"Gravity", "The Other Woman", "Voicelessness", "Friction", "Mozart Trio"
New Chamber Ballet
City Center, Studio 5
New York, NY
November 20, 2015

Miro Magloire's New Chamber Ballet, a group of six female dancers and two musicians, performed five works (two premieres) in City Center's intimate Studio 5.  The space is untheatrical--no curtain, no wings and no lighting, with the audience sharing the space sitting on folding chairs. But this just goes to show that any performance

"All That We See", "Dear and Blackbirds", "The Last Time This Ended", "Invisible Divide"
BalletCollective
NYU Skirball Center
New York, NY
November 4, 2015

Troy Schumacher's BalletCollective is a company of seven dancers from the New York City Ballet, where Schumacher also dances. Obviously they all have day jobs, but the performances of this young company (founded in 2010) are not those of a casual pick-up group. Schumacher has a unique voice and he uses his supremely talented

“AfterEffect,” “Company B,” “The Green Table”
American Ballet Theatre
David H. Koch Theater
New York, NY
October 28, 2015

In its second week, American Ballet Theatre presented a world premiere of a brand new work by one of its own – principal dancer Marcelo Gomes. The ballet, curiously titled “AfterEffect,” was ambitiously set to Tchaikovsky’s string sextet “Souvenir de Florence.” Alas, even the slim flourish it possessed quickly faded against the more effective works that followed, Paul Taylor’s “Company

"After You", "Company B", "Piano Concerto #1"
American Ballet Theatre
David H. Koch Theater
New York, NY
October 29 2015

ABT's two-week Fall season featured no tutus and lots of opportunities for the dancers to shine. The Thursday night program was especially rich, showing off three choreographers exploring different types of groups; none of them used ballet's traditional hierarchies. Mark Morris' "After You" looks richer at each viewing. The dancers moved gently through the music with open

“The Brahms-Haydn Variations,” “Monotones I and II,” “Green Table”
American Ballet Theatre
David H. Koch Theater
New York, NY
October 22, 2015

ABT’s fall season is traditionally a mixed bill affair but rarely one with works as audaciously diametrical in nature as this year. The company’s second night of the season offered older ballets created between 1932 and 2000, but each felt refreshingly different as much from what might be expected in a mixed bill these days,

"After You", "Le Spectre de la Rose", "Valse Fantaisie", "Company B"
American Ballet Theatre
David H. Koch Theater
New York, NY
October 24, 2015, matinee

ABT's Saturday matinee sandwiched two military works (Mark Morris' new "After You" to Hummel's "Military" septet and Paul Taylor's "Company B" to World War II favorites by the Andrews Sisters) around a frothy center.  Despite its martial title, Hummel's music is light, bouncy and friendly and Morris met it on

“Concerto Barocco,” “Monumentum pro Gesuaido,” “Movements for Piano and Orchestra,” “Episodes,” “Four Temperaments”
New York City Ballet
David H. Koch Theater
New York, NY
October 18, 2015 (matinee)

For all the dedication to new and inventive ballets that NYCB stands for, sometimes nothing works as well to please the audience as a collection of Balanchine classics that strip away pomp, circumstance, or the quest to arouse shock or awe, and simply present excellent ballet in all its purity. The five

"Harlequinade", "N.Y. Export: Opus Jazz"
New York City Ballet
David H. Koch Theater
New York, NY
October 17, 2015, matinee

New York City Ballet's Saturday matinee celebrated youth with works by two venerable choreo- graphers: Balanchine with his 1965 "Harlequinade", a reworking of Petipa's 1900 ballet, and Jerome Robbins' 1958 "N.Y. Export: Opus Jazz".  "Harlequinade" retells the old story of young love outwitting the grownups using several Commedia dell'arte characters.  Columbine's doddering

“Nutcracker”
Teatro Colón Ballet
Teatro Colón
Buenos Aires, Argentina
December 23, 2014

Outside the theater the streets may have been permeated with the warmth of the early Argentine summer, but for a few hours inside the famous Teatro Colón the ballet troupe enveloped the audience in the wintry magic of the “Nutcracker.”

The theater’s new 2014 production, staged and choreographed by the company’s artistic director Lidia Segni, replaced a Rudolf Nureyev version which had a long performance history

Fall for Dance, Program 3
"Eu danço—8 Solos no Geral", "Pheromones", "Maninyas", "Brandenburgs"
Companhia Urbana de Dança, Fang-Yi Sheu and Herman Cornejo, Houston Ballet, Paul Taylor Dance Company
City Center
New York, NY
October 6, 2015

The annual Fall for Dance at City Center offers a brief taste of different types of dancing on each program, almost guaranteeing that the audience with enjoy at least one piece. The audience is adventurous and appreciative and the dancers

"Liebeslieder Walzer", "Tschaikovsky Suite No. 3"
New York City Ballet
David H. Koch Theater
New York, NY
October 1, 2015

For its first non-gala program of the Fall New York City Ballet honored Balanchine, and its audience, with two of the choreo- grapher's most potent works: "Liebeslieder Walzer" and "Tschaikovsky Suite No. 3". "Liebeslieder Walzer" is an ensemble piece which works only when all four couples (Sterling Hyltin and Jared Angle, Ashley Laracey and Justin Peck, Sara Mearns

“Tree of Codes”
Company Wayne McGregor and Paris Opera Ballet
Park Avenue Armory
New York, NY
September 15, 2015

The opening scenes of light-speckled people moving on a pitch black stage wasn’t how “Tree of Codes,” the collaborative work featuring Wayne McGregor’s choreography, Olafur Eliasson's visual design, and music by Jamie xx, really began. Instead, the audience was immersed in art from the moment they streamed into the versatile and all-accommodating Park Avenue Armory drill