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Group Effort

Group Effort


"Raymonda Variations", "Cortège Hongrois (excerpt)", "Schubert Symphony", "Glass Pieces (excerpt)"
School of American Ballet Workshop
Peter Jay Sharp Theater
Lincoln Center
New York, New York
June 7, matinee, 2025



With the exception of the opening “Raymonda Variations”, with its pas de deux and sparking female variations, this year’s SAB workshop featured ensembles, so not many individual dancers stood out. What did shine was beautifully cohesive dancing and a warm spirit—the anonymous couples all looked at each other, the

By Mary Cargill
Such Sweet Sorrow

Such Sweet Sorrow


Adieu: A Celebration of Guillaume Côté
“Bolero”, “Reverence”, “King’s Fall”, “Grand Mirage”
The National Ballet of Canada
Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts
Toronto, Canada
May 30, 2025


Guillaume Côté has been a household name in Canadian ballet almost since the start of his career at The National Ballet of Canada 26 years ago. Chosen for prime principal roles early on, his range and depth as a dancer lived up to and surpassed the promise of those early

By Denise Sum
The Bugs Are Out

The Bugs Are Out


"A Midsummer Night'sDream"
New York City Ballet
David H. Koch Theater
Lincoln Center
New York, New York
May 31 evening,  2025


Adorable dancing bugs start and finish Balanchine’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”, performed by very well-trained SAB students with a minimum of cuteness.  Of course there were oohs and aahs from the enthusiastic audience when they fluttered on, but they danced with a sweet-natured concentration and had no “Hi, Grandma” vibes.  The rest

By Mary Cargill
Jill Johnston's Theatre of Life

book review

Jill Johnston's Theatre of Life


The Essential Jill Johnston Reader
Edited by Clare Croft
Duke University Press, 2024


Everyone knows that post-modern dance began at Judson Memorial Church in the early 1960s, but few people today remember what actually happened there. Luckily, the Village Voice was on the story, and sent its most daring critic to cover it. Jill Johnston’s columns of the 1960s and 70s have now been collected in a book, an invaluable chronicle of dance in the context of a social/

By Tom Phillips
Dark Times

Dark Times


"Divertimento from 'Le Baiser de la Fée'", "When We Fell", "Chiaroscuro", "Odesa"
New York City Ballet
David H. Koch Theater
Lincoln Center
New York, New York
May 24 matinee, 2025


The program, officially called Eclectic NYCB, showed works from four very different choreographers (Balanchine, Kyle Abraham, Lynne Taylor-Corbett, and Alexei Ratmansky), but each piece used an element of darkness, either as a theme or a background, or both.  The result, thanks to some interesting choreography and some extraordinary

By Mary Cargill
Mountains and Valleys

Mountains and Valleys


"Beneath The Tides", "Solitude", "Mystic Familiar"
New York City Ballet
David H. Koch Theater
Lincoln Center
New York, New York
May 17, evening 2025


This program grouped three ballets choreographed in the last two years which pointed, presumably, to the future. Alexei Ratmansky, currently NYCB’s artist in residence, was the senior, with “Solitude” which was choreographed in 2024, while Caili Quan’s (“Beneath the Tides”) and Justin Peck’s (“Mystic Familiar”) works both premiered in 2025.  It

By Mary Cargill
Reveling in Ravel

Reveling in Ravel


"In G Major", "Sonatine", "Pavane", "Errante", "La Valse"
New York City Ballet
David H. Koch Theater
Lincoln Center
New York, New York
May 15, 2025


To commemorate the 50th anniversary of NYCB’s Ravel Festival, the company has put together a program of five ballets set to the composer’s music, one by Robbins (“In G Major”) and four by Balanchine (three rarely seen brief works, ”Sonatine”, “Pavane”, and”Errante”,  and his stylish 1951 “La Valse”).  

By Mary Cargill
Old Friends

Old Friends


"Paquita", "A Suite of Dances", "After the Rain" 'Brandenburg"
New York City Ballet
David H. Koch Theater
Lincoln Center
New York, New York
May 1, 2025


Though still rare, non-Balanchine evenings are being programed at NYCB with more frequency (though Balanchine is referenced in the "Minkus Pas Trois" which opens "Paquita", the dance is a revision of Petipa's original).  The evening’s program featured older works by NYCB stalwarts Jerome Robbins, Christopher Wheeldon, and Alexei Ratmansky, whose reworking

By Mary Cargill
Variety Show

Variety Show


"Scotch Symphony" "Belles-Lettres", "Glass Pieces"
New York City Ballet
David H. Koch Theater
Lincoln Center
New York, New York
April 26, 2025, Evening


This program featured three ballets by three choreographers created in three decades each separated by about thirty years; this variety made for a very lively and interesting evening.  Balanchine’s “Scotch Symphony” (1952) is an oblique take on Bournonville’s nineteenth-century Romantic work set to Mendelssohn, Justin Peck’s “Belles-Lettres” (2014) is a neo-romantic swoon

By Mary Cargill
Pearls, White and Pink

Pearls, White and Pink


Pearls, White and Pink

"Apollo", "Ballo della Regina", "Tschaikovsky Pas de Deux", "Chaconne"
New York City Ballet
David H. Koch Theater
Lincoln Center
New York, New York
April 25, 2025


The trend of City Ballet’s marketing department naming programs with poetically descriptive titles seems to have slightly run out of steam, and this program was named somewhat prosaically All Balanchine I.  There were, though, hints of a theme, as the pearl in the original “Ballo della Regina”

By Mary Cargill
Swimming With the Muses

Swimming With the Muses


Swimming with the Muses

"Apollo", "Ballo della Regina", "Tschaikovsky Pas de Deux", "Chaconne"
New York City Ballet
David H. Koch Theater
Lincoln Center
New York, New York
April 23, 2025


It may have been a coincidence, but there were references to swimming in three of the ballets on view in the glorious all-Balanchine program )“Apollo”, “Ballo della Regina”, and “Chaconne”), and three of the ballets have indelible echoes of their originators— Merrill Ashley in “Ballo” Violette Verdy in “Tschaikovsky

By Mary Cargill