Mark Morris Dance Group: The Hard Nut / BAM Howard Gilman Opera House, Brooklyn, NY / December 10-19, 2010 For all the rigorously classical attributes of his work, Mark Morris, celebrated for his choreographic chops, has a distinct renegade streak. The Hard Nut, his version of The Nutcracker ballet, gives his iconoclastic outlook every opportunity […]
Archives for 2010
Winter Solstice No. 2: “The Nutcracker” According to Balanchine
Even after my daughter, a School of American Ballet student, outgrew (literally–the costumes have to fit) a string of kiddie roles in Balanchine’s Nutcracker–Angel, Soldier, Polichinelle, Candy Cane–I still made many a trip to Lincoln Center for New York City Ballet’s annual offering of the holiday production. As a dance critic, I’ve found the ballet […]
They Lost It at the Movies
Black Swan / Opened December 3, 2010 Surely The Red Shoes, created by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, is the most beloved ballet film of all time. My innocent eyes and heart were ravished by it shortly after its premiere in 1948. Shot in fabulous color–it glowed like a handful of precious jewels–the movie was […]
Winter Solstice No. 1
Dancer unidentified Photo: Martha Swope (1964) Note: The photos of the young Prince reproduced here are from George Balanchine’s celebrated version of The Nutcracker, inspired by the Russian production of his youth. Balanchine himself played the role as a student in the St. Petersburg academy that trained dancers for the celebrated company we now know […]
La Plume de Ma Tante: Personal Indulgences No. 19
My mother must have had a decent command of French. Sometimes, as I was growing up, she’d refer to it, though always briefly and casually, as if the subject had little importance. All I ever found out was that she had taught elementary–perhaps even intermediate–French as well as English literature (using a textbook called From […]
Gimme Shelter
Sasha Waltz & Guests: Gezeiten / BAM Howard Gilman Opera House / November 3-6, 2010 Three doors, phantasmagorically mismatched, open onto an empty room. The paint on its walls has peeled away in jagged fragments to reveal two previous colors. This derelict space could provide shelter only to the desperate. One of the doors has […]
Darkness Palpable
Kidd Pivot Frankfurt RM: Crystal Pite’s Dark Matters / Alexander Kasser Theater, Montclair State University, Montclair, New Jersey / October 21-24, 2010 Name Crystal Pite and most of the dance enthusiasts I know still say “Who?” Maybe it’s just America that doesn’t know her. Yet. Pite’s had a solid career as a dancer–in her native […]
Bourne Again
Matthew Bourne’s Swan Lake / New York City Center / October 13 – November 7, 2010 Once upon a time, as Matthew Bourne tells us, there was a crown prince, a supersensitive fellow with an emotionally frozen mother (see Freud). Naturally, he gets himself entrapped by a tiara-coveting floozy (see the tabloids’ take on royalty), […]
Doing Well in a Rainy Climate: Ballet in the Pacific Northwest
By Martha Ullman West, guest contributor A recent National Endowment for the Arts survey shows that per capita attendance at the ballet in Oregon is fourth in the nation; in Washington State it is even higher. Could this be because we have decent-to-excellent ballet in a part of the country better known for the bounty […]
Everything But the Kitchen Sink
Counter Space: Design and the Modern Kitchen / Museum of Modern Art, NYC / September 15, 2010 – March 14, 2011 Fall for Dance / City Center, NYC / September 28 – October 9, 2010 Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch / BAM Howard Gilman Opera House, Brooklyn, NY / September 29 – October 9, 2010 Trisha […]