★★★★★ Thank you, Royal Ballet, for giving so much pleasure in trying times.
Tag - Balanchine
★★★★✰ Kevin O'Hare, director of the Royal Ballet, came on stage to welcome the return of a paying audience for what turned out to be the opening and closing live performance of the season...
★★★✰✰ Program II of the Fall for Dance festival features premieres by Dormeshia and Kyle Abraham, plus excerpts of works by Balanchine and Lar Lubovitch...
The entire Royal Ballet were back on stage and performing for a live audience last Friday in a gala style show which was/is also streamed. Jann Parry was mightily impressed with the dancing and repertoire (★★★★★) if not so much with the live audience experience in a Covid aware Opera House (★★★✰✰)
Carlos Acosta chats to Graham Watts about how things are going after his first few months at the artistic helm of Birmingham Royal Ballet & the impact that Covid-19 has had on his plans...
★★★★✰ The recording reveals how unusual the choreography is, as it was in 1965... Dancers in pointe shoes have to adapt to flexed feet, flat-footed parallel positions, torsos bent forward, elbows and wrists held at angles.
★★★★✰ The four ballets make for a slightly over-long evening (both Episodes and Rodeo are substantial works). But it’s a small price to pay for seeing these rarities back onstage.
★★★★✰ The annual Icons gala provides the chance to see dancers who don't often appear in London...
★★★★✰ How is the company looking? ...the company looks good so far.
★★★★✰ New York City Ballet is off to a fine start when it opens the winter season with a very well-danced all Balanchine, all Stravinsky program.
★★★★✰ For those of us that have been involved with the company, no matter how small a part, it is clear that the ‘happy family’ that is English National Ballet, reveres and appreciates all who have been part of its 70 year existence.
★★★★✰ 'Spellbound' delivered in every regard – opulent grandeur, terrific people watching and above all, marvelous dance.
★★★✰✰ Stunning images of Bolshoi ballerina Svetlana Zakahrova dressed as Coco Chanel whetted the appetite for the London Premiere of her latest how, Modanse.
★★★★✰ As a special one-off, Michael Trusnovec, now a guest artist, danced the solo from George Balanchine’s spiky and ascetic Episodes which he made for Paul Taylor in 1959.
★★★★★ Houston Ballet is a prime example of what a 21st century ballet company should look like: diverse, dynamic and accomplished.
★★★✰✰ The emphasis here was on new. This was a night to check in on the creative efforts of two emerging voices on the ballet scene - Gemma Bond and James Whiteside.
★★★★✰ In programs like this one, ABT really looks like an American company, steeped in American popular music and the relaxed attitude of popular dance. It’s a mode that suits the company well.
Pam Tanowitz, well known in New York, just created her first work outside the States - for the Royal Ballet. It's been a critical success and Jann Parry (who gave the work 5 stars) finds out what makes her tick and why so many directors are seeking Tanowitz out...
★★★★✰ On the penultimate day of the fall season, I managed to catch a performance of New York City Ballet’s revival of Merce Cunningham’s Summerspace. The 1958 piece, which had its City Ballet premiere in 1966, was last performed here in 2000.
★★★✰✰ Robbins’ response to Chopin (in Dances at a Gathering) is also extraordinary: sensitive, simple, vulnerable, direct, un-fussy.