Wednesday, September 7

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Dancers get raises at the New York City Ballet.

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Like many cultural groups, City Ballet is working to restore cuts made during the pandemic with the hope that the worst of the crisis is over. In recent months, as the financial outlook for arts institutions has grown somewhat brighter, some groups, including the New York Philharmonic, have reversed pandemic-era pay cuts. But arts leaders acknowledge that many uncertainties remain, including whether audiences will return to concert halls as frequently as they did before the pandemic.

 

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 A review of the Trocks by Louise Levene in The Financial Times.

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The ballerinas inevitably hog the limelight but every Trock also has a male alter ego: Jacques D’aniels, Boris Dumbkopf and the legendary Legupski brothers. The Trocks’ danseurs provide a pin-sharp pastiche of all this — think Vladimir Vasiliev with a pinch of Tsiskaridze. Mismatched couples offer an easy laugh but Jake Speakman, a fun-size porteur dwarfed by his Amazonian ballerinas (Duane Gosa and Joshua Thake) in the pitch-perfect Swan Lake pas de trois, is a painful reminder of just how hard it can be to dead-lift 100lbs (let alone 140).

 

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A review of the Sarasota Ballet by Leigh Witchel for dancelog.nyc.

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Brown joined the company in Webb’s first year and grew up there, rising through the ranks. She’s probably danced as much Ashton at this point as any current ballerina and you can see the experience and the commitment. When Rhodes led her in bourrées, she daringly folded herself in half. That push beyond a classical position is one of the checkpoints for the style. Another moment happened in the coda when she tilted a shoulder before going into soutenu turns. She didn’t dance classroom steps; she danced Ashton.

 

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An obituary for the cellist Fred Zlotkin.

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Fred Zlotkin, the brother of Leonard Slatkin, has passed away at aged 75. He spent the vast majority of his career as the principal cellist of the New York City Ballet Orchestra, beginning in 1972 and continuing until his retirement in 2021.