Friday, February 16

[dirac]

The Royal Ballet offers a Festival of New Choreography.

The Daily Telegraph

Quote

As for the works themselves, there’s an almost inevitable unevenness, but both the variety and ambition on display are undeniable. If it were a competition, a joint, heads-held-high bronze medal would go to the first and last pieces: Boundless, by former Royal Ballet dancer Gemma Bond; and Twinkle, by US choreographer Jessica Lang. (Rating for each: ***)

The Guardian

Quote

The only choreographer drawn from the Royal Ballet’s ranks is Joshua Junker. Never Known opens with a twitching, angular pack of dancers staring up at a high, hazy light (Zeynep Kepekli’s gloriously responsive lighting is key to all four ballets). Junker’s movement is often deliberate, close to the floor. He stretches his cast, quite literally: spines slink backwards, one dancer drapes over another’s shoulders, there are daring lifts with one hand in the small of the back. Unexpected pools of movement form in the sonar ping and warble of Nils Frahm’s electronic score, which gives way to surging piano and a fraught duet for Liam Boswell and Francisco Serrano. What will Junker do next? It should be special.

The Times

Quote

After the interval comes the night’s biggest hit: For What It’s Worth, a burst of sunshine by Mthuthuzeli November. It’s inspired by his background in South African street dance but to that he adds a joyous classical sheen — all the dancers glow. The music (by November and Alex Wilson, superbly orchestrated by George Morton) and the costumes (by Yann Seabra) are as vibrant as the dance, which swings and sways deliriously. It’s fronted by an extraordinary turn from Mayara Magri, whose initial solo is like a beautiful prayer and whose deep-bodied fluidity and kinetic exuberance are off the charts.

 

[dirac]

More reviews of the RB.

BNN

Quote

The festival was not just a celebration; it was a statement. The Royal Ballet, traditionally seen as a custodian of classical ballet, showcased its commitment to fostering new talent and embracing change. Joshua Junker, Gemma Bond, Mthuthuzeli November, and Jessica Lang stepped into the spotlight, each bringing a unique voice to the venerable stage. Junker's 'Never Known' opened the evening with a display of twitching, angular movements, setting a tone of deliberate exploration. Meanwhile, November's 'For What It's Worth' pulsed with the rhythms inspired by the legendary Miriam Makeba, and Lang's 'Twinkle' danced to the innocent tunes of Brahms and Mozart, reinterpreting the familiar 'Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star'.

The Stage

Quote

Gemma Bond’s Boundless, we’re told in an introductory video, was partly inspired by watching the unfettered freedom of movement of young children. Possibly appropriately, the resulting 30-minute piece looks as though someone has dumped their entire toybox on the floor. It’s an overexcited neoclassical grab bag of whirling moves on a bare stage from which it’s hard to pick out any clear intention or personal style. Led by Yasmine Naghdi and Ryoichi Hirano, the dancers launch a frantic volley of spins, jumps, lifts and dips – with the odd bit of skipping or a star jump for good measure – to an accompaniment of Joey Roukens’s thundering In Unison concerto. Naghdi and Hirano have a moment of peace in a slow duet and look as though they’re turning to each other for comfort after enduring a toddler’s tantrum. Great tutus, though.

Slipped Disc

Quote

What’s bold about this February’s Festival of New Choreography at Covent Garden is that the Royal Ballet hasn’t asked its leading house choreographers – Wayne McGregor and Christopher Wheeldon – to contribute. The season would be better labelled Choreographers New Here; and the company is taking a real risk. (It’s also lowered its prices considerably. Seats usually costing over £100 cost less than £50 this time.) The four pieces of the main house’s new quadruple bill have been created by people making their house debuts as choreographers. Each ballet is introduced by a short black-and-white film that, briefly, sensibly, introduces us to the choreographer and to her or his notions of what she or he intends. This (a device often used in New York since 2008) is effective: it does much to get us on side before the choreography even begins.

