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Tschaikovsky, a Balanchine Muse

January 18, 2013 by 9 Comments
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New York City Ballet / David H. Koch Theater, Lincoln Center, NYC / January 15 – February 24, 2013 The New York City Ballet opened its six-week Winter Season at Lincoln Center’s David H. Koch Theater with George Balanchine’s Serenade, created in 1935 and set to Tschaikovsky’s Serenade for Strings.  It was the first ballet the choreographer made in America.  (In the two weeks immediately following, the company’s repertory is devoted—with a single exception, a new work by Peter Martins—to this extensive and often felicitous … [Read more...]

01/18/13 7:43 PM | filed under: main |

On Soledad Barrio

January 1, 2013 by 8 Comments
Soledad Barrior

Soledad Barrio, one of the greatest dancers of our time, in any genre—hers is flamenco—is giving class.  The venue is a modest studio over a ground-floor church on West 86th Street.  The dancing arena must boast a very resilient floor in addition to its three chandeliers, the only hint of “décor” in sight. Soledad Barrio, onstage Instead of one of the long, gaudy ruffled gowns Barrio wears for her existence onstage—which has ignited the imagination of admirers worldwide—she wears a black t-shirt and black trousers flared at the … [Read more...]

01/1/13 10:08 AM | filed under: main |

Diaghilev Smiles

December 21, 2012 by 8 Comments
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Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo / Joyce Theater, NYC / December 18, 2012 - January 5, 2013 The trouble with the Trocks—Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo, the men-only troupe that parodies classical ballet—is that their dancing gets better and better.  None of the dancers is qualified for a place in the higher echelons of the profession, but their technique continues to advance.  Placement, the backbone of ballet, is given reverent attention, although the performers clearly need to have had more rigorous training when they … [Read more...]

12/21/12 11:13 AM | filed under: main |

Ailey News

December 12, 2012 by 3 Comments
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Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater / City Center, NYC / November 28 – December 30, 2012 I went to an Ailey matinee and the space was filled with children, onstage and off.  The dance-trained kids were inserted into Revelations where the choreography had no need of them, yet they seemed beautifully schooled, spines marvelously erect yet flexible, without a glimmer of ersatz showbiz in them, and, like the New York City Ballet’s wunderkinder, utterly at home being ogled by a huge audience—from classmates and loved ones to hordes of … [Read more...]

12/12/12 4:28 PM | filed under: main |

Glimpses #12: Tabula Rasa

December 5, 2012 by 10 Comments

My four grandchildren having aged out of childhood, I invited a dear friend’s marvelous granddaughter—let’s call her Sarah—to my annual viewing of Balanchine’s Nutcracker, as rendered, 58 years after its creation, by the first company to dance it, the New York City Ballet.  There’s little more wonderful than being an old hand at something and sharing it with a person for whom it’s entirely new—and enticing.  Sarah is one of those marvelous creatures on whom, as they say, nothing is lost. Sarah’s mother had kindly briefed … [Read more...]

12/5/12 12:14 PM | filed under: main |

Going Strong

November 16, 2012 by 4 Comments
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Lar Lubovitch Dance Company / Florence Gould Hall, NYC / November 14-18, 2012 I hadn’t written about—or, for that matter, even seen—Lar Lubovitch’s choreography for a good many years.  Attempting to remedy that, I trekked over to the East Side—in Manhattan, hardly the hotbed of dancing—to Florence Gould Hall, where his popular troupe was opening a five-day run.  To my shame, I discovered that since I’d last seen his work, Lubovitch had been expanding his range way beyond the insistent fluid grace and communal … [Read more...]

11/16/12 2:53 PM | filed under: main |

Valda

October 24, 2012 by 10 Comments
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Valda Setterfield Photo:  Andrew Eccles “At what point in the day does Valda become ‘Valda?’” asked my dance writing colleague as we shared a cab to the theater for a program we were both slated to review.  “Is it,” she continued, “when she puts on her aquamarine earrings?”  We were coming from a party enhanced by many guests from the dance world.  The fabulous blue-green earrings were sternly rectangular and amazingly large.  You looked at them and they lured your imagination to deep-sea depths promising all sorts of … [Read more...]

10/24/12 6:23 PM | filed under: main |

Untitled

October 22, 2012 by 8 Comments
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American Ballet Theatre / City Center, NYC / October 16-20, 2012 American Ballet Theatre, financially afflicted like many a dance company in these stringent days, gave a Fall “season” consisting of just one “week”—October 16-20.  Did the brevity of the run ensure the excellence of the repertory?   Presented at the City Center, it consisted of seven ballets or stand-alone excerpts, none of which was filler or “novelty.”   Most were safe (and worthy) favorites—Agnes de Mille’s Rodeo, for instance; Antony Tudor’s The … [Read more...]

10/22/12 5:58 PM | filed under: main |

Making It New

October 6, 2012 by 12 Comments
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New York City Ballet:  Premiere of Justin Peck’s Year of the Rabbit / David H. Koch Theater. NYC / October 5, 2012 Old-time followers of the New York City Ballet used to yearn for “another Balanchine”; today’s fans are more realistic.  They count themselves lucky to discover “another Christopher Wheeldon”—an astute practitioner of the classical craft even if he doesn’t regularly fire the imagination.  At 25, Justin Peck, a member of City Ballet’s corps, stands out in the crowd of aspirants to that status and has already … [Read more...]

10/6/12 8:45 PM | filed under: main |

Preview from Seattle

September 14, 2012 by 4 Comments
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Works & Process:  Pacific Northwest Ballet / Guggenheim Museum, NYC / September 9 & 10, 2012 The dance programs in the Guggenheim Museum’s Works & Process series, each a 90-minute presentation that shunts between dancing and talking, are viewed, live, two or three times, in the museum’s tiny theater, and telecast simultaneously from sea to shining sea.  Most often, these lecture-dems serve as preludes to a run in New York; in harsher words the company that’s featured is shilling for its upcoming shows.  The tough … [Read more...]

09/14/12 5:43 PM | filed under: main |
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