DC Metro: Review: ‘New York City Ballet: Works by Balanchine, Robbins, and Reisen’ at the Kennedy Center

By Ramona Harper

3 April 2019

Spring is in the air with not only the blooming cherry blossoms but also the bursting energy of the New York City Ballet’s exciting spring concert at the Kennedy Center.

Something old and something new was the theme of the evening. One might have thought the company’s selections would have presented its founding ballet masters and choreographers, George Balanchine and Jerome Robbins, first. It didn’t. Ever forward-looking, New York City Ballet opened with Composer’s Holiday, the choreography of a new rising star, 19-year-old Gianna Reisen, the youngest person ever to choreograph a work for the New York City Ballet.

Composer’s Holiday felt perfectly right for a springtime concert with its light, airy, and youthful pulsations and a feeling of excitement and anticipation.

Lukas Foss’s Three American Pieces for violin and piano, performed by Arturo Delmoni and Susan Waters, respectively, was an evocatively moving musical complement that gracefully framed the dancers’ quick, bouncy steps and joyous movements. The female dancers’ sheer white skirted costumes by Virgil Abloh of Off White added a sense of an incredible lightness of being.

Read the full article in DC Metro.