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[dirac]

Reviews of the Smuin Ballet.

The New York Post

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Watching Michael Smuin’s “Medea” is like freebasing kitsch. From its first image of the heroine wrapped in an enormous purple cape that is smoking — literally — you’re in for something completely over the top.

The San Francisco troupe brought three works, including its late founder’s 1977 version of the Greek myth. The story of Medea’s grisly revenge on her husband, Jason, after leaving her for a younger woman, is told with as much fabric, yet as little clothing as possible. Medea has three different capes; the men wear nothing but thongs.

Financial Times

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Trey McIntyre, whose own troupe is now the toast of Boise, has finally found a form for his whimsical, wide open, very American imagination. Taking its title and music from the Portland-based band The Shins, Oh, Inverted World is ballet’s answer to indie rock – The Shins’ kind, in which sweet, strummed melodies support vivid, ruminative lyrics. The dance imagines introspection as a way of being with others: a loose, unmannered communality.

[dirac]

The White Birch Ballet Company of Saskatchewan finds its footing.

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Working with nationally acclaimed choreographers has increased awareness of White Birch Ballet, both here at home and across the country.

Over the past four seasons, five of the country's top choreographers have accepted Williams' invitation to choreograph works for the ballet company, including Owen Montague, Gioconda Barbuto, Constance Cooke, Josh Beamish and Joe Laughlin.

[dirac]

A writer commits suicide after a breakup with an English National Ballet dancer.

The Evening Standard

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Eleanor Sharpe, a dancer with the English National Ballet, told the inquest in Bristol the couple split after “I found out that he had lied to me about taking Viagra”.

Related.

[dirac]

Lynne Raider, a Parkinson's disease sufferer, talks about the benefits of dance class.

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Kinds of steps: Many are from a seated position, doing upper-body movements, doing some steps from the chair, like marching steps, and actually doing some that follow the ballet movements - first, second, third and fourth position - but not doing them the same way as professional people in ballet.

[dirac]

More reviews of the Smuin Ballet.

The New York Times

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The opening work of the Smuin Ballet’s triple bill at the Joyce Theater on Monday provides evidence of one of the most singular choreographic minds working in ballet today. Trey McIntyre’s “Oh, Inverted World” — set to songs by the Shins — is a pop ballet, reminiscent of some of the best pop ballets of Twyla Tharp. Its subject, though, is one that I don’t remember Ms. Tharp tackling: the perplexity of young individuals amid the group.

The Faster Times

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The best work of the evening, and the one that most suited the dancers, was surely Oh, Inverted World, by Trey McIntyre. There’s a plainspoken-ness to his work that I’ve always found refreshing. His dances draw their tone from the people with whom he collaborates: young, dynamic, normal but conflicted, with the particular vulnerabilities of the young. Inverted World is set to songs by the indie-rock band The Shins; I couldn’t make out the words, but they sounded like just what you would expect, slightly plaintive, energetic expressions of teenage angst and enthusiasm. The dance reflected these feelings perfectly: boys and girls in simplified sports attire, cavorting and pairing up vigorously, their antics tempered by the occasional eruption of awkwardness and misanthropy.

[dirac]

A note in brief on the retirement of Kristin Long from San Francisco Ballet, with a link to YouTube video footage.

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Since joining SF Ballet as an apprentice in 1989, Long has performed numerous lead roles in full-length productions such as Tomasson’s Giselle, Swan Lake, Romeo & Juliet, and The Sleeping Beauty, and Tomasson/Possokhov’s Don Quixote.

[dirac]

Participants in the Chicago Dancing Festival tell Hedy Weiss what they'd like to see.

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Rory Hohenstein: “I am a huge fan of Hubbard Street, and I’m really looking forward to seeing their performance of [the first movement of Israeli choreographer] Ohad Naharin’s ‘Tabula Rasa.’ The Graham company is legendary, and always stunning. Pacific Northwest Ballet is performing ‘Afternoon of a Faun’ — one of my personal favorites among Jerome Robbins’ pieces — quiet, beautiful, full of emotion and a definite must-see. And of course the soloists from San Francisco Ballet and New York City Ballet will be brilliant.”