Fall for Dance 2018, Program 1 – Boston Ballet, Sara Mearns, Caleb Teicher & Co, Cie Hervé Koubi – New York
★★★★✰ On the second night the program was offered, Mearns was stunning, but the remaining three pieces, by three different companies were, to varying degrees, engaging, although hers was a tough act to follow.
Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker / Rosas – The Six Brandenburg Concertos – New York
★★★★✰ At moments, I was ecstatically aware of the beauty of the body in motion.
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…
Royal Ballet School – Summer Performance, ROH Main Stage – London
★★★✰✰ A matinee in two halves: fine before the interval, with dire, dreary choreography in the second half. Thank goodness for the exhilarating Grand Défilé at the close.
Les Etés de la Danse, Paris – Homage to Jerome Robbins, Programme 1 – New York City Ballet, Joffrey Ballet
★★★★✰ The programme, performed by two very different American ballet companies, displayed Robbins’s versatility while revealing the similarities in his approach to music.
Semperoper Ballett – In the Middle, Somewhat Elevated, Neue Suite, Enemy in the Figure – London
★★★✰✰ Semperoper’s dancers distort the classical ballet line more than the Paris Opera Ballet’s (or ENB’s) and don’t bother much with fifth positions or precise épaulement for Forsythe’s endless tendus. They seem contemporary dancers rather than étoiles being outrageous.
Paris Opera Ballet – Thierrée / Shechter / Pérez / Pite – Paris
★★★★✰ Crystal Pite’s work stands out as the crowd-pleaser. With huge cheers and applause, we rise to our feet for the dancers.
Dance@TheGrange – Curated by Wayne McGregor & Edward Watson – Grange Festival, Hampshire
★★★★✰ McGregor’s company dancers (in Bach Forms) brought a surging energy, buoying up jewel-like moments from the Royal Ballet stars…
New York City Ballet – All Robbins No. 2 and Tribute to Robbins bills – New York
★★★★✰ The centenary celebration bills are more than enough to give a sense of Robbins’ breadth, theatrical savvy, stylistic curiosities, and, perhaps most unique of all, his ability to present dancers as human beings onstage.
New York City Ballet – Concerto Barocco, Agon, The Four Temperaments – New York
★★✰✰✰ Last week, on Thursday night, with the exception of The Four Temperaments, the company’s thoughts appeared to be elsewhere…
San Francisco Ballet – Unbound Festival Program D: works by Edwaard Liang, Dwight Rhoden, Arthur Pita – San Francisco
★★★★★ A hundred monkeys might eventually type out Hamlet, but only a herd of unicorns on Ecstasy could come anywhere near Arthur Pita’s Björk Ballet.
San Francisco Ballet – Unbound Festival Program C: works by Stanton Welch, Trey McIntyre, Annabelle Lopez Ochoa – San Francisco
★★★★✰ Program C’s offerings spanned the choreographic spectrum, from pure movement to narrative threads to inventive theatricality. Every work on the bill impressed with its freshness and ingenuity.
Paul Taylor American Modern Dance – David H. Koch season – New York
★★★★✰ Even in stillness, Taylor dancers hold immense power in their bodies, the energy potential within them more nuclear than solar.
English National Ballet – Le Jeune Homme et la Mort, La Sylphide – London
★★★★✰ One great privilege of Rojo being both director and dancer must be the opportunity to choose her own partners and this year’s returning guest is Ivan Vasiliev…
Smuin Contemporary American Ballet – The Christmas Ballet – San Francisco
★★★✰✰ I’ve seen The Christmas Ballet five times over the years and it has always been and continues to be a lovely, celebratory afternoon or evening at the theatre. That said, I still struggle with the format.
Kyle Abraham / Abraham.In.Motion – Pavement – London
★★★✰✰ Pavement, from 2012, takes as its touchstone the 1991 film Boyz n the Hood, John Singleton’s hard-hitting coming-of-age drama…
Dutch National Ballet – Hans van Manen, Ode to the Master bill – Amsterdam
★★★★✰ An outstanding bill in showing Hans van Manen’s work for three companies and its rich contemporary diversity – it all looks so fresh and of today.
Scottish Dance Theatre – TuTuMucky, Dreamers – London
★★★✰✰ Both are bold, engaging commissions – always welcome from a regional UK dance troupe.
Stephen Petronio Company – Bloodlines: works by Rainer, Paxton, Halprin, Petronio – New York
★★★✰✰ Two interesting impulses have been evident in the modern and post-modern dance scene in New York of late….
(Works danced: Diagonal, Trio A With Flags, Chair-Pillow, Excerpt from Goldberg Variations, The Courtesan and the Crone, Untitled Touch)
Hamburg Ballet – Old Friends – New York
★✰✰✰✰ Dancers roam around the stage connecting, disconnecting, clinging and separating in a drifting non-specific haze of memories. Who are the exes, who are the friends? Who are the never-weres? Who knows.
