Marianne Adams

“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

“Infra,” Divertissements, “Age of Anxiety”
The Royal Ballet
David H. Koch Theater
New York, NY
June 28, 2015 (matinee) 

Mixed bill programs, particularly when brought by a company on tour, are usually a great vehicle for showing a company’s range. But if the Royal Ballet said enough about the impressive roster of British choreographers in its repertory with just the first cast, the second cast indicated that the depth of its performers’ bench, and their ability to excel

“Romeo and Juliet”
American Ballet Theatre
The Metropolitan Opera House
New York, NY
June 18, 2015

It was a long time coming, but Russian ballerina Evgenia Obraztsova, and her signature role of Juliet, finally made it to New York. The Kenneth MacMillan version of the ballet that ABT puts on season after season may not be the best vehicle for Obraztsova’s iteration of Shakespeare’s famous heroine, but the trademark innocence with which she dances the role nonetheless shone

"ROBOT"
Blanka Li and Dancers
BAM Howard Gilman Opera House
Brooklyn, NY
June 11, 2015

If you ever wondered what kind of future it would be where robots are ubiquitous, Blanca Li’s “ROBOT” can suggest only one answer: a funny and entertaining one. From the theme-setting opening scene, where a single dancer, Gael Rougegrez, stood on a dark stage with projections of various human and robotic forms making him at times flesh and at times machine, the

“La Bayadère”
American Ballet Theatre
Metropolitan Opera House
New York, NY
June 3, 2015

by Marianne Adams
copyright © 2015 by Marianne Adams

So much can be said in a span of two hours, particularly in the context of “La Bayadère,” that it is sad when the opportunity is wasted. Unfortunately, it was precisely this that became the takeaway from ABT’s performance of the pruned and tired Natalia Makarova's 1980 production of the ballet with Maria Kochetkova, who

“Up and Down”
Eifman Ballet of St. Petersburg
New York City Center
New York, NY
May 22, 2015

How do you put psychology in dance form? For Boris Eifman, the recipe calls for one part of the Roaring Twenties setting, one part of psychological drama loosely based on F. Scott Fitzgerald's "Tender is the Night," several parts of different music ranging from George Gershwin to Frederic Chopin, one part an  incredibly limber, tall and expressive dancing cast, one

“Sarabande,” “Sunshine,” “Steptext”
Lyon Opera Ballet
The Joyce Theater
New York, NY
April 29, 2015

All three of Lyon Opera Ballet’s works on its opening night program focused on reconstructing and extracting from the grammar of the choreographic text varying meanings, and all three conveyed a perspective on modern choreography and a statement about the company.

The all-male “Sarabande,” Benjamin Millepied’s sequential approach to Bach’s music inspired by Jerome Robbins’s “A Suite of Dances,” presented

“Show.Girl.,” “Conquer,” “El Beso” 
Ballet Hispanico
The Joyce Theater
New York, NY
April 14, 2015

Visual, visceral and sublimely delightful, Ballet Hispanico’s opening night delivered a powerful display of liberated movements expressing complex subjects. From the opening presentation of “Show.Girl.,” a 2014 work by the Miami choreographer Rosie Herrera about Latina identity, to the world premiere of Mexico-based Miguel Mancillas’s “Conquer,” exploring the various ways in which humans affect their possession of people and

“Intermezzo,” “run-on sentences of I miss you…,” “Salutations,” “World’s Joy,” “Anodynia,” “Quill/t,” “losing farther, losing faster,” “Through the Dust,” “Portrait,” “NOUVEAU”
CounterPointe3 Festival
The Actors Fund Arts Center
Brooklyn, NY
April 11, 2015

An evening of ten works by female choreographers almost exclusively for women is bound to be illuminating; the question is of what, and to what extent. In this third annual installment, Julia Gleich's CounterPointe festival, an important and greatly fascinating endeavor where women

“The Sixth Beauty,” “Presto,” “Games,” “The Lottery” 
Ballet West
The Joyce Theater
New York, NY
March 26, 2015

With the amount of style, elegance and stature it brought to its first opening night in New York City in over 30 years, Ballet West fit right in. The three New York premieres and the world premiere of Helen Pickett’s “Games” may have been imperfect, but the presentation of each conveyed the unique identity of the Utah company, and did

“Rite of Spring,” “The Word,” “Promethean Fire”
Paul Taylor’s American Modern Dance
David H. Koch Theater
New York, NY
March 17, 2015

A key facet to Paul Taylor’s new vision for his renamed and retooled company was presenting works by other important American choreographers. But the program, featuring two Taylor classics, “The Word” and “Promethean Fire,” and Shen Wei’s 2003 illustration of Stravinsky's "Rite of Spring,” instead of merely showing dance by different American greats also