Russian Ballet Icons Gala 2018 – London
★★★✰✰ This year’s Russian Ballet gala was ostensibly in honour of the 200th anniversary of Marius Petipa’s birth. Any choreography attributed to him was mostly a long way ‘after Petipa’, but it’s always fun to see excellent Russian dancers deliver pas de deux from Don Quixote, Swan Lake and Le Corsaire.
Svetlana Zakharova – Amore: Francesca da Rimini, Rain before it Falls, Strokes Through the Tail – London
★★★✰✰ Happy for Zakharova who ultimately curated an interesting night, very happy to see her retinue of Bolshoi dancers and happy to see Donlon provide such final good cheer.
Joffrey Ballet – Body of Your Dreams, Fool’s Paradise, Bells – New York
★★✰✰✰ Some vein connected Bells and Fool’s Paradise on Thursday night and it wasn’t encouraging. Both pieces overuse the female body as a vulnerable entity…
San Francisco Ballet – Fusion, Salome (premiere), Fearful Symmetries – San Francisco
★★★★★ Pita’s Salome is pure postmodern dance-theater, and a five-star surprise on the Opera House stage.
San Francisco Ballet – Seven Sonatas, Optimistic Tragedy (premiere), Pas/Parts 2016 – San Francisco
★★✰✰✰ The trouble with Program 2 is its centerpiece, choreographer-in-residence Yuri Possokhov’s new work ‘Optimistic Tragedy’.
Birmingham Royal Ballet – Ashton bill: The Dream, A Month in the Country – Birmingham
★★★✰✰ When I think of Birmingham Royal Ballet (BRB) under David Bintley I think of tradition with a capital T and the latest double bill underlines that in spades.
San Francisco Ballet – 7 for Eight, Magrittomania, Pas/Parts – San Francisco
★★★★✰ “….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.”
San Francisco Ballet – Opening Night Gala – San Francisco
★★★✰✰ 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.
Dores André – Principal, San Francisco Ballet
If it was up to me, I would pay more [salary] to the corps than to the principals. Half the ballet depends on them, and it is very hard to be in a good mood and trying your hardest every day when you are not getting the attention and the development that we get as principals and soloists.
Romanian National Ballet – Classical Symphony, Petite Mort, Marguerite and Armand, Tango, Radio and Juliet – Bucharest
Johan Kobborg took over as Director of Bucharest National Ballet just over a year ago. Time for Graham Watts to go and see how they are looking – in two very different bills…
International Ballet Festival 2015 Dance Open and Tsiskaridze at the Vaganova Academy – St Petersburg
Margaret Willis has just been in St. Petersburg, catching up with the Dance Open Festival and also visiting the Vaganova Academy where she had some words with director Nikolai Tsiskaridze…
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.
San Francisco Ballet – 2016 Season Announced
Hot off the presses, San Francisco Ballet 2016 season announcement includes two world premieres, three full-length revivals and numerous bold-face names, including Forsythe, Ratmansky and Wheeldon…
Joffrey Ballet – Incantations, Son of Chamber Symphony, Bells, Episode 31 – San Francisco
As always, it’s a pleasure to see the Joffrey Ballet, especially since 2007 when artistic director Ashley Wheater assumed his post and began a terrific revival of the company…
San Francisco Ballet – Don Quixote – San Francisco
Principal dancers Mathilde Froustey and Carlos Quenedit were exactly what the audience wanted on opening night.
San Francisco Ballet – Prog 1: Serenade, RAkU, Lambarena – San Francisco
America’s oldest ballet company, San Francisco Ballet, opened its eighty-second season with a triple bill that encapsulates the uniquely varied repertory developed by artistic director Helgi Tomasson…
San Francisco Ballet – Infinite Romance: 2015 Season Opening Night Gala – San Francisco
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…
San Francisco Ballet – 2014 Opening Night Gala – San Francisco
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 – From Foreign Lands, Beaux, Classical Symphony and Symphonic Dances – New York
In its second mixed bill here in New York, San Francisco Ballet once again impressed with its vitality and the depth of its bench, as well as with its pleasantly unified look.
International Ballet Festival 2013 – Dance Open – St Petersburg
The 12th International Ballet Festival – Dance Open – was held over 4 days in St Petersburg. Margaret Willis (our Ms Expressivity) was there to report on much ballet and not a little award giving…
