July 13 2024 7:30 evening Boosted by the music of Jonathan Dove, Michael Zev Gordon, Ottorino Respighi, Aldemaro Romeo, and William Grant, Amy Hall Garner’s Underneath, there is Light is a thrilling ballet. The well-designed costumes of Marc Happel—the women in airy dresses, the men in sleek pants or shorts, allow all to showcase their…
Category: Finding Balance blog
New York City Ballet at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center in July
Featured image: New York City Ballet Principal Dancer Peter Walker in George Balanchine’s Stars and Stripes/Photo credit: Erin Baiano July 13, 2024 2:00 pm matinee Once a several week residency at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center (SPAC), with as much Balanchine as one could possibly want in a season, New York City Ballet (NYCB) now…
Justin Peck’s ballet dance and more at New York City Ballet
Justin Peck’s ballet and more at New York City Ballet INTERPLAY Interplay debuted in 1945 and is known as a glorious mix of classical and modern high-stamina dance. In promotional materials, dancer Spartak Hexha says he trained for a month, running the ballet repeatedly to build strength. That’s a lot to do and a lot…
New York City Ballet at Lincoln Center featuring Emilie Gerrity, Unity Phelan, Anthony Huxley, Taylor Stanley
Stanley Laracey and Taylor Stanley, SYMPHONY IN THREE MOVEMENTS All images courtesy NYCB (photo credits: Erin Baiano) NYCB has a lot to celebrate this year. Three ballet masterpieces. SCÈNES DE BALLET Christopher Wheeldon’s Scènes de Ballet is wonderfully nostalgic, a sensitive look into the world of ballet training for young children and older teens. The…
Review of Edward Villella’s Prodigal Son and Peter Boal’s Illusions of Camelot
Featured image: Peter Boal as a student, courtesy Peter Boal Edward Villella The author discusses dancing as a powerful drug, in which muscles come alive. But performance also can be like running a stamina-draining marathon, tapping into stores of energy, then needing to manage an adrenaline rush that can take hours to relax from. All…
Pacific Northwest Ballet’s The Season’s Canon
Courtesy: PNB, PNB dancers Twyla Tharp’s Sweet Fields is a beautiful rendering of 18th- and 19th-century American hymns and Shaker songs to free-wheeling, almost-ethereal phrases. Dancers move in loose, open shirts and pants or mid-calf length skirts performing breathy trios. Dylan Wald has come to be identified with Jessica Lang’s The Calling, and I’ve seen…
PNB’s Swan Lake
Lucien Postlewaite and Leta Biasucci. Photo credit: Angela Sterling Pacific Northwest Ballet’s Swan Lake is a gift of great drama, beauty, and technical feats. It demands production element excellence, and an ultimate A-game on the part of all the dancers. Highlights for me were Lucien Postlewaite’s supreme cool and clarity, ballon that soars, joyful largesse. The…
NYCB: 75th ANNIVERSARY PROGRAM
Featured Image—Symphony in C with Morgan Fairchild and Joseph Gordon Photo: Erin Baiano WEDNESDAY EVENING, OCTOBER 11, 8:00 PM The October 11, 2023 Anniversary Program mirrored the inaugural one 75 years earlier. Balanchine’s Concerto Barocco displayed the poetry, sensitivity and dramatic reach of arms and legs of Emilie Gerrity and Unity Phelan, partnered by Andrew…
NYCB performs Serenade, Orpheus, Theme and Variations
All photos, courtesy of NYCB. Featured Photo, Indiana Woodward in Serenade. Photo: Erin Baiano TUESDAY EVENING, OCTOBER 10, 7:30 PM Serenade, an early Balanchine ballet, famously begins with the dramatic chords of Tchaikovsky’s Serenade for Strings and hand gestures of the dancers on stage. With its long tulle skirts, evocative lighting, and dancer speed and…
New York City Ballet’s 75th—Concerto Barocco, Prodigal Son, Symphony in C
Symphony in C with Morgan Fairchild and Joseph Gordon Photo Credit: Erin Baiano In 1948, Concerto Barocco appeared on the first program of the New York City Ballet—exemplifying the Balanchine choreography that would become its trademark—showcasing energetic arms and legs, upright torso, flexible hands and feet. Quick and precise, the dance is a clear reflection…