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Room to Grow

“Jewels"
New York City Ballet
David H. Koch Theater
New York, New York
September 21, 2019 evening

by Carol Pardo
copyright © 2019 by Carol Pardo

George Balanchine's "Jewels" is now fifty-two years old. A hit from its first performance, it still reliably fills the house, for several reasons. It has sets (of varying degrees of success over three iterations) and costumes and lasts a full evening, all of which is counter to the generally held assumptions about the New York City Ballet's repertory. It has all the trappings of a "traditional" ballet except a plot. There is variety in the scores (Fauré, Stravinsky, Tchaikovsky) the norm at NYCB, and, if one cares to see it, a lesson in ballet history and style with a nod to the places that sheltered and influenced Balanchine himself (France, America, Russia). But here, lesson learned was how a ballet can offer opportunities for dancers whether debutants, yearlings or veterans, and in consequence, not only survive but thrive.

Lauren King and Daniel Applebaum in 'Emeralds' George Balanchine's "Jewels" Photo credit  Rosalie O'Connor

MMM

“Mozart Dances”
Mark Morris Dance Group
Zellerbach Auditorium
CalPerformances
Berkeley, CA
September 20, 2019

by Rita Felciano
Copyright © Rita Felciano 2019

Mark Morris gets justifiably praised for the depth of his musicality but he most certainly also keeps our attention with the breadth of his imagination. The three parts of “Mozart Dances”, set in 2006 to the Piano Concertos No. 11 and 27 and the Sonata for Two Pianos, offer an extraordinary insight into Mozart, above all as a genius of crystalline clarity of music as abstraction. The music is all about structure, and to some extent Morris’ work here is as well.

Mark Morris Dance Group in "Mozart Dances" photo: Stephanie Berger

A Choose Your Own Dance Adventure

National Dance Day at the REACH
Featuring "Fela! The Concert"
Main Stage at the REACH
The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts
Washington, D.C.
September 21, 2019

by Arielle Ostry
copyright © 2019 by Arielle Ostry

In December of 2018, Netflix released a new interactive film called "Bander- snatch." The psychological thriller was inspired by choose-your-own-adventure novels, requiring the viewer to make decisions throughout the movie that fundamentally altered the plot of the story. This unusual type of viewing experience gained popularity rather quickly, as each person who encountered the film discovered a different story line, experiencing a separate chain of events. The Kennedy Center's National Dance Day celebration was — in many ways — the "Bandersnatch" of dance programming. Countless performances, classes, and informational events were free and open to everyone. With so many visual spectacles and music coming from just about every direction, this National Dance Day was not about being impressed by a single professional performance company. Alternatively, the festivities centered around how much dance one could see, learn about, and practice all in a single day.

Photo: Tiler Peck teaching the crowd at the Kennedy Center's National Dance Day. Photo by Jati Lindsay.

 

Surfeits

Dance Day at The Reach Festival

Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts

Washington, DC

September 21, 2019

 

by George Jackson

copyright 2019 by George Jackson

 

An incredible amount of dance was performed in Kennedy Center’s formal and improvised spaces on Dance Day, September 21. From morning into the night it drew a huge audience. I was part of the crowd in the main building’s corridors and theaters, on the terrace overlooking the Potomac River and on the campus’ extension south with  its three blunt, new masonry blocks – buildings by the architectural firm of Steven Holl. I saw snatches of diverse dance on video screens placed theroughout the area, but attended only two entire performances, each about an hour long.

 

Audience members participating in National Dance Day at the Kennedy Center. Photo by Jati Lindsay.

Upended Expectations

“Raymonda Variations,” “Variations Pour Une Porte et Un Soupir,” "DGV: Danse à Grande Vitesse"
New York City Ballet
David H. Koch Theater
New York, New York
September 18, 2019

by Carol Pardo
copyright © 2019 by Carol Pardo

On paper, the first mixed bill of the New York City Ballet's fall 2019 read like a study in diminishing returns, increasingly anemic as the program progressed. But assumptions are made to be upended and so they were here. For the most compelling work fo the evening was the strangest, "Variations Pour Une Porte et Un Soupir".

Sara Mearns and Daniel Ulbricht in  in George Balanchine's "Variations Pour Une Porte et Un Soupir" photo by Erin Baiano

A Ballerina Gives Us One for the Ages

“Jewels”
New York City Ballet
David H. Koch Theater
New York, New York
September 17, 2019

by Michael Popkin
copyright © 2019 by Michael Popkin

In “Diamonds,” at the New York City Ballet's fall opening performance of “Jewels”, Maria Kowroski was how you’d like to remember her. Not that she’s going anywhere. But by now the company’s senior dancer (she joined NYCB in 1995), she, along with her partner Tyler Angle, rescued opening night from lackluster performances of “Emeralds” and “Rubies” and made you forget about what came before. An incandescent performance, shot through with artistry, what was most surprising about her reading in particular was how frankly emotional she made it, and how she did it simply by being herself, by opening up to her partner without adding any overt or histrionic expression to her dancing. Also surprising was how, for a tall dancer who was all legs early in her career, she last night got the expression out of her upper body, back and arms.

