Monday, May 6

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Santa Barbara's State Street Ballet ends its season with a mixed bill.

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The show will feature four short works — Corelli Concerto by Nilas Martins, The S.I.T. by Royce Zackery, A Warm Window by Nicole Powell, and As We Always Have by Laurie Eisenhower — and the fan favorite longer piece, Common Ground.

The four works pull from classical and contemporary ballet disciplines, along with modern dance. The shorter pieces serve to showcase these mediums, which set the stage for the integration of a wider range of performance styles in the longer Common Ground.

 

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A preview of Singapore Ballet's new production of "Cinderella."

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Coming up with a new production of a classical ballet is a Herculean task and a labour of many. The last time Singapore Ballet staged such a production was nearly a decade ago, with Don Quixote in 2014. It is a balancing act of talent, logistics and astronomical expense. But for Schergen, who also choreographed the new production of Cinderella, the cost is worth it. “It’s not about selling tickets,” he says. “For the company to grow, we need to create an audience that feels that they had a great experience, and come back and see what’s next.” A part of that experience is live music by the Metropolitan Festival Orchestra, which will play Russian composer Sergei Prokofiev’s sweeping score for each performance. 

 

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The Portland Ballet presents "A Midsummer Night's Dream."

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And now it gets to showcase the talent in one of TPB’s big events, the John Clifford interpretation of Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” a show of romance, mischief and magic set to Felix Mendelssohn music, 1 p.m. and 5 p.m. Saturday, May 11 at Lincoln Performance Hall.

 

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The Washington Ballet announces its 2024-25 season.

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Last year, City Paper wondered how the Washington Ballet would fare after artistic director Julie Kent, associate director (and Kent’s husband) Victor Barbee, and five top dancers left for the Houston Ballet. Another left for the Boston Ballet and three other dancers retired. In the span of a few weeks, the company lost a quarter of its roster. 

 

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Orlando Ballet's director for community enrichment leaves for Sarasota Ballet.

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[Charmaine] Hunter was particularly associated with Orlando Ballet’s STEPS program, which serves young children across Central Florida who otherwise might not have the financial means to explore dance. She developed arts-education programming across seven counties, increasing access to dance for more than 24,000 children.

 

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The Danspace Project honors lighting designer Carol Mullins.

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The choreographer Douglas Dunn, who has collaborated with Mullins on more than a dozen Danspace shows, remembered seeing her in a Wilson production, silently reading to herself onstage alongside the dance critic Edwin Denby. “They both had gleaming white hair,” Dunn said. “It was a profound image.”

 

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Alberta Ballet announces its 2024-25 season.

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This is the first season programmed by [Francesco] Ventriglia, who joined the company in January. It will include seven productions, including four that are new to Alberta Ballet. It is an ambitious year for the company, which hopes to grow from 30 to 32 dancers this season.

 

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Alonzo King LINES Ballet visits Santa Barbara.

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The show itself is a tapestry of beautiful forms and shapes, with spiritually inspired music from both Black and Jewish traditions, composed by Jason Moran and sung primarily by Lisa Fischer, a powerhouse vocalist who I remember well from the documentary 20 Feet From Stardom. She performs on stage for some of the venues, but in Santa Barbara the music was recorded rather than live. However, the majority of the company is on stage for most of the time, with solos and pas de deux woven seamlessly together, all very much a part of the whole. As the choreography alternates between ensembles there are angular ripples of sharp movements and turbulence, but mostly the river of motion just keeps rolling along.

 

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A review of Smuin Contemporary Ballet by Steve Winn in The San Francisco Chronicle.

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Brandon Alexander is literally boxed in by the concept, obliged to play Elvis with a television clamped on his head. With the star’s signature hip swivels turned into quivering tremors, he careens around a Hollywood back lot set (design by Alexander V. Nichols) that alludes to Elvis’ film career while saying nothing about it. What the piece does offer, in a sound montage of song covers (“Hound Dog,” “Love Me Tender”) and stuttery spoken text, is largely pat: Elvis was a phenomenon. He was influenced by gospel and Black musicians.  

 

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A review of the Royal Ballet in "The Winter's Tale" by Franco Milazzo for Broadway World.

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Four different casts will be deployed in this latest run with the first night seeing Principal Cesar Corrales take on Leontes and his real-life partner Francesca Hayward play his daughter Perdita. The Cuban-Canadian is marvellously convincing in a role which sees his malevolent character go from deep jealousy into shocking violence and then a poignant redemption. The glint of silver as he threatens Calvin Richardson’s Polixenes with a knife is matched by the determined anger in his eyes. Seeing him lift Lauren Cuthbertson’s Hermione over his head or drag her around the stage, it’s a surprise that there was no recurrence of the booing heard during the infamous 2015 run of Guillaume Tell.

 

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The charges are amended in the case of a homeless trans woman killed in front of the Miami City Ballet building.

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According to the Miami Herald, Glazer upped the charge against Gilbert from second-degree murder to first-degree murder based on actions that appeared to show intent.

“It looks like he defiled the body by doing other things to the victim,” Glazer said.

 

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A local TV news feature on the Indianapolis Ballet's new program.

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An obituary for Gayle McKinney-Griffith, who died last October aged 74, by Alex Williams in The New York Times.

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Ms. McKinney-Griffith served not only as a principal dancer at Dance Theater of Harlem but also as the company’s first ballet mistress. In that position, now known as rehearsal director, she was Mr. Mitchell’s top lieutenant, responsible for running rehearsals, coaching dancers on choreography, helping with casting and other tasks.

 

 

 

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A review of the Royal Ballet in "The Winter's Tale" by Amanda Jennings for Bachtrack.

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An essential talent for a choreographer is a strong theatrical vision and good taste in bringing together collaborators who can immerse themselves in that vision to bring it to life, and The Winter’s Tale exemplifies that melding of the elements of any artistically successful production. Bob Crowley’s sets are spare but not sparse: a pair of monumental rectangular arches move around to provide various interiors, statues tell us we are in the gardens. Between Acts 1 and 3 in the Sicilian palace we have a joyous Act 2 in Bohemia with a huge tree, decorated for the festival celebrations, and the dancers in colourful, stage-dressing costumes (by Natasha Katz). All of this works with Joby Talbot’s brilliant score and Wheeldon’s richly textured choreography to provide a feast for all the senses.

 

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A review of the Brno National Theatre Ballet in "Coco Chanel" by Deborah Weiss for Bachtrack.

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Choreographically, the highlights were undoubtedly the outstanding duets for Chanel and her one true love, Arthur “Boy” Capel (Adrian Sánchez), who died tragically in a car accident. First, there was palpable chemistry between the two dancers and most importantly, there was real invention, particularly in the lifts. It helped that Sánchez came across as a relaxed and very attentive partner, but Kmentová just flew into his arms with an assurance that translated as real trust. At one point, shortly before his untimely demise, he was kneeling, facing upstage when Kmentová sat on his shoulders facing the audience. He simply stood up without a wobble and walked to the back without holding her, in a nonchalant, ‘Look mum, no hands!’ kind of way.