Monday, April 15

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Steven McRae talks about recovering from injury and the need for companies to take better care of dancers.

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McRae became one of the company's biggest stars, but he did it by pushing his body to extremes with little care for his physical and mental well-being, relying on a steady intake of painkillers to survive performances and being so burned-out that he felt emotionally numb when he came off stage.

Something had to give, and, aged 35, it was his Achilles.

"Now I know I was dangerously underweight and not as powerful as I thought," he said.

 

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A review of Pacific Northwest Ballet by Moira Macdonald in The Seattle Times.

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There’s a moment, while watching Crystal Pite’s glorious “The Seasons’ Canon” at Pacific Northwest Ballet, when you suddenly forget to breathe, dazzled by a vision of bodies caught in light. The particular movement in that moment is simplicity itself: A long line of dancers perpendicular to the audience — it seems to be endlessly stretching, upstage and beyond — raise their arms in unison, and drop them on different beats. And yet, the shapes made by those arms, falling like lacy dominoes, seem beautiful in an otherworldly way, creating a sort of creature that briefly comes to life, making from a group of bodies something you could never have imagined. That’s the wonder of dance, and it’s what Pite’s so good at here: creating a language of movement, making dancers seem not mortal but magical.

Review of PNB by Melody Datz Hansen in Broadway World.

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“The Calling,” a four minute solo piece by PNB’s next resident choreographer Jessica Lang, is also a returning favorite. Performed Saturday night by soon-to-retire principal dancer James Yoichi Moore, “The Calling” has never seemed to me like a piece to be witnessed, but more a private moment of grief and redemption the audience is privileged to glimpse. 

 

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A review of James Sewell Ballet by Sheila Regan in The Minneapolis Star-Tribune.

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Another little-known ballet about a controlling wizard titled "Ballet des Porcelaines" ( "The Teapot Prince") is from 1739. A new adaptation by choreographer Phil Chan and producer Meredith S. Martin was performed at Northrop Friday and Saturday, challenging racist tropes of the original, where the villain is an evil Chinese wizard who turns his victims into porcelain.

 

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  preview of New York City Ballet's new season by Rachel Sherman in The New York Times.

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Starting in the fall, in response to audience feedback and what Wendy Whelan, City Ballet’s associate artistic director, called “new ways of life” following the pandemic, curtain times will be pushed up, with all evening performances beginning at 7:30 p.m. (Matinees will remain at 2 p.m. on Saturdays and 3 p.m. on Sundays.) In addition, about 40 percent of the season’s repertory performances will include only one intermission, down from the standard two.

 

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Yasmine Naghdi talks about dancing "Swan Lake" for the camera and other matters to Debra Craine in The Times.

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But first the world will be watching her Swan Lake. “It’s such a technical beast and it never feels easy,” she says. “The second act is very adagio, which tires your legs because of all the control. By the third act your legs are fatigued and yet you have to do that powerful burst of fireworks as the black swan. I hope my body is in the best shape possible so that I can trust the technique if unforeseen things happen.