A few weeks ago, Paloma Herrera and I sat down to talk about her training and career, about moving back to Buenos Aires, and about what she thinks has changed in the world of ballet and in the wider culture. Our chat is now up on the DanceTabs website.
I sat down with Ethan Stiefel a few weeks after his return to New York from New Zealand where, for three years, he was the artistic director of the Royal New Zealand Ballet. We talked about his time there, his transition from dancer to director, his choreographic aspirations, and his plans (and non-plans) for the future. You can find the interview here, at DanceTabs.
The end of American Ballet Theatre’s spring season brought a trio of farewell performances for the soloists Sascha Radetsky, Yuriko Kajiya, and Jared Matthews. Each led a cast of Coppélia; two were débuts. Quietly, Joseph Gorak also débuted this week as Franz. Recently promoted to soloist, Gorak is a young danseur noble in the making. So it goes in ballet, an art for the young, ambitious, and blindly devoted. Here’s my review for DanceTabs.
Just a few weeks after I wrote a feature about his work with the Royal New Zealand Ballet for the Times, Ethan Stiefel has announced that he’s leaving the company, effective this September. Ah well, it was good while it lasted.
For more on what he’s achieved on the other side of the globe, see this overview by the editor of DanceTabs.
But now he’s the artistic director of the Royal New Zealand Ballet, which will be performing at the Joyce next week. This is the company’s first visit in over twenty years. Stiefel is bent on molding them into a first-class ensemble, with Gillian Murphy’s help. Here’s my feature on the company, for the Times.
Here he is, in the Flames of Paris pdd with Murphy:
Dancing Around 