"The Devil Ties My Tongue" SKETCH Series 2013 | photo: David DeSilva
Up to date announcements of company seasons, featured artists and special programming as well as grant of awards such as Princess Grace, or artistic appointments
By Laura Cappelle
11 December 2019
Read the article in The Financial Times, which highlights the prioritization of female choreographers in Cannes this year (as in 2017).
11 December 2019
Chances are that by now, both Tchaikovsky’s beautiful music and the story of little Clara and her magical journey to the Land of the Sweets are quite familiar.
But there are some things you may not know about the Dayton Ballet’s production of “The Nutcracker” that’s slated for 10 upcoming performances at the Schuster Center from Friday, Dec. 13 through Monday, Dec. 23.
Accompanied by the full Dayton Philharmonic Orchestra under the direction of Neal Gittleman, the cast will include dancers from Dayton Ballet II and the Dayton Ballet School as well as 100 children from 30 different schools throughout our area. The Ballet’s artistic director Karen Russo Burke is the choreographer.
A female nutcracker?
For the first time in its history, the Dayton Ballet has cast a professional female dancer in the role of the Nutcracker. The company’s Miranda Dafoe will be sharing the role with a male dancer who will perform in the alternative cast. “She will represent the strength and dedication of our female military soldiers,” Burke says.
Read the full article in the Springfield News-Sun.
10 December 2019
For dance, 2019 was a year of transition. New leaders were installed at Chicago Dancers United, Links Hall and the Auditorium Theatre. The Joffrey Ballet kicked off its final season at the Auditorium, its performance home for decades, and is preparing to move to the Lyric Opera House next fall. Since last year’s Top-10, three pioneers of Chicago dance have died: founding Hubbard Street Dance Chicago dancer Claire Bataille, founding artistic director of Ensemble Espanol Spanish Dance Theater Dame Libby Komaiko and Christine DuBoulay Ellis, who ran the prestigious Ellis DuBoulay School of Ballet for more than 40 years with her husband, Richard Ellis. In some ways, it’s felt like a year of great loss, but transitions make way for new growth, new voices and new ideas.
And even amidst all these organizational changes, the year produced some extraordinary dance. Looking down this list, one can’t help but notice a banner year for the Harris Theater, which in addition to the shows listed chronologically below, also gave us the Chicago premiere of one of Australia’s finest dance companies, Bangarra Dance Theatre, and “Echo Mine,” Robyn Mineko Williams’ gorgeous eulogy for Claire Bataille. With CEO Patricia Barretto at the helm, the Harris Theater has truly found its footing as a world-class presenter of music and dance from around the world, and a champion for many of Chicago’s home team companies.
Ragamala Dance at the Harris Theater: Inspired, in part, by the ancient Indian board game Paramapadam, the dancers in “Written in Water” carved captivating patterns in bharatanatyam steps, mirrored by rich projections of a “game board” onto the stage. At the crux of the game: a moral dilemma in which players must choose between good and evil. But you needn’t have gotten any of that to be amazed by this work’s exquisite tableaux and glorious score, an ingenious, hybridized fusion of Sufi and Carnatic music, played live.
Read the full article in The Chicago Tribune.
DDP Founder & President Liza Yntema is an underwriter of “Written in Water.”
By Sarah L. Kaufman
10 December 2019
Strong storytelling defined my favorite dance performances this year. The events took vastly different forms but offered a great deal to think about, whether the curtain opened on fresh retellings of familiar tales, true stories of courage and optimism, new stories about everyday struggles and universal themes, or short sketches that opened a window on the vulnerability, frustrations and messiness we all experience. Creating a sound dramatic arc is a triumph for choreographers and dancers alike, and can make the visual and kinetic pleasures of dance that much more meaningful. Here are my top picks, in no particular order. What are yours?
The Washington Ballet’s ‘Sleeping Beauty,’ at the Kennedy Center
This traditional account of the beloved 19th-century ballet was a sparkling platform for new company member Katherine Barkman in her first major role with the troupe, and it was a personal achievement for Artistic Director Julie Kent and her husband, Associate Artistic Director Victor Barbee. Exceptional care and passion for detail were evident in a production that was visually beautiful and an artistic high point on every level.
