BalletCollective – The Answer, Orange, The Last Time This Ended, Translation – New York
★★★✰✰ What’s different about Schumacher’s dances isn’t so much the end result as the process. He always commissions new music and builds the ballet up from the bottom, with the help of an external source of inspiration.
Washington Ballet – Les Sylphides, Le Corsaire pdd, Bolero, Prodigal Son – Washington
★★★★✰ It was a pleasure to see this company in such a smart and wide-ranging program. It was even more rewarding to see the Washington Ballet dancers masterly navigating the numerous challenges…
‘The Dreamers Ever Leave You’ – Karen Kain on a unique Royal Ballet & National Ballet of Canada collaboration…
Karen Kain, Artistic Director of the National Ballet of Canada, on celebrating Canada’s 150th with a joint work that includes NBoCanada and Royal Ballet dancers in a unique London Docklands event on the 12/13 October… that and lots more
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…
Dutch National Ballet – Hans van Manen, Ode to the Master bill – Amsterdam
★★★★✰ An outstanding bill in showing Hans van Manen’s work for three companies and its rich contemporary diversity – it all looks so fresh and of today.
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…
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.
