Last spring, live dance began its gradual return to New York City. The wait had been long, and the longing intense. I remember the first performance I saw in New York as if it were yesterday.
Tag - Russian Seasons
★★★✰✰ New York City Ballet’s fall season in New York continues with Opus 19/The Dreamer (Robbins), Russian Seasons (Ratmansky) and Amaria - a new piece for Maria Kowroski, who is about to retire from the company, by Mauro Bigonzetti.
★★★✰✰ 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.
★★★★★ Alexei Ratmansky’s Odessa left me breathless. The dancing (I saw both casts) was phenomenal on all levels: assured, expressive, and thoroughly dramatic.
★★★★✰ I still remember my feelings during the premiere of Alexei Ratmansky’s Russian Seasons at NYCB in 2006. There was a shock of recognition: this was the thing I had been looking for...
At the risk of sounding like a broken record, is there a ballet choreographer working today who is more imaginative, more wholly himself, than Alexei Ratmansky?
Two young NYCB choreographers have been out talking and showing what they do: Justin Peck at the Guggenheim and Troy Schumacher at the 92nd Street Y. Marina Harss on why they are so worth tracking...
Do you perceive a difference between the musicality of American dancers and that of Russian dancers? AR: There is a huge difference in the musicality. I often found Russian dancers unmusical... But they have other qualities...
From Foreign Lands: "This amusing, yet subtle send-up of classical ballet is rewarding in its expertly-shaped choreography, and made all the more appealing by the slight wackiness of the costumes and visual jokes."
Sometimes the second time is the charm. This seems to be especially true when it comes to new ballets by Alexei Ratmansky. Often, they’re not easy to take in on first viewing, indigestible as an over-rich meal. But then, something in us changes, our eye evolves.
La Scala Ballet is often dismissed as a company without depth, a haven for international guest artists living on a steady regime of full-length ballets. And yet Makhar Vaziev, who left the Mariinsky to take the helm in Milan in 2008, has been taking on more ambitious projects, one baby step at a time...