ABT's Spring Met Season
"Swan Lake"
June 28, 2007 matinee (Murphy-Hallberg)
reviewed by Leigh Witchel
June 29, 2007 (Wiles-Hallberg)
reviewed by Mary Cargill
Hell's Kitchen Dance
by Susan Reiter
It seemed poignant and oddly appropriate that, while the two major ballet companies with which he performed so spectacularly during an earlier period were holding forth on grand Lincoln Center stages with velvet curtains for several thousand people, Mikhail Baryshnikov was revealing his exquisite mature artistry in an unadorned, intimate black-box space 25 blocks to the south for about 200 fortunate spectators. The setting, the repertory, the project itself — an unpretentious ensemble, most of them still in or just past their undergraduate years, that he has assembled for its second summer of touring — suggest how unconcerned Baryshnikov is with the grander trappings of celebrity or stature, and how much he currently revels in the process of creation and in a direct, forthright approach to performance. Yes, the four-performance run was preceded by a major New York Times feature and a (by network TV standards) generous profile on the “Today Show,” so one could hardly say his performances took place completely under the radar. But the matter-of-fact tone of the presentation — from the no-frills printed program to the de facto star’s lack of star curtain calls — was as far removed as possible from “uptown” glamour and hype. READ MORE
San Francisco Ethnic Dance Festival
by Ann Murphy
I’m not a regular to the Ethnic Dance Festival — for years it has had to compete with the school play, the orchestral recital, a birthday celebration or the annual end-of-the-school-year getaway booked 12 months in advance. But kids grow, the school schedule changes, and now
that the children in question are teenagers, the getaway no longer seems as tantalizing as it once did.
Life evolves. Cultures do too. READ MORE