“What were you thinking, Will?” And “Eat your heart out, Marius Petipa.” These two silent remarks to the eminent dead periodically rattled around in my head while I was at Lincoln Center watching The National Ballet of Canada perform Christopher Wheeldon’s remarkable three-act work based on William Shakespeare’s 1611 play The Winter’s Tale (staged for the NBC by Jacquelin Barrett and Anna Délicia … [Read more...]
Cool Breeze from the West
Pacific Northewest Ballet performs works by Wheeldon, Cerrudo, and Peck in New York. There are forty-three dancers in Seattle’s Pacific Northwest Ballet. Unless I’ve miscounted, only nineteen appeared in the company’s season at the Joyce Theater, and the most people to appear in any of the three ballets shown was a dozen. Artistic director Peter Boal’s choice of works to bring to New York … [Read more...]
A Cat Can Look at a Queen
The National Ballet of Canada brings Christopher Wheeldon's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland to Lincoln Center. “What did you like best, dear?” Were I a child who’d been taken to see the National Ballet of Canada perform Christopher Wheeldon’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland at Lincoln Center, I know what I’d answer: “the Cheshire Cat.” The CC is not just a huge, grinning, tiger-striped … [Read more...]