8 replies to this topic

[dirac]

Mark Morris and Alexei Ratmansky are the "most important choreographers under 70*,*" sez Alastair Macaulay.

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It’s their feeling for gender in which they’re at their most modern. No one has worked harder than Mr. Morris to give same-sex and heterosexual couples equal weight. Ballet, however, largely remains a sexist and exclusively hetero genre; so it was a signal event in May when Mr. Ratmansky’s "
Dumbarton" treated same-sex couples as if they were simply another reasonable ingredient of society. And both choreographers show unidealized views of men and women. The celesta music that Tchaikovsky wrote for the "Nutcracker" Sugar Plum Fairy usually speaks of enchantment; but these two men hear it in terms of modern women, both bewildered and amused by falling in love.

*updated from "fifty"

[dirac]

More on the departure of Sergei Poluninfrom the Royal.

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However, his business partner, tattooist Anthony Lammin, said: “London has limited him. He feels like he's done everything he can do here.

“He just said he's ready to leave. He didn't even sound particularly upset, he sounded bored. I guess he's just achieved so much at a young age.

“He mentioned Japan and said he'd like to look at America but I don't think he knows yet. London doesn't let him be an individual: Sergei is just a product of the Royal Ballet."

[dirac]

A review of the Royal Winnipeg Balletin "Svengali" by Natasha Gauthier in The Ottawa Citizen.

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The Royal Winnipeg Ballet’s newest full-length production, Svengali, opened at the NAC’s Southam Hall Thursday night. The RWB usually packs the house in Ottawa, so it was surprising to see the number of empty seats. Perhaps patrons were frightened off by the downtown parking and traffic snarls caused by pre All-Star Week festivities around City Hall. Or maybe they had a premonition that a ballet about a hypnotist might make them sleepy, very, very sleepy.

Choreographer Mark Godden, who created such a spectacular Dracula for the company, here falls short with much weaker and less compelling source material. Godden has based Svengali on Trilby, an 1894 novel by George du Maurier about a sinister Jew who turns a tone-deaf young lady into an opera diva through hypnotism.

[dirac]

An item on the retirement of Riolama Lorenzofrom the Pennsylvania Ballet.

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“I got back into dance shape,” Riolama remembered, “started taking classes, came to Philadelphia and auditioned for Roy (Kaiser, the West Mt. Airy resident and artistic director of the Pennsylvania Ballet) on the stage of the Academy of Music, where the company was performing ‘Coppelia.’ He hired me on the spot and recalled having seen me dance at the New York City Ballet with his brother, Russell.”

[dirac]

A preview of Kansas City Ballet'snew season by Andrea Fowler in The Kansas City Star.

Yet the Kansas City Ballet’s artistic director, William Whitener, has programmed a season of performances for 2012-13 that aims to meet the high standards Kansas City dance fans have come to expect as the company settled into its new performance home, the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts, and its new headquarters, the Bolender Center.

The next season, announced this weekend, includes four works the company will perform here for the first time, one of them a world premiere by choreographer Karole Armitage.

[dirac]

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

Ms. Fairchild, armed with a prodigious technique and an unpretentious nature, can almost make things look too easy. She’s on a path of locating more eloquence in her upper body, which was evident in her arabesque pulls with Mr. De Luz, as well as when she soared across the stage in high sideway jumps, two in each direction. It really was as if she had been shot out of a cannon, and the air was hers to hold. Devin Alberda, despite shakiness in supporting Ms. Fairchild in a sequence of pirouettes, maintained a lively, crisp vivacity throughout.

Ms. Whelan’s special serenity was once again on display in Robbins’s “In Memory of ...,” a tepid ballet from 1985 that nevertheless made much of her ability to charge the space quietly around her.

[dirac]

Lustig Dance Theatreprepares a new production.

Graham Lustig of Highland Park, the choreographer who founded Lustig Dance Theatre (LDT) in 2010, explained that many dance pieces have centered on winged creatures, from Tchaikovsky’s “Swan Lake” to Stravinsky’s “Firebird.” Butterflies and angels also are recurring figures in dance.

For “Wingéd,” Lustig is only one of the choreographers involved in the creation of the work. He has designed two of the sections (including one based on the myth of Icarus), while other members of his company are developing other sections.

[dirac]

A Voice of Russia radio interview with some of the people behind the "Men in Motion" program at Sadler's Wells. Thanks to innopac for the link!

This short programme by Alice Lagnado for Voice of Russia radio in London Includes interviews with Ivan Putrov, Igor Kolb, and Luke Jennings, dance critic of the Observer newspaper.

[dirac]

A review of "Men in Motion" by Judith Mackrell in The Guardian.

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It's hard luck for Ivan Putrov, the conceiver, producer and lead dancer, that his carefully orchestrated project should have been dominated by the news frenzy over Polunin. Also that visa problems with his guest dancers should have resulted in two items being scrapped.

Yet what remains still carries the essence of the show's theme – tracing the development of male dancing over the last century – and it displays an integrity, and intelligence that means it is very far from the vapid vanity projects that so many dancer-led evenings turn out to be.