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...]
Dancing a Fairytale, Its Joys and Tribulations
The New York City Ballet premieres Justin Peck's new ballet and offers works by Thatcher, Binet, Schumacher, and Wheeldon. George Balanchine was reared on story ballets and gradually weaned himself into abstraction, but he never forgot how to tell a good yarn. The New York City Ballet’s vastly gifted young resident choreographer, Justin Peck, was reared on Balanchine and suddenly—without … [Read more...]
Back in ’64, Movin’ On
The New York City Ballet honors its theater with a gala and a premiere. On April 24, 1964, I wasn’t sitting in one of the red plush seats shown above, cheering New York City Ballet’s inaugural performance in Lincoln Center’s recently completed New York State Theater. However, occupying a seat in that same theater on May 8, 2014, when the company celebrated its 50th anniversary in the … [Read more...]
All American
New York City Ballet, Lincoln Center, April 30 through June 9 In the Spring of 1988, the New York City Ballet put on an American Music Festival. George Balanchine had been dead for five years, and the two Ballet Masters in Chief, Peter Martins and Jerome Robbins, commissioned enough new ballets to keep dancers, guest choreographers, and resident choreographers rushing in and out of the … [Read more...]