Can a ballet dancer who’s a whiz at contemporary choreography ever reach the pinnacle of a classical ballet company? Misty Copeland’s dazzling performances in ballets by Twyla Tharp, Jorma Elo, and Paul Taylor help bring American Ballet Theatre into the 21st century. So why would they cast her as Odette or Juliet when they have […]
The very haughty Lady Capulet was performed Wednesday night by a dancer still in her prime: the gorgeous Stella Abrera. In MacMillan’s Romeo and Juliet, Lady Capulet is a very proper woman. She cares more about pleasing her husband and society than tuning in to her […]
Last night’s Opening Night Gala took a dive into the deep waters of new works, and surfaced in triumph. After the spring season of mostly looking back, tonight’s program showed how invested ABT is in choreographers of the future. Alexei Ratmansky’s Seven Sonatas seemed to spring him loose from literal narrative (On the […]
The Doris Duke Charitable Foundation has named the inaugural 21 Doris Duke Artists, each of whom will receive a multi-year cash grant of $225,000, plus up to $50,000 more for audience development and retirement funding. The selected artists were chosen in the fields of contemporary dance, theater, and jazz, via an anonymous peer review They […]
Twyla Tharp’s Come Fly With Me Alliance Theatre at the Woodruff. Atlanta, GA. September 15-October 11, 2009. Reviewed by Wendy Perron At her best, Tharp challenges extraordinary dancers to create extraordinary performances. This she has done in Come Fly With Me, her new “dansical” that could/should/might come to Broadway next season. She built the […]
These picks are highly subjective and totally dependent on where I have travelled. TEN BEST IN CHOREOGRAPHY Most haunting, beautiful, and beguiling: Christopher Wheeldon’s In the Golden Hour, part of San Francisco Ballet’s New Works Festival Best new vision of global interchange: Bahok by Akram Khan with members of his company as […]
I saw a completely different side of a few dancers at the gala last night at City Center. Gillian Murphy, who’s been a beautiful but sometimes steely superwoman—her double triple fouetees are scarily dependable—performed Juliet in Tudor’s Romeo and Juliet. She did bedroom scene (the farewell to Romeo) (which is a rather restrained version if […]
Late bloomers are uncommon in the dance world, but they are not as rare as one might think. Martha Graham, Rudolf Nureyev, and José Limón all started training in their teens or later. Here on earth, American Ballet Theatre’s Misty Copeland started training at 13, and modern dancer Holley Farmer began at 16. David Zurak, […]
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