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Life Lessons

April 5, 2013 by 6 Comments
Mark Morris Dance Group

Mark Morris Dance Group / James and Martha Duffy Performance Space, Mark Morris Dance Center, Brooklyn, NY / April 3-14, 2013 Jenn and Spencer, being given its world premiere on the opening night of the Mark Morris Dance Group’s run at the company’s studio/theater in Brooklyn, refers to two of the company’s splendid dancers, Jenn Weddel and Spencer Ramirez.  The duet named for and performed by them illustrates the magic a pair of dancers may be capable of and an extraordinary exploration of the duet form. Mark Morris Dance … [Read more...]

04/5/13 10:46 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 |

Baryshnikov’s Choice

August 11, 2012 by 6 Comments

In Paris / Gerald W. Lynch Theater, NYC / August 1-5, 2012 In Paris:  It’s the quietest production imaginable, built—by Dmitry Krymov—through words (in Russian, French, and English), grainy black and white projected images (most often of words), haunting song, and a flying rig.   It dramatizes a short story by the Russian writer Ivan Bunin.  It sold out for five days in New York, at the intimate Gerald W. Lynch Theater, and is about to embark on an extended tour. It tells the story of an aging exiled White Russian army general … [Read more...]

08/11/12 2:40 PM | filed under: main |

Five-Alarm “Firebird”

June 14, 2012 by 9 Comments
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American Ballet Theatre:  Alexei Ratmansky’s new Firebird / Metropolitan Opera House, Lincoln Center, NYC / season runs through July 7, 2012 I can’t imagine what Alexei Ratmansky was thinking of in creating his New Look Firebird.  To begin with—and this is the first thing you notice--it‘s dressed for Las Vegas by Galina Solovyeva, with complementary décor (including a sci-fi forest with hints of porn) by Simon Pastukh.  It wrests the fairy-tale narrative that Michel Fokine created for his 1910 L’Oiseau de Feu (in which good, … [Read more...]

06/14/12 5:26 PM | filed under: main |

Fantasias

March 3, 2012 by 5 Comments
Mark Morris Dance Group

Mark Morris Dance Group / BAM Howard Gilman Opera House, Brooklyn, NY / March 1-3, 2012 The only information I have to offer about the world premiere of Mark Morris’ A Choral Fantasy is descriptive.  The relatively brief, high-spirited piece is set to Beethoven’s Fantasia in C Minor for Piano, Chorus and Orchestra, Op. 80. Amber Star Merkens in Mark Morris’ A Choral Fantasy Photo:  Julieta Cervantes The dance opens with a single tall, lean figure taking the stage and, after a few bold, vigorous movements, flying off to leave the … [Read more...]

03/3/12 12:36 PM | filed under: main |

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