The New York City Ballet's Fall Gala You can discover online a photo of Sarah Jessica Parker, swirling the yards of fuschia material in which designer Zac Posen had garbed her for the New York City Ballet’s Fashion Gala (she was one of six Gala chairpeople). The September 26th event— the eighth of its kind for NYCB— garnered 2.6 million dollars and occasioned the premieres of two new ballets: … [Read more...]
New York City Ballet Celebrates Jerome Robbins
I lived with Jerome Robbins for six years. (Forgive the startling opener; he was dead at the time, but liked a joke). During those years, I read his diaries and his letters, talked with his family, friends, and those he worked with. Since recovering from writing a book about him and his choreography, I haven’t attended many performances of his ballets. Now the New York City Ballet, for which he … [Read more...]
What Makes a Body Seem New?
The Guggenheim Museum's Works & Process series presents two works by Jodi Melnick on January 14th and 15th. I didn’t try to count the gestures in One of Sixty-Five Thousand Gestures, a 2012 collaboration between Trisha Brown and Jodi Melnick. Nor did I think about the “one” of the title while Melnick was dancing alone on the small stage of the Guggenheim Museum’s Peter B. Sharp Theater … [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...]
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...]
A Small Ballet Ensemble Looks on the Bright Side
Daniel Ulbricht has a mission in life that goes beyond being a buoyant, dramatically expressive principal dancer with the New York City Ballet. Forming and re-forming Daniel Ulbricht & Stars of American Ballet in NYCB’s off-season enables him to bring first-rate dancers to communities around the country. The group he brought to Jacob’s Pillow this summer for its second appearance there numbers … [Read more...]
From Denmark to New York
The New York City Ballet presents an evening of ballets by August Bournonville. In 1930, the year following the death of Serge Diaghilev and the dissolution of his company, Les Ballets Russes, its dancers and choreographers roamed Europe in search of jobs. After a stint in London, George Balanchine found work in Copenhagen as a guest choreographer for the Royal Danish Ballet, where he set … [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...]
Jewels in the City’s Crown
The New York City Ballet performs Balanchine's Jewels. To see George Balanchine’s 1967 Jewels again at its first performance during the New York City Ballet’s winter season is to be delighted all over again. In choreographing its three separate but united ballets, Balanchine absorbed and brilliantly interpreted three diverse musical styles, the threads of narrative and atmosphere that clung … [Read more...]
See the Music
George Balanchine once said that during his grueling years as a pupil in the Imperial St. Petersburg Theatrical School, he didn’t fall in love with ballet until he was twelve. The change occurred the first time he appeared onstage in Marius Petipa’s Sleeping Beauty, set to Peter Ilyitch Tchaikovsky’s ravishing score, and young Georgi Melitonovitch was cast as a Cupid. His arrows, so to speak, … [Read more...]