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.
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.
American Ballet Theatre – Swan Lake – New York
★★★★✰ Devon Teuscher has done her time, and the results are breathtaking…
New York City Ballet – All Robbins No. 2 and Tribute to Robbins bills – New York
★★★★✰ The centenary celebration bills are more than enough to give a sense of Robbins’ breadth, theatrical savvy, stylistic curiosities, and, perhaps most unique of all, his ability to present dancers as human beings onstage.
New York City Ballet – Concerto Barocco, Agon, The Four Temperaments – New York
★★✰✰✰ Last week, on Thursday night, with the exception of The Four Temperaments, the company’s thoughts appeared to be elsewhere…
New York City Ballet – Dance Odyssey, The Red Violin, Russian Seasons – New York
★★★✰✰ Like Walker’s first work for the company “Dance Odyssey” shows a lot of promise. It has warmth and humor, a good grasp of stage geometry and a sensitive musicality.
New York City Ballet – All Balanchine No. 1 & 2, 21st Century Choreographers bills – New York
★★★★✰ After much tumult over the holidays, New York City Ballet has begun its first post-Peter Martins season. If you’re just catching up, the company’s “ballet master in chief” – ie artistic director – of over thirty years retired on New Years Day, in the midst of an investigation into allegations of physical abuse and sexual harassment.
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…
New York City Ballet – Liturgy, Polyphonia, Odessa, The Times are Racing – New York
★★★★✰ The oldest piece on the program is Wheeldon’s Polyphonia. Made in 2001, it has stood the test of time. Just last week it was performed at the Fall for Dance festival…
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.
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…
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…
New York City Ballet – Spring Gala with Odessa, Ratmansky premiere – New York
★★★✰✰ With only four works, no intermissions and a run time of less than two hours, New York City Ballet’s Spring Gala was short and to the point.
New York City Ballet – The Times are Racing, The Shimmering Asphalt, Fearful Symmetries – New York
★★★✰✰ More than anything, Peck’s “The Times are Racing” reminded me of the movie Rebel Without a Cause. These kids are uneasy, but what is the object of their unease?
New York City Ballet – Stravinsky x Five bill – New York
★★★✰✰ Alongside George Balanchine and Jerome Robbins, one could argue that the third most important voice at New York City Ballet in the twentieth century was that of Igor Stravinsky.
New York City Ballet – La Sonnambula, Prodigal Son, Firebird, Allegro Brillante, Swan Lake, Four Temperaments – New York
★★★★✰ Sara Mearns, who made her name as Swan Queen at the age of nineteen, is still the most thrilling Odette around.
School of American Ballet – Workshop Performance: Danses Concertantes, Les Gentilhommes, The Four Temperaments – New York
★★★★✰ Each spring, the School of American Ballet, New York City Ballet’s breeding-ground, holds a series of “Workshop” performances to show off the crème de la crème of its upper-level students.
New York City Ballet – Serenade, Hallelujah Junction, Duo Concertant, Western Symphony – New York
★★★★✰ Balanchine himself once said that Serenade is “many things to many people.” If it is one thing to City Ballet, it is the single ballet which they are expected to do perfectly every time.
New York City Ballet – La Sylphide, Bournonville Divertissements – Washington
★★★✰✰ In his staging of La Sylphide, Martins not only removes the intermission, thus shortening the performance time, he also accelerates the pace of the events. It feels as if the story rushes at you with…
New York City Ballet – Works By Balanchine, Martins, Peck and Wheeldon – Washington
★★★✰✰ The first of two mixed programs that New York City Ballet presented at the Kennedy Center Opera House in March offered a wide variety of works…
