Tuesday, May 3

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The National Ballet of Canada announces its new season.

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Artistic director Hope Muir, who assumed full leadership of the company in January, presided over her first season announcement on Tuesday, unveiling a varied slate of 11 works chosen by both her and her predecessor, Karen Kain. With a shortage of principal dancers, no firm touring plans and four choreographers making mainstage National Ballet debuts, the company’s brand appears in flux.

 

[dirac]

Abi Stafford Lillo's bitter departure from New York City Ballet.

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Ms. Lillo, 40, said she decided to leave because she felt she had been sidelined since her estranged brother, Jonathan Stafford, became City Ballet’s artistic director. Then, she said, she was cut from the opening night cast of her final ballet, “Russian Seasons,” by its choreographer, Alexei Ratmansky. He told her in a text that “the men were struggling” to partner her — which she considered “body shaming,” she said in an interview.

 

[dirac]

An interview with Silas Farley.

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“To have a successful ballet career, you have to give everything to it,” Farley said as he walked with his 6-month-old son across a meeting room toward his wife, Cassia, a former dancer who designed the costumes for the new piece. “I didn’t want to dedicate my youth to that. I wanted to put my energy and enthusiasm into growing as a teacher, a scholar, a choreographer.”

 

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A review of New York City Ballet by Leigh Witchel for dancelog.nyc.

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If you only have one shot to see Tiler Peck in anything, make it “Allegro Brillante.” The role is a Peck special, she excels in what it calls for: balance, turns, and control. She’s so sure-footed it feels in the moment rather than meticulously planned.

Is #Peckjia a hashtag? It should be. She and Roman Mejia were very comfortable with one another onstage; she shot recklessly through turns opening out into attitude to the back. She varied them in speed and trajectory; the thrill was that she trusted him enough to make him catch her, and he did.

 

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A review of San Francisco Ballet by Charles Lewis III for 48hills.

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Still, that doesn’t stop one from being stunned by Frances Chung’s execution of the aforementioned pirouettes as the Black Swan and the near-weightless pointe steps she brings to the White Swan. Joseph Walsh is mostly fine as Siegfried, but he isn’t as, for lack of a better term, fluid with Tomasson’s choreography, something all the more apparent in his duets with Chung. He isn’t bad, he just isn’t perfect: not a fault of his.

 

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A review of L.A. Dance Project by Cecilia Whalen for Fjord Review.

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L.A. Dance Project’s two-week run at the Joyce Theater opened May 3 with a program of mainly post-modern works by three female choreographers. Founded in 2012 under the artistic direction of former Paris Opera Director of Dance and New York City Ballet star Benjamin Millepied, the Los Angeles-based dance company celebrates its 10th anniversary this year. Since its inception, the company has presented over 40 works, both new and restaged, from a diverse array of choreographers including Justin Peck, Merce Cunningham, Kyle Abraham, Ohad Naharin, and Martha Graham.