Le Sacre du Printemps (The Rite of Spring) was the ballet that shook the world. One hundred years ago, the chic crowd in Paris booed or cheered, argued loudly, and even came to blows. Nijinsky stood on a chair and yelled out the counts to keep the Ballets Russes dancers going, while Diaghilev commanded the […]
Summer is the season of festivals—and, this summer at least, marathons (not just Olympic ones), with Pina Bausch’s month-long retrospective in London, the Paris Opéra Ballet’s eleven-day run at Lincoln Center, and four weeks of Pilobolus at the Joyce. That’s meant theater-going marathons for some of Dance Magazine’s critics, whose reflections you can find on […]
Two Views of “Unrelated Solos” Baryshnikov Arts Center, NYC • May 19–22, 2010 Reviewed by Elizabeth Kendall The evening’s name was “Unrelated Solos”—three solo guys, one dancing commissioned work, two, their own. No structural logic. The only thing Barsyhnikov, Paxton, and Neumann have in common is they’ve all been around the block. Yet […]
Go feast on “Diaghilev’s Theater of Marvels: The Ballets Russes and Its Aftermath,” before it closes Sept. 12. This exhibit, at the NY Public Library of Performing Arts, is organized by dance historian (and Dance Magazine senior advising editor) Lynn Garafola, using the Library’s archives of this revolutionary period. You’ll take in the rich […]
Ode to Lincoln Following Serenade/The Proposition, the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company premieres Fondly Do We Hope… Fervently Do We Pray, the second of three pieces that explore the legacy of Abraham Lincoln in his bicentennial year (“Dance Matters,” Feb.). Set to text from Lincoln’s speeches and writings and a re-imagining of Mendelssohn’s St. […]
A Faun Reawakens It’s hard to imagine a city-wide scandal erupting from the tale of a faun and a woodland nymph. But when Nijinsky’s Afternoon of a Faun, his first choreographic experiment for Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes, premiered in 1912, it sent shockwaves across Paris. With its premise of sexual awakening and its two-dimensional movement—which flattened […]
American Ballet Theatre Metropolitan Opera House, NYC. May 18–July 11, 2009 Reviewed by Lynn Garafola With two repertory programs, six full-length ballets, and wildly cheering crowds, the eight-week American Ballet Theatre season at the Metropolitan Opera was in many ways business as usual. However, with Nina Ananiashvili’s farewell performance, the presence of exciting newcomers, […]
Have you ever heard of Alexander Shiriaev? I hadn’t either, until Dance on Camera showed a film about him called A Belated Premiere a couple years ago. Last week, Barnard College showed them again as part of its “Celebrating the Ballets Russes” series at Columbia University’s Harriman Institute. The man’s work in dance animation […]
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