American Ballet Theatre premieres Alexei Ratmansky's remounting of Harlequinade. It’s almost two o’clock on a Wednesday afternoon, and I’m casing the audience that’s gradually filling the Metropolitan Opera House, where American Ballet Theatre is holding its spring season. Most of us, I’d guess, are either over 65 or under 12. More of us appear to be female than male. And, as Alexei … [Read more...]
American Ballet Theatre Throws a Party
ABT presents new and recent ballets at Lincoln Center through October 29th. As diverse and original as Alexei Ratmansky’s ballets are, it’s tempting to probe for artistic sources that may have nourished them. His Russian roots include his experiences as a dancer in the Kirov Ballet and as the Bolshoi Ballet’s artistic director. His years as a member of the Royal Danish Ballet count too. Few … [Read more...]
New York City Ballet premieres a New Ratmansky Work
New York City Ballet’s 2017 Spring Gala is a testament to the acumen of the company’s supporters. Beautifully dressed people are provided with champagne in advance of the performance and dinner after it, but no speeches this time, no films, and no intermissions. And after those assembled have watched Peter Martins’ Jeu de Cartes, the pas de deux from Christopher Wheeldon’s After the Rain, and … [Read more...]
Once Upon a Time. . .
American Ballet Theater mounts Alexei Ratmansky's The Golden Cockerel. It occasionally happens that a ballet from another era comes to us tangled in its own history, even as it tries to make sense of it. American Ballet Theatre’s production of The Golden Cockerel as re-imagined by Alexei Ratmansky is just such a work—gorgeous to look at, often comical, often perplexing. At the end of the … [Read more...]
Speaking of Love
Alexei Ratmansky introduces Plato to American Ballet Theatre in its Lincoln Center season. Serenade after Plato’s Symposium is the twelfth ballet that Alexei Ratmansky has choreographed for American Ballet Theatre in the past seven years; clearly he takes his position as the company’s artist in residence seriously. This beautiful new chamber ballet is subtly different from anything of his … [Read more...]
Satin and Furs and Love of Dancing
New York City Ballet's Spring Gala celebrates with new ballets and a recent masterwork. Fundraising galas are strange beasts. The New York City Ballet’s May event was no exception. Women swan by in improbable gowns, assuming no one would dare to step on their trains; some display—intricately—enough skin to make you wonder how the garment is anchored. Festive roped-off tables and a … [Read more...]
Bracing Winds from Miami
Miami City Ballet bursts into Lincoln Center. Ten years ago this summer, Miami City Ballet performed at Jacob’s Pillow. This is what I wrote in the Village Voice: “Miami City Ballet’s dancers tear into Balanchine’s works with such appetite for speed and scale that you wonder how they stay in control. Their legacy is clear. They came to Balanchine through Miami’s artistic director Edward … [Read more...]
The Sleeping Beauty Wakes Up
Alexei Ratmansky brings an 1890 ballet to new life for American Ballet theatre. American Ballet Theatre is no stranger to The Sleeping Beauty. As Ballet Theatre, the new company in town in 1941, the dancers performed Princess Aurora, Anton Dolin’s mash-up of elements from the Prologue and Act III of Marius Petipa’s 1890 masterwork. ABT presented its first full-length version in 1976, its … [Read more...]
Tripartite Triumph
Three choreographers shower their talents on New York City Ballet The only perplexing thing about Justin Peck’s new work for the New York City Ballet is its diacritically enriched title: ‘Rōdē,ō: Four Dance Episodes. In every other way, his ballet for a company in which he is both a soloist and its resident choreographer is clear, brilliant, and brave. Brave because he has set his work to … [Read more...]
To American Ballet Theatre: Happy 75th
American Ballet Theatre's fall season begins its 75th anniversary celebration. It’s traditional at anniversary celebrations to raise a glass to the past and speculate optimistically about the future. For American Ballet Theatre, with 80 dancers to be paid (along with the necessary artistic and business-oriented staff members) an excuse for a fund-raising gala is a godsend. Its 2014 and 2015 … [Read more...]