‘Ballet Across America,’ at the Kennedy Center
This series celebrated female artistry in a profound way, with two female-led companies — Dance Theater of Harlem and Miami City Ballet — performing works by female choreographers, in collaboration with female composers and musicians. Both programs offered top-notch works, though the world premiere by Pam Tanowitz was the hands-down highlight. Titled “Gustave Le Gray No. 1,” it brought together four dancers, two from each company, along with onstage pianist Sylvia Jiang in an evolving exchange of musical and visual rhythms. The title comes from the music: Caroline Shaw’s 2012 “Gustave Le Gray” for solo piano, named for the French photographer. Throughout the music and the dancing, there’s a play of textures and endless invention; surprises upon surprises.
Read the full article in The Washington Post.
By Gia Kourlas, Siobhan Burke, and Brian Seibert
Where have I seen dance in 2019? Basically, everywhere: from Broadway to bar basements to parks to proscenium stages, and in films and on television. That has been overwhelming in the best sense. Here, in no particular order, is a selection of what stood out.
The effervescent Ms. Casel has been honing her expertise in tap dance since the 1990s. Her collaboration with the pianist and composer Mr. O’Farrill at the Joyce Theater was too long in coming — she should have been commissioned years earlier — but it was a spectacular display of technique and heart. Ms. Casel danced with the skill and spirit she is known for, but she also paid homage to the female tap dancers who came before her. She’s extraordinary.
With her feline beauty, and the undulating flow and power of her dancing, this self-assured young member of New York City Ballet is just starting out. This fall, she made her debut as the tall girl in George Balanchine’s “Rubies,” and it was a spectacular performance, though hardly a surprise to those who saw her dance in “Scotch Symphony” at the School of American Ballet Workshop performances in 2017. At City Ballet, Ms. Nadon is not alone in talent, but she’s an important part of the company’s future.
In Twyla Tharp’s magnificent triple bill at American Ballet Theater last spring, the stage of the Metropolitan Opera House shook off its cobwebs. Along with “The Brahms-Haydn Variations” — it’s hard to forget Stephanie Williams’s gorgeous arms — and the rousing closer, “In the Upper Room,” the program featured the revival of “Deuce Coupe.” That 1973 work by Ms. Tharp, whose mix of classical and modern dance has led it to be considered the first crossover ballet, was resurrected for the current generation, who danced it with daring and aplomb, making it a hit all over again.
Read the full article in The New York Times.
4 December 2019
Linda Shelton, Executive Director of The Joyce Theater Foundation, unveiled the full slate of programming for the organization’s Spring/Summer 2020 season, featuring a diverse roster of companies from across the U.S. and around the world. From classical ballet and seminal contemporary dance to some of the most in-demand choreographers and dancers creating new work today, the New York City organization continues to pave the way for dance as one of the world’s most renowned presenters of the art form. The Joyce Theater‘s Spring/Summer 2020 season will see dance artists and companies celebrate monumental milestones and boundary-breaking world premieres, creating a unique blend of revered tradition and future classics across genres that will both delight dance aficionados and engage new audiences all season long.
Five esteemed companies will celebrate their 50th anniversaries with engagements at The Joyce Theater in 2020. In its golden year, Ballet Vlaanderen, locally known as Ballet Flanders, will make its Joyce debut with a mixed bill featuring a blend of contemporary dance – Crystal Pite‘s much-lauded Ten Duets on a Theme of Rescue – and traditional Kathak dance from India – Akram Khan‘s Kaash. In April, three companies in the half-century club will take the stage commemorating their contributions to the dance world: Honoring generations of Latinx choreographers, Ballet Hispánico presents, New York premieres from both Gustavo Ramírez Sansano and Annbelle Lopez Ochoa, among other works; Trisha Brown Dance Company marks its anniversary with a double bill of Brown’s collaborations with Robert Rauschenberg; and Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre’s repertory program, focusing on human relationships, concludes with the premiere of a dance-multimedia work by Staycee Pearl. Charlotte Ballet returns in May for its 50th celebration with a mixed bill of thrilling contemporary works, all having their New York premieres.
