There was a rush of emotion at seeing these extraordinary dancers doing the thing they do best. Their energy, precision, and drive, the way they change the space around them, is inspiring...
Tag - Janie Taylor
As lockdown eases ballet is getting out of streaming from living rooms and into the big wide world - Jann Parry looks at six happenings/films involving dancers from Dance Theatre of Harlem, New York City Ballet, San Francisco Ballet, Alonzo King LINES Ballet & The Royal Ballet
L.A. Dance Project Harbor Me, Marth Graham duets (White, Star, Moon), Helix, On the Other Side ★★★✰✰ New York, Joyce Theater 27 July 2016 www.ladanceproject.com www.joyce.org LA Story Since his quick exit from the Paris Opera Ballet, the choreographer and former director Benjamin Millepied has recommitted himself to the small Los-Angeles-based company he founded in 2012, L.A. Dance Project. The...
★★★✰✰ It wouldn’t be spring without ballet galas. This week it was New York City Ballet’s turn. On the program were two new works, by Christopher Wheeldon and the relatively unknown Nicolas Blanc, the latter a veteran of the New York Choreographic Institute.
Justin Peck has gone from unknown corps-member to choreographer-of-the-moment in a blink of an eye. (He created his first piece for the company in 2012; this is his sixth.)
Watching these three ballets, made over a span of thirty-two years, one can see how Balanchine’s style evolved toward the hyper-stylization of Violin Concerto...
George Balanchine’s favorite composers may have been Stravinsky and Tchaikovsky, but it’s no secret that he also had an affinity for France and its music...
What most struck me on this particular evening was the transparency, and clarity of intention, that marked each work.
It’s a good thing indeed when a visit to the ballet turns out to be a night full of surprises, all of them good.
I’ve noticed two troubling trends this season at New York City Ballet. Perhaps they are connected. The first is the creeping tendency toward stolid tempi from the pit...
"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."
What is there to say about Orpheus, except that it seems to slip deeper into the recesses of time? I’ve read that at the première, the critic and poet Edwin Denby was so moved by it that he sat dumbfounded during intermission, unable to stand. It is difficult to imagine such a reaction today.
In the second act, storytelling gives way to pure dance, the highpoint of which is one of the most delicate, poetic pas de deux ever made - an allegory of love, danced by an unidentified couple. It is a Balanchinean vision of absolute trust and partnership...
It’s becoming something of a New York City Ballet tradition to start off the season with, if not a whimper, then let’s say a less-than-stellar performance. Perhaps it’s a kind of exorcism, a ritual cleansing. Maybe that’s why the gala usually takes place a few days later...