Carol Pardo reviews the 2006-07 MCB season

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The Spring 2007 edition of DanceView has a thoughtful and interesting review by Carol Pardo of 2 of the 4 MCB programs this season -- the full-evening Don Quixote and the mixed bill consisting of Raymonda Variations, Lilac Garden, and Symphony in 3 Movements . (""Performance Counts")

It's always good to read Pardo's take on individual peformances and her command of the choreographic details and performance history.

There's a bit of wistfulness and the suggestion of alarm in the way Pardo talks about the relative scarcity of Balanchine in the 2006-07 season. Her criticisms of the 9 short individual variations in Raymonda forced me to rethink a sequence I really love, as well as the work some of the individual corps members who peformed them. Her praise of Symphony made me feel good about having enjoyed it so much. Pardo reports something that happened in the performances I saw, as well: the audience

... gasped when the curtain rose on a diagonal formed by the sixteen women in white. From there it was up up and away with a respite in the eerie pas de deux, quiet but not serene, and the return to the edgy, almost out of control mechanical menace of the finale. It is a work with so much to see that there is always something to be discovered, always a surprise. "Wow!" exclaimed the woman next to me as it ended. As long as the company can provide "Wow!" inside the theater, I won't worry too much about marketing efforts outside it.

And, how about Lilac Garden ? --

... a ballet I've always had to take on faith. Dance should be able to convey everything in its libretto -- dashed hopes and frustrated desires, played out at an Edwardian garden party given in honor of a marriage of convenience. But I'd never seen it happen until now. It is ... to the dancers' credit that they could enter into Tudor's intentions so convincingly."

Cllick here for information about subscribing to DanceView. The current issue -- with a long appreciation of Kyra Nichols, a review of NYCB's 2007 winter season, a conversation with Oregon Ballet Theater's Christopher Stowell, Michael Popkin's review of an exhibit of Vaslav Nijinsky's paintings and drawings, and reports on the dance scene from New York, London, San Francisco -- and (of course) Miami -- is worth reading and even savouring.