Photo © Erin Baiano of Maria Kowroski and Tyler Angle in “Diamonds”

Getting Up Close at the Kennedy Center

The REACH Opening Festival
Featuring the Syncopated Ladies
Studio K at the REACH
The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts
Washington, D.C.
September 8, 2019

by Arielle Ostry
copyright © 2019 by Arielle Ostry

Just outside of Studio K —  a new rehearsal and performance space recently minted as part of the Kennedy Center's REACH expansion project — hangs a sizeable, two-dimensional collage by Fred Tomaselli entitled "Flipper." Looping ellipses define the work, weaving in and out of one another, but these balanced optical designs only represent the bigger picture. If you walk up and get close enough to the art, you begin to notice that something concrete and ordinary makes up the intricate patterns of Tomaselli's work. You discover that what lies at the heart of his masterpiece is not abstract shapes offering little more than aloof, academic recognition. Instead, natural figures like dainty beads, delicate flowers, and a diverse array of hands all come together to form neat rows, making up the bigger picture that is so easy to casually admire. What does this random piece of wall art hanging on the lower level of the REACH's Skylight Pavilion have to do with The REACH Opening Festival, you might ask? I believe this in-depth, investigatory look at what art is, where it comes from, and how it develops, is what the REACH expansion and opening festival are all about.

Photo: Crowd at The REACH Opening Festival enjoying DJ Flying Lotus perform on the REACH's outdoor stage. Photo by Jati Lindsay.

Sara Mearns at Jacob’s Pillow

“Sara Mearns: Beyond Ballet”
Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival
Becket, MA
August 17, 2019

by Gay Morris
copyright © 2019 by Gay Morris

Sara Mearns is a dancer of power and range, so it is not surprising that she might want to join the burgeoning number of ballerinas who have sought to explore the challenges of genres outside their own. Mearns, a principal with New York City Ballet, appeared last week at Jacob’s Pillow in a production entitled “Sara Mearns: Beyond Ballet,” and in it she applied herself to new dance forms with the seriousness and focus one would expect from this exceptional dancer. She danced in works by five choreographers, and was accompanied by three different partners during the course of the performance. What made her show unusual was that all her partners, and all but one of the choreographers, were women.

Sara Mearns and Honji Wang in the Company Wang Ramierez duet, "No.1." Photo: Christopher Duggan.

Saying Something, Meaning More

"Darl," "Seventy-Two Hours," "Two Sides Of," "Reverie," "Dialogue Dances"
The Joyce Ballet Festival, Program B
The Joyce Theater
New York, NY
August 10, 2019 

by Marianne Adams
copyright © 2019 by Marianne Adams

Program B of the Joyce Ballet Festival, curated by The Royal Ballet’s star Lauren Cuthbertson, at first could have seemed like an odd grab bag of material, as thematically its one United States and four world premieres hardly had a connecting thread (besides the almost uniform prominence of Cuthbertson).  On reflection though, the program amounted to the ballerina's expression of a multitude of angles, from humorous to lyrical, to ethnic, to dramatic, and a multitude of themes, all in the little time a night’s bill can allot. Whether these were facets of her interests, or themes she wanted to put in front of the audience, the whole was made richer by its parts, and seemed to have left a lot still unsaid upon the curtain’s fall.

Photo of Lauren Cuthbertson in "Darl." Photo Copyright (c) by Maria Baranova

Curating and Collaborating

"Then and Again", "Song of a Wayfarer", "Elite Syncopations (divertissement)"
Ballet Festival Program C
The Joyce Theater
New York, NY
August 13, 2019

by Carol Pardo
copyright ©2019 by Carol Pardo

If The Joyce Theater's 2019 Ballet Festival is intended as a showcase of or for the Royal Ballet, this program, created by the designer -- and former dancer -- Jean-Marc Puissant, a frequent collaborator with Christoper Wheeldon at the Royal and in New York, seemed a strange way to show it. Members of the company did not arrive onstage until "Elite Syncopations" the final ballet of the evening and the only one actually in repertory at the Royal Ballet. Even then, they were joined by Cassandra Trenary of American Ballet Theatre. True, Gemma Bond, choreographer of "Then and Again" danced with the Royal Ballet and studied at its school, but after years at A.B.T. she seems like a local. True, Béjart's "Song of a Wayfarer'" was made for Rudolf Nureyev who found his home in the West with the company. But those links are indirect. Perhaps Trenary's presence and the program as a whole were intended to underscore the theme of collaboration, considered by the Royal's director Kevin O'Hare to be central to this edition of the festival.

Joseph Gordon in Maurice Béjart's "Song of a Wayfarer" photo by Maria Baronova