★★★★✰ 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...
Tag - Sara Mearns
★★★✰✰ At New York City Ballet, the fall fashion gala has become a showcase for work by young choreographers. Each one is paired up with a fashion designer and voilà, it’s an event.
Passing it On: Wendy Whelan Stages her first ballet, Alexei Ratmansky's Pictures at an Exhibition, for Pacific Northwest Ballet.
★★★✰✰ To watch works created by the 29-year old Justin Peck, resident choreographer of New York City Ballet, is to experience what it feels like to be young.
★★★★★ Alexei Ratmansky’s Odessa left me breathless. The dancing (I saw both casts) was phenomenal on all levels: assured, expressive, and thoroughly dramatic.
★★★✰✰ With his latest, The Decalogue, which opened on May 12, Justin Peck seems to have turned a new page...
★★★✰✰ 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.
★★★✰✰ Justin Peck is the it-boy at New York City Ballet, and it’s not hard to see why. At only 29, he has racked up an impressive number of ballets...
★★★✰✰ It’s a shame that the company didn’t choose to revive some Wheeldon rarities from its back catalogue...
★★★★✰ 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...
★★★★✰ Ballet Across America – a festival that showcases the stylistic, creative and geographical diversity of American ballet – returned to the Kennedy Center this month...
★★★✰✰ 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?
★★★★✰ Sara Mearns, who made her name as Swan Queen at the age of nineteen, is still the most thrilling Odette around.
★★★★✰ After watching two of the four programs, a few things stand out. Firstly, it is clear that this is no simple gala, despite the format; there is a strong personal esthetic and philosophy at work behind the programs.
Interview - Sébastien Ramirez and Honji Wang are about to collaborate with composer, and Sadler’s Wells Associate Artist, Nitin Sawhney at the Royal Albert Hall. We wanted to know more about the dynamic and well connected pair...
★★★★✰ Divertimento’s aura still shines; you want to see it again, to figure out its fluid, almost magical transitions. It’s a shame it will only be performed four times this season; it takes more than that for the audience, and the dancers, to really get to know it.
★★★✰✰ The pattern is set: the company commissions works from three or four choreographers, often quite young, and pairs them with prominent designers. The works are short, and are introduced by filmlets...
★★★★✰ The pleasure, above all, in watching this company is their fearless super-charge of energy and their commitment as the inheritors of Balanchine’s ballets.
★★★★✰ 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.
★★★★✰ Vienna Waltzes is a sure-fire hit. It seduces on many fronts: the ridiculously flattering gowns by Karinska (her last for the company), the sumptuous music, the multitudes of dancers...