10 replies to this topic

[dirac]

An AFP story on the gala reopening of the Bolshoi Theater.

http://www.google.co...b730b6f7ceeb.d1

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Stars including prima ballerina Svetlana Zakharova and French soprano Natalie Dessay will tread the new stage at a lavish gala attended by Russian President Dmitry Medvedev as well as major arts figures.

The invitation-only gala in Moscow will be broadcast on a giant screen to crowds outside the theatre as well as airing on Russian television and in cinemas worldwide, the theatre's director Anatoly Iksanov said.

[dirac]

A preview of the Royal Winnipeg Ballet in "Wonderland" by Bob Clark in The Calgary Herald.

http://www.calgaryhe...5701/story.html

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Hounsell developed the overblown character in conjunction with recently retired Royal Winnipeg principal dancer Tara Birtwhistle (who plays the role on the Wonderland tour).

He says he wanted the Queen of Hearts to be reminiscent of the “big divas of the movies,” such as Bette Davis and Joan Crawford in Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?, or Gloria Swanson in Sunset Boulevard — “just these crazy, over-the-top, intense, iconoclastic, Hollywood images from the 1950s.”

[dirac]

Benjamin Millepied retires from dancing.

http://artsbeat.blog...om-city-ballet/

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For the company’s 2012 spring season, Mr. Millepied will create a world premiere ballet to a commissioned score by Nico Muhly, which will have its premiere on May 10, at the company’s spring gala. He’s also working on the choreography for a new musical in development, “Hands on a Hardbody,” written with Trey Anastasio of Phish.

[dirac]

A review of Northern Ballet's Nutcracker by David Bellan for The Oxford Times.

http://www.oxfordtim...bury_Waterside/

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For the opening party Nixon has created a non-stop flow of formal but light-hearted dances, set in the drawing room of a large Regency house in England. Then the work really takes flight as Clara begins her dream journey through the land of snow and the kingdom of sweets. The costumes, designed by Nixon himself, are wonderful and exotic, especially those for the Snow Maidens, and for the Arabian dance — a mysterious, seductive performance by Hannah Bateman in pleated harem pants that swing with every movement. But, despite such advantages, success of failure of this work depends almost completely on the character of Clara, and Northern Ballet has found a gem in the diminutive, feather-light figure of Pippa Moore.

[dirac]

Christian Lacroix designs the costumes for the Paris Opera Ballet's 'La Source.'

http://www.artinfo.c...riss-la-source/

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The fashion designer had never heard of the 1866 Léo Delibes and Ludwig Minkus ballet — that is until Brigitee Lefèvre, the ballet’s director, approached him. "She wanted to bring this piece back to life and to have Jean Guillaume Bart do the choreography," said Lacroix in a statement.

[dirac]

Florida Classical Ballet Theatre enters its eleventh season.

http://blogs.palmbea...al-communities/

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The company has performed nearly 40 main-stage ballets for more 20,000 people at The Eissey Campus Theatre, throughout Palm Beach County and overseas. This past season, FCBT was also fortunate to hire Ballet Florida’s veteran ballet mistress Claudia Cravey who trains the company dancers.

During the past three seasons, FCBT performed the original ballet For Such A time As This; The Story of Queen Esther, conceived and choreographed by Smith. This beautiful ballet, which has been performed for nearly 4,000 people locally (including more than 600 students from six area schools), traveled to Budapest in 2009 for of hundreds of people in many venues.

[dirac]

Matthew Bourne's company celebrates its twenty-fifth anniversary.

http://www.playbill....Beauty-and-More

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Other events in the celebration will include revivals of Nutracker! and Play without Words, plus Early Adventures, a triple bill of the works that launched Bourne's choreographic career, Spitfire, Town and Country and The Infernal Galop.

Throughout the anniversary year, New Adventures will play over 300 performances at a record 32 U.K. venues, several of them more than once. This will include 20 weeks (over the 4 productions) at the company's resident London home at Sadler's Wells. The productions will feature over 80 dancers and 30 musicians.

[dirac]

A report on City Center's gala reopening by James R. Oestreich in The New York Times.

http://www.nytimes.c...ening-gala.html

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Two extended dance numbers felt hemmed in spatially, confined to the front of a stage mostly filled by the orchestra, though the dancers coped gamely and (to a nonspecialist) attractively. After Robert Battle, the artistic director of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, announced from the stage that the theater would be the center’s principal dance company for the next decade, it was represented by an excerpt from Ailey’s own “Pas de Duke,” to music by Ellington, danced by Linda Celeste Sims and Matthew Rushing. New York City Ballet, a former resident of City Center, presented Wendy Whelan and Ask la Cour in an excerpt from Christopher Wheeldon’s “After the Rain,” to music by Arvo Pärt, hauntingly played by the violinist Kurt Nikkanen and the pianist Cameron Grant.

[dirac]

A review of Morphoses by Gia Kourlas in The New York Times.

http://www.nytimes.c...yce-review.html

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Ms. Lopez is making a statement by choosing Mr. Veggetti, an Italian choreographer, as the company’s first resident artist. With his penchant for austere settings, spare environmental scores and, always, dancers crouching and sliding across the stage in socks — when will this tedious trend die? — he is about as far from Mr. Wheeldon as you can get. He strives to attain mysticism in choreography that is fraught with a pull between restraint and anxiety. The surface — of the work and of his dancers — is impassive. The most expressive body parts are the arms.

[dirac]

Previews of Matthew Bourne's new Sleeping Beauty.

http://www.bbc.co.uk...t-arts-15448706

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The new production will complete Bourne's reworking of all three Tchaikovsky ballets.

Sadler's Wells retrospective of his work will begin this Christmas with a seven-week run of Nutcracker!, which originally premiered in 1992. The London performances will be followed by a nationwide tour of the ballet.

http://www.guardian....y?newsfeed=true

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Bourne is known for his radical and entertaining updates of classic work and his version of Tchaikovsky's 1889 ballet promises to be no exception. At the risk of shocking hopeless romantics everywhere, Bourne said he was ditching the idea of love at first sight. "The idea of falling asleep, being woken up by a stranger with a kiss and then falling in love and getting married – I don't buy that really," he said. "I've devised a way of creating a love story which begins early on in the piece and carries on through."

[dirac]

An AFP review of the Vienna Ballet in 'La Sylphide.'

http://www.google.co...cdc5411f9181.41

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First solo dancer Roman Lazik, as James, also impressed with his technical assurance although he was evidently more at ease performing powerful jumps and entrechats than in scenes requiring more acting.

The couple's pas de trois in the first act with Nina Polakova -- the jilted fiancee -- was a joy to watch, for Lacotte's playful choreography as much as the strong performance by all three dancers.