This year has been a big one for ballet, as many of its beloved women have already left or will soon leave the stage. New York City Ballet’s Wendy Whelan retired to great fanfare last month. Paloma Herrera, Julie Kent and Xiomara Reyes will leave American Ballet Theatre this spring. And the young Carla […]
This summer’s Vail International Dance Festival features the biggest stars in dance. Lil Buck and Tiler Peck at Vail 2013. Photo by Erin Baiano, Courtesy Vail. Since Damian Woetzel took over Colorado’s Vail International Dance Festival in 2007, audiences have come to expect novelty: diverse styles of dance, collaborations between of-the-moment stars and […]
Warning: The following claims are entirely subjective and are limited by what I’ve seen or not seen. BEST (and worst) NEW CHOREOGRAPHY (world premieres or New York premieres.) • Borderlands, choreographed by Wayne McGregor for San Francisco Ballet at War Memorial Opera House. With snaking spines, vibrating arms, and torsos diving through a […]
Of course it’s nice when a British critic lauds American-born ballerinas, as Alastair Macaulay did in yesterday’s New York Times. And I appreciate his praise of top-notch ballerinas like Kathleen Breen Combes and Sarah Van Patten, whom we don’t see enough of in New York. I also appreciate his putting assumptions about ballet greatness into […]
Impressing with control and clarity in the PNB corps Murphy caught critics’ eyes as the Peacock in Nutcracker. Photo: Angela Sterling, Courtesy PNB Last year, Elizabeth Murphy rehearsed nine different roles for Pacific Northwest Ballet’s Swan Lake. Though her favorite was the Spanish dance in Act III, with its repeated backbends and fan work, she danced […]
New York City Center Feb 13 & 15, 2013 In addition to Roméo et Juliette, Seattle-based Pacific Northwest Ballet brought to New York a program of Balanchine: Concerto Barocco, Apollo, and Agon. But the company might as well have brought Prodigal Son, because the big splash was the return of New York City Ballet ex-soloists […]
40 years of PNB Pacific Northwest Ballet is celebrating its 40th anniversary with six world premieres, tours, and the return of nearly a dozen former PNB dancers to the stage. Guest appearances by Patricia Barker, Louise Nadeau, Jeffrey Stanton, Olivier Wevers, and others can be considered a validation of what artistic director […]
Three top dancers on their cross-training discoveries Sara Mearns with trainer Sebastian Plettenberg at Gyrotonic Manhattan, Photo: Christopher Duggan It’s 9:00 a.m. on a Saturday morning and while most people her age are still asleep, New York City Ballet principal Sara Mearns is working out. Dressed in baggy sweatpants and a […]
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