Archives for 2009

I review her debut as Sylvia for the Financial Times. In the cave with ogre Jared Matthews. (He might have bit into the part with more appetite: would have helped Vishneva's comic turn.) Photo by Gene Schiavone for ABT. It's really a delightful ballet--the delicious Delibes score as mercurial as the deus ex machina plot, sliding from trumpeting horns for huntress Sylvia and her cadre to lyric love … [Read more...]

A friend called Thursday night, and I was slow to pick up. When we finally caught each other, he quipped, "Yeah, I know, you've been busy mourning Michael Jackson." But I'd been mourning him for years. A young Michael Jackson (by Kate Simon, via the New Yorker) Every time I saw a photo of Jackson more bleached, more narrow-nosed, more hidden behind glasses and scarves, than ever, I felt incredibly … [Read more...]

Diana Vishneva approaches her roles with a completeness of imagination that makes the usual day-after review--this worked, that didn't--feel especially meager. For example, in Swan Lake most ballerinas identify the swan queen Odette's creaturely gestures with her fear, her guardedness, her vulnerability--the feelings that Prince Siegfried's everlasting love promises to defuse. But last night at … [Read more...]

Dear Reader, In order not to tempt me to write posts, when I have other, less tempting things to do, I am declaring a hiatus here for the next few weeks. But to not leave you completely high and dry, here are the dances in New York I would go see (and likely will go see) in these last weeks of the heavy dance season before the dog days (and the Lincoln Center Festival) set in. For modern and … [Read more...]

This just in: Tonight (Thursday) at 10:30 on WNET/Ch. 13, a documentary on Frankie Manning, the late King of Swing. Sorry for the late notice: I just noticed myself. It doesn't look like it's going to be broadcast outside of the New York area, but the above link says it will be available in streaming media after tonight. In case you're wondering who Manning is and why he's a big deal, read the … [Read more...]