Saturday, February 5

[dirac]

A review of Smuin Ballet by Rachel Howard in The San Francisco Chronicle.

Quote

[Amy] Seiwert, who briefly served as artistic director of Sacramento Ballet, is a hot commodity this spring. Next month ODC/Dance, one of the city’s most high-profile modern dance companies, plans to unveil a world premiere by her, and in late April, the Smuin troupe’s second season program will feature her “Renaissance,” inspired by gender equality protests in India.

 

[dirac]

A review of San Francisco Ballet by Rita Felciano for 48hills.

Quote

Stumbling all over himself and not fitting in with his buddies, Walsh brilliantly set himself up to be drawn into the spider web of a suppressed Van Patten. When this frustrated wife and mother exploded into a volcanic fierceness, she became dangerous. Marston had set the ballet in the 1950s, when women’s lives were constricted by marriage and home-keeping. She had given these roles to a bevy of young women dancers who stalked around in lace aprons and pointe shoes. It certainly was an effective way of subversively ridiculing the much-maligned pointe shoe, itself often considered a relic.

 

[dirac]

Tulsa Ballet prepares Annabelle Lopez Ochoa's "Vendetta: a Mafia Story."

Quote

“We did the first run-through of the entire ballet, and then the next day, we sent all the dancers home,” said Tulsa Ballet artistic director Marcello Angelini. “Since then, we’ve rescheduled this ballet five times. We are hoping the fifth time will be the charm.”

 

[dirac]

Lam Chun-wing of the Paris Opera Ballet talks about recovering from injury and his plans for the future.

Quote

He has not danced since. A few months earlier, in April, he had been promoted to coryphée, a higher rank within the corps de ballet. He’d intended to dance the Robbins piece in the company’s annual contest for further internal promotion. Since then, he’s already had one operation, will certainly have a second and may need a third.

“No one knows if I’ll be able to dance normally afterwards,” he says, smiling as performers must in adversity. “It’s an interesting period for me to have a distance with ballet because, as you know, I’ve been dancing since the age of seven.”

 

[dirac]

Ballet West revives Michael Smuin's "Romeo and Juliet."

Quote

"I decided now to bring back this particular version because it is so exciting for audiences," said Adam Sklute, Ballet West's artistic director. "It has its own unique flavor. It is, at once, intimate and dynamic. It has lots of dancing for every single character and what audiences expect to see on the stage is the full Shakespeare story portrayed by just so many dancers."