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More reviews of the ENB. The Independent The Telegraph The Stage

Reviews of the English National Ballet in "Raymonda." Slipped Disc The Guardian The Evening Standard

Jodie Gates will succeed Victoria Morgan as the artistic director of Cincinnati Ballet. Related.

Which is pretty much what Tomasson was brought in to do. The goal was to return the company to a sound classical base. It will be interesting to see what Rojo's remit will be. As far as I know she has spent little time in the U.S. and hasn't worked much with American dancers, so that will be something of a question mark (?) There may be cultural adjustments to make on both sides.

Thank you, California. It really is nice to see actual audiences again.

Thank you for posting, sandik. I'm sorry to hear this. I seem to recall that Teachout wasn't the only one less than thrilled with the Theater formerly known as State, but I don't remember where I read it. Something about it being a problematic gift to Balanchine. In fairness, it wasn't exactly a golden age. The 21st century has a long way to go.

Talk about the opening and closing ceremonies and the figure skating here, if so inclined. No tickets are being sold to the general public because of the virus, I understand, so this Olympics will be as oddly underpopulated as the event in Tokyo.

Spielberg turns 75 today. Anyone see Ariana DeBose on SNL? Expanding on what I wrote earlier – as my earlier posts indicate, I was skeptical of this venture and in some respects went to the movie to bury Steven and not to praise him, but credit where credit is due. It’s a shame that he didn’t try his hand at a musical earlier, and given that box office trends are running against musicals now, this may well be his last. Plus: Elgort and Zegler have tons more chemistry than Beymer and Wood (not saying much, true). As canbelto said, the height discrepancy is a source for humor. They look cute together. You can imagine what they might be like as a pair if there had been a happy ending – Maria would boss Tony and the big guy would be putty in her hands. Elgort’s pipes are okay if not quite up to the demands of the score, but this was also true to some extent of Zegler, so he wasn’t overpowered vocally. Tony also has to have chemistry with Riff, and the relationship between the two is stronger in this version. (Mike Faist is about the only member of the cast who convinces as a slum kid and he is terrific.) “Cool” is moved up to “Act One” instead of “Act Two,” and it becomes a kind of pas de deux for the two of them. I thought it was also the most effective of Peck’s dances, even if shifting the number to pre-rumble creates other problems. I can’t say Elgort is persuasive as the inner city samurai Tony’s supposed to be in this telling, but probably just as well, because given the whopper of a backstory this Tony has, that would be scary. (BTW Spielberg and Kushner exhibit a touching faith in the reforming powers of the New York penal system; Tony emerges from a year in the slammer not coarsened and/or traumatized, as a kid like him might be, but thoughtful and eager to begin a new life.) Minus: Elgort and Zegler both have trouble with the powerful emotions at the end, and Zegler’s speech at the end falls a bit flat. (Wood was better here.) They aren’t helped by losing their big song. Maria can’t sing “Somewhere” to the dying Tony because neither of them have heard it, much less sang any of it. Plus: Spielberg’s dynamic camerawork during the dance sequences is impressive. He gets in among the bodies, showing us details that only the camera can while still not losing sight of the larger structure of the dance. We’ve seen enough directors fail at this to realize how hard it is to do, and Spielberg makes it look like rolling over in bed. Minus: For all that, the dances aren’t as effective or powerful as they were in the original, and since WSS is dance-driven, this is a big deal. In this version, the dances are more like diversions, whereas in 1961 they powered the movie.While Justin Peck isn’t Jerome Robbins, I’m not sure if this was avoidable. The 1961 movie fell between the two stools of stylization and realism, and Robbins’ choreography is better suited to the former, in which the violence is expressed through the dancing. Once you take these boys out of the theater to do their jumps and turns on real city streets, problems start. Peck’s new choreography cuts way back on the balletic stylizing of Robbins’ but he doesn’t replace it with anything as distinctive. But even if he had, seeing the dancing alongside “real” bloody ears and faces would, I think, take away from it. I did not find it significant that the Sharks’ dances weren’t particularly Latin in flavor. I’m guessing they wanted to avoid the “Latin” flourishes in the old choreography that have been criticized by some. I prefer the little bridal shop as the setting for “I Feel Pretty” and “One Hand, One Heart.” Kushner has disposed of some of the cornier moments from the dialogue of the original book and the old movie, but he’s substituted some cornpone of his own and there is a lot of it. Turns out Officer Schrank is quite the sociologist and expert in the economic and social effects of urban renewal. Who knew? After he’s done lecturing the boys and us we hear the same points again, and maybe for a third time in Spanish, a good deal of which went past me without subtitles. Also, do we need a bunch of extra backstory to explain why Tony and Bernardo are prone to violence? They're gang members. (I also had problems with the implicit rationalization of gang violence in this version.) The Valentina character did not work for me.

An NPR interview with Tamara Rojo.

A review of the Royal Ballet by Jann Parry for DanceTabs. Review of the RB by Vikki Jane Vile for Broadway World.

A review of the Royal Ballet by Graham Watts for Bachtrack.

A review of the Royal Ballet in "Romeo and Juliet" by Teresa Guerreiro for CultureWhisper. Related.

Q&A with Shiori Kase.

A story on Tamara Rojo's departure for San Francisco Ballet by Stephanie Linning in The Daily Mail. A celebration of her tenure at English National Ballet by Lyndsey Winship in The Guardian.

A story on the Rojo appointment by Janos Gereben in The San Francisco Examiner.

An appraisal of Tamara Rojo's tenure at the English National Ballet by Ben Lawrence in The Telegraph.

Tamara Rojo is appointed the new artistic director of San Francisco Ballet. The New York Times The Guardian The Stage The Sunday Times

I have fond memories of San Francisco Ballet in "Elite Syncopations." Tan and Possokhov were fine in the leads, especially him, and Julie Diana distinguished herself in the second cast. Most especially Muriel Maffre and James Sofranko in the "Alaskan Rag." The ballet was also something of a signature piece for the National Ballet of Canada back then.

Francesca Hayward will perform in Australia.

Some dancers want to take a powder on the tutu.

Signing on to this.

When the war closed off the international market, Garbo’s vehicles became too costly. Her departure was not meant to be permanent.

Tamara Rojo is interviewed by David Jays in The Sunday Times.

An interview with Lynn Cox, the new artistic director of Marin Dance Theatre.

New York City Ballet postpones the opening of its winter season.