Interview: Mayara Magri, First Soloist, The Royal Ballet
Jann Parry talks to the recently promoted Mayara Magri at an important time – she is about to make her debut as Gamzatti in The Royal Ballet’s production of La Bayadere – her first major and leading role in the company she joined 6 years ago…
Staatsballett Berlin – La Bayadère (premiere of Ratmansky reconstruction) – Berlin
★★★★✰ In the last several years, the choreographer Alexei Ratmansky has developed a sideline to his main choreographic efforts: the reviving of ballets by Marius Petipa in a way that represents the original choreography with as much fidelity as possible…
Co.Lab Dance – Seen by Two, Almost Ritual, The Bright Motion, Sketches – New York
★★★✰✰ What will Co.Lab become? I look forward to finding out. Meanwhile, it’s simply encouraging to see these dancers and emerging choreographers create something of their own.
Sarasota Ballet – Monotones I & II, Symphony of Sorrows, There Where She Loved – New York
★★✰✰✰ After viewing Ashton on a bill with works by Ricardo Graziano and Christopher Wheeldon, I’m not worried about Ashton’s relevance nor his resonance with a future audience. …Both the Graziano and Wheeldon posed some problems from what some might consider a “female” perspective.
Les Etés de la Danse, Paris – Jerome Robbins Homage, Programme 2 – Miami City Ballet, Pacific Northwest Ballet, Perm Opera Ballet
★★★★✰ It’s been a very enjoyable homage to Robbins’s versatility…
English National Ballet – The Sleeping Beauty – London
★★★★✰ It’s a better Sleeping Beauty than the Royal Ballet’s, but it benefits enormously from a stellar performance at its heart, a reminder of how civilised ballet can be.
Royal Danish Ballet – The Queen of Spades – Copenhagen
★★★✰✰ The good news is that Queen of Spades is a good-looking crowd pleaser and the RDB dancers look fantastic in it – I can’t emphasise that enough. Also good that it’s a step up from his last commission, Frankenstein – thank goodness, really.
Viviana Durante Company – Kenneth MacMillan: Steps Back in Time bill – London
★★★★✰ All credit to Viviana Durante (supported by Royal Ballet, Ballet Black and Scottish Ballet dancers) for contributing to the 25th anniversary of Kenneth MacMillan’s death with recreations of his early work.
Royal Ballet – Obsidian Tear, Marguerite and Armand, Elite Syncopations – London
★★★★✰ The ostensible link between the three works in this mixed bill is that they are by the Royal Ballet’s resident choreographers, past and present: Frederick Ashton. Kenneth MacMillan and Wayne McGregor. But none is typical of the choreographers’ work…
Gallery – Royal Ballet in Obsidian Tear, Marguerite and Armand, Elite Syncopations
A triple bill of works by Wayne McGregor, Frederick Ashton and Kenneth MacMillan. Gallery by Dave Morgan…
Interconnections: Thoughts on “Nick Mauss: Transmissions” at the Whitney in New York
Whiteny PR about the exhibition: “Artist Nick Mauss (b. 1980) presents Transmissions, a multidisciplinary work exploring the relationship between modernist ballet and the avant-garde visual arts in New York from the 1930s through ’50s.”
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.
Richard Alston Dance Company – Mid Century Modern, Carnaval, Cut and Run – London
★★★★★ It must be tempting to get carried away by sentiment when it comes to celebrating both a 70th birthday and fifty years as a choreographer in a programme that also marks the departure of a special muse.
Royal Ballet – Bernstein Centenary: Yugen, The Age of Anxiety, Corybantic Games – London
★★★✰✰ Leonard Bernstein wrote (in 1949): “I have a deep suspicion that every work I write, for whatever medium, is really theatre music in some way.’ Many choreographers have taken up the challenge, though his quasi-metaphysical musings have usually eluded them: dance is more corporeal than music.
Russian Ballet Icons Gala 2018 – London
★★★✰✰ This year’s Russian Ballet gala was ostensibly in honour of the 200th anniversary of Marius Petipa’s birth. Any choreography attributed to him was mostly a long way ‘after Petipa’, but it’s always fun to see excellent Russian dancers deliver pas de deux from Don Quixote, Swan Lake and Le Corsaire.
Feature – Ashton Foundation Masterclass with Monica Mason coaching the Spanish Dance from Swan Lake and the Fairy of Joy from Sleeping Beauty
February’s masterclass, the fifth in the series, featured choreography from the start and end of Frederick Ashton’s tenure as artistic director of the Royal Ballet, 1963-1969.
New York Theatre Ballet – Beethoven/1999, Optimists, Dark Elegies, Double Andante – New York
★★★✰✰ All was danced with the quiet focus, lucidity, and unfussy delivery that characterize the company. No attention-grabbing fireworks…
Memorable Performances of 2017 – London
Head and shoulders above other new work this year was Crystal Pite’s Flight Pattern for the Royal Ballet…
Royal Ballet – Sylvia – London
★★★★✰ Sylvia makes a welcome return to the repertoire, reacquainting dancers and audiences with Ashton’s sensibility and complex choreography. It’s a joy but not a masterpiece, as he well knew…
Gallery – Royal Ballet in Sylvia
With Marianela Nunez and Vadim Muntagirov in the lead roles. Gallery by Dave Morgan…
