Mary Cargill

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

"La Bayadère"
American Ballet Theatre
Metropolitan Opera House
New York, NY
May 23, 2012

ABT's season is showing a company in transition, as many of its male pricipals leave--Jose Manual Carreno last year, Ethan Stiefel and Angel Corella this year, leaving only a few men tall and elegant enough to be princes.  The answer, at least this year, is to import a number of guest stars, avoiding last year's situation, where Marcelo Gomes

"Mes Oiseaux", "Liebeslieder Walzer", "Symphony in C"
New York City Ballet
The David H. Koch Theater
Lincoln Center
New York, New York
May 19, 2012

Even in the pure-dance air of the New York City Ballet, costumes are important, and the recent triple bill showed a variety of dressings.  The first ballet, Peter Martins' new "Mes Oiseaux", was dressed by the dress designer Gilles Mendel, and featured three girls (Lauren Lovette, Ashly Isaacs, and Claire Kretzschmar, all corps

"Giselle"
American Ballet Theatre
Metropolitan Opera House
May 16, 2012, matinee

ABT's sturdy and vivid production of "Giselle" featured a young cast for the Wednesday matinee; two soloists (Hee Seo as the poor wili and Simone Messmer as Myrta) and a youngish principal, Cory Stearns in his New York debut as the duplicitous Albrecht.  These dancers have only performed their roles a few times, but imagination, understanding, theatrical intelligence, not to mention technique to burn, gave this performance

"Serenade", Kamermusik No. 2", "Brahms-Schoenberg Quartet"
New York City Ballet
David H. Koch Theater
New York, NY
May 2, 2012

One sure sign that spring is here is opening night of the New York City Ballet, and this season opened with a generous serving of Balanchine.  The corps in "Serenade", the curtain raiser, looked very well rehearsed, dancing with a delicate urgency and a coherent, but not overly drilled, precision.  Janie Taylor was an unusual waltz girl,