“Valse Fantaisie", "Kammermusik No. 2", "Union Jack"
New York City Ballet
David H. Koch Theater
New York, New York
September 21, 2019 evening

One of the casualties of a wholesale shift in programming last spring (along with "Liebeslieder Waltzer" and a revival of Jerome Robbins' "Branden- burgs"), "Union Jack'" is back. This was the best news of the night. Otherwise, things were often tipsy-turvy, including starting the evening, far from Balanchine's view of a triple bill – appetizer, main

“Raymonda Variations,” “Variations Pour Une Porte et Un Soupir,” “DGV: Danse à Grande Vitesse”
New York City Ballet
David H. Koch Theater
New York, NY
September 22, 2019 (matinee)

New York City Ballet could have presented any combination of works for its “Balanchine + Wheeldon” program, but the particular selection of George Balanchine’s “Raymonda Variations” and “Variations Pour Une Porte et Un Soupir” and Christopher Wheeldon’s “DGV: Danse à Grande Vitesse” worked to highlight Balanchine’s creative genius, while

“Isadora Duncan”
Jérôme Bel
FIAF “Crossing the Line” Festival
Florence Gould Hall
New York, NY
September 25, 2019

The purity of Isadora Duncan’s simple, powerful movement and vision was represented with gentle ardor in Jérôme Bel’s framed portrait of the iconic dancer. “Isadora Duncan” was danced, in its US premiere, by Catherine Gallant, a long-time student of the Duncan technique, but the event was as much lesson as a performance. Using the program’s simple structure, Gallant

“Jewels"
New York City Ballet
David H. Koch Theater
New York, New York
September 21, 2019 evening

George Balanchine's "Jewels" is now fifty-two years old. A hit from its first performance, it still reliably fills the house, for several reasons. It has sets (of varying degrees of success over three iterations) and costumes and lasts a full evening, all of which is counter to the generally held assumptions about the New York City Ballet's repertory. It has

“Mozart Dances”
Mark Morris Dance Group
Zellerbach Auditorium
CalPerformances
Berkeley, CA
September 20, 2019

Mark Morris gets justifiably praised for the depth of his musicality but he most certainly also keeps our attention with the breadth of his imagination. The three parts of “Mozart Dances”, set in 2006 to the Piano Concertos No. 11 and 27 and the Sonata for Two Pianos, offer an extraordinary insight into Mozart, above all as a genius of crystalline clarity of music as abstraction.

National Dance Day at the REACH
Featuring "Fela! The Concert"
Main Stage at the REACH
The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts
Washington, D.C.
September 21, 2019

In December of 2018, Netflix released a new interactive film called "Bandersnatch." The psychological thriller was inspired by choose-your-own-adventure novels, requiring the viewer to make decisions throughout the movie that fundamentally altered the plot of the story. This unusual type of viewing experience gained popularity rather quickly,

Dance Day at The Reach Festival
Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts
Washington, DC
September 21, 2019

An incredible amount of dance was performed in Kennedy Center’s formal and improvised spaces on Dance Day, September 21. From morning into the night it drew a huge audience. I was part of the crowd in the main building’s corridors and theaters, on the terrace overlooking the Potomac River and on the campus’ extension south with  its three blunt, new

“Raymonda Variations,” “Variations Pour Une Porte et Un Soupir,” "DGV: Danse à Grande Vitesse"
New York City Ballet
David H. Koch Theater
New York, New York
September 18, 2019

On paper, the first mixed bill of the New York City Ballet's fall 2019 read like a study in diminishing returns, increasingly anemic as the program progressed. But assumptions are made to be upended and so they were here. For the most compelling work fo the evening was the strangest,

“Sara Mearns: Beyond Ballet”
Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival
Becket, MA
August 17, 2019

Sara Mearns is a dancer of power and range, so it is not surprising that she might want to join the burgeoning number of ballerinas who have sought to explore the challenges of genres outside their own. Mearns, a principal with New York City Ballet, appeared last week at Jacob’s Pillow in a production entitled “Sara Mearns: Beyond Ballet,” and in it she applied herself

“Jewels”
New York City Ballet
David H. Koch Theater
New York, New York
September 17, 2019

In “Diamonds,” at the New York City Ballet's fall opening performance of “Jewels”, Maria Kowroski was how you’d like to remember her. Not that she’s going anywhere. But by now the company’s senior dancer (she joined NYCB in 1995), she, along with her partner Tyler Angle, rescued opening night from lackluster performances of “Emeralds” and “Rubies” and made you forget

The REACH Opening Festival
Featuring the Syncopated Ladies
Studio K at the REACH
The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts
Washington, D.C.
September 8, 2019

Just outside of Studio K —  a new rehearsal and performance space recently minted as part of the Kennedy Center's REACH expansion project — hangs a sizeable, two-dimensional collage by Fred Tomaselli entitled "Flipper." Looping ellipses define the work, weaving in and out of one another, but these balanced optical designs