New York City Ballet / New York State Theater, Lincoln Center, NYC / January 6 – February 29, 2004 The trap in talking about Balanchine’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream—with which the New York City Ballet has just opened the winter repertory season of its Balanchine 100 Centennial Celebration—is comparing it to Frederick Ashton’s The Dream. […]
George Balanchine: Centennial Celebrations
This season marks the 100th anniversary of George Balanchine’s birth, and the dance world is rushing around commemorating it with productions of the ballets, exhibitions in multiple media, symposiums, lecture-demonstrations, and so on. Some of the activity will be wonderful. Some of it, inevitably, will be mediocre or, worse, merely bandwagon behavior. Village Voice 1/7/04
HAVE I GOT A GIRL FOR YOU!
Kirov Ballet of the Maryinsky Theatre / Kennedy Center Opera House, Washington DC / December 30, 2003 – January 4, 2004 Daria Pavlenko, dancing Odette-Odile, was far and away the best thing about the three performances I saw (all three casts) of the Swan Lake the Kirov Ballet brought to Kennedy Center. She has, beside […]
BALANCHINE AT HOME #1: ADVANCE NOTICE
Beginning January 6, I’m planning to go to the New York City Ballet a lot. I haven’t gone to the NYCB a lot in years. My attendance started falling off after Balanchine’s death in 1983, because, without the man there—as creator, coach, teacher, and all ‘round inspirational force—performances of his ballets deteriorated, slowly but inexorably. […]
CARRYING ON
Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater / City Center, NYC / December 3, 2003 – January 4, 2004 Time was, the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, 45 years old this season, specialized in dances with humanitarian themes. Created largely by Ailey and a handful of other black choreographers working in the same vein, this repertory took […]
ICONOCLASTIC BEAUTY
Shocking! The Art and Fashion of Elsa Schiaparelli: Philadelphia Museum of Art / September 28, 2003 – January 4, 2004 Musée de la Mode et du Textile, Paris / March 17 – August 29, 2004
UP IN THE AIR
Dayton Contemporary Dance Company / BAM: Harvey Theater / December 9-13, 2003 Dayton Contemporary Dance Company (DCDC to its friends) has been celebrating its 35th birthday and the 100th anniversary of the Ohio-born Wright Brothers’ first successful launch into space with “The Flight Project.” Comprising five commissioned works (from Bill T. Jones, Bebe Miller, Dwight […]
New York City Ballet’s “Nutcracker”
The sedate elders [surrounding the children] serve as models of gracious decorum, as if civilization were achieved along with the attainment of full height. Village Voice 12/10/03
Dusan Tynek Dance Theatre
Ambitious beyond its power to deliver, [Tynek’s Pilot’s Dream] is filled with vision, charm, and wit. Village Voice 12/10/03
“Personal Things in a Public Way”
[Jessi] Scopp . . . alternates lithe, quicksilver, frequently violent movement with ominous slow-motion and suspended or frozen postures – to terrific effect. Village Voice 12/03/03