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dirac

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Posts posted by dirac

  1. Thank you both for posting. I hadn't heard.

      Byron Janis also died last week, aged 95.

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    At the height of his career, in the 1950s and 1960s, he was known for the tremendous sound and colorful sonorities he drew from the piano, and for a freewheeling interpretive approach that sometimes led him to bypass composers’ expressive markings when they were at odds with his conception.

    Obituary for Pollini in The Guardian.

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    It was also in the 60s that music and politics first became intertwined in Pollini’s career. A friendship with a fellow-student, Claudio Abbado, a like-minded leftwing idealist, led them to seek radical ways of bringing classical music to factory workers, including a cycle of concerts at La Scala for employees and students. Another friendship, with the Marxist avant garde composer Luigi Nono, was equally important, resulting in the commission of two pieces for Pollini, including one for piano, voice and tapes, commemorating an assassinated Chilean revolutionary. Pollini’s radical outlook remained with him throughout his career, as did his intellectual approach to art and life.

     

  2.  Dancers of the National Ballet of Cuba visit Italy for a gala.

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    Viengsay Valdés and Anyelo Montero will perform selections from Carmen, by Alberto Alonso, as well as a pas de deux from Love Fear Loss, choreographed by Brazilian Ricardo Amarante, a ballet inspired by the life of French singer Edith Pieaff, in whose performance they will be accompanied on stage by renowned Cuban pianist Marcos Madrigal.

     

  3. review of Kansas City Ballet by Hilary Stroh for Bachtrack.

    It’s always interesting to have a line-up of seven never-before-seen works on the program, as we did last night at Kansas City Ballet’s annual showcase of contemporary ballet, New Moves. How do we prepare ourselves for the unfamiliar? I remember reading a line from a well-known interior designer to the effect that one should always include at least one antique in a space because it grounds everything else. I feel much the same way when watching contemporary ballet. 

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    A review of the National Ballet of Canada by Gianmarco Segato for Bachtrack.

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    Given its literary underpinnings, and with character names such as Lotus, Leo, The Daemon and The Undermined, UtopiVerse is clearly meant to convey a narrative which unfortunately wasn’t always clear. Yong has choreographed some genuinely inventive, challenging movement but the piece lacks a binding dramaturgy to pull it all together.

    Paula Citron reviews the NBC for Ludwig Van.

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    Ottawa-born Portner is a star on the rise in the international ballet scene. This duet for two women, making its North American debut, was created for the Norwegian National Ballet and is, astonishingly, the choreographer’s first work for a ballet company.

    Prior to this piece, Portner had a very eclectic career in contemporary dance, music videos, and musical theatre, not to mention a tap dance collaboration. The overwhelming success of Islands, however, has led to a string of ballet commissions, and that is where her present career seems to be taking root.

    A review of the NBC by Rebecca Ritzel in The Globe and Mail.

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    Overloaded contemporary dance works best when the movement vocabulary makes no attempt to compete with elaborate visual elements. Yong’s intentionally awkward choreography only piles on the what-on-earth-is-going-on-here weirdness.

     

  5. A review of the RB by Teresa Guerreiro for CultureWhisper.

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    Spanning three decades, the Royal Ballet’s MacMillan triple bill consists of works radically different from each other in mood and movement, yet all bearing the hallmark of a choreographer who left an indelible imprint on the company.

     

  6. Phil Chan and Doug Fullington talk about their "reimagined" "La Bayadere" production at Indiana University.

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    What can be done with a work like “Bayadère”? For Chan and Doug Fullington, a specialist in 19th-century ballet, the solution is to remove it from its exotic context and put it in a setting closer to home, the Hollywood of the 1930s. By setting the ballet in a movie-land far west, and swapping Orientalist clichés for American ones, Chan said, the team was creating “a form of exoticism that is about us, not about ‘them.’”

     

  7. Misty Copeland talks about her experience of racism at American Ballet Theatre.

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    There were also instances of discrimination that could have easily turned Copeland away from dance altogether.

    “There were times that I was not cast in certain roles because I would stand out too much and kind of ruin the aesthetic, especially if it was a performance that was being filmed,” Copeland told Wallace.

     

  8. The English National Ballet and Acosta Danza are both presenting productions of "Carmen."

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    [Johan] nger’s two-act version, which comes to English National Ballet after almost a decade of success in Europe, is more closely based on the novella’s plot than the opera’s libretto. In the book the story is told by Don José who looks back at the events that led to him killing Carmen. “When I read the book I was surprised by the amount of the violence. It’s quite dark,” says the 56-year-old choreographer, who lives in Seville, where the story is set (his wife, a former dancer, is Spanish). “It’s about a man not being able to accept a woman and her freedom, looking at a woman as his property.

