Not only does she balance on pointe longer than any other ballerina, but before she comes down she’ll carefully change her position and balance some more. Not only does she sprinkle her 32 fouettés with triples, but she’ll finish in exactly the same spot, in a sustained sous-sus! When Viengsay Valdés danced Don Q with […]
Some people have asked about the talk I gave in Sarasota, where I outlined my seven reasons ballet is NOT dying, in response to ballet-doomsday-sayer Jennifer Homans in her book Apollo’s Angels. (Her book is actually excellent until that last chapter.) So I decided to tweak my notes from my talk at the event for […]
“Reflections” Segerstrom Center for the Arts, Costa Mesa, CA January 20–23, 2011 Reviewed by Victoria Looseleaf Yekaterina Shipulina in Aszure Barton’s Dumka. Photo by Steve Dawson, courtesy Segerstrom Center. Finally: a program with the girls out in force. Unfortunately, their force fields—no matter how magnetic—fizzled in the overly long (nearly three hours), unevenly paced […]
“Reflections” Segerstrom Center for the Arts • Costa Mesa, CA • January 20–23, 2011 • Reviewed by Victoria Looseleaf Finally: a program with the girls out in force. Unfortunately, their force fields—no matter how magnetic—fizzled in the overly long (nearly three hours), unevenly paced program. Sure, there were fleeting moments of brilliance—both in choreography […]
What distinguishes Bolshoi Ballet Academy graduates from other dancers? It has been said that there is a bravado that possesses dancers trained in the Bolshoi style, a sense of abandon that comes with the territory. Audiences can see it for themselves when 10 top Academy graduates perform “Reflections,” which premieres at the Orange County Performing […]
With commissions streaming in, Alexei Ratmansky often juggles projects with several ballet companies at once. His combination of rich musicality, emotional tone, and whimsical humor has attracted artistic directors all over the world. He’s made more than 25 ballets for at least 10 companies, including New York City Ballet, American Ballet […]
Choreographer Alexei Ratmansky brings a love of the old and a passion for the new to exploring ballet’s possibilities. With commissions streaming in, Alexei Ratmansky often juggles projects with several ballet companies at once. His combination of movement invention, rich emotional tone, and whimsical humor has attracted artistic directors all over the world. He’s made […]
Not the Same Old Shpeel The new Cirque show dances to a vaudeville beat. It’s a good bet that early 21st-century dancers haven’t given a great deal of thought to vaudeville. They might have paged through books documenting its heyday from the 1880s to the 1930s. Or they might have seen a […]
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