Search results for: Alexei ratmansky

Transitions

  New Role   The luminous and elegant Nina Ananiashvili was one of American Ballet Theatre’s most beloved principals—lyrical and witty (a delightful Kitri and a warm Lise in Ashton’s La Fille Mal Gardée) as well as dramatic. When a role called for flamboyance, she was a technical spitfire, with a space-devouring jump and rock-solid […]

New York Notebook

    Reinventing the Wheeldon Morphoses/The Wheeldon Company breezes into City Center with fabulous dancers like Wendy Whelan, Edwaard Liang, Drew Jacoby, and Rubinald Pronk and three premieres. Wheeldon’s new work to Rachmaninoff will undoubtedly bring out his usually veiled romantic self. Alexei Ratmansky’s Bolero, to the famous Ravel score, hasn’t been seen since it […]

ABT Looks Forward

  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 […]

Teacher's Wisdom: Pyotr Pestov

Pyotr Pestov is one of ballet’s greatest men’s teachers. His illustrious alumni include dancers and artistic directors like Vladimir Malakhov, Nikolai Tsiskaridze, and Alexei Ratmansky. From 1963 until the mid-1990s, Pestov was a pillar of the faculty at Moscow’s Bolshoi Ballet Academy. In 1996, he moved to Stuttgart Ballet’s John Cranko School, where he teaches […]

New York Notebook

    Don’t Break the Scenery From ropes to mirrors to giant spinning wheels, Deborah Colker has used extravagant props to challenge the minds of her audiences and the bodies of her dancers. When Companhia de Dança Deborah Colker comes to City Center this month, the Brazilian choreographer brings one of her most innovative works, […]

Reviews

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 […]

Reviews

“Three Solos and a Duet” Mikhail Baryshnikov and Ana Laguna The Broad Stage, Santa Monica College • Santa Monica, CA • September 4–5, 2009 Reviewed by Victoria Looseleaf   If there’s anything that Mikhail Baryshnikov cannot do—besides, perhaps, split atoms—nobody’s told him. Now 61, he could have rested on his ballet laurels, but having moved […]

What’s the Difference Between Russian and American Dancers?

In beautiful Spoleto, I moderated a conversation between Christopher Wheeldon and Alexei Ratmansky last Saturday as part of the Spoleto Festival in Italy. It was soooo interesting to hear their take on Russian dancers (and just about everything else, but I’ll stick with this subject). Alexei, having led the Bolshoi Ballet for four years (he […]