18 replies to this topic

[dirac]

A review of the Royal Ballet by Clifford Bishop in The Evening Standard.

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Iohna Loots brings an ardency to the role, skipping and blushing through her first flirtation at the family Christmas party, and collapsing with a willing swoon against the chest of Ricardo Cervera, the young man she frees from the curse that turned him into a kitchen gadget when she helps him kill the mouse king. Cervera's handling of both Loots and the mice is perhaps more plucky than heroic.

The Royal Ballet can also boast one of the choicest Sugar Plum Fairies in Marianela Nuñez (standing in for a sick Sarah Lamb), a dancer whose freakishly perfect sense of balance allows her to make the presence of a partner look superfluous, even in the most asymmetrical supported poses. Nuñez, you suspect, could dance on the head of a pin. With room for furniture.

[dirac]

Charles Askegard and Candace Bushnell are splitsville.

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The fiercely independent sex columnist behind Carrie Bradshaw filed papers on Friday, just months after Askegard spun his final pirouette at the New York City Ballet. He left the company after 24 years to form his own troupe, Ballet Next.

Confirming the divorce, Bushnell told the New York Post through her representative, "We had some wonderful times in our nine-year marriage, and I still care about Charles as a person. I respect his desire to pursue his own happiness and hope that we will continue to be friends in the future."

[dirac]

An anthropology professor defends strippingas an art, compares it to ballet.  Original Bloomberg News articleinevitably quotes Toni Bentley.

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Hanna says, "It's really old hat. It's in musicals, operas, and theater," while Bloomberg cites the New Testament and Vaslav Nijinsky's The Rite of Spring ballet. The New York state Tax Appeals Tribunal, though, rejected Hanna's "stunningly sweeping interpretation of what constitutes choreographed performance," necessitating the appeal. Hanna estimates that in defending nude dancing, she has won 45 times, compared to 21 losses. Hanna says she has observed at least 1,500 "ecdysiastic performances" as fieldwork, and charges about $3,000 for her services.

[dirac]

Manassas Ballet Theatre offers a salute to the military and honors a wounded veteran.

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“The men and women of our armed forces make so many sacrifices on a daily basis,” she continued. “We wanted to do something that would make the holidays a little brighter for them and their families. ‘The Nutcracker’ is such a Christmas tradition, and our hope is that the salute will be a nice start for their holiday season.”

The Amra family was contacted by theater owners Amy and Mark Wolfe. The family understood Colleen’s pain, as their own son, Colin, died while serving in the Marine Corps in 2006.

[dirac]

Heather Wattsteaches as a visiting lecturer at Princeton.

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Today the public has an opportunity to share some of this magic, as Watts and former NYCB principal Damian Woetzel host “Genius Up Close: George Balanchine,” an open rehearsal at 4:30 p.m. in the Berlind Theatre of McCarter Theatre Center in Princeton.
The two former NYCB stars, who are also husband and wife, will discuss the creation and evolution of some of Balanchine’s ground-breaking works and seven principal dancers from the New York City Ballet — including Wendy Whelan, Tiler Peck, Robert Fairchild and Craig Hall — will perform excerpts of them.

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[dirac]

A preview of Mobile Ballet's Nutcracker.

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Here on the Gulf Coast, where Mobile Ballet opens its “Nutcracker” season next weekend with three performances at Mobile Civic Center Theater. Guest artists will be Rebecca Krohn and Craig Hall of New York City Ballet. (See information box.)

Krohn performed with Mobile Ballet once before when dancers from New York City Ballet came to town for the company’s season opening gala. She danced Balanchine’s “Apollo” and Christopher Wheeldon’s “After the Rain.”

[dirac]

A review of Houston Ballet's "Jubilee of Dance" by Mandy Oaklander for Houston Press' blog.

The performance honored 69-year-old Houston Ballet Managing Director Cecil Conner Jr., who will have been with the company 17 years when he retires in February. There could be no greater tribute to a ballet-phile: The company packed in excerpts from a dozen ballets, along with four stand-alone works, making for nearly three hours of wildly diverse classical dance.

