Mary Cargill

"Caravaggio Meets Hopper", "Threshold", "Butterflies and Demons", "Zjawa", "Suspended Women"
Buglisi Dance Theatre
The Joyce Theater
New York, New York
February 6, 2013

Jacqulyn Buglisi and her dancers are celebrating their twentieth season with old and new works; this evening ranged from 1991 ("Threshold") to two new premiers, one by Buglisi ("Butterflies and Demons") and one by the young Katarzyna Skarpetowska ("Zjawa").  The general mood was dark, with only flashes of gentleness and humor, with a powerful and imaginative

"Divertimento from 'Le Baiser de la Fée'", "Tschaikovsky Pas de Deux", "Bal de Couture", "Diamonds"
New York City Ballet
David H. Koch Theater
New York, New York
January 27, 2013

All Tchaikovsky all the time (with Stravinsky channeling Tchaikovsky) is a gimmick, yes, but the Tschaikovsky (as NYCB spells it) Celebration does include some wonderful music and powerful dancing, so as gimmicks go, there are certainly worse ideas to warm up a bitter winter.  The "Divertimento from 'Le Baiser

Thunderbird American Indian Dancers
Theater for The New City
New York, New York
January 26, 2013, matinee

Folk dance is by definition participatory, so presenting it on a stage raises several issues--should it be performed as theater, or presented as is, and if the decision is "just do it", how can the audience be engaged.  The Thunderbird American Indian Dancers, founded in 1963 by New York-based Native Americans from several tribes, took the "just do it" approach

Limón Plus One

Limón Dance Company
"Mazurkas", "The Moor's Pavane", "Come With Me"
Baruch Performing Arts Center
Baruch College
New York, New York
January 15, 2013

The Limón Dance Company had a brief (just two-day) season at the Baruch Performing Arts Center, with a revival of Limón's 1958 "Mazurkas", which has not been performed by the company for some twenty years, though recently the invaluable New York Theatre Ballet has danced a suite of dances from

New Dances: Edition 2012
"Stages", "In Pursuit of Falling", "Visions and Miracles", Footholds"
The Julliard School
Peter Jay Sharp Theater
Lincoln Center
New York, NY
December 12, 2012

Four Julliard classes of dance students performed four new works as part of the now annual "New Dances" program.  The choreographers, Camille A. Brown, Emergy LeCrone, Susan Shields, and Jarek Cemerek, worked for several months with their assigned classes, and the dancing showed it.  The dancers were uniformly precise, energized,

"Giselle"
Paris Opera Ballet
David H. Koch Theater
Lincoln Center
New York, NY
July 13, 2012

"Giselle" was born in Paris but survived in Russia, and now is a citizen of the world.  Since Paris let their original version die in 1868, their current one is combination of the Russian version with some added features by the stager Patrice Bart.  To those familiar with the ABT version (the one most often seen in the US), there are some

"Le Corsaire"
American Ballet Theatre
Metropolitan Opera House
New York, NY
July 2, 2012 

ABT premiered its version of the Petipa/various hands "Le Corsaire" in 1998; its pirates and pashas owe more to Gilbert and Sullivan than to Byron and it was great fun then, and it is great fun now. Ethan Stiefel was Conrad, the pirate king, in the second performance, and among the corps were Gillian Murphy, Marcelo Gomes, and Stella Abrera. These three were among

"Swan Lake"
American Ballet Theatre
Metropolitan Opera House
New York, NY
June 28, 2012 

Angel Corella gave his final performance at ABT last night, and during the curtain calls, amidst the flowers, the wreaths, and applauding company members, showed the cheering audience one last glorious set of turns a la seconde.  It was a charming and generous gesture from a dancer who combined warmth, skill, and intelligence to become one of ABT's most, and the

"Romeo and Juliet"
American Ballet Theatre
Metropolitan Opera House
New York, NY
June 20, 2012 

Another couple got their chance to charge through "Romeo and Juliet" when the real-life couple Alina Cojocaru and Johan Kobborg (both from the Royal Ballet) danced the crowd-pleaser.  MacMillan gives his lead dancers lots of opportunities to stamp their own interpretations on the roles, and Cojocaru and Kobborg have had many years to work on their characters.  The ballet tends

"Thirteen Diversions", "Apollo", "The Firebird"
American Ballet Theatre
Metropolitan Opera House
New York, NY
June 11, 2012 

A new work must answer the question "Is this ballet necessary?", and the answer to Alexei Ratmansky's rechoreographed "Firebird" (originally, and unforgettably done in 1910 by Michael Fokine), is, sadly, no.  Ratmansky has shown a rare gift for characterization and comedy in "The Bright Stream", but characterization (that is, human characters) and comedy are not in Stravinsky'

"Twinkliana","Les Petite Riens", "Cortege Hongrois"
School of American Ballet
Peter Jay Sharp Theater
New York, New York
June 2 2012, matinee

The annual SAB performance opened with Sean Lavery's "Twinkliana", set to Mozart's "12 Variations".  This charming exercise was performed by younger students, who looked assured and engaging, showing how much variety can be found dancing on demi-point.  "Les Petite Riens", Peter Martins' 1987 ballet, also do Mozart, is also basically an exercise, a

"The Bright Stream"
American Ballet Theatre
Metropolitan Opera House
New York, NY
May 31, 2012 

Alexei Ratmansky's "The Bright Stream", to Shastokovich's boisterous, danceable music, returned in all its delicious silliness.  Yes, high-jinx on a Soviet collective farm might seem to be an odd basis for a good-hearted, loving comedy, but the stylized plot, with its disguises, its tricks, its straying husbands and forgiving wives, is one that Mozart would recognize.  There