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Valentina’s Day

Legacy Gala
The Joyce Theater
New York, NY
November 23, 2009

by Leigh Witchel
copyright © 2009 by Leigh Witchel

To celebrate the 30th anniversary of her defection form the former Soviet Union, Valentina Kozlova staged a gala performance at the Joyce.  Her companion in flight, former husband Leonid Kozlov, was originally slated to appear and even to dance with her, but did not.

The evening began with a photo montage; pictures of Kozlova as a young, leggy student. She is still slim and elegant, though also still speaks in halting English.

Everybody On Stage

Opening Night Gala
New York City Ballet
David H. Koch Theater
New York NY
November 24, 2009

By Carol Pardo
Copyright © 2009 by Carol Pardo

Twenty-seven of twenty-nine New York City Ballet principal dancers showed up on stage for the company’s opening night benefit performance, as did two guest étoiles from the Paris Opera Ballet. But the star of the show was the orchestra, or more precisely the mechanical lift newly installed in the orchestra pit. For as it lit into a brisk account of “The Sleeping Beauty Waltz,” the orchestra also rose, so that the musicians, for perhaps the first time in their working lives, looked down on the first row of seats. The moment was a little hokey, but also moving, showing the fruits of renovation: technologically, kinetically and immediately. Tchaikovsky’s waltz also functioned as the soundtrack for a video of the renovation which, through combining real time and accelerated sequences, compressed five months' labor into minutes of film. The central presence of the orchestra also reaffirmed Balanchine’s central tenet “Music is the floor we dance on.”
 

Pennsylvania Ballet's "Nutcracker" at the Kennedy Center

"The Nutcracker"
Pennsylvania Ballet
Opera House
J.F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts
Washington, D.C.
November 24, 2009

by Alexandra Tomalonis
copyright © 2009 by Alexandra Tomalonis

Is the quest over? The Kennedy Center has been trying for several years to find a "Nutcracker" that suits the house, and with the Pennsylvania Ballet's production of George Balanchine's "The Nutcracker," it may have finally found the right one. The costumes and sets are lovely, there's plenty of magic for the children and dancing for the fans. Best of all, if this is your first "Nutcracker" you might actually want to come back and see more ballet!

That Old White Magic

"The Nutcracker"
New York City Ballet
David H. Koch Theater
New York, NY
November 27, 2009

by Mary Cargill
Copyright © 2009 by Mary Cargill

 For many New Yorkers, black Friday is also white Friday, when the wonderful Balanchine version of "The Nutcracker" makes its first appearance.  This perennial is a cash cow, yes, but it is also a heartwarming salute to innocence and childhood and to the Maryinsky Ballet of Balanchine's youth.  The first act brims with good cheer, as the wealthy Staulbaums meet and entertain their equally wealthy and well-behaved friends.  The simplicity of the action is oddly moving--children dancing around a Christmas tree, a mother tucking her little girl in bed, a child cradling a broken doll, all perfectly matched to the rich Tchaikovsky score.  In the middle of the warm hub-bub, Robert La Fosse's Herr Drosselmeier stood out for his imaginative and detailed characterization.  He was a holdover from the more courtly 18th century, flourishing an imaginary handkerchief and in his old-fashioned knee breeches, he seemed to be slightly out of place in the more robust and forthright 19th century, and danced as if he were remembering minuets of long ago.  It was a delicate and gentle performance.

Really Real

“Really Real”
Wally Cardona/WC4+
BAM Harvey Theater
Brooklyn, NY
November 20, 2009

by Leigh Witchel
copyright © 2009 by Leigh Witchel

It’s exciting when choreographers try to make dances that are more than just dances, but are about ideas. Wally Cardona’s “Really Real” tried to take Søren Kierkegaard’s life and ideas as a springboard for an evening that wrestled with his concepts about the relationship of the self to others.  The results were mixed.

Girls’ Gang

“Prima”

LeeSaar The Company

PS 122

New York, NY

November 19, 2009

By Martha Sherman

Copyright © 2009 by Martha Sherman

You wouldn’t want to meet any of them in a dark alley.  In the stark setting of PS122, the four fierce dancers of LeeSaar The Company showed their power and cohesion. Though alone with their demons, in coming together, each of their particular shakes were calmed and their frenzy turned into  powerful smooth movement. They became a force to be reckoned with.

Shoestrings

New York Theatre Ballet
Dance Gallery
New York, NY
November 20, 2009

by Mary Cargill

copyright 2009 by Mary Cargill

This cozy "Dance on a Shoestring" performance featured an intriguing mixture of old and new, classroom exercises and spirited revivals, dance with verve by the small, vibrant New York Theatre Ballet.  The performance opened with company director Diana Byer's setting of the last ballet choreographed by Sallie Wilson, who had worked closely with the company.   "Pas de Six--Gounod", to the bounding, infectious and dancey music from "Faust" was a charming exercise in Cechetti technique for six dancers featuring  gentle arabesques, flowing arms, and delicate batterie--a perfect work for a spring night, anytime of the year.

Judson Redux

Deborah Hay and Yvonne Rainer
"If I Sing to You"
"Spiraling Down"
Baryshnikov Arts Center, New York
November 17, 2009

by Tom Phillips
Copyright 2009 by Tom Phillips

Irony is about the distances between things, and it gets better with age. Yvonne Rainer has been making art and writing about it since the 1960s, and in the process she has attained an awesome ironic distance, which she displays in her new piece “Spiraling Down.” It’s about the distance between then and now, the discipline it took to get from there to here, and the gap between the artist and the present-day world she contemplates. “Spiraling Down” might refer to the state of the world, or it might also be the process of exploring the artist’s unique, living memory.

Desperately Seeking

"Personals"

ZviDance

Judson Memorial Church

New York, NY

November 12, 2009

By Martha Sherman

Copyright © 2009 by Martha Sherman

Ubiquitous personal ads are a disturbing metaphor for human (dis)connection in the age of the web. In “Personals,” Zvi Gotheiner’s 2008 meditation on relationships and sexual tension, most of the dancers’ time was spent alone, posturing, gesturing, and moving in parallel. When the men and women did come together, it was as often in tension as in gentleness. This  performance for the company’s 20th Anniversary benefit at Judson Church, was a collaborative weave between the stories of the dancers and the vocabulary of the choreographer.

Triple Bill from Birmingham Royal Ballet

Quantum Leaps
Powder, E=mc², The Centre and its opposite
Birmingham Royal Ballet
Sadler’s Wells Theatre
10-14 November, 2009

 by Judith Cruickshank
copyright 2009 by Judith Cruickshank 
 
On a brief visit to London last week Birmingham Royal Ballet showed two programmes; artistic director David Bintley’s reworked version of his full-length Cyrano and a mixed bill which consisted of a revival of Stanton Welch’s Powder, Garry Stewart’s The centre and its opposite, first given as part of the company’s small-scale tour last season and a new piece by Bintley himself: E=mc²; surely the world’s most famous equation.