Six Performances That Stayed with Me in 2017 - Marina Harss with her personal selection of New York dance memories this last year.
Tag - Dorothee Gilbert
★★★★✰ 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...
The gala opened with the Act III wedding pas de deux from The Sleeping Beauty, performed by Ekaterina Osmolkina and Guiseppe Picone. No fish-dives in this version – the Russians regard them as vulgar, and Osmolkina could never be vulgar.
30 dancers already confirmed include Natalia Osipova, Olga Smirnova, Semyon Chudin, Kim Kimin, Sarah Lamb, Xander Parish, Aline Cojocaru, Tamara Rojo, Marianela Nuňez and Thiago Soares.
During the season, and over five nights, I saw each of the five Giselles – Dorothee Gilbert, Myriam Ould-Braham, Ludmila Pagliero, Isabelle Ciaravola and Melanie Hurel, and four Albrechts...
It’s not every day Petipa’s carefree Don Quixote comes with a health and safety warning. ...Injuries played havoc with the casting throughout November and December...
The middle piece, O Zlozony/O Compsite, is a beautiful work by Trisha Brown, made for the company in 2004. Bizarely it always reminds me of Ashton's Monotones...
It was a program that harkened back to the big international Galas of previous years, as well as a nice reference to the company’s first years, when artists including Sonia Arova, Erik Bruhn, Margot Fonteyn and Rudolf Nureyev guest-starred.
At the end the curtain came up once again, and Brigitte Lefèvre (artistic director of the ballet) and Nicolas Joel (director of the opera as a whole) emerged to announce the promotion of the evening’s Solor, Josua Hoffalt, to the ultimate rank: étoile. There were buckets of tears, from Hoffalt, Gilbert, and Dupont. In fact, it was the high point of the evening. An uncontrolled release of emotion...