Saturday, April 29

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A review of Smuin Contemporary Ballet by Rachel Howard for The San Francisco Chronicle.

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You know you’re having a good night at the ballet when the opening work feels like a nice appetizer, the middle dance serves you a rich main course, and a world premiere still awaits like a dessert you can’t refuse. 

Such are the happy conditions at the final program of Smuin Contemporary Ballet’s 29th season, which launched Friday, April 28, at Walnut Creek’s Lesher Center for the Arts, and repeats in San Francisco and Mountain View over the coming month.

 

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The Joffrey Ballet presents its final peformances of "The Little Mermaid."

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Dancers of the English National Ballet, as viewed from above.

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Using only a drone for his photoshoots, Walls created a series of 14 images that emphasise harmonious shapes and patterns captured from a height of 5-10 metres above the ground.

 

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American Ballet Theatre Studio Company visits the Philippines, with accompaniment by Cecile Licad.

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But then playing American jazz pianist Art Tatum’s “Tatum Pole Boogie,” she shared the stage with fellow Filipino and ABT Studio Company rising star Vince Pelegrin, who gracefully rose above the challenges of the piece once described by New York City Ballet’s Daniel Ulbricht as a “virtuoso solo…that pushes the dancer to the limits of speed and artistry, featuring fast footwork, split-second timing, and charisma to spare.”

 

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A review of Festival Ballet Providence by  Erica Cataldi-Roberts for Broadway World.

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The second piece, "When Love," was choreographed by Helen Pickett who made her first ballet on FBP's current director, Kathleen Breen Combes, while still a Boston Ballet. Pickett's intent with the piece was to capture the ephemeral quality of love between two human beings, how love truly lives only in the moment, and here again, that is precisely captured by dancers Emma Guertin and Alex Lantz Friday evening. With movement that is both fluid but brisk, occasionally pausing to hold or look longingly towards each other, "When Love" is a perfect opposite of "Yet, My Heart." Guertin and Lantz's dancing is highlighted by the simple lighting - beginning and ending in a spotlight from above - and music by Phillip Glass. Spoken word directly conveys the emotion at the heart of this piece - "so profound was her love, they needed no words to express it."