6 replies to this topic

[dirac]

Reviews of "Metamorphosis: Titian 2012."

The Telegraph

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Monica Mason’s refusal to leave Covent Garden with a whimper has yielded one of the most visually arresting dance programmes of recent years. For, rather than mark her retirement – after 10 fruitful years as director of the Royal Ballet, and 54 years with the company in all — with a gala, she looked instead to the National Gallery, which is showing three Ovid-inspired mythological masterpieces by Titian, along with responses to them by a trio of leading contemporary artists.

The Evening Standard

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From the first piece, Machina, onwards this was the Royal Ballet at its best. Although crowd-pleasers Carlos Acosta, Edward Watson, Leanne Benjamin and Tamara Rojo were all very nearly upstaged by sculptor Conrad Shawcross’s imposing giant robotm Acosta was a study in masculinity, while Watson’s precise, sinewy movements beautifully evoked mechanical grace.

The Independent

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Mark Wallinger’s set frames Trespass, by Alastair Marriott and Christopher Wheeldon, with handsome monochrome curves. Beatriz Stix-Brunell and Nehemiah Kish float through a sleek duet, unfolding limbs in delicate lines. A frieze of posing men is less successful, but Melissa Hamilton makes a poised, darting goddess. Sarah Lamb and Steven McRae wind into intricate, complex lifts. Mark Anthony-Turnage’s score goes from percussive drive to chiming intimacy.

The Stage

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Finally, Chris Ofili’s vibrant jungle designs and costumes plunge the narrative ballet Diana and Actaeon right into the heart of a Ballet Russes pastiche. A trio of choreographers working on individual sequences convey the story as Federico Bonelli’s Actaeon, smitten by the sight of a ‘naked’ Diana (Marianela Nunez) is seduced, transformed and abandoned by her to the dreadful fate of being torn apart by his own hounds. Jonathan Dove’s music, with sterling contributions from singers Kim Sheehan and Andrew Rees, incorporates the repeated motif of a hunting horn that often accompanies the pack of hounds, conjured by Ofili’s dog masks held at arms’ length rather than worn.

[dirac]

Conrad Shawcross is interviewed about his designs for "Titian: Metamorphosis 2012."

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Cuban star Carlos Acosta will dance Actaeon metamorphosing into a stag and he and the nymphs will interact with the robot Diana, placed on a tripod (her legs), on shards of mirror (the bath), centre stage.Diana has been programmed to mimic the dancers' movements as well as to respond to the mathematics of the music and to the bowing movements of a violin. With a three-metre wand that she flicks around the stage, Diana will begin slowly, "stroking her own leg, masturbatory, horny, unaware of being watched. It'll be a private moment of feminine sexuality, seductive," says Shawcross. "Come and see her."

[dirac]

Ballet lessons may help little girls avoid growing up too fast.

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“Our findings indicate that there is reason to be concerned about the early sexualization of girls,” Knox College psychologists Christine Starr and Gail Ferguson write in the journal Sex Roles. Their study of 6- to 9-year-old girls living in the Midwest found a strong desire to look sexy, and a tendency to equate sexiness with popularity.

This attitude was widely shared, “with the notable exception of girls enrolled in dance classes.” Dance training appears to be “a protective factor against young girls’ sexualization,” the researchers write.

[dirac]

A review of "First Position" by Diana Barth in The Epoch Times, with a photo of the director, Bess Kargman.

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“First Position” is compelling, not only because it shows the trials and tribulations of young dancers, but because it can be extrapolated to encompass the struggles of people in many areas of work and achievement. It is truly inspiring.

[dirac]

A reviewof San Francisco Ballet and Les Ballets de Monte-Carlo by Raymond Stults in The Moscow Times.

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The San Francisco Ballet was represented as well by its resident choreographer, Yury Posokov, who re-created for the Bolshoi his ballet "Classical Symphony," which he originally staged for his home company two years ago. Posokov is no stranger to Moscow. His career in ballet began at the Bolshoi, where he danced from 1982 until his departure ten years later to join the Royal Danish Ballet and, soon afterward, to become a principal dancer, and eventually choreographer, with the San Francisco Ballet. In 2006, he enjoyed considerable success with a highly imaginative staging for the Bolshoi of Prokofiev's "Cinderella."

[Helene]

Apollinaire Scherr reviews Paris Opera Ballet in "Suite en Blanc," "L'Arlesienne," "Bolero," and "Giselle" for her blog, "foot in mouth":

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To French music that deserved much better--particularly given the clarified drama that the New York City Opera orchestra under the baton of the POB's Koen Kessels brought out-- Bejart gave us token eroticism; Lifar, lifeless classicism; and Petit, a protracted tale of a brutish ingrate and his relentlessly clingy lover. That could work--two dislikable protagonists--if Petit only realized he had some explaining to do about our putative hero and his tantrums for freedom (danced with great force and feeling by Jeremie Belingard, the performance's one virtue), and if the choreographer didn't hate the petty and clueless woman almost as much as the hero does, who would rather die than be with her. I thought, if this is Frenchness, give me Kansasness, Belgianity: anything.  

[dirac]

A review of the Paris Opera Ballet by Leigh Witchel in The New York Post.

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But oh, that magnificent corps. Those women in white arrange in lines as manicured as the gardens of Versailles, and form exquisite groupings that look like a 19th-century lithograph come to life. Even in pointe shoes, their feet are so supple and strong that it seems as if they could use their toes to peel grapes — or crack walnuts.

Their synchronization is a world apart from the Rockettes’. They’ve danced together since they were schoolchildren. Every arm movement, every tilt of the head — it’s all done not just the same, but the same way. At the end of their big dance, the audience spontaneously erupted into bravos.