Category: dance

Joan Acocella sizes up New York City Ballet’s Balanchine celebration: “Once the smoke cleared from the altars, it was obvious that the one tribute City Ballet owes Balanchine, that of dancing his ballets competently, is not being paid. What was true at the company’s previous Balanchine festival, in 1993 (the tenth anniversary of his death), is no less true today. The company can still perform well, at times brilliantly, in Balanchine’s story ballets and character ballets, pieces where the dancers have a drama or at least a theme to latch onto. What they cannot manage is his pure-dance ballets—that is, the ballets that were the focus of his career and his chief contribution to twentieth-century art.”

An unidentified man shot dead and robbed a member of the entourage performing Lord of the Dance at the Johannesburg Civic Theatre early on Sunday morning. Performances of the show have been canceled.

“For reasons too discouraging to explore, the New York City Ballet commissioned a work from Boris Eifman for its year-long Balanchine  centennial celebration, now winding down.  And Eifman came up with Musagète (Leader of the Muses),  a 50-minute extravaganza that—despite its appalling notions of choreography, biography, and their possible relationship—claims to be a homage to the master.  This is an event that could only have occurred over Balanchine’s dead body.”

“Supers, as they are commonly known, stand on their feet for hours on end but only rarely get to take a bow. They nod and smile imperceptibly after a ballerina like Michele Wiles whips off rounds of triple fouette turns in “Swan Lake” but are forbidden to applaud. Being a courtier in “Raymonda” or a gritty butcher in “Romeo and Juliet,” is a thankless job. But in a full-length story ballet, someone has to blend into the crowd. Apart from having a love of dance and strong legs, supers, who generally are decades older than the dancers with whom they share the stage, must also be reliable.”

“American modern dance was created by women, who brought men into the fold as performers. The men began to make dances and now, some female choreographers say, have taken over the field. Even fewer women choreograph ballet. This is history simplified, of course, but questions linger.”

Dancing in the Streets brings a program to the steps of the New York City Library. “”The thing about a staircase, though, is that, once you’ve gone down, there’s no place to go but up, and so the dancers stood and did so, which was something of an anti-climax.  Apart from a repeat of the lava-pouring-down-the-mountainside roll (compelling even the second time around), the balance of the dance consisted largely of the figures’ grouping and regrouping in formal clusters and making semaphoring sorts of gestures with their arms.”

“This is the first National Choreographers Initiative and it’s unclear if it will continue beyond this year. The initiative is a duplicate of Ballet Pacifica’s Pacifica Choreographic Project, founded by former director Molly Lynch, who resigned last October. When Ballet Pacifica’s Board of Directors canceled the project for this July, a number of local dance lovers approached Lynch about running the initiative as an independent entity for one year. They got the go-ahead from Ballet Pacifica’s board president, and Lynch invited choreographers whom she knew and respected. The project has a $100,000 budget, and the community members have raised almost the full amount.”

“To see program after program of Balanchine at the Maryinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg is to be exposed to every kind of nostalgia and fantasy. This is the theater where, at the age of ten in 1914, he made his debut as a tiny cupid in The Sleeping Beauty. It’s also a theater where, through most of the 20th century, his work went unseen.”

When Pennsylvania Ballet commissioned a new version of Swan Lake from Christopher Wheeldon, the company was hoping that its $1.5 million investment would bring a significant return in increased prestige and ticket sales. The gambit appears to have worked, with the new production garnering wide critical praise, and amazing audience support.

Mikhail Baryshnikov has worn many hats over the years, but these days, all his energy is going into the development of the new Baryshnikov Arts Center in midtown Manhattan. The center, for which he is hoping to raise $25 million, is designed to encourage collaboration between artists, and its namesake is clearly excited about the possibilities: “Musicians, artists, costume designers, lighting designers, playwrights, choreographers, actors will meet to work on the same projects. It will be a private place with no pressure from outside, where people can exchange their ideas. It’s a bit of a socialist idea, but what the hell!”