New York City Ballet – Spring Gala: Bright, Bartók Ballet, Tchaikovsky Suite No. 3 – New York
★★★✰✰ In Bartók Ballet, which coexists but does not comment on the music, the dancers explore a huge range of steps and quotations…
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 – 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…
San Francisco Ballet – Robbins: Ballet & Broadway quad bill – San Francisco
★★★★✰ There’s nothing like watching a woman crush a man’s neck with her thighs to make you go hmm, maybe that whole #MeToo thing has legs.
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 – American Rhapsody, The Four Temperaments, The Times Are Racing – Washington
★★★✰✰ 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.
New York City Ballet – HERE/NOW Festival, Wheeldon Quad bill – New York
★★★✰✰ It’s a shame that the company didn’t choose to revive some Wheeldon rarities from its back catalogue…
Interview – Robert Barnett, former New York City Ballet dancer and longtime Artistic Director of Atlanta Ballet
Robert Barnett joined New York City Ballet in 1949. In those early years he worked closely with Balanchine and Robbins particularly before going on to direct Atlanta Ballet. Now 91 he is still actively involved in dance and passing on all he knows…
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.
New York City Ballet – Apollo, The Four Temperaments, Duo Concertant, Symphony in Three Movements – Paris
★★★★✰ 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.
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.
American Ballet Theatre – After You, Monotones I & II, Brahms-Haydn Variations – New York
ABT galas are more laid-back than City Ballet’s; they’re less “produced,” with fewer speeches or slick video presentations. For the most part, the company just gets on with the show, with minimum fuss.
San Francisco Ballet – Caprice, The Four Temperaments, Swimmer – San Francisco
Swimmer is one man’s journey from being the stereotypical breadwinner… to his own self-realisation in a kind of isolated freedom.
Gallery – Royal Ballet in The Four Temperaments, Untouchable, Song of the Earth
Gallery by Dave Morgan…
New York City Ballet – Square Dance, Harlequinade – New York
If Harlequinade is somewhat less than the sum of its parts, Square Dance (1957), which preceded it on the program, never fails to lift the heart.
New York City Ballet – Concerto Barocco, Four Temperaments, Stravinsky Violin Concerto – New York
Watching these three ballets, made over a span of thirty-two years, one can see how Balanchine’s style evolved toward the hyper-stylization of Violin Concerto…
New York City Ballet – Black & White Balanchine bill – New York
What most struck me on this particular evening was the transparency, and clarity of intention, that marked each work.
Virginia Johnson – Artistic Director, Dance Theatre of Harlem
Wherever Virginia Johnson goes, she seems to travel on a cloud, with a kind of regal composure few possess in our day. She appears imperturbable…
Teresa Reichlen – New York City Ballet – Principal
Teresa Reichlen – known as Tess by friends and colleagues – is an immediately striking dancer: tall, pale, preternaturally serene. She could be a Madonna in a painting by Botticelli.
Nancy Reynolds – George Balanchine Foundation – Director of Research
An in-depth interview with the lady who helps bring Balanchine back…
