Heavenly Bodies
Stars of the 21st Century — International Ballet Gala
by George Jackson
Three Evenings at the New York City Ballet
"Visionary Voices"
by Gay Morris
"A Banquet of Dance"
by Michael Popkin
"For the Fun of It"
by Susan Reiter
Birmingham Royal Ballet:
Celebrating Stravinsky and Balanchine
by John Percival
As if to show Birmingham Royal Ballet's range and versatlity, director David Bintley followed the premiere of his new three-act narrative “Cyrano” the next week with this year's contribution to the City of Birmingham's Stravinsky festival. The choice was a triple bill of Balanchine ballets: all plotless and without decor, but offering subtle contrasts of mood and manner. READ MORE
San Francisco Letter 22
Reggie Wilson/Fist and Heel Performance Group
Black Choreographers Festival: Here and Now 2007
by Rita Felciano
“Diaspora” is one of the most resonant words in the English language. Embodying an awareness of permanent displacement, longing for a home and — almost as a contradiction — a sense of deeply seated community, it has been commonly applied to the Jewish people’s experience but today even more so to African Americans and other exiled peoples. Maybe it’s the complexity of this mix of pain, nostalgia and hope that inspires artists to explore what it means to have roots and yet not be rooted. Two recent evenings of dance intriguingly examined the idea of Diaspora in a variety of manners.
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The Royal Danish Ballet:
A Swan is Born
by Eva Kistrup
Commercially the revival of Peter Martins' ten year old production of "Swan Lake" has been a great success, playing to full houses. Artistically it has been a mixed bag. Tranfered to the larger Opera stage, Martins' interpolations have proven to be thin, and the casting of five leading couples has covered the full range from World Class (Kenneth Greve and Silja Schandorff) to miscast young, inexperienced and wrong type dancers. In late January the final Swan Queen, Amy Watson, finally made her debut. READ MORE
LeeSaar/The Company
by Susan Reiter
LeeSaar/The Company has been presenting its work frequently at P.S. 122 — premiering “Herd of Bulls” in fall 2005 and “Moopim” last October, with repeat engagements of each during the performance space’s January COIL Festival — and perhaps the inherent tension in its work requires the closer confines of that venue. Moving uptown to the relatively intimate Ailey Citigroup Theater, they offered sequences of both fierce, almost violent aggression as well as expressions of calmer, introspective possibilities, but much of the time one was left aware of what felt like vast gaping open space on stage. READ MORE