DANCE THEATER REVIEWS

Cape Town City Ballet is nothing if not ambitious. SHADES OF LOVE sees the company's featured artists dancing superbly, but the production never coheres into a fully-realised evening of ballet....

One of the most intriguing items on the programme of the International Dance Festival Birmingham 2016 is the Cloud Gate Dance Theatre of Taiwan with Songs of the Wanderers. Founded in 1973 by choreographer Lin Hwai-Win, Cloud Gate was the very first contemporary dance company in the greater Chinese-...

Saturated with the vibrant colors of gold-adorned chandeliers, majestic red velvet curtains and shiny Baroque accents framing the Ohio Theatre stage, BalletMet's "Sleeping Beauty" appeared to be a scene come to life from an ornately illustrated storybook....

One of New York City's cultural treasures, the New York Theatre Ballet, presented Children's Dance on a Shoestring on May 6th and May 7th, 2016, at New York Theatre Ballet's intimate E. 10th street studio inside St. Mark's Church-in-the-Bowery. This was a delightful weekend of student dancers and th...

New York City Ballet, home to George Balanchine's vision of dance in America, is well known for commissioning new work. This devotion to innovation can result in work that runs the gamut from zestful to appalling. Case in point, the '21st Century Choreographers II' program on May 7th, 2016, which pr...

Like the musical icons who inspired the work, The Washington Ballet's program BOWIE & QUEEN toys with the art form - respectful of classical roots yet pushing forward. The pieces innovate, celebrate and they have fun. While BOWIE & QUEEN is full of heart and poetry, the irreverent and humorous momen...

The International Dance Festival Birmingham (IDFB) 2016 at the Hippodrome opened with a progressive programme of works from NDT2 – the junior division of Netherlands Dans Theater which focuses specifically on talent development for dancers aged 18-23. The IDFB puts Birmingham in the unique positio...

Two very different organizations, the Isadora Duncan Dance Foundation (IDDF) and the Nietzsche Circle, came together for a unique collaboration in a program entitled An Affirmation of Life: Friedrich Nietzsche, Isadora Duncan, and the Making of Modern Dance. This partnership brought about a nice ble...

By my count, I've seen at least 250 productions in my lifetime, the last one in Australia. This, however, did not prepare me for Ballez's 'Sleeping Beauty & The Beast,' presented on Sunday, May 1st 2016, as part of the La Mama Moves! Festival. While this was meant to put a new spin on an old tale by...

Flamenco Vivo Carlota Santana premiered the company's show, "Voces de Andalucia," at the Brooklyn Academy of Music May 3, 2016. The contemporary program paid tribute to Pablo Picasso and Federico Garcia Lorca....

At Lincoln Center's Koch Theater on April 29, 2016, the ballet crowd filled the house that Friday evening. For this program, City Ballet presented Estancia, Pictures at an Exhibition, and Everywhere We Go. Each piece demonstrated a variance in style, yet conclusively was still in the realm of the da...

Held at the culturally diverse Symphony Space on the Upper West Side on April 30th 2016, the 6th Edition of the Valentina Kozlova International Ballet Competition showcased a bounty of prodigal talent in both classical and contemporary dance. It's encouraging and refreshing to witness such unabash...

On April 30th 2016 at Symphony Space on NYC's Upper West Side, Valentina Kozlova glowed with well-deserved pride as she introduced the Awards Ceremony and Gala of this year's eponymous Valentina Kozlova International Ballet Competition. Originally called the Boston Ballet Competition, the event has ...

The 2016 season of Youth America Grand Prix (YAGP) culminated during three days in April at the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM). On April 27th, the Final Round of this celebrated international competition proved to be a heartening display of youthful promise. Then on April 28th and 29th, the "Stars ...

See 'The Beatles LOVE' by Cirque du Soleil at The Mirage in Las Vegas for an entrancing show that includes incredible dance numbers....

To judge by Sunday's matinee on April 24, 2016, the New York City Ballet is in good dancing hands-shall I say excellent hands. If two of the three ballets that afternoon did not always meet the demands of the choreographic high level set forward by Balanchine, the dancing most certainly did. It was,...

Downtown at Baruch Performing Arts Center on April 21, 2016, Circo de la Luna performed Circo en Tres Actos. A small setting for this cutting-edge collaboration. As in any theatrical cirque-like production, there are a myriad of characters, which can be confusing. However, Circo de la Luna's storyli...

??Review: BalletX 10th anniversary retrospective and the world premiere of Time Curves by Kevin O'Day...

Runway ready bodies, gorgeous faces, revealing costumes, and excellent technicians. With incredible ingredients like these, what could possibly go wrong? The music, lighting, and choreography....

To judge by the film Reset (Releve)), which was recently shown at the Tribeca Film Festival, Benjamin Millepied, the soon to depart director of the Paris Opera Ballet, was a very lucky man. He could choreograph and commission works, construct innovative social media platforms and re-direct the schoo...

Ballet Preljocaj, under the direction of Angelin Preljocaj, opened its New York premiere engagement of Empty Moves (Parts I, II, & III), to Empty Words, by John Cage, on April 20, 2016, when I had the opportunity to attend. Preljocaj has created 45 choreographic works for his company, formed in De...

Ms. Osserman's work has a stream of consciousness feel to it that matches her casual personality. This casual ambiance set the stage for what felt like a purposefully disjointed evening....

Nashville Ballet brings its 30th anniversary season to a close with two works choreographed by artistic director and CEO Paul Vasterlling:  a dazzlingly intricate and grand revival of Carmina Burana, set to the timeless music of Carl Orff, and the world premiere of Layla & The Majnun, which feature...

Last week, the American Tap Dance Foundation (ATDF) presented new works by both veterans and emerging tap dancers and choreographers at its spring Rhythm in Motion show in the Theater at the 14th Street Y. This production, curated by Tony Waag, Artistic/Executive Director of ATDF, stretches the boun...

We all know what it's like. You go to a performance that presents four different pieces, and by the end you swear that you've been seeing the same thing danced all night. It's like asking yourself: where did it start and finish, because you're in a Kafkaesque mode, and all you want is to be rescue...