6 replies to this topic

[dirac]

Valentino and Sarah Jessica Parker talk about his costumes for the New York City Ballet gala.

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VALENTINO What you will see on Thursday is not a ballet, it is a haute couture show. If you are a connoisseur of ballet, you automatically know the little tricks, for the hands have to move all the time, and when I design I know that she cannot stay all evening like a little statue without moving. You think about the color, and how it will look on the stage. I know the lighting is this pale blue, so the color can be very, very strong. Now I am so jealous of my dresses. At the last rehearsal, when the first three costumes came on stage, I was really full of emotion because they were very, very strong. I was hoping the dancers don’t sit on the floor, because the dresses are like soufflés.

Related.

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For all his grandeur and fame, Valentino appeared quite comfortable in a sparse ballet practice room scattered with a few instruments.

He says NYCB Ballet Master-in-Chief Peter Martins, who is a friend, seems a little surprised at the minute level of detail that's required, and at the number of changes that were happening just days before the show. It's the first time Martins has seen choreography done around a dress and not vice versa, Valentino says with a smile.

[dirac]

Reviews of NYCB.

The New York Times

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I can’t help hoping that City Ballet will try staging the fuller text of “Apollo.” (A few other companies, like American Ballet Theater, still dance this older, longer version, with its prologue, its final ascent of Parnassus, and its three supplementary characters.) It would particularly suit Mr. Fairchild. In general it would be good to see this company, the world’s foremost exponent of Balanchine choreography, experiment with different texts of his ballets over the seasons. (Heaven knows Balanchine kept tinkering with many of them.) The drama of the uncut “Apollo” covers a wider scope, and its closing image is much more thrillingly expansive.

Financial Times

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Still, he has some growing to do – where would the drama be otherwise? On opening night, Robert Fairchild presented the god evolving beat by beat. He favoured muscular impetus over static line, a brave and unusual choice that gave the performance the edge it lacked last year at his debut in the role.

[dirac]

A preview of L.A. Dance Project by Benn Widdey for LAist.

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Bringing a program of both modern and ballet choreography to the stunning Frank Gehry-designed stage, the six now-LA-based dancers will perform iconic Merce Cunningham's 1964 “Winterbranch” (with music by La Monte Young and costumes and object conceived by Robert Rauschenberg), ballet innovator William Forsythe’s 1993 "Quintett" (music by Gavin Bryars) and Millepied's own premiere, a collaboration with composer Nico Muhly, visual artist Christopher Wool and costumers Kate and Laura Mulleavy of Rodarte in a work he calls ”Moving Parts.”

[dirac]

A preview of Houston Ballet's  Women @ Art program by Joseph Campana for CultureMap Houston.

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Extravagant praise is hardly new for the ascendant Barton. My first experience with her work was a performance in Hartford of "Come In" featuring the stunning Mikhail Baryshnikov. How not be sold on her work with that particular vote of confidence? In spite of her rapid rise, Barton is still an emerging talent, and it's worth watching where that talent takes her.

[dirac]

Ballet student Emily Ross talks about her experience taking the Bolshoi's summer intensive.

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Despite the initial craziness, Ross said she made good progress on the language courses, which may have been helped by the number of cultural outings, as well as the opportunity to converse with instructors and her fellow students in Russian. “I definitely want to continue (studying) Russian,” Ross said. “I ended up taking the equivalent of about two years of Russian there, and my dance teachers here speak it, so it will be a good opportunity to practice.” Ross and the other 14 members of the program also got to have dinner with the U.S. Ambassador to Russia while in Moscow.

There were also some challenges associated with the dancing. Ross said it was a major challenge to get used to the different type of floor that is used for ballet in Russia. Raked floors angle the stage toward the audience, so dancers upstage are actually slightly higher up than those close to the audience. To help with this, and to help enhance the ballet portion of the training, Ross also had gymnastics training while in Russia.

[dirac]

Mary Ellen Hunt interviews Carlos Molina, who's in town to dance with Napoles Ballet, for The San Francisco Chronicle.

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Molina is in town for only a couple of weeks, so finishing the ballet has meant keeping to a busy schedule. But that's the life of a freelancer, he says.

"When you're with a company, you have consistency in your work schedule," he says. "As a freelancer it's your own responsibility to maintain yourself in the right shape, and it takes discipline to stay that way."

[dirac]

Priscilla Crommelin-Ball, the executive director of the Montgomery Ballet, quits her post effective immediately.

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"Frankly, balancing the demands of the ballet with my obligations to my family business has become unfair to both," added Crommelin-Ball, who has been with the company for more than 20 years.