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Dance
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Dance Review: GISELLE (ABT at Metropolitan Opera House)
ABT’S GISELLE IS A TRU RENAISSANCE OF ROMANTICISM Very few ballets have made their mark like Giselle, the jewel of Romantic dance. It emerged in 1841, at the height of an era when people were fascinated by the supernatural and women who seemed more spirit than flesh. Giselle actually redefined the ballerina: no longer merely…
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Dance Review: SWAN LAKE (Miami City Ballet)
NO MIST, NO MERCY, JUST SWAN LAKE Forget what you think Swan Lake is. Forget the gauzy tragedy, the white tutus, the endless fluttering. At Segerstrom Hall tonight, Miami City Ballet, under Alexei Ratmansky‘s choreography, has cracked open the windows. Something sharper moves through the air now. The story’s cruelty remains intact. It is a…
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Dance Review: CINDERELLA (Los Angeles Ballet)
I HAD A BALL Composed during tumultuous World War II, Cinderella is regarded as one of Sergei Prokofiev’s most popular compositions which made its debut in Moscow in 1945. The piece is well-loved for its jubilant and melodic score, which lends itself to all the fantastic lifts and leaps inherent in the story of love,…
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Dance Review: THE EUTERPIDES & SERENADE (American Contemporary Ballet at Television City)
BEAUTY IN STEP: GRACE, MELODIES, AND ACB’S ELEGANT NEW WORKS Few phrases in the world of classical music fill me with as much excitement and dread as “world premiere.” This applies even with companies I like. However, I am happy to say that American Contemporary Ballet’s new work, The Euterpides, with music by Alma Deutscher,…
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Dance Review: ALICE’S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND (Joffrey Ballet)
DOWN THE RABBIT HOLE INTO THE SUBLIME: THIS IS BALLET GONE DELICIOUSLY MAD Venerated displays of creativity can have the most innocent of beginnings. But in the case of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, accomplishing the astronomically exceptional may have been the end goal all along in 2011. That’s when London’s Royal Ballet first performed its…
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Dance Review: THIS REMINDS ME OF YOU (BODYTRAFFIC at The Joyce Theater in NYC)
LIGHTNING STRIKES TWICE: BODYTRAFFIC DAZZLES AGAIN, THIS TIME AT THE JOYCE Some performances linger in the body long after the curtain falls. I caught L.A. Dance Company BODYTRAFFIC at The Wallis in Beverly Hills last December and left the theater nearly giddy, unsure if I’d just witnessed lightning in a bottle. As luck would have…
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Dance Review: BROKEN LOVE (“Broken Wings” & “Marguerite and Armand” | San Francisco Ballet)
A VISCERAL DOUBLE BILL OF PASSION, PAIN AND POETIC MOVEMENT The San Francisco Ballet’s Broken Love program dives headfirst into the tempestuous territory of heartbreak and transformation through two emotionally charged ballets: Annabelle Lopez Ochoa’s Broken Wings, and Sir Frederick Ashton’s Marguerite and Armand. It’s a double bill that traverses both the intimate and the…
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Dance Review: AMOUR, ACIDE ET NOIX (Daniel Léveillé Dance at NYU Skirball)
THE NAKED TRUTH In Amour, Acide et Noix, Canadian choreographer Daniel Léveillé presents a stark and unflinching meditation on the human form—one that reduces dance to its most essential components. Staged on a bare black floor under austere white lighting, the 60-minute modern dance work is minimalist in both visual and choreographic design. Gone are…
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Dance Review: VAN MANEN: DUTCH GRANDMASTER (San Francisco Ballet)
At 92, Hans van Manen remains a towering figure in European choreography—a master of form, musicality, and provocation. Van Manen: Dutch Grandmaster, San Francisco Ballet’s four-part tribute to the Dutch icon, is more than a retrospective; it’s a sensual and cerebral immersion into a choreographer whose style is at once spare and lush, abstract and…
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Dance Review: MARTHA GRAHAM (Program C at The Joyce)
The Martha Graham Dance Company is back at The Joyce for its 99th season with a new dance concert titled Dances of the Mind, featuring 11 works across three programs through April 13, 2025. I saw Program C, and it was a moving, powerful experience. Janet Eilber, the exquisite Artistic Director of the dance company,…
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Dance Review: THE WINTER’S TALE (ABT at Segerstrom)
