Award-winning international and local choreographers, an icon of New Zealand dance, a collaboration with Te Radar, a tour of heartland NZ, and a five city tour to China make up the Royal New Zealand Ballet’s 2013 programme: a year-long celebration of the RNZB’s 60th birthday.
Tag - Giselle
There couldn’t have been a better setting for this Bermudian Romeo and Juliet. It was dramatically and effectively staged, using the different heights of the ramparts of Fort Hamilton overlooking the harbour with a natural backdrop of stars and crescent moon.
Ethan Stiefel formally retired from dancing with ABT this summer, but has been hard at work as Director of RNZB for over a year now. On the eve of company announcements about their 2013 season and the premiere of Giselle, his first commissioned production, Valerie Lawson catches up with him...
"It’s very lonely out there... I mean, it would be nice to have some sort of mentorship with regard to what it takes to be a choreographer."
San Francisco’s second programme was better balanced than the first, with contrasting works created for the company within the past two years.
I saw the first cast led by Jin Yao, the top ballerina in the company. Her acting was superb, and her dancing too had a warm glow throughout.
Who are your favorite choreographers? 1. "Christopher Wheeldon. He picked me for the first ballet I had created on me .. and I have worked with him on every single work he has done since I joined SFB."
Muriel [Maffre] was an inspiration for me because she got so many great roles even though she was tall. After she retired I started to get some of her old parts.
...Bart's a gifted and discerning artist, with a deep understanding of the Opera's heritage and style. Rather than trying to "recreate" the long-forgotten original choreography by Arthur St. Leon, Bart's made a new work that feels old, as if it had long been a warhorse of the Opera's repertory, subject to over a century of vagaries in taste and technique, yet emerging today all the richer for the...
Rambert provided the marvellous quote: ‘Pavlova excited in people the desire to dance where Diaghilev inspired in people a love of ballet and a love of choreography’.
A 40-hour round trip to watch a ballet gala on the other side of the world might be seen as a trifle obsessive by some and perhaps it is. But galas tend to be two a penny these days and this one was certainly very different, both in terms of being in aid of a unique and wonderful cause and in the spectacular diversity of remarkable dancing...
Bausch is a mystery. To some, she represents the summit of poetry and expression, worthy of a cult-like following. Clearly, these dancers derive great emotional sustenance from performing her work. And it suits them. But, with the exception of Gillot’s solo and a few moments here and there, it left me cold.
The arrival of the wilis takes one’s breath away. Not only are they individually beautiful, with their soft port-de-bras and milky-white shoulders, but they are all eerily the same, in every way: same size, same build, same arms, same tilt of the head, same gaze, same feet.
Nicolas Le Riche was fabulously predatory in Bolero, a raging furnace of self-love and sex appeal. One imagines that after the show he must have ravaged a hundred virgins, but maybe he simply went home and soaked his feet in the tub, but in any case, he was magnificent, good taste (and choreography) be damned.
My nickname in BRB used to be Bastard - and something happened with Ballet Hoo! - I don't know whether it's my age, or the kids we worked with, but it made me realise that you can get the best out of dancers and students by coming in on a certain level and talking to them on a certain level - not always shouting. I do shout still, I do get very angry...
With its exquisite staging, and most importantly with its understanding and respect of the Romantic ballet style, and whole-hearted dedication of the dancers to their roles, the Paris Opera Ballet demonstrated just how Giselle should be produced and performed.
Keshyshev made a remarkable debut as Albrecht, partnering Zhang Si Yuan who was also dancing Giselle for the very first time. Both dancers were so confident, and assured, that it was hard to believe that they were actually making debuts...
Onegin has been part of the Australian Ballet repertoire since 1976, first introduced at the behest of Anne Woolliams, who worked with Cranko at the Stuttgart Ballet. Woolliams replaced Sir Robert Helpmann as artistic director of the Australian Ballet in 1976, a move that angered Helpmann...
How can a company make good impression with just a few performances of one or two programs? The pieces have to be representative, interesting, and show the company in a the best possible light. It’s not easy, as the recent Lincoln Center performances of Australian Ballet have shown.
The Bolshoi's new Coppelia was heavenly fun. Vikharev’s production brought to the fore the Russian ballet tradition of expressive pantomime and spirited ensemble dances.