★★★★✰ Marina Harss with thoughts/observations on La Valse, Other Dances, After the Rain pas de deux, Agon, Monumentum Pro Gesualdo, Movements for Piano and Orchestra and Chaconne.
Tag - Ravel
★★★✰✰ Though Ida Rubinstein must have been more of a poseuse than a danseuse, especially as she grew older, she had a remarkable career as an impresario. She used her money and social connections to commission creations from great composers, artists and choreographers...
★★★★✰ It's been a long time since I've seen a piece of dance theatre quite so moving and thought-provoking as Adult Female Dancer.
Feature - The Royal Ballet School recently danced a 'lost' Ninette de Valois ballet, "The Arts of the Theatre", reconstructed by Anna Meadmore. Jann Parry with a full report on an interesting excavation of the early days of British ballet.
★★★✰✰ While Sarasota Ballet’s audiences in Florida may be familiar with much of the Ashton repertoire (more so than many British ballet lovers), international subscribers to Sarasota’s digital offerings have been able to catch up with some little-seen gems.
★★★✰✰ Program II of the Fall for Dance festival features premieres by Dormeshia and Kyle Abraham, plus excerpts of works by Balanchine and Lar Lubovitch...
★★★✰✰ In the last week of its winter season, New York City Ballet unveiled a new work by its resident choreographer, Justin Peck, to a score by the popular neo-Minimalist composer Nico Muhly. It was a homecoming of sorts for Peck...
★★★★✰ The dance style is a fusion of many elements of South African dance, other African and African diaspora influences, and modern and postmodern dance. It can be both liquid and percussive and has a complexity that is hard to take apart.
★★★★✰ For those of us that have been involved with the company, no matter how small a part, it is clear that the ‘happy family’ that is English National Ballet, reveres and appreciates all who have been part of its 70 year existence.
I don’t really believe in lists, but it’s admittedly fun to look back over the year and reflect on moments that have stayed with me. So here they are, in no particular order…
Arthur Pita's latest work is called "Alice in Californiland" for the Bay Area AXIS Dance Company - to be premiered later this week, on Friday 25 October, Claudia Bauer caught up with him to find out what its all about - a thought provoking collision of Lewis Carroll and homelessness...
★★★✰✰ Gregory Maqoma’s theatrical storytelling, a potent mix of a capella, dance styles and scenography, projects a strong universal theme - grief.
★★✰✰✰ I hadn’t seen much of the well-regarded Cuthbertson, so I was looking forward to this chance to get to know her (she appeared in four of five pieces), as well as the not-always-dubious introduction to new works by new choreographers...
★★★★✰ The show overall gave us a good slice of what ballet is in 2019, and just how adaptable the students need to be these days - exciting times for them and exciting for us in the audience as well.
★★★✰✰ Images has done an excellent job of commissioning appropriate, innovative choreographers, allowing the company to exceed their expectations...
★★✰✰✰ Could Liam Scarlett's monstrous Frankenstein be fixed with more, better surgery? Evidently not, in this revival, three years after its creation.
★★★★✰ Alston's choreography is formal in that it has structure, style and steps, instead of resorting to running in circles. Its partnering etiquette is courteous rather than abusive.
★★★★✰ For a very short while, Wim Vanlessen will enjoy the claim that he has performed for the Royal Ballet Flanders for more than half its existence. The company celebrates its fiftieth anniversary, later this year and Vanlessen joined in 1994. This performance was both a celebration of exceptional long service and a farewell...
★★★★✰ It was a good night for Afternoon of a Faun, in particular. Chase Finlay, débuting in the role of the young dancer sensually lolling about a ballet studio, brought back the eroticism this ballet often lacks.
★★★✰✰ Within this potpourri of Graeme Murphy’s works, the highlight was "Grand", a charming and poignant tribute he created in 2005 for his mother, a pianist, who died the previous year.