New York City Ballet – Stars & Stripes, Fearful Symmetries, The Times Are Racing – Saratoga Springs
★★★✰✰ Stars and Stripes premiered in 1958, and the Russian emigree demonstrates his affection for the quintessential writer of om-pah music in his adopted country by subverting the common association that marching is all about knee action.
Dutch National Ballet – Shostakovich Trilogy (European premiere) – Amsterdam
★★★★✰ This little trip made it abundantly clear we need to see more Ratmansky in the UK and Europe…
New York City Ballet – American Rhapsody, The Four Temperaments, The Times Are Racing – Washington
★★★✰✰ To watch works created by the 29-year old Justin Peck, resident choreographer of New York City Ballet, is to experience what it feels like to be young.
New York City Ballet – Square Dance, Tarantella, Odessa, Rodeo: Four Dance Episodes – Washington
★★★★★ Alexei Ratmansky’s Odessa left me breathless. The dancing (I saw both casts) was phenomenal on all levels: assured, expressive, and thoroughly dramatic.
School of American Ballet – Workshop Performance: Scènes de Ballet, Hallelujah Junction, Scotch Symphony – New York
★★★★✰ New York City Ballet’s seemingly endless stream of new talent has a source, and that source is the School of American Ballet…
Washington Ballet – Lilac Garden, The Dream, Frontier (premiere) – Washington
★★★✰✰ Ethan Stiefel’s Frontier, his first significant commission, had all the right ingredients… Yet the ballet, with its space travel theme, didn’t leave much of an impression…
American Ballet Theatre – Giselle – New York
American Ballet Theatre Giselle ★★★★✰ New York, Metropolitan Opera House 26,27 May 2017 www.abt.org Giselle Fever Like Swan Lake, Giselle is a centerpiece of the ballet repertoire; American Ballet Theatre performs it almost…
English National Ballet’s Emerging Dancer 2017 Competition – 5 Questions to 4 Finalists
English National Ballet’s Emerging Dancer Competition is unique in British ballet in throwing the spotlight on more junior dancers or “tomorrow’s stars” as ENB put it. This year’s competition is on the 25 May and ahead of the that we talk to 4 of the 6 finalists – Isabelle Brouwers, Rina Kanehara, Madison Keesler and Guilherme Menezes…
Royal Ballet – Symphonic Dances (premiere), The Vertiginous Thrill of Exactitude, Tarantella, Strapless – London
★★★★✰ Symphonic Dances is Scarlett’s farewell portrait of Yanowsky. Like her, the ballet is big and bold, beautiful and elusive.
Gallery – Royal Ballet in Liam Scarlett’s new Symphonic Dances + Forsythe, Balanchine, Wheeldon
The Royal Ballet perform a mixed bill of four works – William Forsythe’s ‘The Vertiginous Thrill of Exactitude’, George Balanchine’s ‘Taranatella’, Christopher Wheeldon’s ‘Strapless’ and Liam Scarlett’s world premiere of ‘Symphonic Dances’…
42nd Street / An American in Paris – London
42nd Street ★★★★★ / An American in Paris ★★★★✰ – Jann Parry reviews “42nd Street” and takes another look at “An American in Paris”, this time with Ashley Day partnering Leanne Cope…
New York City Ballet – HERE/NOW Festival No. 6 & 8 including Peck’s The Decalogue (premiere) – New York
★★★✰✰ With his latest, The Decalogue, which opened on May 12, Justin Peck seems to have turned a new page…
Washington Ballet – Balanchine, Ratmansky, Tharp bill – Washington
★★★✰✰ Their hunger for dance – that sense of palpable excitement to be onstage and in the moment – was particularly evident during the company’s premiere of Ratmansky’s Seven Sonatas.
Royal Ballet – Jewels: Emeralds, Rubies, Diamonds – London
★★★★✰ The first Emeralds ballerina, Beatriz Stix-Brunell, could be a water nymph, touching the hands of her suitor, Valeri Hristov, in the opening pas de deux before drifting out of reach.
Interview – Robert Barnett, former New York City Ballet dancer and longtime Artistic Director of Atlanta Ballet
Robert Barnett joined New York City Ballet in 1949. In those early years he worked closely with Balanchine and Robbins particularly before going on to direct Atlanta Ballet. Now 91 he is still actively involved in dance and passing on all he knows…
Miami City Ballet – The Fairy’s Kiss, Walpurgisnacht Ballet, Polyphonia – Miami
★★★★✰ The Fairy’s Kiss (Ratmansky premiere): The final image is poetic, grand, inspiring. It takes one’s breath away.
New York City Ballet – Stravinsky x Five bill – New York
★★★✰✰ Alongside George Balanchine and Jerome Robbins, one could argue that the third most important voice at New York City Ballet in the twentieth century was that of Igor Stravinsky.
New York City Ballet – La Sonnambula, Prodigal Son, Firebird, Allegro Brillante, Swan Lake, Four Temperaments – New York
★★★★✰ Sara Mearns, who made her name as Swan Queen at the age of nineteen, is still the most thrilling Odette around.
Memorable Performances of 2016 – New York
Marina Harss with her personal selection of New York dance memories this last year…
