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writers on dancing

Volume 5, Number 9 - March 6, 2007

this week's reviews

Paul Taylor Dance Company
by Susan Reiter

Suzanne Farrell Ballet
by Leigh Witchel

American Ballet Theatre
by John Percival

San Francisco Letter 23
William Forsythe, Sydney Dance Company, Stephen Petronio

by Rita Felciano

Bolshoi Ballet in DC
"Cinderella"
by George Jackson
"Don Quixote"
by Alexandra Tomalonis

Royal Danish Ballet's "Caroline Mathilde"
by Eva Kistrup

Vicki Schick
by Lisa Rinehart

London Letter
Fabulous Beast and Australian Dance Theatre

from John Percival

Bang on a Can All-Stars with special guest Meredith Monk
by Tom Phillips

New York City Ballet in DC; "A Midsummer Night's Dream"
Two reviews:
by George Jackson
by Alexandra Tomalonis

Ballet Flamenco Sara Baras
by Susan Reiter

Letters and Commentary

San Francisco Letter 22
Reggie Wilson/Fist and Heel Performance Group
Black Choreographers Festival: Here and Now 2007
by Rita Felciano
by Rita Felciano

San Francisco Letter 21
San Francisco Ballet, Programs I and II
by Rita Felciano

did you miss any of these?

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

The Royal Danish Ballet:
A Swan is Born
by Eva Kistrup

LeeSaar/The Company
by Susan Reiter

Neumeier in Venice
Hamburg Ballet's "Death in Venice"

by Lisa Rinehart

Panache
Birmingham Royal Ballet's "Cyrano"

by John Percival

Second Thoughts
Armitage Gone! Dance

by Leigh Witchel

 



Paul Taylor Dance Company
A Brilliant Masterwork from Taylor

by Susan Reiter

The amazing wealth of possibilities that Paul Taylor can evoke through the use of circles was just one of the many lessons in masterful choreography on view during his company’s un-fussy and deeply eloquent opening night program. Also offered for our contemplation and admiration were his confident incorporation of the spare, the calm, the uncluttered amid what is otherwise a rich, layered display of movement invention. Each of these three works offers a masterful display of how sophisticated craftsmanship can imbue a dance with a lingering emotional resonance. Each one reaches a conclusion that seems to encapsulate and ennoble all that has come before. READ MORE


Suzanne Farrell Ballet
New/Old Balanchine

by Leigh Witchel

The Balanchine Preservation Initiative is The Suzanne Farrell Ballet’s project to present unseen or rarely seen Balanchine works to the public. On Friday the company gave a workshop performance of some of these rarities in a free performance at the Kennedy Center. The performance wasn’t given full-dress treatment; Farrell herself dubbed it a “working rehearsal.” She spoke briefly in front of the curtain, saying that she felt very aware of the line between ‘preserve’ and ‘preservation’. To her, “preserve” was passive and “preservation” is active, which gave her license to adapt and rework. As she went on, it was clear she wasn’t talking about wholesale changes, but tailoring each work to the current dancer as Balanchine himself might have. That said, at this performance, one of Farrell’s best known changes to a Balanchine work, the addition of a “shadow dancer” behind a scrim in “Variations for Orchestra”, was not done. READ MORE

 


American Ballet Theatre in London
by John Percival

Here's a surprise: 24 hours after American Ballet Theatre completed its latest London season, following a gap of seventeen years, I learned that even before that company's first visit here in 1946 the dancers of what was then Sadler's Wells Ballet had been thankfully indebted to their transatlantic cousins in Ballet Theatre for food parcels sent during the war, supplementing their meagre official rations and thus helping them maintain the required eight shows a week. READ MORE


San Francisco Letter No. 23
William Forsythe, Sydney Dance Company, Stephen Petronio
by Rita Felciano

