Monday, February 7

[dirac]

A review of San Francisco Ballet by Anaïs-Ophelia Lino and Jensen Giesick  for Golden Gate Xpress.

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Nakamura listed her expressions: disillusioned, frustrated, and lonely. Lead dancer Sarah Van Patten encapsulates all of these emotions through movement and physicality. With sharp glances and slow, languid movements, Van Patten captures the audience and Dustin Hoffman’s character played by Joseph Walsh. 

The two tumble around each other to mimic the forbidden romance and when the relationship comes to a climax, Van Patten clings on to Walsh, emitting tension throughout the theater. 

 

[dirac]

A review of New York City Ballet by Candice Thompson for Fjord Review.

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Not to be outdone, Tiler Peck embarked on a solo even more attuned to the music—her body simply a new voice to behold. With her signature style—that is at once lush and sprightly—she shifted her weight around as nonchalantly as flipping a coin. The circular motion of the choreography began to seem more obvious, a sweeping compass marking circles small and large, set in motion by the suggestive set and looping music. Later on, in a pas de deux with Peck and Chun Wai Chan, complete with more traditional partnering and lifts, the build up of so many rotating arms became a bit more heavy-handed and tiresome. But relief came almost immediately in the form of the largest pattern of the dance: a stage-size circle, traced by a rotating diameter of dancers in a line, arms outstretched.

 

[dirac]

"In Balanchine's Classroom" will be streaming online in February.

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IN BALANCHINE’S CLASSROOM, streaming from Rivertown Film from February 4 through February 17, takes us back to the glory years of George Balanchine’s New York City Ballet through the remembrances of his former dancers and their quest to fulfill the vision of a genius. Opening the door to his studio, Balanchine’s private laboratory, they reveal new facets of the groundbreaking choreographer.

 

[dirac]

A review of San Francisco Ballet by Jim Munson for Broadway World.

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Ballet may be a centuries-old artform, but we should never ever underestimate its ability to surprise, and maybe even show us a thing or two about how we live today. A case in point is San Francisco Ballet's Program 2, which is comprised of three very different ballets that all unfold in ways that are delightfully unexpected. The program opener is Helgi Tomasson's Caprice, choreographed in 2014 to Camille Saint-Saëns' Symphony No. 2. In this, his final season as SFB's Artistic Director after an astonishingly successful 37-year tenure at the helm, Tomasson has chosen to revisit some favorite works from seasons past. This is a wise move, as we are unlikely to see many of them again for quite some time, given that his successor Tamara Rojo will quite rightly want to chart her own course as Artistic Director.