New York City Ballet – A Midsummer Night’s Dream – New York
★★★★✰ For Balanchine, Shakespeare’s characters are two-dimensional types, exemplary but wholly unreal. They are shadows in a shadow-play, representing this or that quality…
New York City Ballet – Prodigal Son, Liebeslieder Walzer – New York
★★★✰✰ Liebeslieder Walzer is one of the most precious of all Balanchine’s ballets; within its fifty-minute span it seems to contain a world of emotion, both profound and infinitely civilized.
New York City Ballet – Serenade, Mozartiana, Tschaikovsky Piano Concerto No. 2 – New York
★★★✰✰ One of the earliest things I appreciated about Balanchine is that he made me feel okay about liking Tschaikovsky (as NYCB likes to spell it)…
Jerome Robbins / Luca Veggetti – Watermill – New York
★★★✰✰ I was happy to discover that, yes, in fact, something about this more intimate, immersive setting did alter the work’s energy and rhythm, its overall feel.
Carmen de Lavallade Honoured at The 40th Annual Kennedy Center Honours
Dancer, choreographer, actress, teacher, director, writer, and mentor, Carmen de Lavallade is a true artist in every sense of the word – and a true legend.
Miami City Ballet – Opening Night Gala: Serenade, Symphonic Dances – New York
★★★★✰ This is dancing that makes one hungry for more.
New York City Ballet – A Midsummer Night’s Dream – New York
George Balanchine’s Midsummer Night’s Dream is really two ballets, layered one upon the other.
New York City Ballet – Square Dance, Harlequinade – New York
If Harlequinade is somewhat less than the sum of its parts, Square Dance (1957), which preceded it on the program, never fails to lift the heart.
Patricia McBride Honoured at The 37th Annual Kennedy Center Honours
McBride joined the New York City Ballet in 1959, and two years later, at the age of 18, she was promoted to the rank of principal, becoming the youngest principal dancer in the troupe’s history.
New York City Ballet – Spring Gala and Justin Peck premiere, Everywhere We Go – New York
Justin Peck has gone from unknown corps-member to choreographer-of-the-moment in a blink of an eye. (He created his first piece for the company in 2012; this is his sixth.)
New York City Ballet – Concerto Barocco, Four Temperaments, Stravinsky Violin Concerto – New York
Watching these three ballets, made over a span of thirty-two years, one can see how Balanchine’s style evolved toward the hyper-stylization of Violin Concerto…
Edward Villella – Founding Artistic Director of Miami City Ballet
After twenty-six years in Miami, Edward Villella is back in New York, just across the East River from his old stomping grounds in Bayside Queens. He was an unlikely danseur, a scrappy kid…
City Center – On Your Toes – New York
Along the way, the show strings together some memorably ravishing songs and knock-out dance numbers while having fun…
Ballet San Jose – Gala Performance – San Jose
…I’m not certain in which direction the company is headed. There is so much potential to be realised that it would be disappointing to see it ebb away.
New York City Ballet – A Midsummer Night’s Dream – New York
In the second act, storytelling gives way to pure dance, the highpoint of which is one of the most delicate, poetic pas de deux ever made – an allegory of love, danced by an unidentified couple. It is a Balanchinean vision of absolute trust and partnership…
