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…
Tag: Ballet
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…
Copland Dance Episodes at Saratoga Springs
The Company in Justin Peck’s Copland Dance Episodes. Photo credit: Erin Baiano Saturday, July 22nd at 7:30pm There’s much to like about Justin Peck’s Copland Dance Episodes. Peck is the resident choreographer and artistic adviser of New York City Ballet. A masterful choreographer, he creates pieces for large ensembles on stage just as easily as…
NYCB Saratoga 2023 performances, July 18-22 at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center: Swan Lake, Fancy Free, and Firebird
Daniel Ulbricht, Joseph Gordon and Jovani Furlan in Jerome Robbins’Fancy Free.Photo credit: Erin Baiano The NYCB Saturday matinee program of Balanchine/Robbins classics was sheer delight. Focusing on the dancers, the Act II of Balanchine’s Swan Lake demands and embodies exquisite dancing—and the dancers deliver. Standouts were the agile Megan LeCrone, a quick-spotting and precise turner,…
Balanchine’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream in Seattle
Balanchine’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, with delightful music from Felix Mendelssohn, is a crowd pleaser for sure. The choreographer himself must have had fond memories of when he performed, as PNB artistic director notes in his April 12, 2011 post in “Director’s Notebook,” as an eight-year-old bug in a St. Petersburg production. With staging by…
PNB presents “Boundless”
Pacific Northwest Ballet’s “Boundless” program featured choreographers Alejandro Cerrudo, Jessica Lang, and Penny Saunders. This review is of a film made opening night, March 17, 2023. In Penny Saunders’ Wonderland, Michael Wall supplies original music and adapts others. Divided into five sections, we hear strains of Jean-Philippe Goude, Hugues Le Bars, Erik Satie, Camille Saint-Saëns,…
THE SEASONS’ CANON filmed Nov 4, 2022
Pacific Northwest Ballet’s The Seasons’ Canon opens with Dwight Roden’s atmospheric Catching Feelings. With gorgeous lighting (Joey Walls) and costumes (Christine Darch), and cleverly cast dancers in shaded light, this is a breathtaking piece. Exciting strings (Bach/ Peter Grayson and Johan Ullén after J.S. Bach) and staging (with a choreographer assist from Clifford Williams)—offer a…
Pacific Northwest Ballet celebrates its 50th with Carmina Burana, and more
Pacific Northwest Ballet launched its 50th Anniversary Season with George Balanchine’s enduring Allegro Brillante, an Alexei Ratmansky world premiere, Wartime Elegy, and founding artistic director Kent Stowell’s Carmina Burana. One of the most memorable pairings of the evening was Angelica Generosa and new principal Jonathan Batista in Allegro Brillante. Daring and showy, both appear committed to…
Pacific Northwest Ballet’s Plot Points, March 18-27, 2022
I’ve seen Plot Points a number of times, I adore it. What’s not to like? A plot, mystery, performance almost cinematographic. Terrific dance. Drama. Melodrama. (More on this later.) But the PNB premiere of Robyn Mineko Williams’ gorgeous Before I Was proved to be breathtaking. Dancers Leah Terada and Christopher D’Ariano soar in this whimsical…