[dirac]

A review of Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre's Nutcracker by Mark Kanny in The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.

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Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre's artistic director, Terrence S. Orr, introduced his locally themed version of "The Nutcracker" in 2002. In it, the story of Marie's magical Christmas Eve begins and ends in Shadyside, and takes in the vista from Mt. Washington on the way to the Land of Enchantment, where most of the second act takes place.

Orr tweaks the production every season, and gains further variety from the combinations of his rotating casts. "The Nutcracker" certainly worked its charms at the noon performance on Sunday at the Benedum Center, Downtown.

[dirac]

A Delaware Ballet Nutcracker photo gallery.

[dirac]

Seattle stage designer Edie Whitsettis dead at 52.

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Whitsett's honors included an Artist Trust fellowship, a commission for an art installation at the Seattle Public Library's central branch and two Seattle Times Footlight Awards.

A public memorial will be held at 7:30 p.m. Monday, Dec. 19, in SCT's Charlotte Martin Theatre at Seattle Center.

[dirac]

The National Ballet of Cuba kicks off its Canadian tour.

The Cuban company had returned from a two-month long tour around Spain, to have a two-week season at the Havana’s Grand Theater, with the premieres of “Sientate” (Sit down) by Norwegian choreographer Cina Espejord and“Aires de Tradicion (Airs of tradition) by Cuban Eduardo Blanco.

The Cuban National Ballet will start its performance at the Hamilton Place Theater in Toronto on December 6 with a programme that includes “Umbral” (Threshold) (Choreography by Alicia Alonso with the music of Johann Christian Bach), The Black Swam (Act III Swam Lake pas de deux) and Coppelia.

[dirac]

A preview of "The Green Bay Nutcracker Ballet."

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The Makaroff Youth Ballet and Northeastern Wisconsin Ballet Dance organization perform the holiday classic this weekend, in Appleton and Green Bay, respectively. And the Paine Art Center and Gardens in Oshkosh continues it’s “Nutcracker in the Castle” with the help of the Neenah-based Valley Academy for the Arts.

[dirac]

At the Sotheby's auction of a collection of works by Alexandre Benois, the set design for "Le Rossignol" sets a new record for the sale of a Benois set design at auction.

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Benois later wrote: "The sea and landscape of the first act, the throne-room and the golden bedroom in the Emperor's palace, gave me an opportunity to express all my infatuation with Chinese art. The final result was a chinoiserie de ma façon, far from accurate by pedantic standards but undoubtedly appropriate to Stravinsky's music. On the whole I consider Le Rossignol one of my most successful productions."

[dirac]

More reviews of the Royal's Nutcracker.

The Stage

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A few technical glitches sporadically stole the limelight on the opening night - particularly in the Act I transformation pas de deux where the usually billowing backdrop appeared to have December gales battering through its folds. Several times I thought I spotted someone with a torch scuttling backstage like a mouse soldier gone rogue, and then came the announcement that Sarah Lamb - the scheduled Sugar Plum - had been taken ill and was to be replaced by Marianela Nunez

The Independent

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Wright’s revisions can be messy, overegging the role of the magician Drosselmeyer, but it’s still a confident version. The transformation scenes are well handled, with an imposing growing Christmas tree, a snowy pine forest and a gliding golden sleigh to take the heroine Clara to the Land of Sweets.

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[dirac]

A previewof local Nutcracker performances by Bruce Fessier for MyDesert.com.

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The Moscow Classical Ballet is actually the State Academic Classical Ballet Theatre from Moscow. It was founded in 1966 by the USSR Ministry of Culture and is renowned for its modern interpretations of the classical ballet. This company almost always sells out the McCallum.

The Moscow Ballet at The Show is a production of Akiva Talmi Presents, which was founded in 1993. All 40 of its dancers are from Russia, culled from a half-dozen professional companies with the words “Moscow Ballet” such as the Moscow Festival Ballet, founded in 1989.