7 replies to this topic

[dirac]

An interview with Boston Ballet corps member Seo Hye Han.

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Aspires to: “One day I would love to become a principal with Boston Ballet, and then go back to perform in Korea as a principal. It would be great to make my country proud, and show them how beautiful Boston Ballet is.”

[dirac]

A review of Bern Ballett in Cathy Marston's "Witch-hunt" by Luke Jennings in The Observer.

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Marston completes her contract at Bern in July, and it will be interesting to see where her work leads her. In a dance climate overwhelmingly favouring the abstract and the conceptual, choreographers who work with narrative are rare, and those who can handle complex narrative structure are rarer still, as recent Royal Ballet projects have demonstrated.......

[dirac]

Q&A with Audrey Niffenegger.

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Q: How did "Raven Girl," both the book and the ballet based on it, come about?
A: David Drew, who'd been a principal dancer for the Royal Ballet, had received a copy of "The Three Incestuous Sisters" from his wife as a birthday present. He's now 75 years old, so he goes way back with the ballet. These days he's a scenarist, and he looks for things to turn into ballets. In 2006, he wrote me an e-mail saying he thought "The Three Incestuous Sisters" might make a good ballet. I got all excited, because I thought, "This is a whole other alien planet that I don't know about."

[dirac]

A WAMC Radio story on the impact of "The Rite of Spring." Audio and text.

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But historian Lynn Garafola says the choreography had an equally dramatic impact on the world of dance. "I think it was the beginning of what eventually becomes modern dance. It meant that it was possible to create a large-scale work — not a work for a soloist — that departed from the traditional vocabularies of ballet," she says. "This was a new kind of ballet, a new kind of choreography, and a new kind of music."

[dirac]

A review of the Royal Ballet in "Raven Girl" by Sarah Crompton in The Telegraph.

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But somewhere, underneath all the effects, the story and its meaning gets lost. McGregor fashions some extraordinary moments. More or less abandoning his typical, super-flexible, twisting style, he creates carefully distinctive steps for each protagonist. Ed Watson's warm-hearted postman walks in circles, following the gyres of flight; his love is first a tiny girl, then the masked Olivia Cowley, who crouches on his arm light as a feather, nuzzling his shoulder to impart a little kiss.

[dirac]

A review of "Raven Girl," "The Great Gatsby," and "Witch-hunt" by Ismene Brown for The Arts Desk.

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Myths are great in ballet, and Raven Girl and Witch-Hunt are both pregnant with superstitions and fairy fancies, the first a fairy-tale, the second a regrettable piece of history. But where you feel Marston urgently digging her claws into her material, McGregor’s is distant, cool, a bit of phoning home dutifully to the Royal Ballet, his heart not seeming in it.

[dirac]

A Q&A with Daniel Gaudiello about life on the road (or in the air).

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Q Do you enjoy travel?

A I love it. As soon as my parents took me away as a young child I was hooked. Seeing the world and experiencing things blew my mind. It made me realise there is so much to see out there and life is so short. It prompted my move to Melbourne to pursue ballet. No one in my tight-knit family had left Brisbane till then. It was a big decision but I had a big dream and it's like The Lord of the Rings. You can stay in the shire and be happy or you can go on the big adventure.

[dirac]

A review of American Ballet Theatre by Mary Cargill for danceviewtimes.

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Lynn Seymour, the original Natalia, was a fluid, musical, and naturally sensuous dancer and an actress of unique power and subtlety. I never saw her in this role, but the curves, twists, and womanliness that Ashton built into the choreography have her indelible stamp. Neither Julie Kent nor Hee Seo (nor anyone else) have that combination, but each gave fine and thoughtful performances. Kent, understandably, was more mature, more knowing, which made her loss of control more shocking. When she discovered Vera and Beliaev, she turned to close the door with barely contained fury, a gesture she made absolutely chilling. Seo was, for me, a little too frivolous in her opening scenes--there should be hints of unhappiness, but her dancing in the final pas de deux with Beliaev was luxurious.