Dance season arrived last week with a vengeance. Suddenly there is just too much to see, too much to choose from! Here are a few of the things I’ve caught around town:
2.Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker and Salva Sanchis’s “A Love Supreme,” at New York Live Arts
3. The New York City Ballet fall gala, with works by Troy Schumacher, Gianna Reisen, Lauren Lovette and Justin Peck
On a visit to Montevideo this summer I spoke with Julio Bocca, who told me about taking over the Ballet Nacional Sodre, why Argentine dancers are so go, and being an “hinchapelotas.”
You’ll find the interview here.
“Honestly, I just can’t stand seeing productions of the classics any more, because I know how far it is from Petipa’s intentions,” Alexei Ratmansky told me a few months back, when we began discussing preparations for his new Sleeping Beauty, based largely on his interpretation of historical sources. He said many other things too. You’ll find them here, in this extensive q&a.
…after seeing an all-Balanchine/all-Stravinsky quadruple bill at New York City Ballet in this opening week of the spring season. See my review for DanceTabs here.
You can read my review of the Mariinsky’s all Chopin, all piano triple bill, for DanceTabs, here.
The Yale departments of drama and music and “Yale in New York” teamed up for a performance of Igor Stravinsky’s L’Histoire du Soldat at Zankel Hall, a bitter story that perfectly captures the hopelessness felt in Europe after the end of the First World War. Stravinsky was eking out a meager existence at the time (1918), separated from his former life and his bank accounts by war and revolution. He turned to a format he know from his childhood, the fairground theatrical, creating a lean, acidic little story. What’s surprising is how timely it still feels. The Yale players performed it well; the new choreography, by Emily Coates, was well-suited to the tale, and the young actors flung themselves into the tricky, folk-inflected steps. You can read my review for DanceTabs here.
American Ballet Theatre announced today that for it’s seventy-fifth anniversary season (in 2015) the company will unveil a new staging of Sleeping Beauty, choreographed by Alexei Ratmansky, with designs by Richard Hudson inspired by the Léon Bakst designs for the Ballets Russes. It will replace the recent Gelsey Kirlkand staging, which was marred by a frankly ghastly sorbet-colored palette and languid pacing. Hudson did the Beidermeier-inspired sets and costumes for Ratmansky’s Nutcracker as well as those for the Royal Danish Ballet’s recent La Bayadère (set in colonial India).
New York City Ballet is performing an all-French program this week, with ballets by Liam Scarlett (Acheron), Jerome Robbins (Aftenoon of a Faun), and Balanchine (Walpurgisnacht Ballet and La Valse). Here’s my review for DanceTabs.
And a short excerpt: “Two of the works on the program (Afternoon of a Faun and La Valse) were created for the ballerina Tanaquil LeClercq, Balanchine’s third wife, struck with Polio at the age of twenty-seven, and now the subject of a moving documentary, Afternoon of a Faun. LeClercq’s dramatic intelligence, sense of chic, and air of knowingness – she was half-French, born in Paris – hover over the evening.”
And one of my favorite works from his collection, Nikolai Lapshin’s Novgorod.
I had a brief chat with ABT’s music director, Ormsby Wilkins, about the recently rediscovered Benjamin Britten orchestration of Les Sylphides that the company is using this season. How is it different from the one they were using before, by Roy Douglas? On first hearing I found it lighter, more classical, with more detailed voices. But I wondered whether the differences went deeper. You can link to the conversation here.
Dancing Around 