Category: dance

“The trap in talking about Balanchine’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream—with which the New York City Ballet has just opened the winter repertory season of its Balanchine 100 Centennial Celebration—is comparing it to Frederick Ashton’s The Dream. (Balanchine’s take on Shakespeare’s play and Mendelssohn’s music was created in 1962; Ashton’s, in 1964.) The discussion quickly becomes a contest of merits—and Ashton usually wins. His one-act ballet is not merely more succinct and cohesive, it also harbors more emotional resonance. But what if we considered the delights of the Balanchine—and they are many—on their own?”

“Clearly the most powerful dance movement to affect the market in the last 10 years is hip-hop. Its mainstream popularity–which, over the last decade, has cut into the livelihoods of technical jazz dancers seeking film, TV, and other commercial work–shows no signs of abating, but, according to some of the dance professionals we spoke to, the future looks more inclusive.”

Boston Ballet’s production of The Nutcracker is being thrown out of its home at the Wang Theatre next year in favor of a touring holiday show, but the classic Christmas ballet is apparently still a profitable enterprise. The 2003 run of Nutcracker pulled in a record $6.6 million, more than $1 million above the company’s projections. As much as $2 million may be needed to transition the production to a new venue, and Boston Ballet still isn’t sure where that venue will be.

The legendary Kirov Ballet returns to America. Tobi Tobias: “Granted, today’s Kirov corps is not the ensemble it once was, with every head inclined just so, every wrist angled exactly, every leg raised in arabesque to some preordained height, the uncanny unison work not mechanical but buoyed by the music. Still, the current group resembles the corps de ballet of the old days in kind if not degree, and it is a fine sight to behold. The rest of the dancing was dispiriting.”

Robert Gottlieb isn’t impressed with Robert Altman’s new dance movie “What a bizarre movie this is! Unlike most ballet movies, whose plots are relentlessly clichéd and predictable (a Rocky in tights or tutu making it against all odds), The Company has no plot at all. Although the story is credited to Barbara Turner and Neve Campbell (who also stars and co-produces), there isno story; instead, there are slices of ballet life (the physical hardships, the pain, the anxiety, the camaraderie, the glory) and yards and yards of dancing, almost all of it bad. There are characters who are never characterized, situations that are never resolved. It’s often hard to tell who is who. Or why.”

Kyra Nichols on dancing for Balanchine: “You’d do what he taught you, but you’d let your personality come out. Also he’d give you a role, and you were expected to go into the studio and work by yourself. It was the best thing for me. It would give you time to think of how you could do it within the restrictions of the choreography.”

Perhaps more than any other art form, dance is subject to the constantly changing tastes of the public, and a choreographer celebrated as a forward-thinking genius in one decade can see his work become dated and clichèd only a few years later. So the fact that the works of George Balanchine can still inspire the same visceral reactions today as they did nearly a century ago is a remarkable thing. Balanchine’s centennial is coming up this month, and New York’s dance community will be showcasing his work all year.

The struggles of ballet companies across the country are well-documented, but you’ll pardon the Boston Ballet for feeling specially cursed this year. Last night, the curtain fell on the company’s last performance of the Nutcracker for 2003, and possibly forever. Having been informed that the Wang Theatre, the company’s Nutcracker home for 35 years, would be replacing the classic ballet with a traveling show next December, Boston Ballet is desperately searching for a new home in a city famously lacking in performance space. With Nutcracker typically bringing in as much as 50%-60% of a ballet company’s annual revenues, no one even wants to think of what could happen if Boston Ballet can’t mount the holiday show.

What’s the most successful show in history? It’s Holiday on Ice. “Reviled by critics, adored by coach parties, and seen by many millions – in fact, the show passed the 300 million mark last autumn – Holiday on Ice returns to the Wembley Arena next month, to celebrate its 60th anniversary. In 1988 it won its place in the Guinness Book of Records as most watched show of all time, when a French woman, Isabelle Challier, became the 250 millionth visitor. It has toured to 620 cities in 80 countries. It is now run from Amsterdam, and military-style planning keeps three shows, with 200 skaters, touring the world.”

Montreal’s Festival international de nouvelle danse (FIND) has closed. “After 20 years of presenting the best of contemporary dance from Quebec, (occasionally) the rest of Canada, and Europe, the biennial festival is finished, the victim of financial woes that resulted in a $600,000 accumulated deficit.”