Read the full article on Broadway World.
By Amanda Sherwin
3 December 2019
There’s a new holiday dance tradition in the works, thanks to the genius brain of tapper Michelle Dorrance. Dorrance Dance, her innovative company, is putting its own spin on The Nutcracker, using Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn’s jazzy version of the classic score and a slew of talented tappers, including Josette Wiggan-Freund as the production’s “Sugar Rum Cherry.” Check out this behind-the-scenes look at the company’s fast-paced, anything-goes creative process, and catch the world premiere of The Nutcracker Suite at The Joyce Theater in NYC from December 17 to January 5.
Read the full article on Dance Spirit’s blog.
By Gia Kourlas
28 November 2019
She may not remember it, but during the first summer of her life Charlotte Nebres canvassed for Barack Obama with her mother, Danielle, who carried her in a sling. She attended political rallies. And on a frigid day in January 2009, she accompanied her parents and older sister to his inauguration.
When Charlotte was 6, Misty Copeland became the first female African-American principal at American Ballet Theater. That, she remembers.
“I saw her perform and she was just so inspiring and so beautiful,” Charlotte, 11, said. “When I saw someone who looked like me onstage, I thought, that’s amazing. She was representing me and all the people like me.”
Read the full article in The New York Times.
By Elaine Molinaro
The air was filled with anticipation in the Alexander Kasser Theater for the opening of the Martha Graham Company’s “Appalachian Spring,” Graham’s iconic dance honoring the spirit of life on the American frontier.
Montclair State University’s Peak Performance series celebrated the work’s 75th anniversary by putting the past in conversation with the present. On the same program the company debuted “The Auditions,” a dance conceived by choreographer Troy Schumacher and composer Augusta Read Thomas to resonate with Graham’s classic.
Graham started a revolution when she had her dancers remove their pointe shoes to dance barefoot and round their torsos into the movement she called the contraction, the basis of her dance technique, in a clear departure from the upright body of elite classical ballet.
Read the full article in Montclair Local.
By Paula Citron
28 November 2019
The National Ballet of Canada Mixed Program/Piano Concerto #1 choreographed by Alexei Ratmansky, Petite Mort choreographed by Jiri Kylian, and Etudes choreographed by Harald Lander, Four Seasons Centre, Nov. 27 to Dec. 1. Tickets available at national.ballet.ca/Tickets.
I continue to be in awe of Karen Kain’s programming skills, in particular, the way she finds links to bring diverse pieces together. In this very satisfying mixed evening of dance, the throughline is the piano. Two of the pieces are set to piano concerti, while the third is an orchestral arrangement of piano exercises.
The new kid on the block is Jiri Kylian’s off-pointe Petite Mort (1991) set to the slow movements of Mozart’s piano concerti Nos. 21 and 23. The term, petite mort, refers to orgasm, and one would think that the stage would be crackling with all manner of sexy and/or romantic moves, but that is not the case. The very physical, clinical choreography is in direct contrast to the shimmering, aching, melancholy quality of the music. But then, that’s Kylian, the brilliant Czech-born master who layers his pieces with a combination of wit and mystery.
The work is set on six women, six men, six fencing foils, five stand-alone, black, eighteenth-century dresses on rollers (symbolizing protective armour for the women?), and a large, billowing silk cloth (symbolizing bed sheets?) that is pulled over the dancers a couple of times during the piece. So controlled is the movement that Petite Mort calls for the big guns, and of the twelve dancers, six are principals (Elena Lobsanova, Skylar Campbell, Jillian Vanstone, Brendan Saye, Greta Hodgkinson and Guillaume Côté), four are first soloists (Jenna Savella, Donald Thom, Tina Pereira and Hannah Fischer), with second soloists Spencer Hack and Joe Chapman completing the roster.
Read the full article here.
