5 replies to this topic

[dirac]

A review of Tulsa Ballet by James D. Watts Jr. in Tulsa World.

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Michel Fokine’s “Le Spectre de la Rose” is a short piece, really a bravura solo for male dancer, that could be mistaken as an excerpt from a traditional story ballet. It has a simple plot – a girl falls asleep and dreams the rose she is holding comes to life. And that’s it: a fellow decked out in a red-petalled headpiece and leotard springs in through one window, spends the next eight minutes or so endeavoring to defy both gravity and physics with leap after leap and pirouette after pirouette, then launches himself out the opposite window.

Yet, as an example of the energy that the Ballets Russes brought to the purely classical repertoire, it was excellent, with soloist Yoshihisa Arai in excellent form as the hyper-kinetic Rose. It’s an extremely taxing role, yet Arai maintained a feeling of lightness and lyricism throughout, making that dramatic final leap for an exit into a real triumph. Principal dancer Soo Youn Cho danced the role of the debutante with a nicely subdued sweetness. (Beatrice Sebelin will dance the part on Saturday with Rodrigo Hermesmeyer as the Rose.)

[dirac]

Dayton Ballet celebrates its seventy-fifth anniversary.

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The program, conceived by Dayton Ballet artistic director/resident choreographer Karen Russo Burke and featuring nine dancers of the 15-member company, will pay tribute to founders/sisters Josephine and Hermene Schwarz, who created the Schwarz School of Dance in 1927 (now Dayton Ballet School) and laid the groundwork a decade later for The Experimental Group for Young Dancers, which ultimately transitioned to the Dayton Ballet.

[dirac]

A review of Contemporary Ballet Dallas by Margaret Putnam for TheaterJones.

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That is not to say that Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, about a soldier reuniting with his loved one, or Sylvia and the devastation of drugs idealized turbulent times, but between the music, the dress and the dance, we couldn't help but be in love with it all.

Brick Road, Sylvia and a few others did not quite ring true. The real grit and anguish of war and addiction, of the struggle for justice and peace, seemed as remote as the faded TV images of Clinton declaring "I did not have sex with that woman," or Betty Friedan raising the battle cry for women's rights.

[dirac]

A review of Orlando Ballet's "Swan Lake" by Matthew J. Palm in The Orlando Sentinel.

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It's not the most emotionally gripping incarnation of the boy-meets-swan tale, but it's strongly danced and beautiful to look at with sumptuous costumes and rich scenery in the ball scene.

The story — sketched extremely lightly onstage through some pantomime — follows Prince Siegfried as he falls in love with Odette, cursed to transform into a swan. He vows to break the spell that keeps Odette and other young women trapped as swans, but an evil sorcerer's trickery means he tragically fails in his quest.

[dirac]

A review of Ballet Arizona's'Director's Choice' program by Richard Nilsen in The Arizona Republic.

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There is no question of the excellence of the performance, but the heart of this dance is the choreography, the underlying message that muses are essential, but they only take wing when the performers give them life.

The finale was the opposite. Not that there was anything wrong with the choreography, but "Paquita," originally performed in 1847, is an old-fashioned ballet, and as presented by Ballet Arizona and staged by Olga Evreinoff, there is no essential meaning to the steps. We enjoy them for the brilliant execution of them by our company of dancers, especially Tzu-Chia Huang in the lead role, and Astrit Zejnati as her consort.

[dirac]

Lucien Postlewaite is leaving Pacific Northwest Ballet for Les Ballets de Monte Carlo.

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When PNB Artistic Director Peter Boal announced that Postlewaite would be leaving he released this statement.

“When I first met Lucien Postlewaite he was a thirteen year old kid, who stumbled into my class some fifteen years ago. Now a true danseur noble, he’s ready to try his wings on a quest for new artistic heights. He is that rare dancer who can do it all and we applaud him for wanting to try it all. Bravo, Lucien. Seattle will miss you, but wishes you only the best."