New York City Ballet – Voices (new Ratmansky), and New Combinations bill – New York
★★★★✰ There was always something new around the corner, a surprising shape, a witty step, an unlikely transition. It’s clear that Ratmansky felt liberated by the unusual structure and soundscape…
Pam Tanowitz Dance – Four Quartets (T.S. Eliot) – London
★★★✰✰ Tanowitz is ideally placed to translate poetry into dance. Her vocabulary is effortlessly fluid with clear Cunningham/Graham/Brown influences and yet her own voice is strongly established.
Some Memorable Performances of 2018 – New York
Other years have been more exciting, I think, but this one has had its share of remarkable performances, including a few thrilling ones. Here, in no particular order, are the ones that really stood out, for one reason or another.
Aura Fischbeck Dance – DUSK – San Francisco
★★★✰✰ DUSK had a lot going for it. First was the overall concept. DUSK challenges the viewer to not only acknowledge the idea of transformation, but to consider what lies beneath.
Fall for Dance 2018, Program 1 – Boston Ballet, Sara Mearns, Caleb Teicher & Co, Cie Hervé Koubi – New York
★★★★✰ On the second night the program was offered, Mearns was stunning, but the remaining three pieces, by three different companies were, to varying degrees, engaging, although hers was a tough act to follow.
Natalia Osipova – ISADORA: A Tribute to Isadora Duncan in Two Acts (world premiere) – Costa Mesa
★★★✰✰ Half-narrative and semi-abstract, ISADORA hop-skips through the dancer’s life; it’s described in the program notes as a “freely interpreted biography,” and it cherry-picks around unsavory elements…
San Francisco Ballet – Unbound Festival Program A: works by Alonzo King, Christopher Wheeldon, Justin Peck – San Francisco
★★★★✰ If Helgi Tomasson was hoping that Unbound: A Festival of New Works would generate heated debate on the state of ballet today, his wish has already been fulfilled just one night into the massive festival…
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.
Exhibition – Rodin and Dance: The Essence of Movement – London
★★✰✰✰ …of more interest to Rodin scholars than dance-lovers.
Gelsey Kirkland Ballet – Harlequinade, The Wedding Procession, Walpurgis Night – New York
★★★✰✰ This is no second-rate student group. The Gelsey Kirkland Academy is doing something right.
Gemma Bond – Harvest: Being, Manner, Depuis le Jour, Then and Again – New York
★★★✰✰ ” Bond’s strength, for now, lies in a kind of old-fashioned insistence on beauty and her ability to coax sensitive, generous performances out of her dancers.”
Baltic Dance Theatre – Fun, Death and the Maiden, Body Master – Warsaw
Unlike Kylián, Weiss generally works from an overt storyline and her own libretto for Body Master is loosely based on the life of Gordon Craig, the English pioneer of modernist theatre…
Dance Heginbotham – Angel’s Share, Diamond, Easy Win – New York
Heginbotham has a knack for choosing just the right music for his dances, none of it hackneyed or used solely for its atmospheric qualities: no Arvo Pärt, no Philip Glass…
Baltic Dance Theatre – Netherlands bills 1 & 2 – Gdansk
Baltic Dance Theatre have just presented two Netherlands inspired nights of dance with local premieres by Izadora Weiss (director), Jiri Kylian and Patrick Delcroix. Graham Watts with a comprehensive report…
Royal Ballet – Ashton quad bill – London
Jann Parry reviews Scènes de ballet, Five Brahms Waltzes, Symphonic Variations and A Month in the Country…
DVD – Sensuality & Nationalism in Romantic Ballet
This is not by any means a DVD for casual viewing, but for the serious student of ballet it provides a concise and fascinating understanding of the key components of Romantic Ballet, hugely enhanced by the opportunity to see a group of restaged dances from that era that have not been seen before…
Russell Maliphant – The Rodin Project – New York
More than sculpture, the choreography reminded me of exhibitions of body-building.
Tere O’Connor Dance – poem, Secret Mary – New York
Tere O’Connor can be a frustrating choreographer. Look for structure and you’ll likely be thwarted, frustrated, or worse. Because it clearly is there, but you can’t understand it.
