Mary Cargill

"Apollo", "Monumentum pro Gesualdo", "Movements for Piano and Orchestra", "Duo Concertant", "Agon"
New York City Ballet
David H. Koch Theater
New York, NY
October 1, 2014

Balanchine in black and white certainly offers a lot of options, and if theme programming is required, this one certainly was bracing. Though there was a certain lack of variety, there were interesting themes running through, as Apollo danced with the same off-center power as the unnamed swain in "Duo Concertant", and "Movements" has

"Serenade", "Mozartiana", "Tschaikovsky Pas de Deux", "Tschaikovsky Suite No. 3"
New York City Ballet
David H. Koch Theater
New York, NY
Sept. 24, 2014

New York City Ballet is continuing its theme evenings, performing ballets that the marketing department can group together. The official opening night of the season (after the fashion-themed gala) featured all Balanchine/all Tschaikovsky. All of these ballets are glorious, of course, but performing them together does seem to imply that the program wasn't really carefully

"Playing with Angels", "When We Rise", "Tower", "Introducing Mrs. Stephen P. Baxter", "Criminal Commoners"
Mazzini Dance Collective
Ailey Citigroup Theater
Joan Weill Center for Dance
New York, NY
September 6, 2014

Annmaria Mazzini, formerly with Paul Taylor, has established a small company showcasing her own choreography; its New York season also featured two works by another Taylor alumnus, Orion Duckstein. Her choreography, like her dancing, is dynamic, incisive, luxuriantly feminine, and full of contradictions--woman as comforter, as seeker, and as

"Don Quixote"
Bolshoi Ballet
David H. Koch Theater
New York, NY
July 22, 2014

The Bolshoi's "Don Quixote" has a venerable history; Petipa choreographed it for the company in 1869, and, with various revisions, most notably by Alexander Gorsky in 1900, the Bolshoi has been dancing it steadily.  this current version, from 1999, is a restoration of the Petipa/Gorsky version, with some enhancements. The costumes, too, are based on older ones, the 1903 designs by Vasily Diyachkov,

"Swan Lake"
Bolshoi Ballet
David H. Koch Theater
New York, NY
July 15, 2014

Ballet companies, it seems, might as well program "$wan Lake" and be honest about it, since there are no productions around resembling the original Petipa/Ivanov story.  The Bolshoi's Grigorovich reworking is no worse, but certainly no better, than others seen in New York.  It is, at least, set in the Middle Ages, though the designs (by Simon Virsaladze) seem to be influenced by

"Coppélia"
American Ballet Theatre
Metropolitan Opera House
New York, New York
July 5, 2014, Matinee and Evening

The final ABT performances this year celebrated (or mourned, as it were) the departure of soloists Yuriko Kajiya (in her debut as Swanilda) and Jared Matthews, who are leaving to join the Houston Ballet.  Since Paloma Herrera (Matthew's Swanilda) has announced that she will retire next year, every performance of hers is also a small farewell.  Kajiya's Franz was Joseph Gorak,

"The Dream", "The Tempest"
American Ballet Theatre
Metropolitan Opera House
New York, New York
July 1, 2014

ABT's Shakespeare night included two works both danced to incidental music composed for the plays, Felix Mendelssohn's for "A Midsummer Night's Dream", and Jean Sibelius' for "The Tempest".  Ashton's "The Dream" has turned fifty, and Ratmansky's "The Tempest" is less than a year old, but seeing them together shows that "The Dream" is timeless, while "The Tempest", despite some very fine moments

"Ivillage: My Indian Village", "Inseparation", "Flight", "Bollysa"
Sa Dance Company
Ailey Citigroup Theater
New York, New York
June 28, 2014

The word "Sa" means, according to the program notes, the first and last note in the octave used in Indian classical music.  The Sa Dance Company, a group of 10 stunningly beautiful women, melds blends the various schools of Indian classical dance with more modern versions; the brief biographies in the program shows the range of types these dancers

"Swan Lake"
American Ballet Theatre
Metropolitan Opera House
New York, New York
June 27, 2014

The injury bug has hit ABT with a vengeance, and Friday's announced "Swan Lake" cast, Alina Cojocaru and Herman Cornejo, were replaced by Hee Seo and Roberto Bolle; Seo had already stepped in on Monday for the black act to replace Gillian Murphy, injured during the performance.  This gallantry meant the audience was already rooting for her, but her Odette/Odile is still very

"Giselle"
American Ballet Theatre
Metropolitan Opera House
New York, New York
June 17, 2014

"Wonderful! Wonderful!" the man behind me shouted after almost every variation during the Polina Semionova/David Hallberg performance of "Giselle".  He certainly had a point.  Seminova is a tall, long-limbed dancer, not a typical Giselle, but she controlled her extremes to present a fully developed character; a ballerina, it seems, is someone who can do anything but has the taste not to.  Her

Cinderella"
American Ballet Theatre
Metropolitan Opera House
New York, New York
June 9, 2014

"Who will play the sisters?" was the constant refrain when ABT announced that it would perform Sir Frederick Ashton's version.  The Cinderella story certainly seems like a natural in the full-length sweepstakes--a familiar story with a ballroom setting and a happy ending, but the previous two versions (by Ben Stevenson and James Kudelka) were choreographic duds.  The somewhat episodic Prokofiev music is not pretty

"La Bayadère"
American Ballet Theatre
Metropolitan Opera House
New York, New York
May 23, 2014

The Makarova-Petipa eternal triangle got a glorious sendoff with its opening night cast, including Diana Vishneva as Nikiya, Marcelo Gomes as Solor and Gillian Murphy, in her first appearance this season, as Gamzatti.  Vishneva is a beautiful woman with an expressive face, and her Nikiya was no shrinking violet.  She was both shocked and angry at the High Brahmin's untoward advances (Victor Barbee