The Forsythe Company / BAM Howard Gilman Opera House, Brooklyn, NY / October 26 – 29, 2011 I’ve always shared George Balanchine’s idea that a dance should speak for itself. William Forsythe certainly doesn’t. At BAM last night The Forsythe Company, based in Germany, opened a four-day run of his enigmatically titled work I don’t […]
City Center’s Makeover
New York City Center Opening Night Gala / New York City Center, NYC / October 25, 2011 City Center renovated, view from house left Photo: © Aislinn Weidele / Ennead Architects Last night’s celebration of the renovation and restoration of the New York City Center assured the theater’s aficionados of dance, music, and drama that […]
Message to Readers
As E.B. White’s famous mouse observed, “There are always so many worth-while things going on in New York at night.” Beginning OCT 25, I’ll be in a different theater every night for nearly a week and still miss performances I consider must-sees. I plan to write a brief review of each event that will post […]
The Farrell Dilemma
Suzanne Farrell Ballet / Joyce Theater, NYC / October 19-23, 2011 Suzanne Farrell Photo: Paul Kolnik The Suzanne Farrell Ballet, named for the transcendent dancer who was George Balanchine’s last muse, celebrates its 10th anniversary this year. Ironically, after a decade of generously favorable response to the group’s work, some observers are questioning the wisdom […]
Don’t Go Near the Water
New York City Ballet: Ocean’s Kingdom / David H. Koch Theater, Lincoln Center, NYC / September 22, 24, 25, 27, 29 Much touted in advance, New York City Ballet’s just-premiered $800,000 Ocean’s Kingdom is a once-in-a-lifetime (please, god) collaboration by Paul McCartney (first a Beatle, now a knight) and Peter Martins (first a superb dancer, […]
Bournonville Remembers
To the reader: The essay below, on the ballet school scene from August Bournonville’s Konservatoriet (The Conservatory), was commissioned by the Royal Theatre in Copenhagen, Denmark. It first appeared, translated into Danish by Lise Kaiser, in the Royal Danish Ballet’s illustrated program in Spring 2011. The original English version appears here for the first time […]
Fox Tale
Mark Morris Dance Group / Rose Theater, Lincoln Center / August 18-20, 2011 Who does Mark Morris think he is, Bronislava Nijinska? George Balanchine? These superlative choreographers are among the several who preceded him in providing the choreography for Igor Stravinsky’s foxy music-and-dance entertainment, Renard. Nijinska was the first to do so, in 1922, for […]
Interim Report
Dear Readers, My next posting on SEEING THINGS will cover the NYC premiere of Mark Morris’s new Renard (to Stravinsky’s score for a small-scale opera-ballet) at the David H. Kohn Theatre, Lincoln Center, August 18-20. The performances are part of the Mostly Mozart Festival. The program will include two other Morris works, which I’ve written […]
Russian Unorthodox
Mariinsky Ballet / Metropolitan Opera House, Lincoln Center, NYC / July 11 – 16, 2011 A Is for Arabesque: The Mariinsky Ballet’s Yekaterina Kondaurova in the title role of Alexei Ratmansky’s Anna Karenina Photo: Natasha Razina When New York’s dance fans heard “The Russians are coming, the Russians are coming!” they were duly aroused to […]
Deborah Jowitt
I’m delighted to welcome Deborah Jowitt and her blog, DanceBeat, to the small but ardent cluster of dance writers at ArtsJournal. As many readers who have followed Deborah’s writing–some of us for decades–know, her love for our subject is warm, her knowledge deep, her penetration keen, and her writing style distinctive. From my own earliest […]