dirac Posted March 3 Share Posted March 3 A review of the Birmingham Royal Ballet by Sarah Crompton in The Observer. Quote How times change. The company’s current artistic director, Carlos Acosta, has mounted a 40th-anniversary revival just as the bankrupt local authority has withdrawn support from all the arts organisations it once part-funded. Birmingham Royal Ballet will survive, but the cut is a sign of how far artistic ambition in national and local government has receded from the high-water mark that this handsome, expansive production represents. Link to comment
dirac Posted March 3 Author Share Posted March 3 An autobiographical article by Peter Martins, "A Life in Ballet," in the March issue of The New Criterion. Quote By my early teens I had become rowdy, quarrelsome, sometimes snotty, and completely undisciplined. Stanley Williams, who was a principal dancer with the company, became my teacher when I was twelve. He had been born in England, but his mother was Danish, and his family moved to Denmark when he was a child. When a dancer says, “So and so is my teacher,” he means this is the one who determined my style, who gave me the clue to the art and my way of performing. This is the teacher who set my goals, who set my standards of movement. It was Stanley who first made me feel the challenge, the potential achievement, and the importance of being a dancer. Link to comment
dirac Posted March 3 Author Share Posted March 3 San Diego Ballet presents "The Many Loves of Don Juan." Quote Two hours of running time with San Diego Ballet filled up the weekend with spectacular beauty, making the audience feel like they were in the middle of medieval Spain. Don Juan, second to none in Casanova’s league, wanders around the world to seduce every woman who catches his eye, starting his voyage from a Spanish lord’s house. The performance is more in tune with Lord Byron’s epic poem rather than the traditional Mozart opera, “Don Giovanni.” Compared to Mozart’s conjoining of characters from opera seria (noble and serious style) and opera buffa (comic style), “Many Loves of Don Juan” is more focused on comedic incidents and accidents. Link to comment
dirac Posted March 10 Author Share Posted March 10 A review of the Joffrey Ballet by Leigh Witchel for dancelog.nyc. Quote Goncalves and Mendoza did very good work. But at the Sunday matinee Dylan Gutierrez and Victoria Jaiani were as close to heaven-sent casting as it was going to get. It helped that they each are about five years older than their counterparts. In her late thirties, Jaiani is the perfect age for the duet. Like Lorena Feijoo, who originated the part as well as Yuan Yuan Tan in San Francisco, experience helps when you’re asked to express emotional pain. Link to comment
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