American Ballet Theatre’s New Romantics program featured two new works and one from last year. James Whiteside’s New American Romance, which debuted in July at the Vail Dance Festival, is a compelling piece (see photo above with Joo Won Ahn, …
Ratmansky Seasons Highlights ABT First Week
Alicia Alonzo, former American Ballet Theatre great and founder of National Ballet of Cuba, passed away Thursday. Coincidently, ABT performed Theme and Variations that evening, a work that George Balanchine created for her and Igor Youskevitch in 1947 at Ballet …
Peck + Robbins Program: Community is the Theme
Community was the theme in the New York City Ballet Robbins + Peck program Thursday with Jerome Robbins’ 1969 Dances at a Gathering and Justin Peck’s 2014 Everywhere We Go. Both explore human interactions in group dynamics as dancers work …
NYCB Debuts Two Works: The Shaded Line, Lineage
New York City Ballet Principal Dancer Lovette’s new work The Shaded Line is for the young and woke. Unfortunately, I am neither. The work, which debuted Thursday, is a continuation of Lovette’s exploration of gender norms and conformity in society …
Jewels Opens NYCB Fall Season
I’m thrilled that it’s finally ballet season after a long summer layoff. What better way to start the New York City Ballet fall season than with the Balanchine 1967 classic Jewels, which consists of with three plotless, unrelated segments: Emeralds, Rubies, …
Baryshnikov Interview on CNN Larry King Live, 2002
I recently ran across an old VHS recording I made of ballet legend Mikhail Baryshnikov on CNN’s Larry King Live (how many people know what a VHS tape is?). The interview was from May 2002 after publication of Joan Acocella’s …