New York City Ballet premieres new works by Justin Peck and Pontus Lidberg. When a dance really fascinates me, I wish either that I could immediately see it all over again or that I could be instantly at home, hugging it to myself and processing my memories. Justin Peck’s new The Times Are Racing for the New York City Ballet made me feel this way. It’s set to Dan Deacon’s vivid, changeable, … [Read more...]
Born in Vail
Vail Dance Festival: Re-Mix NYC performs at City Center, November 3 through 6. Damien Woetzel is celebrating his tenth year as director of Colorado’s Vail Dance Festival. And whatever you might have expected from a former principal dancer in the New York City Ballet, Vail Dance Festival” ReMix NYC is probably not it. Still, you may have had glimpses of others of Woetzel’s projects before … [Read more...]
Footloose and Fancy Free
New York City Ballet's Daniel Ulbricht brings a cadre of his peers to Jacob's Pillow Touring with a small pick-up company of colleagues drawn from a major ballet company must be akin to masterminding a working vacation with your pals. What will you need in the way of costumes and sets and, since you won’t be able to carry live musicians along, well-made CDs? What will you need to do to … [Read more...]
Back in ’64, Movin’ On
The New York City Ballet honors its theater with a gala and a premiere. On April 24, 1964, I wasn’t sitting in one of the red plush seats shown above, cheering New York City Ballet’s inaugural performance in Lincoln Center’s recently completed New York State Theater. However, occupying a seat in that same theater on May 8, 2014, when the company celebrated its 50th anniversary in the … [Read more...]
Dancers on Fire
The New York City Ballet puts on a Gala to ignite its Fall Season. Gala performances are strange animals—the bigger the dance company, the more lavish they have to be. Money is spent so that more money may accrue. At the New York City Ballet’s Fall Gala in its Lincoln Center home, designer Bronson van Wyck has hung huge blue-and-white and red-and-white-striped hot air balloons over the … [Read more...]
All American
New York City Ballet, Lincoln Center, April 30 through June 9 In the Spring of 1988, the New York City Ballet put on an American Music Festival. George Balanchine had been dead for five years, and the two Ballet Masters in Chief, Peter Martins and Jerome Robbins, commissioned enough new ballets to keep dancers, guest choreographers, and resident choreographers rushing in and out of the … [Read more...]
At Sea
Here’s a fairy tale for 2011. Once upon a time, a very important knight—one of the great musicians of the late 20thcentury—joined forces with an adept ruler-choreographer (also a knight) who had inherited a powerful kingdom of dance. They set out together on a quest to find the true grail—a beautiful ballet that would further ennoble them both and maybe even bring in money. As far as we know, they … [Read more...]