Archives for January 2010

When a young choreographer has the bud of a beautiful language but only an intermittent sense of what to do with it, her promise is an open question; as a reviewer I tend to answer in the affirmative, in the hope that the language will win out in the end. Does it usually? That depends on the powers that be--not just critics, but producers, artistic directors, etc.--recognizing how much it counts … [Read more...]

I suppose the esteemed New York Times chief dance critic Alastair Macaulay is right that Alexey Miroshnichenko's Lady with the Little Dog "isn't the worst dog (sorry) ever seen on [the New York City Ballet] stage," though it was the worst my friend Carlene, my regular ballet companion, had seen. As Macaulay mentions, another older and more popular Soviet-ballet booster, Boris Eifman, takes the … [Read more...]

**Maybe I shouldn't even mention it, I revise so chronically after the initial post. I think it's an age thing. I know how a blog is supposed to work--that it's off the cuff, that you say one thing and then forget about it so you can say another--but the big distinction for me from official print venues (where I get paid, yippee!!) is that there is no one but me to decide when it's done. So I may … [Read more...]

Writing on the Pacific Northwest Ballet's debut under the widely admired former New York City Ballet principal Peter Boal proved a challenge, in that I know that Boal is a very thoughtful curator of dances--that as artistic director he wants collections of dances, not a haphazard jumble. But coming up with a program for a New York show that doesn't bring coal to Newcastle or wishfully exaggerate … [Read more...]

(I know, you probably don't care--nor should you--but I revised, as of Sunday Jan 4 3ish pm the paragraphs on the downtown scene and on Performa--the first b/c I wanted to try to get right at least what I think I'm seeing, the second because there were some factual inaccuracies. I put ** before those paragraphs.]   Finally, we have escaped the Bush-ridden naughties. To ring in the new year … [Read more...]