Tuesday, May 7

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Oscar Valdés of West Australian Ballet talks about what he likes about Perth.

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I love the weather in Perth because it reminds me of my country. I come from the city of Camaguey, Cuba, a great city, but different from Perth.

It’s like living in the past—old cars, old buildings, like really old, and always people playing music on the streets.

To be honest, I miss it a lot because it was simple, even if life was hard, the feeling of being happy without anything. Also, it’s pretty hot weather, like here, but never cold like here in winter.

 

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A review of the Bolshoi Ballet by Ilona Landgraf in her blog, "Landgraf on Dance."

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Mikhail Lavrovsky, Leonid’s son, who was in charge of the revival, is eighty-three-years old. Last season, the former dancer, director, and ballet master added the Prix Benois for Lifetime Achievement to his extensive portfolio of awards. True to the original production, Sergei Grachev revived Pyotr Williams’s 1946 set design; Tatiana Noginova reconstructed the costumes. Williams, one of three defining designers at the Bolshoi in the 1930s and ‘40s (the others were Fedor Fedorovsky and Vladimir Dmitriev), based his work on the tradition of Mir iskusstva (“World of Art”), recapturing the aesthetic ideals of the past.

 

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A review of New York City Ballet by Leigh Witchel for dancelog.nyc.

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Partnered by Alec Knight, she went for one of Farrell’s most well-known Farrellisms, putting her head to her knee in a big arabesque penchée. She got close, there was about an inch of daylight. In another famous moment, the swoons to penchée, Phelan doesn’t serve the full-out drama that is Sara Mearns’ house specialty, but it’s OK to see that moment less about the ballerina’s mystique and more about the choreography. Phelan looked well-coached, and if taking center stage isn’t fully natural to her, she made good choices, coming down from her retiré in the fugue just slow enough, lingering just enough in the finale.

 A review of NYCB by Robert Greskovic in The Wall Street Journal.

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Mr. Mejia is showcased alongside Tiler Peck in “Dig the Say,” the premiere by resident choreographer and artistic adviser Justin Peck (unrelated to Ms. Peck). The 10-minute duet, with more solo moments than partnered ones, takes impetus from Vijay Iyer’s music of the same name, effectively played here by PUBLIQuartet. As their music provides them with wittily scrappy accompaniment, Mr. Mejia and Ms. Peck, in Humberto Leon’s photo-printed workout clothes, playfully alternate with one another after initially toying with a red ball, which is eventually seen no more.

 

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Atlanta Ballet presents "Nighthawks."
 

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......Schreier and her frequent collaborator, costume designer Abigail Dupree-Polston, reached out to Atlanta muralist and tattoo artist Charity Hamidullah to collaborate on the set and costumes.

Hamidullah had never worked in ballet before or designed for the stage, but she was eager to be part of the team. Schreier asked her to illustrate the “vibrancy and insanity of a city” and to focus on the idea of a city dweller trying find herself in the melee.

 

 

Interview with choreographer Claudia Schreier.

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The work is set to music by Wynton Marsalis. I’m a little on the outside of the ballet world, but that’s not the type of music I necessarily think about when I think of ballets. How did working from that music inform the choreography for you? 

Schreier:  I’ll start by saying Gennadi [Nedvigin, artistic director of the Atlanta Ballet] set out intentionally to present a jazz work, or a work set to jazz music. So the movement that is born out of that is directly in response to what I’m hearing in the music. A lot of it is specifically jazz inspired … there are so many textures and colors and patterns and rhythms. It vacillates quite quickly in such a way that it’s very fun for me to play with, because there’s just a large playground. 

 

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Tampa City Ballet presents "If I Cry," inspired by the life and work of Frida Kahlo.

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“The show keeps evolving,” [Paula] Nuñez says. “For example, Frida was of course a famous painter, so we added scenes where the dancer playing adult Frida is actually painting and I think the audiences really enjoyed seeing that. Plus, all of the dancers are professionals who each brought their own ideas about how to make the show better. It all came together and I’m so happy with the results!”

 

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Bess Saylor Imber has died at age 83.

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Imber, affectionally known as “Miss Bess,” was born Dec. 14, 1940 in Dayton. She began studying dance at the age of 6 at the Schwarz School of Dance with Dayton Ballet founders Josephine and Hermene Schwarz. She joined their Children’s Ballet Co. at age 9, and at 24 became a member of Dayton Civic Ballet, which is now Dayton Ballet. She retired as a dancer at 32 but continued with the company as a teacher and choreographer, particularly becoming the first artistic director of Dayton Ballet II in 1980.

 

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Central New York Ballet finds a permanent home.

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The award will fund the restoration and conversion of approximately 5,000 square feet of raw warehouse space in the former Gereblock factory into state-of-the-art dance studios, a black box theater for performances and workshops, reception and office areas, dressing rooms and ADA-accessible bathrooms.

 

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An interview with Li Cunxin. Audio.

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Just last month, Li returned to Houston and spoke at Asia Society Texas, following a screening of the film adaptation of Mao's Last Dancer.

 

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A review of the Australian Ballet by Katie Lawrence for Bachtrack.

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David Hallberg, The Australian Ballet’s artistic director, describes the ballet’s current double bill as a “collision of worlds”. The word collision is an interesting one to use. This description is accurate if one of the worlds is heaven, and one is hell.