     

  9. Atlanta Ballet presents an in-house work by dancer Sergio Masero.

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    Gennadi Nedvigin, Atlanta Ballet’s artistic director, said one advantage of cultivating choreographic talent from within the company is that Masero, like choreographer-in-residence Claudia Schreier, begins the process of creating a new work already familiar with the company and its strengths.

     

  10. A review of the Royal Ballet in a MacMillan triple bill by Amanda Jennings for Bachtrack.

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    Throughout the piece, there are clear references to choreographic work MacMillan admired; Ashton is there, especially Scènes de Ballet, Balanchine is there in the fiendishly complex ingenuity of the step-sequences and fast changes of direction, but there are glimpses of MacMillan’s unique future development in the lifts and pas de deux construction. Danses is a veritable explosion of ideas. All this visual splendour coalesces with Stravinsky’s lush score to create a sensory feast. For the dancers there are significant challenges; there was the odd ragged moment (musicality is the key in work like this) but overall they rose to the occasion, especially Vadim Muntagirov, Sae Maeda and Joseph Sissens. Isabella Gasparini, replacing Anna-Rose O’Sullivan, brought charm to a role created on Maryon Lane, a ballerina whose high-instepped shoes are never easy to fill.

     

  11. Dayton Ballet presents its final program of the season.

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    “I can’t wait for Dayton’s audiences to experience this production!” says Ragland in a press statement. “We’re performing one of my favorite Balanchine works, ‘Valse-Fantaisie’ — set to music from Mikhail Glinka — and ‘Cold Virtues’ by my colleague and friend, Adam Hougland. And I’m putting the finishing touches on a yet-to-be-titled world premiere ballet highlighting Dayton Ballet Company’s athleticism, technique and artistry. Music for the world premiere is by Max Richter.”

     

  12. Reviews of the Royal Ballet in a MacMillan mixed bill.

    The Sunday Times

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    The evening ends with Requiem (1976), MacMillan’s tribute to his friend and fellow choreographer John Cranko, who had died three years earlier at the age of 45. The music is Fauré’s Requiem, transcendentally rich and deeply moving (all kudos to the conductor Koen Kessels, the soprano Isabela Díaz and the baritone Josef Jeongmeen Ahn). Yolanda Sonnabend’s luminous designs offer a serene environment in which the choreography’s haunting poetic imagery and uplifting spiritual quest are free to soar. Everyone in the cast wore its mourning and remembrance with honour, but none more so than Matthew Ball, absolutely stunning in the lead male role.

    The Stage

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    In this narrative ballet, MacMillan’s flair for character and psychology shines through. By turns tender with her common-law husband Woyzeck, and vigorously lustful in a scissoring pas de deux with Francisco Serrano, Francesca Hayward is sublime. Sambé is equally brilliant, perfectly capturing Woyzeck’s spiralling sanity in the hunched looseness of his gorgeous dancing. But in truth, every member of the company deserves praise for this deeply affecting work.

    The Daily Telegraph

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    From a playful abstract sketch to a harrowing narrative work and a divinely inspired requiem, the Royal Ballet displays the astonishing creative range of its former artistic director, Kenneth Macmillan, in this trio of one-act pieces. Unexpectedly, several cast changes due to illness also illustrate the depth of talent in the ranks as dancers such as first soloist Isabella Gasparini step confidently into the spotlight.


     

  13. A review of the Ballet Icons Gala by Amanda Jennings for Bachtrack.

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    It was a pleasure to see visitors from American Ballet Theatre, Herman Cornejo and Skylar Brandt, here in London. They danced together the Black Swan pas de deux, Cornejo’s much-loved artistry and virtuosity undimmed by time. Brandt had a mishap in the fouettés, uncharacteristic of her as she is a superb turner and I have been fortunate to see her on several occasions dancing stylishly in New York. Cornejo also danced with Francesca Hayward in a pas de deux from Christopher Wheeldon’s Like Water for Chocolate, a lovely account.

     

  14. Alberta Ballet presents "Hansel and Gretel."

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    Hansel & Gretel is hands-down the most fun ballet I’ve seen in recent memory — possibly ever. The production by the Royal New Zealand Ballet, created and choreographed by Loughlan Prior, is a modern take on the age-old fairy tale, and it does not disappoint. Alberta Ballet has done an incredible job bringing it to life for local audiences.

     

  15. How Pittsburgh arts organizations are coping with a long-term decline in subscriptions.

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    Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre, which mounts five productions a year, is the exception that proves the rule, as the company is capitalizing on repertoire trends. After multiple seasons of record-breaking revenue for “The Nutcracker,” the ballet is fronting story ballets with recognizable names in a special “family fairytale” subscription package.

     

  16. An interview with Anthony Madu, the subject of a new documentary.

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    Anthony Madu, born and raised in Lagos, Nigeria, has loved dancing, particularly ballet, since he was five.  A viral video of Madu dancing in the city’s mean streets prompted a bolt from the blue: The offer of a 7-year scholarship from London’s Elmhurst Ballet School where his dream as a ballet’s principal dancer could come true.

     

  17. A review of the Paris Opera Ballet by Jonathan Gray for Bachtrack.

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    Despite its French name, Frederick Ashton’s La Fille mal gardée is a British ballet classic, one of the choreographer’s absolute masterpieces. Created for The Royal Ballet in 1960, but based on a much older, pre-revolutionary French work, Fille is so quintessentially British it comes almost as a shock to see it performed anywhere but in the UK. However, over the years the ballet has proved such a warm-hearted delight that companies around the world are eager to take it into their repertoire. One of them – the Paris Opera Ballet – has just revived Fille at the Palais Garnier, and for those who love Ashton’s ballet, the temptation to see it again, especially as it has not been performed in London for a few years, is too great to resist.

     

  18.  The choreographer William Yong talks about his new ballet for the National Ballet of Canada.

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    UtopiVerse, by choreographer William Yong, explores the concept of utopia in the age of technology. Yong — who also dances, acts, designs and directs — uses light, music, video and contemporary movement to create his futuristic world.

    Yong, born in Hong Kong but based in Toronto, said his creativity emerged in childhood. He said his early experiences, steeped in poverty, helped to shape the ballet that audiences will see. The world premiere leads a winter triple bill that runs until Sunday. 

     

  19. A review of San Francisco Ballet by Charles Lewis III for 48hills.

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    A funny thing happened during SF Ballet’s opening night of A Midsummer Night’s Dream (through March 23 at the War Memorial Opera House): quite a few people thought the intermission was the ending. In fact, I’m pretty sure a few folks didn’t return from the intermission. After all, the first-half had the cast take their bows after 70 lovely minutes of Balanchine-choreographed beauty, so one would be forgiven for thinking it’s time to go home.

     

  20. La Scala Ballet visits Shanghai.

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    The star dancers for the leading roles, Nicoletta Manni and Timofej Andrijashenko, said on March 20 that the two of them began to dance together in Giselle, and the production accompanied their growth. The couple will be dancing Giselle together for the first time in Shanghai, after they got married last August.

     

  21. A preview of Hong Kong Ballet's new mixed bill.

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    But then three choreographers from different eras—George Balanchine (1904-1983), William Forsythe (1955-) and Andonis Foniadakis (1971-)—subverted the traditional dance form completely, by challenging the gender roles in ballet, reinventing the usual formula of groups and duet arrangements, and more.

    Now, the Hong Kong Ballet’s artistic director Septime Webre has compiled a production that puts together three ballet pieces, one each from of the three above-mentioned choreographers. The production titled The Rule Breakers runs from March 22 to 24 at the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts and features the dance form at its most experimental and innovative.


     

  22. A review of New York City Ballet by Leigh Witchel for dancelog.nyc.

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    If you’ve been watching NYCB for a while, watching Gordon is like watching Damian Woetzel. Gordon takes risks and though he’s got plenty of technique, he’s precipitous rather than precise. He has beautiful ballon, and sprung up with his legs flying apart in beats. In the coda, he sailed in, flew up, then nearly bought the farm in a tour. Yet it was somehow OK. He’s half virtuosity, half swagger, but he’s developed the skill of taking us with him.

     

  23. Ballet Tucson wraps up its season.

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    "Paquita" is a classic ballet with recognizable tutus and Spanish influence. "Sum Stravinsky" is a "tutu ballet but with a twist" as it leans toward a neo-classical feel. And with the playfulness and character of "The Piano Dance" and the modern, relaxed athleticism of "Asphodel," there is a blend of tradition and exploration of movement in ballet.

     

  24. Louisville Ballet presents a new piece with music by Jack Harlow.

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    This world premiere features acclaimed choreographer Ching Ching Wong set to a soundtrack of Harlow's music for a one-of-a-kind integration of local ballet and contemporary music. The performance will be part of the Louisville Ballet's 2024-25 season, which will be announced later this spring.

     

  25. A review of the Norwegian National Ballet by Maggie Foyer in Bachtrack.

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    Swans are no stranger to the ballet stage, but a wild duck is something of an anomaly. However, following on from the success of Norwegian National Ballet’s productions of Ghosts and Hedda Gabler, Ibsen’s The Wild Duck seemed inevitable. The dancers, in collaboration with Marit Moum Aune, have again worked their magic. Aune, one of Norway’s top theatre directors, knows her Ibsen, the dancers know their craft and in the studio the drama came to life in movement.

     

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