Dance

SUCH SWEET SORROW FOR THE WRONG REASONS It’s as if choreographer Krzysztof Pastor, director of the Polish National Ballet, gave Prokofiev the opportunity to protest Stalin’s tyranny that he never had in 1940. Pastor’s two-act treatment of the Russian’s celebrated three-act ballet carries no Renaissance finery, just real-world immediacy. Premiered by the Scottish Ballet in…

I’LL TAKE ASTAIRE’S WAY TO PARADISE The great ballet choreographer George Balanchine compared Fred Astaire to Bach, and Baryshnikov claimed Astaire gave him an inferiority complex. Katharine Hepburn once said about his partnership with Ginger Rogers: “He gives her class, and she gives him sex.” Astaire himself said, “I don’t make love by kissing, I…

BUSTING A NUTCRACKER Before you grumble and run screaming, “Not another Nutcracker Suite!” — trust me when I tell you that American Contemporary Ballet has something up its red-fur, white-trimmed sleeve with an all-new imagining that presents new choreography while putting you directly inside the Land of the Sweets. When I was told patrons will…

CRACK AWAY Miami City Ballet’s new redesign of the magical George Balanchine’s The Nutcracker will feature enchanting new costumes and sets by the Cuban-American artist/designer power couple Isabel and Ruben Toledo, Balanchine’s glorious choreography, and Tchaikovsky’s beloved timeless score. The production, co-commissioned by The Music Center, will have its world premiere in Los Angeles on…

THE RYHTHM OF CUBA COMES TO THE MUSIC CENTER FOR ONE DAY ONLY Cuba: Antes, Ahora / Then, Now is a celebration of the art of Cuba, and Angelinos will get the chance to experience the country’s dynamic arts from November 30-December 2, 2017. Among the more than 48 world-class Cuban musicians, dancers and visual…

ACB’S JOURNEY INTO HELL: THE ONE TIME YOU MIGHT WISH THE TRIP WERE LONGER Inferno, American Contemporary Ballet (ACB)’s season opener was a musical blast from the past with a twist. Just in time for Halloween, Artistic Director Lincoln Jones’ latest ballet—set to music from Charles Wuorinen’s seven-part opus The Mission of Virgil—was one for…

IS THAT ALL THERE IS? For his intriguing but overlong new work Second Quartet, which received its U.S. premiere at The Wallis last weekend, young French choreographer Noé Soulier writes in the program about his 28-minute piece: “Without the spectator having to recognize the motivations behind these complete movements, they are intended to stimulate his…

WHO’S EXCITED ABOUT VIRGINIA WOOLF? Inspired by Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway, NW Dance Project’s Artistic Director Sarah Slipper’s Woolf Papers—a reinvention of the classic novel—is an outstanding model of contemporary dance, provocative, theatrical, and deeply moving. Now, this exciting new piece is coming to the Carpenter Center in Long Beach for one night only on…

THE BLIND DANCE COMPANY’S EMOTIONAL VISION Hydeia Muhammad’s Blind Dance Company premiered its first show, Emotions, in the Los Angeles Fashion District to a well-deserved roar of applause. Performed at a building called The Lazarus Experience, the company’s production proved that an all-blind ensemble was no miracle, but rather came to life from CRE Outreach…

ACB’S MODERN THROWBACK American Contemporary Ballet’s final production of the season reworks an old favorite and breathes life into once forgotten characters from another well-known ballet. The combination of singing and dancing was an innovative conclusion to a trilogy’s worth of education in the classics. Aside from a few logistical problems, the show was very…