New York City Ballet – The Nucracker – New York
★★★✰✰ Come hell or high water, George Balanchine’s The Nutcracker will return to New York City Ballet, filling the theatre night after night. Balanchine made a ballet built to last, and it has not disappointed.
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.
New York City Ballet – Fall Gala: The Exchange, Judah, The Runaway – New York
★★★✰✰ No evening of new works is perfect; the excitement lies in the hope that at some point some magic will happen. And in that solo for Taylor Stanley by Kyle Abraham, we got a glimpse of that magic.
New York City Ballet – Jewels & All Balanchine 4bill – New York
★★★★✰ The company seemed to be dancing with a special ferocity, as if to prove its worth and convince the world that this enterprise is, indeed, worth preserving and saving.
New York City Ballet – Coppélia – New York
★★★★✰ Tiler Peck, with her quick feet and sassy musicality, is perfectly suited to the role of Swanhilda. Her choreography has copious amounts of pointework, quick steps, requires adroitness in petit allegro and excellent mime technique – all of which Peck has in abundance.
New York City Ballet – All Robbins No. 4 bill – New York
★★★★✰ It was a good night for Afternoon of a Faun, in particular. Chase Finlay, débuting in the role of the young dancer sensually lolling about a ballet studio, brought back the eroticism this ballet often lacks.
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 – All Robbins No. 1 – Bernstein Collaborations bill – New York
★★★✰✰ One of Robbins’ great talents was sniffing out the style of his time, but this inevitably places a date stamp on his work.
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…
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.
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.
New York City Ballet – All Balanchine No. 1 & 2, 21st Century Choreographers bills – New York
★★★★✰ After much tumult over the holidays, New York City Ballet has begun its first post-Peter Martins season. If you’re just catching up, the company’s “ballet master in chief” – ie artistic director – of over thirty years retired on New Years Day, in the midst of an investigation into allegations of physical abuse and sexual harassment.
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…
New York City Ballet – 20th Century Violin Concertos bill – New York
New York City Ballet 20th Century Violin Concertos: The Red Violin, In Memory Of…, Stravinsky Violin Concerto ★★★✰✰ New York, David H. Koch Theater 7 October 2017 www.nycballet.com davidhkochtheater.com It goes without saying…
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…
New York City Ballet – Fall Gala: new work by Schumacher, Reisen, Lovette, Peck – New York
★★★✰✰ At New York City Ballet, the fall fashion gala has become a showcase for work by young choreographers. Each one is paired up with a fashion designer and voilà, it’s an event.
Bolshoi Ballet – The Taming of the Shrew – New York
★★★✰✰ It wouldn’t be a complete exaggeration to say that the Bolshoi’s U.S. premiere of Jean-Christophe Maillot’s The Taming of the Shrew set the Koch Theater on fire Wednesday night…
Paris Opera Ballet, New York City Ballet, Bolshoi Ballet – Jewels – New York, Lincoln Center Festival
★★★★✰ It’s not often that one gets to see three such companies side by side, or to experience a work as familiar as Jewels with new eyes…
