6 replies to this topic

[dirac]

A review of New York City Ballet in 'Ocean's Kingdom' by Hanna Oldsman in The California Literary Review.

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There may be a few things to take away from the performance. Perhaps most notably, it demonstrated a combination of video projection (by S. Katy Tucker) and lighting design (by Mark Stanley) that successfully worked together to tell a story and create a palpable atmosphere. The wispy designs projected onto the blue background in the first scene, illuminated by a graduated underwater light from above, suggested a kingdom in danger of being washed away. Most innovative were the pillars of light that confined Honorata to her cell in the third movement: they created an eerie mood that fit the piece, which bars of steel might have failed to do. I do worry that digital scenery will too often take the place of traditional sets in the future – surely it must be less expensive. Here, though, it made a strange sort of sense.

[dirac]

The National Ballet of Canada arrives in Winnipeg.

http://www.winnipegf...-130900508.html

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But the company hasn't been back since. Now, 14 years later, the ballet is finally touching down in Winnipeg for one night of its mixed-repertoire 60th-anniversary tour. That night happens to be Tuesday, election night -- a fact that takes Kain by surprise.

"We didn't know that -- that's too bad," she says, though Jeff Herd, executive director of the Royal Winnipeg Ballet, later says at least some staff at the National Ballet are aware of it.

[dirac]

Les Grands Ballets Canadiens presents "Rodin/Claudel."

http://www.montrealg...6976/story.html

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At the centre is Camille Claudel, the French sculptress who as a young woman found first a mentor and then a lover in her older, celebrated compatriot, Auguste Rodin. Rodin helped the talented woman make her way in a 19th-century man's world. During the 12 years of their association, both drew creative inspiration from the other. But as far as their romance was concerned, it was never an equal relationship. Despite her passion for Rodin, Claudel forced herself to tolerate his other lovers, most notably Rose Beuret, a favourite model.

[dirac]

A review of San Francisco Ballet in "Romeo and Juliet" by Laura Bleiberg in The Los Angeles Times.

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The company’s last local performances of this “Romeo and Juliet” were at the Los Angeles Music Center in November 1994, shortly after its premiere.  Choreographer and Artistic Director Helgi Tomasson has strategically plotted out every scene with a reverence for the text and character development.  There is great logic to the action, which is appreciated, but not always the heart-stopping lyricism one would want.

[dirac]

A review of "René Blum & The Ballets Russes: In Search of a Lost Life" by Joel Lobenthal in The Weekly Standard. (Full article available by subscription only.)

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Blum was born into a French mercantile family in 1878. A Jew whose brother Léon became the first Jewish (as well as Socialist) prime minister of France in 1936, René Blum was killed by the Nazis in 1942. Praised by colleagues in print, and in personal recollection during his lifetime as well as in ensuing decades, his story has, however, remained largely untold. It is with manifest satisfaction that Judith Chazin-Bennahum works her restitution. She has succeeded in producing a biography that is an important, even essential, contribution.

[dirac]

A Q&A with Lisa Macuja-Elizalde.

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What is your current state of mind?
Worried. I still haven’t completely recovered the sensation in my left foot after a recent foot surgery, and I have to be able to dance Swan Lake in three weeks.

What do you advise your daughter Missy now that she’s pursuing a career in ballet?
Listen to your body and don’t force anything that your body is telling you not to do. When dealing with my daughter, my motto of “No Pain, No Gain” sort of loses its significance. I want to protect her from the pain.

[dirac]

An omnibus dance review by Giannandrea Poesio in the Spectator.

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In Emeralds both Tamara Rojo’s seamlessly fluid dancing and Leanne Benjamin’s dramatically vibrant performance matched to perfection the now languorous, now dramatic, now decadent musical subtleties of Fauré’s score. In the more jazz-oriented Rubies, to Stravinsky’s ingenious music, Sarah Lamb, Steven McRae and Zenaida Yanowsky stunned audiences with their slightly tongue-in-cheek and care-to-the-wind evolutions, thus creating a more than ideal contrast with the final grandiose classicism of Diamonds, to Tchaikovsky’s music, led in a masterly way by Alina Cojocaru and Rupert Pennefather.