dirac Posted June 16 Share Posted June 16 Andalusia Ballet presents a summer program. Quote The program is free to the public and will feature Micah Bullard and Alexandra Hutchinson, company artists with the Dance Theatre of Harlem. Andalusia Ballet’s Summer Intensive students, along with guest artists from around the world, will also be performing. Read more at: https://www.andalusiastarnews.com/2024/06/13/andalusia-ballets-summer-dances-planned-for-june-28/ Link to comment
dirac Posted June 16 Author Share Posted June 16 Spokane hosts the World Ballet Festival. Quote There are about 20 dancers who will perform, including guest dancers Roman Mejia and Tiler Peck from the New York City Ballet, as well as local ballet students from Ballet Arts Academy in Spokane and Company Ballet School in Spokane Valley. Link to comment
dirac Posted June 16 Author Share Posted June 16 Reviews of the English National Ballet. The Times Quote Premiered in 1997 during his tenure as English National Ballet’s artistic director, Derek Deane’s expansive staging of the Tchaikovsky classic returns for the ninth time to its original home at the Royal Albert Hall. Tastefully designed for mainstream consumption (and said to have been seen by more than half a million people worldwide), it is a solid and naturally grand-scale piece of work. The production’s most memorable element remains the corps of 60 swan maidens manoeuvring their melancholy way through some mesmeric —almost militaristic — formations. Impressive? Yes, highly, even if this year’s opening-night performance was otherwise rarely truly transporting. The Daily Telegraph Quote It’s also harder to make subtler emotion register, which limits the love story. But long-time partners Sangeun Lee and Gareth Haw, as Odette and her Prince, otherwise make an assured ENB Swan Lake debut. Both long-limbed and gorgeously expansive in their lines, they’re bonded by a shared ability to express stroppy teenager levels of angst. CultureWhisper Quote Peter Farmer’s sumptuous designs are immensely attractive, relying on muted colours for courtiers and dancing peasants, and immaculate white for the swans; Howard Harrison’s lighting casts a subtle blue tinge over the white Acts. English National Ballet Philharmonic under principal guest conductor Gavin Sutherland gave an intense rendition of Tchaikovsky’s score, as if to remind us of the crucial importance of live music in ballet. The Standard Quote Marshalling the feathered infantry and multiple casts must be a mighty feat of admin – you can only imagine the spreadsheets. And the production undoubtedly delivers spectacle, even if emotion isn’t similarly amplified, rarely landing the whomp you might crave from a visit to the lakeside and the perilous love between the prince and the swan-maiden. Link to comment
dirac Posted June 16 Author Share Posted June 16 An interview with Natalia Osipova. Quote Today she meets me fresh from a coaching session with Darcey Bussell, tosses her tutu into the corner of a small office at the Royal Opera House, squats frog-like on a plastic chair and reminds me that when she started out at the Bolshoi Ballet in Russia in 2004, she was more of “a volcano, a girl with a sometimes destructive power, you know? The male dancers would look at me and think: ‘I don’t know how to work with that. How do you catch a tornado?’” Link to comment
dirac Posted June 16 Author Share Posted June 16 A review of the ENB by Deborah Weiss for Bachtrack. Quote All the divertissements throughout the ballet give opportunities to multiple casts: the Act 1 Pas de Trois becomes a Pas de Douze; there are eight cygnets in Act 2 instead of four and so on. In spite of an overall high standard, it does lead to occasional unevenness. Alongside this, is the inevitable bias to watch the dancers directly in your line of vision which means some of them don’t get much of a look in. On this occasion, the men made more impact than the women in the Pas de Douze: Edvinas Jakonis, Daniel McCormick, Ken Saruhashi and Erik Woolhouse. Link to comment
dirac Posted June 16 Author Share Posted June 16 Thoughts on contemporary ballet by Gia Kourlas in the "Critic's Notebook" of The New York Times. Quote “As you will see tonight, our new work advances the vision of our founders,” Wendy Whelan, the company’s associate artistic director, said in a speech before the performances. As for the season, she added, “This is New York City Ballet in the 21st century.” I get that a gala speech is not where one goes to hear authentic artistic judgment. But what I saw at the gala didn’t advance any vision. After the dances had been danced and the bows had been taken, questions started blowing up in my mind. What does ballet have to offer us now? And what is ballet? Why do choreographers make it? Link to comment
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