EXIT, PURSUED BY MOVEMENT THAT CUTS DEEP Jealousy doesn’t sneak in. It bursts. You can see it take hold of Leontes the second doubt flickers behind his eyes. His body folds in. Hands clutch at air. His spine locks. His stare slices across the room, scanning for proof that isn’t there. This isn’t some vague…
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Dance Review: Dance Review: DIABELLI & SLACKTIDE (Twyla Tharp Diamond Jubilee at Kennedy Center)
AN EXERCISE IN JUBILATION In the midst of a Trump takeover of The Kennedy Center, thank goodness one production wasn’t canceled or withdrawn from the roster. I’m talking about Kennedy Center Honoree Twyla Tharp’s Diamond Jubilee modern dance tour. The iconic choreographer is celebrating 60 years of impeccable dance. With astounding dancers equipped with strength,…
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Dance Review: FRANKENSTEIN (San Francisco Ballet)
STITCHING TOGETHER BEAUTY AND HORROR: SF BALLET’S ELECTRIFYING FRANKENSTEIN San Francisco Ballet’s Frankenstein, a co-production with The Royal Ballet of London, had its world premiere in London in 2016 and its American premiere with SF Ballet the following year. Now returning for an engagement through March 26 (with an encore April 26 to May 4),…
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Dance Review: HUBBARD STREET DANCE CHICAGO (The Joyce Theater in New York City)
HUBBA-HUBBA HUBBARD STREET “It’s not magic, but it should seem like it is.” That advice came from a veteran jazz musician in the 1930s as he counseled a young aspiring player. In many ways, that nugget of truth applies to the world as dance as well. Closing in on its fifth decade, few contemporary dance…
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Dance Review: DIABELLI & SLACKTIDE (Twyla Tharp Diamond Jubilee at New York City Center)
THARP LOOKING SHARP AT NY CITY CENTER Ten polished, pseudo-suited dancers graced New York City Center with playful panache in Twyla Tharp’s Diabelli (1998)– one of two pieces in the Diamond Jubilee program, running through March 16. Their polite yet zingy attitudes, melding with Anton Diabelli and Ludwig van Beethoven’s Opus 120, imbued the theater…
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Dance Review: GOLDEN HOUR (Joffrey Ballet Mixed Rep)
JOFFREY ADDS SURPRISE TO A PROGRAM ALREADY BRIMMING WITH EXCELLENT DANCE Joffrey Ballet certainly must be conscious of its earth shifting habits. More likely, its propensity for greatly broadening ballet’s possibilities has been welded into the dance company’s DNA. Joffrey’s four-piece winter program Golden Hour showcases adventurously inventive choreography and splendid dance converge to prove borders and limits…
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Dance Review: ALVIN AILEY AMERICAN DANCE THEATER (The Auditorium Theatre in Chicago)
THE PERPETUATION OF LEGACY Once a year we’re reminded of the unique space Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater (AAADT) occupies in the global dance sphere. And every year we’re also reminded how the venerable dance company remains as relentlessly intent on stretching its horizons as it is in honoring and maintaining the legacy of its…
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Highly Recommended Dance: 15th ANNUAL WINNING WORKS CHOREOGRAPHIC COMPETITION (The Grainger Academy of The Joffrey Ballet)
The Grainger Academy of The Joffrey Ballet’s 15th annual Winning Works Choreographic Competition is set to showcase five world premieres that are guaranteed to stir things up. This annual event, which highlights ALAANA (African, Latinx, Asian, Arab, and Native American) choreographers, gives a fresh platform to voices that are shaping the future of ballet. With…
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Dance Review: TANGO AFTER DARK (Germán Cornejo at the Joyce Theater)
NOT YOUR AVERAGE TANGO Tango: a dance with European, Argentinian and Cuban influences, born in the impoverished backstreets of Buenos Aires, Argentina and Montevideo, Uruguay, raised in smoky bars and brothels, and now, in all its seductive, high-voltage glory, has come a long way from these humble beginnings, and is now burning up the stage…
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Dance Review: GOLDEN HOUR (Joffrey Ballet Mixed Rep)
JOFFREY ADDS SURPRISE TO A PROGRAM ALREADY BRIMMING WITH EXCELLENT DANCE Joffrey Ballet certainly must be conscious of its earth shifting habits. More likely, its propensity for greatly broadening ballet’s possibilities has been welded into the dance company’s DNA. Joffrey’s four-piece winter program Golden Hour showcases adventurously inventive choreography and splendid dance converge to prove…
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