uptowner Posted February 22, 2023 Share Posted February 22, 2023 https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/02/27/ballet-review-copland-dance-episodes-justin-peck review of the full length Peck in The New Yorker Link to comment
cargill Posted February 22, 2023 Share Posted February 22, 2023 Here are some more link to reviews of the Copland ballet. https://fjordreview.com/copland-dance-episodes/ https://fjordreview.com/copland-dance-episodes/ https://www.danceviewtimes.com/2023/01/not-his-first-rodeo.html https://www.wsj.com/articles/new-york-city-ballet-review-mining-aaron-copland-11675204670 Link to comment
abatt Posted February 28, 2023 Share Posted February 28, 2023 Here is a review of Sleeping Beauty by Gia K. in the NY Times. She seems to have a vendetta against Peter Martins. She apparently doesn't think he should even be permitted to sit in the audience at the Koch. Really? https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/27/arts/dance/sleeping-beauty-new-york-city-ballet.html Link to comment
vipa Posted February 28, 2023 Share Posted February 28, 2023 58 minutes ago, abatt said: Here is a review of Sleeping Beauty by Gia K. in the NY Times. She seems to have a vendetta against Peter Martins. She apparently doesn't think he should even be permitted to sit in the audience at the Koch. Really? https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/27/arts/dance/sleeping-beauty-new-york-city-ballet.html I'm glad the the NYT is back to actually reviewing ballets and dancers, whether I agree with all the points in the review or not. What I don't want is a constant rehashing/restatement of the events surrounding the Martins departure. I certainly think it's crazy to complain about his presence in the audience, particularly when it's his ballet. Link to comment
abatt Posted February 28, 2023 Share Posted February 28, 2023 11 hours ago, vipa said: IWhat I don't want is a constant rehashing/restatement of the events surrounding the Martins departure. I certainly think it's crazy to complain about his presence in the audience, particularly when it's his ballet. Exactly. If you are going to finally give a review of this company, why are you wasting precious space in the article rehashing the same information about Martins that has already been published in this paper a million times. Link to comment
audreydoll Posted February 28, 2023 Share Posted February 28, 2023 Unfortunately, the NYT piece is what passes for journalism today. Everything has to be reported with an agenda and this writer has such a personal animosity toward Martins that it becomes the main focus of any NYCB article she writes. I wish she would be replaced by someone that actually cares about dancing but that’s unlikely to happen. Link to comment
matilda Posted February 28, 2023 Share Posted February 28, 2023 Kourlas is a very good writer and I tend to agree with many of her assessments about particular dancers, but it often feels like she has a contempt for ballet. She tears apart story ballets (she was brutal to ABT's Don Quixote last year, and it was the opening of their first Met season in three years!), and she also hates almost every contemporary work that isn't by Ratmansky. I don't understand how she's in that job. Not to mention everything she writes about NYCB has to mention the Peter Martins and/or photo scandals, years after most other people stopped caring. Of course, her style is in line with pretty much all arts "journalism" today that prioritizes a social agenda over actual criticism. The fault is as much, if not more, with the editors. Link to comment
Quiggin Posted March 1, 2023 Share Posted March 1, 2023 (edited) Peter Martins seems to have been a polarizing factor at City Ballet going way back to the beginning. He lost a lot of good will when he refused to let dancers on whom Balanchine set choreography transmit their knowledge to younger dancers being cast in those roles. Arlene Croce and other writers were very critical of Martins' tenure for many reasons, and this is perhaps what Kourlas may be thinking of when she calls for a complete break with that past of which this Sleeping Beauty is a part. Edited March 1, 2023 by Quiggin Link to comment
BalanchineFan Posted March 25, 2023 Share Posted March 25, 2023 (edited) I saw her point more as, why get rid of Peter Martins and keep his lousy choreography? The best parts of NYCB's SB are from Balanchine or perhaps Petipa. Most newspapers reprint a statement rehashing the history of the Martins allegations. I think it's so that they can say to casual viewers, this is the ballet company that you remember from that story, rather than another ballet company. When NYCB stops presenting Martins' choreography, they'll have to stop doing it. IMO, it makes more sense for people who don't read about ballet that often. It's not that great a SB, as SBs go. Better than Martins' R&J... but that's faint praise. I think Kourlas got it right regarding Woodward and Fairchild as Aurora. Phelan too, though I missed her performances. She obviously saw LaFreniere's first night. The only thing I like about this SB as a production is that the hunting scene is shortened. Aside from the Garland Dance, individual dancers make it or break it. If the accompanist played Tschaikovsky I'd be just as happy watching them take class. Thank you @cargill for posting the reviews of Copland Dance Episodes. I thought it interesting that Marina Harss skips over first cast Tiler Peck and goes on to describe Alexa Maxwell in the role they shared. Nothing against Tiler Peck, but Harss is correct, Maxwell was the revelation, the discovery. Edited March 25, 2023 by BalanchineFan Link to comment
cargill Posted March 25, 2023 Share Posted March 25, 2023 12 hours ago, BalanchineFan said: Nothing against Tiler Peck, but Harss is correct, Maxwell was the revelation, the discovery. I didn't see Maxwell in the Copland, but have enjoyed her so much in other works. There is something so vivid about her. Link to comment
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