 

[dirac]

A review of the Washington Ballet by Celia Wren in The Washington Post.

Quote

The improvisatory spirit of jazz. The virtuoso rigor of ballet. An odd-couple pairing?

 

Not in “Coloring Silent Space,” prolific choreographer Jessica Lang’s rewarding new work, which deftly marries resonant movement to jazz music performed by the Craig Davis Trio. Lang’s dance proves the concept of the Washington Ballet’s new production “Jazz Icons: A Fine Romance,” a fusion of dance and live jazz that also features Dwight Rhoden’s world premiere “Midnight Riff.”

 

[dirac]

Reviews of the Joffrey Ballet.

The Chicago Tribune

Quote

“Hungry Ghosts” and its companions for the evening — a revival of Andrew McNicol’s 2019 “Yonder Blue” and the company premiere of Liam Scarlett’s “Hummingbird” — all create distinct, striking worlds.

Case in point: A gorgeous backdrop of black runny paint on white muslin (by John Macfarlane) literally glows under David Finn’s crisp, cool lighting in Scarlett’s “Hummingbird.” That drop is tucked under like a sail to reveal a raked ramp for the dancers to slide down, seemingly from an abyss. Visually, it’s miles from “Hungry Ghost’s” back 40, behind Mehler’s gauzy veils. But the sense of an unseen beyond, in the shadows, is a theme that permeates each of these pieces and provides a throughline to the evening.

Third Coast Review

Quote

The first dance was Yonder Blue choreographed by Andrew McNichol; it gave me a Kubrick vibe from 2001 A Space Odyssey. The dancers wore various shades of blue with scenic and lighting designs by Jack Mehler. Yonder Blue expresses dance as emotion with the dancers melting into one another and then expanding like flowers blooming, McNichol moves the dancers in perfect unison as a backdrop while a pas de deux weaves in and out of the web of arms and bodies. The Joffrey ensemble is in perfect form, each expressing an intimacy that can only come from a camaraderie among the dancers. The spare and melodic music was by composer and cellist Peter Gregson. McNIchol was inspired by essayist Siri Hustvedt's A Plea for Eros, which explores love from a woman's point of view and shows how love can transform or engulf a person.

 

[dirac]

A review of New York City Ballet by Gia Kourlas in The New York Times.

Quote

That grief — the solitude of “Solitude” — is apparent from the start. The principal dancer Joseph Gordon kneels before the limp body of Theo Rochios, a young student of the company-affiliated School of American Ballet. Rochios, in a bright blue shirt — it lets him nearly glow in the darkness — lies flat on his back while Gordon holds his hand.

 

[dirac]

An interview with Simone Orlando.

Quote

Orlando made the tough decision to go back to school in her 30s to study business at the B.C. Institute of Technology, navigating technology she knew nothing about and studying alongside people in a younger generation. “I decided I needed to reinvent myself because I didn’t know what the future was going to hold for me.”

Orlando completed two years and received a diploma in business. At the same time, the former artistic director of Ballet Kelowna was looking to step down and the company was hiring for the role Orlando now holds.

 

[dirac]

Svetlana Zakharova will visit Seoul.

Quote

The acclaimed dancer will premiere "Modanse," a unique blend of "mode," meaning fashion in French, and danse, or dance, at the Seoul Arts Center from April 17 to 21, except for April 18.

The double bill has garnered attention for its collaboration between ballet and haute couture since its debut at Moscow's Bolshoi Theatre in 2019.

 

[dirac]

Australian Ballet presents "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland."

Quote

Seven years on, fully recovered and now a principal artist with the Australian Ballet, [Benedicte] Bemet stars as Alice in the company’s blockbuster production of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, which opens in Sydney on February 20.

“It’s such an epic ballet,” Bemet says, pointing to its extravagant sets, costumes, props, and scene changes. “It’s almost like a theme park turned into a ballet.”