3 replies to this topic

[dirac]

San Diego Ballet and California Ballet present two productions of "Alice in Wonderland."

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The dual staging is pure coincidence. Not to worry, however: Though both companies are using the Carroll tale, and both Alices will wear blue dresses and white pinafores as in the famed Tenniel illustrations, there will be big differences between the two productions.

For starters, San Diego Ballet is using hip-hop dancers to play the Caterpillar, Mad Hatter, March Hare and several other characters. That’s hip-hop, as in street dance.

[dirac]

Scottish Ballet visits Southern California.

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MacMillan, who served as artistic director from 1970 to 1977, stepped down to become the company’s principal choreographer. Page joined the company in 1976, so he came to know MacMillan, who died in 1992, more as a choreographer than a company chief.

“Kenneth was a quite extreme personality,” Page says. “He wasn’t very happy being a director, and after I joined, he withdrew to concentrate on choreography.  He was a bit of a tortured soul.  It was reflected in quite a lot of the work that he made, the subjects he chose.”

[dirac]

The Jose Mateo Ballet Theatre opens its twenty-sixth season. Review by Iris Fanger in The Patriot-Ledger.

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Steel scaffolding also replaces the black drapery that swathed the stage at the company’s home in the Sanctuary Theatre. The new performance space suggests the sleek architecture of a modern city that is complementary to the contemporary style of Mateo’s dances. His works rely on abstract movement, even though steps are based on classical ballet vocabulary. He is not a storyteller, but his ballets hint at relationships and complex emotions. It is up to the audience to connect the narrative dots.

[dirac]

Kansas City Ballet's Tom Sawyer ballet opens this week.

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He’ll experience a rare level of satisfaction because he knows the performance will be the first of its kind — a full-length ballet by an American composer based on American literature.

This ballet was a long time coming — the idea came to Yeston in the mid-1980s, not long after he collected his first Tony Award for “Nine” — but it marks a bold step for the Kansas City Ballet and choreographer William Whitener. It will be the company’s inaugural production at the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts.