Monday, March 8

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Lauren Lovette retires from the New York City Ballet.

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Lauren Lovette, the New York City Ballet principal, is retiring from the company but not from dance.

 

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A review of San Francisco Ballet's new online mixed bill by Lyndsey Winship in The Guardian.

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Australian choreographer Danielle Rowe has a clutch of stage works under her belt, but in lockdown she has turned to film-making. First it was funny ballet skits, and now she’s made her first major work for San Francisco Ballet, in their latest online triple bill. Wooden Dimes is the tale of a talented but naive 1920s showgirl named Betty (Sarah Van Patten), corrupted by success that splinters her marriage to solid but stressed-out accountant type Robert (Luke Ingham). It is not a wildly original conceit, but it has fizz, drama and vintage glamour – who doesn’t love drop waists, bobs and minimally styled deco designs? (There’s a story in the colour schemes of Emma Kingsbury’s costumes, which are nicely done.)

 

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Q&A with Sarah Lamb about working with Twyla Tharp on As Time Goes By.

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Had you ever seen As Times Goes By? Did she come with the new pas de deux choreography fully prepared?

I’d not seen it, but for Steven and me, the choreography was completely new, as was the music and the costumes. So the time we spent with her, just a few weeks, was a unique collaboration. She came with quite a lot prepared – she’s incredibly well structured with her musicality and how she envisages the result. But I do think we surprised her with what we were able to do. Steven surprised her because she didn’t expect him to have the energy and strength that he has, which is outstanding, really. He was doing things that she didn’t think were possible, which is quite something because Twyla does expect a lot! I don’t think the pas de deux partnering would have been as difficult as it ended up being were it not for the way the two of us worked together. And she amended things for us once she knew the way that we moved, so that it did feel a collaborative creation, in spite of the fact that she came infinitely well prepared.