of Cuban ballet: Josefina Méndez, Mirta Pla, Aurora Bosch, and Loipa Araújo (now Associate Artistic Director of English National Ballet)
An in-depth interview with the lady who helps bring Balanchine back...
The festival was as intensive as ever, with three performances running on seven days, four on one day, some concurrently. The range and quality of dance overall was impressive.