Category: dance

New York City principal Jock Soto retires this week after 20 years. “At 40, he can look back to a special place as one of ballet’s most creative personalities. While choreographers are essential to the art, dancers like Mr. Soto – and they are few – also define and redefine choreography with bold individuality and implicit collaboration. Peter Martins and Christopher Wheeldon have used him repeatedly in their new works. Just as significantly, as Mr. Soto has proved in familiar ballets, interpretation can become a creative act.”

American Ballet Theatre is rich in talent. But does director Kevin McKenzie use the talent effectively? “Is he too evenhanded? In an effort to appease honored veterans and flatter new additions and encourage promising youngsters, does he spread the casting of major roles too thin, in a way that shortchanges the public? Wouldn’t coherent, recurrent casts, as has become the practice among singers recently at the Metropolitan Opera, mean more integrated, better rehearsed performances? And wouldn’t fewer principals in leading roles help build star images and thereby augment the box office?”

We’re in the midst of a ballroom dancing craze. “Ballroom dancing in its pure form, as enjoyable social dance between two people, is still practiced in the school classes and, maybe, at health clubs. People of all ages and shapes like to move their bodies, and to do so in supportive, friendly, nonjudgmental contexts. The present-day ballroom mania, however, is far from such innocence. Most of these contests and films and television shows emphasize competition based on the flashiest moves and glitziest costumes: Las Vegas meets ice dancing. “

Germany has never had a strong ballet tradition. But “now, as a curious result of Germany’s and Berlin’s arts-subsidy meltdown, a company with such potential may finally be emerging in the German capital. After only its first season, it is far too early to tell how distinguished the new Berlin State Ballet can become. And there might seem to be disadvantages: a star dancer with little managerial or choreographic experience as artistic director, ever dwindling subsidies and no school to help shape a cohesive corps de ballet. Still…”

Celebrating Frederick Ashton’s 100th birthday has been a major undertaking. “During the Ashton 100 season, along with Scottish Ballet, British companies have performed 23 ballets and excerpts, while overseas American, Russian, French and Asian companies have joyfully learnt ballets often described as “typically” English – forever burying the myth found readily expressed at the Royal Ballet only 10 years ago that Ashton was parochial and out-of-date. No one, surely, would have been more surprised than Ashton himself.”

After 28 years, Kent Stowell and Francia Russell are stepping down from leading Seattle’s Pacific Northwest Ballet. They built the company from a virtual non-entity into one of the top half-dozen in the country…

Suzanne Farrell takes another look at Balanchine’s Don Quixote. The piece hasn’t been performed since 1978. “During the 13 years of its life, Balanchine made numerous changes to the ballet, adding dances, taking out divertissements, cutting sections. There never was a true “finished” version, so she has had to decide what to keep, what to cut, what to preserve.”

American Ballet Theatre has some great male dancers these days. But none act as well as Marcelo Gomes. “The danseur (male ballet dancer) often treats parts of his body as means to an end. We notice the legs, for example, only insofar as they propel him into the air, or around and around. Gomes’ legs – like his arms, his hips, his neck – speak with the eloquence of a ballerina’s, though at a masculine pitch.”

The beleaguered Pittsburgh Ballet Theater has announced that it will balance its budget next season, and plans to nearly eliminate an accumulated $1 million deficit by next year as well. But the numbers aren’t set in stone just yet – the company’s pit orchestra is up for a new contract after having taking two hefty pay cuts in recent years.

The troubled Martha Graham Company is reorganizing. “An administrative ‘streamlining,’ as the leadership called it last week, left no room for the artistic directors, Christine Dakin and Terese Capucilli, who were universally credited with bringing the company back to life. The move has caused some members of the company to take sides, and confused others.”