Thursday, September 5

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A review of "Ballet Nights: 006" by Amanda Jennings for Bachtrack.

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As an artist, you sometimes have to make your own career. For dancers this is particularly difficult, so showcases like Ballet Nights, providing a platform for new choreographers and emerging dancers to show their work alongside established stars, is a huge achievement on the part of Artistic Director Jamiel Devernay-Laurence and his team. Now in its sixth iteration after five previous shows at the Lanterns Studio Theatre in East London (and an appearance at the Ministry of Sound), the show moves to the much bigger (and more central) Cadogan Hall in Chelsea, and the fact it was sold out is testament to the increasing interest in this laudable initiative.

Lyndsey Winship's review in The Guardian.

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For Ballet Nights’ first anniversary we get 10 acts, with Devernay-Laurence as compere; like a meze platter plus a very lively waiter, and the amuse bouche of pianist Viktor Erik Emanuel beautifully playing Chopin and Ravel. Some things really work in this format, dances that entertain or command the stage or suck you quickly into their world. Best is an intense and explosive duet by James Wilton and Sarah Jane Taylor, set to Summer from Max Richter’s Four Seasons; there’s a witty Latin-tinged pas de deux, Cha Cha and Tiara, by English National Ballet’s Rentaro Nakaaki; and an impressive piece from Rambert school student Grace O’Brien that has shades of Hofesh Shechter but O’Brien’s own voice too.

 

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Richmond Ballet moves to a new theater.

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The Studio Finale for Richmond Ballet will take place between Sept. 17 through Sept. 22 at the Studio Theatre. These performances will be the final farewell to the space that has accommodated Richmond Ballet’s students and choreographers for over 23 years.

 

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A preview of the new season in San Francisco dance by Rachel Howard in The San Francisco Chronicle.

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Now, Lines Ballet is more than four decades strong, as beloved in worldwide touring as it is in its home city, where the 12-dancer company rehearses in studios at Seventh and Market streets in the South of Market neighborhood. For his troupe’s fall home season, King reaches back to his earliest work, which he choreographed to the music of Alice Coltrane. But this time — joining such organizations as Impulse Records, the Detroit Jazz Festival, the Hammer Museum and the New York Historical Society — he’s creating a fresh premiere to the acclaimed jazz musician’s work to mark “The Year of Alice,” 17 years after her death.