Tuesday, April 20

[dirac]

New York City Ballet will present a scaled down performance series at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center this summer.

Quote

City Ballet expects to resume its regular residency next summer, with full productions on the SPAC stage from July 12 to 16, 2022, SPAC said in announcing its plans.

 

[dirac]

Jacob's Pillow announces its summer schedule.

Quote

Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival will run in-person June 30-Aug. 29 (with a special online gala June 12). Online presentations of works captured during the company’s on-site performances will premiere soon after and will be available to stream on demand. Short performances, less than one hour in duration, will be presented on the Henry J. Leir Stage, the Pillow’s outdoor amphitheater space.

Related.

[dirac]

An examination of the accuracy of Netflix's ballet-themed shows.

Quote

Lately, ballet drama series have been popping up all over Netflix — but which fictional show most closely resembles real life as a ballet student? With 15 years of classical ballet training under my belt, I can separate the facts from the soap opera. There are four major ballet-centric programs currently on Netflix, and it may be unsurprising to hear that none of them are particularly realistic.

 

[dirac]

An omnibus review of online dance performances by Roslyn Sulcas in The New York Times.

Quote

The dancers (Marianela Nuñez and Vadim Muntagirov are the central couple in this recording) never leave the stage; for some transitions, they simply join hands and run to a new spot. There is much in “Symphonic” that Ashton would later use again and again in his choreography: Look out for the pliant sideways bends, the low skimming lifts, the curving arms. Dancers have spoken about how hard the work is to perform, but its effect, as the writer Luke Jennings put it, is “of peace after war, spring after winter, space after compression.”

 

[dirac]

An NPR story on Eugene Ballet's new digs.

Quote

Artistic Director Toni Pimble said they can now serve the Ballet’s Company and up to 500 Academy students. “It is like night and day," said Pimble. "And it is day with brilliant sunshine, because it is absolutely fabulous. This is our forever home.”

 

[dirac]

Pacific Northwest Ballet presents its annual "Spring Fling" online.

Quote

The one-act ballet by Robbins, one of my own all-time favorites, is set to "Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra" by Benjamin Britten, performed in the video by the Seattle Youth Symphony Orchestra and narrated by Timothy McCuen Piggee as the Major Domo. The dancers portray the instruments of the orchestra with choreography that is often delightfully comic. Hearing the youthful giggles and enthusiastic cheers from an audience of young people added to my pleasure. Even more important, the student dancers acquitted themselves very well indeed, a testament to the fact that the PNB School is ranked as one of the best in the country if not the world.

 

[dirac]

A preview of William Forsythe and Tiler Peck's collaborative The Barre Project.

Quote

While the 71-year-old Forsythe and 32-year-old Peck are decades apart in age, The Barre Project indicates that they share an understanding of ballet as a malleable, deeply musical art form. Forsythe is widely credited with pushing and stretching classical dance in new directions from the 1980s onwards; Peck, a New York City Ballet star who has also appeared in musicals, is so attuned to ballet scores that she often appears to be bending them to her will onstage.

 

[dirac]

Remembering Rudolf Nureyev's only visit to Hong Kong.

Quote

“This will be an evening you will never forget, writes producer Wolfgang Bocksch in the glossy souvenir book being offered to patrons of Rudolf Nureyev’s farewell tour at the bargain basement price of $100,” wrote the Post’s reviewer. “Mr Bocksch is right. Last night will remain etched indelibly in the minds of all those who remember the world’s greatest male dancer at the height of his glory and who had to suffer the agony of seeing him as he is today....."

 

[dirac]

 A tour of the Jacob’s Pillow Dance Interactive archive.

Quote

Jacob’s Pillow in the thirties was home to Ted Shawn and His Men Dancers and all five films from this era are of Shawn’s work. Four are of group work and one is a solo. Kinetic Molpai may be the most famous of Shawn’s works, but here “Mechanized Labor” from Labor Symphony best shows his skill at patterning. Shawn’s dance moves are often stiff. Here he uses that stiffness to suggest rotating and sliding mechanical parts – like pistons and gears. When the men scissor their arms with the black and white parts of their shirtsleeves moving back and forth they effectively look like a precision machine. But that precision dissipates when the men’s circle falls apart and they jump up and collapse in chaos, a machine run amok.