Marianne Adams

“Polaris,” “Also Playing,” “Esplanade”
Paul Taylor’s American Modern Dance
David H. Koch Theater
New York, NY
March 20, 2016 (matinee)

Dancing three very different works, Paul Taylor’s company presented an eclectic program that informed, amused and delighted. It may have been a richly packed afternoon, but the quality of the company’s take on the geometric “Polaris,” humorous “Also Playing,” and classic “Esplanade” made it seem to go by almost too quickly.

The structure of “Polaris,” in both

“Spindrift,” “Images,” “Promethean Fire”
Paul Taylor’s American Modern Dance
David H. Koch Theater
New York, NY
March 19, 2016 (matinee)

It is but a truly extraordinary artist who can produce remarkable art decade after decade without the creative aquifers running dry, and Paul Taylor’s works, time and time again, prove him to be one of them. With “Spindrift" (1993), “Images" (1977) and “Promethean Fire" (2002), the choreographer’s recently reincarnated company, Paul Taylor’s American Modern Dance,

“Improvisao”
Farruquito
New York City Center 
New York, NY
March 10, 2016

The New York audience hasn’t seen him in 13 years, but from the first tap of his foot Farruquito did everything to make those in the hall glad they came to witness his return. His "Improvisao" was purposefully stripped down, designed to present flamenco in its pure, back-to-basics form. There were no sets, storylines or pre-determined choreography to embellish, or encumber, the performance,

“Carmen Suite,” “Woman in a Room”
Mariinsky Ballet
BAM Howard Gilman Opera House
New York, NY
February 27, 2016

Mariinsky Ballet’s visit to New York this winter was incredibly short and focused, presenting only four shows of mixed-bill variety, all dedicated to the late Russian ballet legend Maya Plisetskaya who passed away last year, and spearheaded by the two biggest names of the company, Diana Vishneva and Ulyana Lopatkina. Program C of this four-part tribute was headlined

“The Taming of the Shrew”
Bolshoi Ballet
Bolshoi Theatre
Live Movie Theater Broadcast by Fathom Events
January 24, 2016

The live movie theater broadcast of its 2014 production of “The Taming of the Shrew” showed the Bolshoi Ballet taking a confident step into what could well be its new era.  The ballet features original choreography by Ballet de Monte Carlo’s Jean-Christophe Maillot to a selection of music by Dmitri Shostakovich, and strikes a careful balance among English

Lincoln Center White Lights Festival
Thomas Adès: Concentric Paths – Movements in Music
“Outliers,” “Life Story,” “The Grit in the Oyster,” “Polaris”
New York City Center
New York, NY
November 20, 2015

The Thomas Adès program of the Lincoln Center White Lights Festival, offering four works by as many choreo-graphers to Adès’s music performed live with Adès himself behind the podium or piano for each, culminated in a riveting presentation of Crystal Pite’s 2014 ballet “Polaris,” but not

“AfterEffect,” “Company B,” “The Green Table”
American Ballet Theatre
David H. Koch Theater
New York, NY
October 28, 2015

In its second week, American Ballet Theatre presented a world premiere of a brand new work by one of its own – principal dancer Marcelo Gomes. The ballet, curiously titled “AfterEffect,” was ambitiously set to Tchaikovsky’s string sextet “Souvenir de Florence.” Alas, even the slim flourish it possessed quickly faded against the more effective works that followed, Paul Taylor’s “Company

“The Brahms-Haydn Variations,” “Monotones I and II,” “Green Table”
American Ballet Theatre
David H. Koch Theater
New York, NY
October 22, 2015

ABT’s fall season is traditionally a mixed bill affair but rarely one with works as audaciously diametrical in nature as this year. The company’s second night of the season offered older ballets created between 1932 and 2000, but each felt refreshingly different as much from what might be expected in a mixed bill these days,

“Concerto Barocco,” “Monumentum pro Gesuaido,” “Movements for Piano and Orchestra,” “Episodes,” “Four Temperaments”
New York City Ballet
David H. Koch Theater
New York, NY
October 18, 2015 (matinee)

For all the dedication to new and inventive ballets that NYCB stands for, sometimes nothing works as well to please the audience as a collection of Balanchine classics that strip away pomp, circumstance, or the quest to arouse shock or awe, and simply present excellent ballet in all its purity. The five

“Nutcracker”
Teatro Colón Ballet
Teatro Colón
Buenos Aires, Argentina
December 23, 2014

Outside the theater the streets may have been permeated with the warmth of the early Argentine summer, but for a few hours inside the famous Teatro Colón the ballet troupe enveloped the audience in the wintry magic of the “Nutcracker.”

The theater’s new 2014 production, staged and choreographed by the company’s artistic director Lidia Segni, replaced a Rudolf Nureyev version which had a long performance history

“Tree of Codes”
Company Wayne McGregor and Paris Opera Ballet
Park Avenue Armory
New York, NY
September 15, 2015

The opening scenes of light-speckled people moving on a pitch black stage wasn’t how “Tree of Codes,” the collaborative work featuring Wayne McGregor’s choreography, Olafur Eliasson's visual design, and music by Jamie xx, really began. Instead, the audience was immersed in art from the moment they streamed into the versatile and all-accommodating Park Avenue Armory drill

“Ritornare,” “Partita No. 2 in C Minor,” “Lasciatemi Qui Solo,” “The Innermost Part of Something”
Emery LeCrone Dance
Joyce Ballet Festival
The Joyce Theater
New York, NY
August 13, 2015

With over fifty original works in her artistic portfolio in less than a decade as an active choreographer, an evening of Emery LeCrone’s new and recent creations was promising to be at the very least intriguing, if not exciting. The presented ballets indeed were interesting, but more than anything