7 replies to this topic

[dirac]

Boston Ballet will travel to the U.K.

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The tour — Boston Ballet’s first to London in 30 years — comes on the heels of the company’s Finland tour this year and other trips to Spain, South Korea, and Canada in recent years. The company is looking to make a name for itself internationally.

“London is one of the performing arts capitals in the world, with a hungry dance audience and extremely well-educated and respected dance critics,” says executive director Barry Hughson. “As we think about telling this story of Boston Ballet as a global brand, London seemed the most appropriate to tell that story.”

[dirac]

A review of one of Lisa Macuja Elizalde's farewell performances in "Don Quixote" by for the Manila Bulletin.

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On stage, the prima ballerina is still as wraith-like as when she was 18, a dot of white net and lace spinning in bright circles of light; or a spitfire in red, dancing and twirling madly, flamboyantly, to the beat of castanets, tambourines, and a passionate heart. Her partner in Don Quixote, Mikhail Martynyuk of Kremlin Ballet, was more than equal to the task of providing solidity and strength, muscle and grace, winning raves and gasps of the kind reserved for daredevils. For Lisa, the greatest joy next to dancing is “bringing ballet to the people, and the people to ballet.”

[dirac]

Milwaukee Ballethad a very good fiscal year in 2011-12.

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Attendance reached almost 40,000 for the season, showing a 20 percent increase over the previous year. Ticket sales exceeded $1.7 million, registration in the Milwaukee Ballet School and Academy netted almost $1.4 million and contributed income to the ballet was over $2.5 million.

[dirac]

A preview of Nevada Ballet Theatre's production of "Jewels" by Carol Cling in The Las Vegas Review-Journal.

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Ballet West dancers will perform "Emeralds," set to movements from French composer Gabriel Faure's "Pelleas et Melisande " and "Shylock." NBT will dance "Rubies" to Stravinsky's three-movement Capriccio for Piano and Orchestra. "Diamonds" climaxes the evening, with Pacific Northwest Ballet dancing to three movements from Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 3 in D major.

Heightening the evening's impact: a 52-member live orchestra, including members of the Las Vegas Philharmonic, conducted by Pacific Northwest Ballet's music director, Emil de Cou . ("Rubies" will feature pianist Christina Siemens .)

[dirac]

Reviews of Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet.

Telegraph

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There were plenty of empty seats on opening night at Sadler’s Wells, which just goes to show how hard it is to sell a relatively unknown dance company in difficult economic times. But they deserve to be filled because this is an exceptionally good company in three interesting works.

Guardian

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For their UK debut, New York's Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet lived up to their advance reputation by bringing a uniformly fabulous group of dancers and a very mixed bill of new works by young non-Americans: the British-based Israeli Hofesh Shechter, Sweden's Alexander Ekman, and the Canadian Crystal Pite, formerly of the Frankfurt Ballet. Yet the pieces shared a common trait: each dissociated sound, light and action, so that the dancers appeared as just one medium among several.

[dirac]

A review of Aspen Santa Fe Ballet by Debra Levine in The Los Angeles Times.

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"Stamping Ground" stems from the early career of influential Nederlands Dans Theater choreographer Ji¿í Kylián. Inspired by Australian Aborigines, the work's brazen solos, danced in silence, gave way to group gyrations to Carlos Chávez's cacophonous percussive score. Six dancers, spines undulating, pelvises pumping and long arms draping, echoed monkeys. A shimmering shower curtain stretched across the back wall lent humor and mystery. Kids in the audience giggled.

[dirac]

A review of Scottish Ballet by Thom Dibdin in The Stage.

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In Hans van Manen’s 5 Tangos the company has found itself a crowd pleaser. The beauty and elegance of the whole is exemplified in two of the tangos. The first a solo from Christopher Harrison, his upper-body all ballroom formality as his lower half cuts the leaps, twists and steps of pure ballet into the mix. Second is the austere melancholy of Claire Robertson’s tango with six male dancers. It is an electric, heart-rending performance which brings pure emotion to the stage and, one suspects, new audiences for the company.

[dirac]

Miami City Ballet prepares for the new season. Story by Jordan Levin in The Miami Herald.

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Some aspects of the job, such as coaching the company's Balanchine ballets — many of which she danced during her 24 years with New York City Ballet — come naturally to Lopez. But the former executive director of Morphoses, a small contemporary troupe in New York, has never had to juggle the myriad demands of heading a major classical company. They range from planning new ballets years in advance to fine-tuning steps at daily rehearsals, from stroking potential donors to listening to 11-year-olds in the company's school who are upset that they're not being allowed to use pointe shoes yet.

"I promised them I'd take another look," Lopez sighs as she rushes from a photo shoot to change for rehearsal. She has been staying with friends and family as she looks for an apartment, and the night before, stomach pains (stress-related, she thinks) landed her in the emergency room.