New York City Ballet – Robbins bill: Interplay, In the Night, N.Y. Export: Opus Jazz – New York
★★★✰✰ There was virtually nothing to fault with “In the Night” on Saturday — each couple was well matched, and Robbins’ unique capacity to imbue classical form with the richness of human experience again seems unparalleled
Camille A. Brown & Dancers – ink – New York
★★★★✰ The choreographer Camille A. Brown has a rare talent – the ability to make you understand a situation or state of mind through dance.
New York City Ballet – Herman Schmerman, Principia (new Peck), The Runaway – New York
★★★✰✰ Major draws were the new Justin Peck and a revival of William Forsythe’s 1992 commission Herman Schmerman, not seen in full since the 90s…
New York City Ballet – Serenade, Mozartiana, Tschaikovsky Piano Concerto No. 2 – New York
★★★✰✰ One of the earliest things I appreciated about Balanchine is that he made me feel okay about liking Tschaikovsky (as NYCB likes to spell it)…
Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker / Rosas – Verklärte nacht – New York
★★★✰✰ The piece is strenuous, filled with running and partnering that, at first, verges on violent, and eventually turns rapturous, but never beautiful – De Keersmaeker never cedes to the lure of beauty…
New York City Ballet – Apollo, Orpheus, Agon – New York
★★★★✰ Nothing revives a repertory like new casting. So we can be grateful to the interim leadership at New York City Ballet for reconsidering who gets to dance some of the company’s most elemental repertory: Agon, Apollo, Serenade.
New York City Ballet – Apollo, Orpheus, Agon – New York
★★★★✰ There has been a generational shift at New York City Ballet, that much was clear last night in a program of Stravinsky ballets that included two major débuts and several smaller ones…
Martha Graham Dance Company – Graham Deconstructed: El Penitente, Hérodiade – New York
★★★✰✰ Both El Penitente and Hérodiade are from the 40’s, a period when Graham was transitioning from exploration of American and Native-American themes to a more mythical mode.
New York City Ballet – The Nucracker – New York
★★★✰✰ Come hell or high water, George Balanchine’s The Nutcracker will return to New York City Ballet, filling the theatre night after night. Balanchine made a ballet built to last, and it has not disappointed.
Company XIV – Nutcracker Rouge – New York
★★★★✰ Austin McCormick’s Company XIV continues to maintain the highest bar in balletic, baroque burlesque.
Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater – Lazarus, Revelations – New York
Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater Lazarus, Revelations ★★★★✰ New York, City Center 30 November 2018 www.alvinailey.org www.nycitycenter.org Forward to Ailey In March of 1958, Alvin Ailey presented his first evening of dance, at…
City Center Balanchine Festival – Miami City Ballet, Mariinsky Ballet, Royal Ballet, New York City Ballet
★★★✰✰ It’s fascinating to see how Balanchinean charm and wit are interpreted by dancers for whom the Balanchine repertoire is more of a foreign language.
Jerome Robbins / Luca Veggetti – Watermill – New York
★★★✰✰ I was happy to discover that, yes, in fact, something about this more intimate, immersive setting did alter the work’s energy and rhythm, its overall feel.
American Ballet Theatre – Fall Gala + Symphonie Concertante & Garden Blue 3bills – New York
★★★✰✰ The fall season is too brief, particularly because it always feels as though it takes the company a few days to warm itself up. The dancing at the gala on Oct. 17 was a little slapdash, but by Friday things had begun to settle.
Tere O’Connor Dance – Long Run – New York
★★★✰✰ Long Run is maniacally well constructed, intently and precisely performed, vigorous, and smart, and yet almost completely resistant to interpretation.
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.
Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker / Rosas – The Six Brandenburg Concertos – New York
★★★★✰ At moments, I was ecstatically aware of the beauty of the body in motion.
New York City Ballet – Fall Gala: The Exchange, Judah, The Runaway – New York
★★★✰✰ No evening of new works is perfect; the excitement lies in the hope that at some point some magic will happen. And in that solo for Taylor Stanley by Kyle Abraham, we got a glimpse of that magic.
New York City Ballet – Jewels & All Balanchine 4bill – New York
★★★★✰ The company seemed to be dancing with a special ferocity, as if to prove its worth and convince the world that this enterprise is, indeed, worth preserving and saving.
Wynton Marsalis, Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra & Damian Woetzel – Spaces – New York
★★★✰✰ The dance comments, illustrates and riffs on ideas and sounds in the music. Like Marsalis’s compositions, it’s neither banally literal, nor thoroughly abstract, but lies somewhere in the middle, deriving its inspiration and energy from currents in the music.
