American Ballet Theatre / Metropolitan Opera House, NYC / May 18 - July 11, 2009 ON THE DNIEPER As celebrated in Russia as the Mississippi is in America, the mighty Dnieper River has accreted to itself a history, an atmosphere, and a mythology that reaches out to several arts--just as Mark Twain's masterwork, Huckleberry Finn, for example, is bound to the Mississippi. Rushing to the Black Sea, the Dnieper passes through Ukraine, where Alexei Ratmansky, the new Artist in Residence at American Ballet Theatre, first danced professionally. … [Read more...]

New York City Ballet: George Balanchine's A Midsummer Night's Dream / David H. Koch Theater, NYC / June 16 -21, 2009 George Balanchine's A Midsummer Night's Dream, screening of the 1967 film / Baryshnikov Arts Center, NYC / May 26, 2009 George Balanchine's A Midsummer Night's Dream, created for the New York City Ballet in 1962--with co-collaborators William Shakespeare (libretto) and Felix Mendelssohn (music)--is a perennial enchantment. Some observers will dismiss it as too "pink" (a favorite Barbara Karinska color for her costumes), … [Read more...]

School of American Ballet Annual Workshop Performances 2009 / Peter Jay Sharp Theater, Lincoln Center, NYC / June 1 (matinee and evening); June 3 (evening) "But first a school," Balanchine is said to have replied to Lincoln Kirstein, when the later was urging him to be the lynchpin in forming a ballet company in the States, intuiting that this choreographer--a genius without a job and in poor health to boot--would change the face of the art. The result of that exchange is evident today not only in the prowess of the New York City Ballet, … [Read more...]