★★★★✰ "It’s not often that I’ve seen a Nutcracker receive a standing ovation, but as the curtain fell and Clara ran to greet her mother, there was nothing to do but stand and applaud."
Tag - Tiit Helimets
★★★★✰ It was a delight to watch artists perform who are no longer with the company, as well as many current dancers in the earlier days of their career...
★★★★✰ I had missed SFB’s London season at Sadler’s Wells in 2019, so was pleased to catch up with ballets brought together for this digital triple bill.
★★★✰✰ It’s a bit of a bashed-together stream, with a shiny new, COVID-19 era recording of Emeralds, made in January of this year, teamed up with a Rubies from 2016, and Diamonds from 2017...
★★★✰✰ There were parts I adored and elements that didn’t resonate as much.
★★★★✰ 'Spellbound' delivered in every regard – opulent grandeur, terrific people watching and above all, marvelous dance.
Works by Edwaard Liang, Cathy Marston and Arthur Pita. Gallery by Foteini Christofilopoulou...
★★★★✰ A gleaming triptych of imaginative and remarkably demanding choreography. The production is textured in every aspect, plumbing deep wells of emotion and revelling in a multiplicity of tones, tempers and movement styles.
★★★★★ A hundred monkeys might eventually type out Hamlet, but only a herd of unicorns on Ecstasy could come anywhere near Arthur Pita’s Björk Ballet.
★★★★✰ If Helgi Tomasson was hoping that Unbound: A Festival of New Works would generate heated debate on the state of ballet today, his wish has already been fulfilled just one night into the massive festival...
★★★✰✰ The soloists and principals of San Francisco Ballet brought unique interpretations to George Balanchine classics for the company’s fourth program of the season, a varied survey of Balanchine’s oeuvre.
★★★★✰ San Francisco Ballet (SFB) saved the best for its last mixed bill of the 2016 season.
★★★★✰ "....that is what is marvelous about Forsythe's Pas/Parts. Would that more choreographers would offer that kind of brisk and bracing slap in the face."
★★★✰✰ By way of a défilé, the evening opened with the “Waltz of the Hours” from Balanchine and Danilova’s Coppélia ...Soloist Jennifer Stahl led two dozen girls from the SFB School, adorable in cotton-candy tutus.
Swimmer is one man's journey from being the stereotypical breadwinner... to his own self-realisation in a kind of isolated freedom.
It’s a disconcerting feeling when you don’t respond to a piece that nearly everyone else agrees is revelatory. That’s the situation I find myself in with Alexei Ratmansky’s Shostakovich Trilogy.
The SF Ballet premiere of choreographer-in-residence Yuri Possokhov's pas de deux from Bells is my all-round favorite of the evening. Sublime dancing from Maria Kochetkova and Davit Karapetyan...
Audience applause during the evening recognised that Scarlett’s Hummingbird was the starry centrepiece of the three Paris premieres.
The best all-round piece of the evening is Hans van Manen’s Variations for Two Couples, from the exquisitely concise choreography by this still-relevant master...
San Francisco Ballet is in town for two weeks, and on the evidence of opening night, this should be an invigorating visit. The company looks to be in top form.