Two separate UC campuses recently sponsored performances by two dance companies with works of similar intent but different approaches and subsequent results. Stephen Petronio’s “Underworld” for the Sydney Dance Company apparently was inspired by 9/11; Forsythe’s “Three Atmospheric Studies” by the war in Iraq and, specifically, by war photographs and a painting each by father and son Lucas Cranach. Both choreographers had to grapple with translating emotion-filled content to the stage without stepping into an agit-prop mode, the surest way to beach artistic aspirations. READ MORE


The Bolshoi Ballet at the Kennedy Center

"Cinderella" — Modesty: Minuses and Pluses
by George Jackson

"Don Quixote" — Still the Gold Standard
by Alexandra Tomalonis

 



The Royal Danish Ballet:
Flemming Flindt's "Caroline Mathilde"
by Eva Kistrup

Thomas Lund, Gudrun Bojesen. Mads Blangstrup. Silja Schandorff. Four of the most outstanding representatives of the celebrated Danish ballet tradition. Elegant dancers. Great actors. Great stage power. Enormous range. In short, a quartet of dancers who can carry full responsibility for a ballet and who can enhance a ballet with qualities beyond the choreographer's visions and limitations. And never have I witnessed one evening in my experience with the Royal Danish Ballet where those particular skills of the dancers worked so much magic on a very bad ballet. READ MORE


Dance Interrupted
by Lisa Rinehart

There's no doubt that Vicki Schick is a wondrous dancer, but at the risk of offending the entire modern dance community, there is some doubt as to her range as a choreographer. Her visually appealing "Repair," and "Plum House (A Cartoon)," are frustratingly vague musings on femininity and sisterhood that would evaporate into irrelevance if not for Barbara Kilpatrick's succinct sets and costumes, Elise Kermani's compelling soundscapes and uniformly expert performances by Schick, Laurel Dugan, Diane Madden, Juliette Mapp, Perrine Ploneis, Derry Swan, and the always fascinating Jodi Melnick. Schick is well respected and much loved in the downtown dance scene, but after twenty years of creating her own work, such colleagueship may not have benefited her evolution as a dance maker. READ MORE


London Letter
Fabulous Beast and Australian Dance Theatre
from John Percival

Consistency is something dance companies don't necessarily supply, as two visiting troupes have just demonstrated in London. Take Irish choreographer-director Michael Keegan-Dolan and his company Fabulous Beast, based in the midlands of Ireland but including also performers from other European and African countries among its dancers, actors and musicians. Since beginning the group ten years ago Keegan-Dolan has mounted six productions, three of which have been shown in London at the Barbican Arts Centre where the company is now an artistic associate. The first, a weird modern-dress treatment of “Giselle”, created 2003, reached us in 2005, had some enthusiastic reviews and was nominated for an Olivier Award. I thought it was rubbish. But I enjoyed “The Flowerbed”, a modern reinterpretation of the Romeo and Juliet story, created 2000, when it came here last year. READ MORE


Seeing Music, Hearing Dance
Bang on a Can All-Stars with special guest Meredith Monk
by Tom Phillips

In this age of specialization, most classically-trained musicians can’t dance, and most classically-trained dancers know little about the music they’re dancing to. That’s why it’s such a pleasure to see and hear Meredith Monk — choreographer and dancer, composer and singer, film-maker etc. — an artist who embodies the inseparability of the arts. READ MORE


"A Midsummer Night's Dream"
New York City Ballet at the Kennedy Center

 

Opening Night
by George Jackson

March 1st and 2nd
by Alexandra Tomalonis

 

 


Ballet Flamenco Sara Baras
by Susan Reiter

The opening portion of Ballet Flamenco Sara Baras’ seamless program was so misguided theatrically that the flair and savvy of what followed were all the more surprising. The dancers and musicians ambled and assembled onstage with forced casualness. Racks of costumes were wheeled on, a white fedora was prominently displayed and lit and then appropriated by a male dancer, musicians entered and prepared to play, dancers assembled in small groups to try out a few steps — all while dangerously schmaltzy music, with none of the rigor of the usual flamenco fare, was heard in a recording. One half expected a Spanish version of “another opening, another show” to break out. READ MORE

 

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