Thanks, dirac, for linking to Alistair Macaulay's FABULOUS review of the Miami opening performance (the same one Cristian saw).
http://www.nytimes.c...e/12ballet.html
There are a couple of practices I like very much in Macaulay's work.
One is his willingness to mention more than a handful of principals when he is passing around the praise.
Quote
In any event, the company, dancing five first-rate works (four by George Balanchine, one by Twyla Tharp), was looking better than ever. A wealth of fresh talent is emerging. Four of the five works were danced, largely or entirely, by two different casts (in one case three); and the numerous dancers who made impressions in solo roles included several who have graduated (from the company’s school and then its apprentice ranks) into the corps de ballet only in 2007, 2008 and 2009. One is still an apprentice.
This time around, he gives credit, by name, to corps members and apprentices dancing in soloist (and in a couple of cases principal) roles: Sara Esty, Nicole Stalker, Leigh-Ann Esty, Ashley Knox, Michael Sean Breeden, Alexandre Ferreira.
At the end of last season, the company was forced to let go (what was it?) 9 or 10 corps members. They now have to rely much more than in the past on apprentices, student apprentices, and even students. But how well these young people have been prepared, coached, and rehearsed! This "new" group is dancing as well and in some cases even better than their predecessors.
The other quality is Macaulay's effort to make us SEE details and nuances of the performance. He does this, often, through the use of precise descriptors, to supplement the generalized adjectives that are the stock and trade of most reviewers. For example, in his discussion of Tharp's "Golden Section" (from The Catherine Wheel).
Quote
New to Miami City repertory was “The Golden Section” from “The Catherine Wheel,” the exuberant explosion of transcendently athletic dance originally created by Ms. Tharp in 1981, an audience hit whenever it is danced. This was one of two points in the program where I was struck by how acutely and eagerly responsive to fine details of style these Miami dancers are. Whereas the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater dancers tend to ride roughshod over a few of this work’s intricacies (but sell it powerfully to the audience), these Miami dancers keep highlighting, with relish, some of Ms. Tharp’s most startling demands.
While spinning brilliantly on the spot, for example, a dancer will suddenly change focus and then shift the angle of his or her torso. The sudden dig of a heel amid a series of turns across the stage, the sharp accentuation of a torso from vertical to backward and back again: these points, so tempting to fudge, here became meat and drink. Patricia Delgado’s characteristic glee took on a new touch of blithe abandonment, Sara Esty’s precision was infused with radiance, Ms. Albertson showed a new combination of rigor and freedom, and a number of men, notably Alex Wong, Carlos Miguel Guerra, Mr. Sarabia, and (on Sunday’s matinee) the apprentice Alexandre Ferreira, were incandescent. Waves of applause occurred during the dancing, and Saturday night’s performance was dotted by many moments of particular audacity and fervor.
Macaulay concludes his review, as the program itself concludes, with Diamonds pas de deux.
Quote
The pas de deux from Balanchine's "Diamonds" was added as a vehicle for Deanna Seay, who retires in April after 21 seasons with the company, with her husband, Mikhail Nikitine, returning to the company as her handsome partner. Ms. Seay is another dancer I have never seen look better than on this weekend: marvelously fluent in rapid transitions, touchingly gracious throughout her upper body, absorbingly musical.
1
cubanmiamiboy, on Jan 10 2010, 11:43 AM, said:
Also, I noticed that Jeanette was substituted all along the three performances...sometimes by amazing Ashley Knox...sometimes by Catoya. Also, Patricia has showed such FORCE during this program-(usually her sister's presentation card)-that I got even more confused the first night, thinking that it was Jeanette dancing, but I think that they are equally strong by now... 
)-(01/09)
