Sunday, February 27

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Laurent Hilaire resigns from the Stanislavski Theater over the invasion of Ukraine.

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Hilaire was named director of dance at the Stanilavski Academic Musical Theatre five years ago, becoming only the second Frenchman to direct a ballet company in Russia in some 150 years.

He followed in the footsteps of Marius Petipa, a legendary ballet master and choreographer who directed the Saint-Petersburg Imperial Ballet in the 19th century.

 

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Sports and cultural organizations take action against Russia in protest of the invasion.

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Russia has taken further hits on the sporting and cultural front as Poland, Sweden, and the Czech Republic said they would not play World Cup soccer qualifiers against Russia next month and London's Royal Opera House canceled performances by the famed Bolshoi Ballet.

 

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Alexei Ratmansky leaves Moscow in the midst of work on a new ballet for the Bolshoi.

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 The statement says: “This project is extremely important to the Bolshoi Theater, a significant amount of work has been already done by now, and we hope to be able to realize this project.” Mr. Ratmansky is quoted too, saying “when the time comes, I hope to return to Moscow to complete the production.”

 

But after watching the brutality of the invasion, he said he was not sure when that would be. Much of his family lives in Ukraine. “I doubt I would go if Putin is still president,” he said.

 

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

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Born in Japan, Misa Kuranaga first came to San Francisco Ballet as an apprentice more than two decades ago, having won a prize at the Prix de Lausanne ballet competition. Despite her gifts, however, she decided that she needed more training and went back to school — the School of American Ballet — before dancing with Boston Ballet for 16 years and finally circling back to our coast. The extra formative work paid off. Her technique proved rock-solid as she caught freeze-frame balances and whipped through turns, including a torrent of double-fouettés in the famously stunt-filled final act. Her partner, Angelo Greco, might have been the even greater attraction, rotating almost horizontal to the floor in the physics-defying jumps of the grand pas de deux.

 

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An interview with Darcey Bussell, who is appearing in a new film of "Coppelia."

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Bussell said: “It’s about appreciating you can be yourself, and you should be happy with who you are. The young, especially, believe that to be happy they have to change their appearance.”

She is disturbed by the darker side of social media, describing it as “an unkind space”. “For all the good it creates in connecting people, it can also be the opposite. It’s a very hard thing to balance, for the young person especially, because they’ve known nothing else.

 

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A review of the Birmingham Royal Ballet in "Don Quixote" by Leon Burakowski for The Express & Star.

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But what a pair the lovers are when danced by Momoko Hirata and Mathias Dingman. The Japanese ballerina has precision and poise, whilst her Kirov Ballet-trained American partner demonstrates considerable power, holding her aloft with one hand and later performing some of the most breathtaking spins I have seen. They truly are a dream duo, especially in the wedding scene when they fused athleticism and artistry in the elegant pas de deux.

 

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A review of Gonzalo Garcia' s farewell performance by Marina Harss for Fjord Review.

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But if the outpouring of affection on the stage of the Koch Theater, and online, was any indication, his fellow dancers would be happy for him to stay another ten years. As a dancer, García projects affability and a kind of quiet poetry. He is handsome in the full sense of the word, not just easy on the eye, but appealing in a deeper way, not just because of the way he moves, but because of a quality of warmth he projects onstage. Luckily, he won’t be going very far. After this farewell performance, he takes up the duties of repetiteur at the company.

 

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Sarasota Ballet presents the Mark Morris Dance Group.

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Then, in 2016, the Sarasota Ballet made its debut at The Joyce Theater in New York, performing a program of works by British choreographer Sir Frederick Ashton, who was a mentor to Webb at The Royal and whose work has become a mainstay of the Sarasota Ballet repertoire. When Webb noticed Morris in the crowd waiting for the show to begin, he saw an opportunity.