Posts Tagged ‘Jerome Robbins’

Wanted: Artistic Director of a Ballet Company

Monday, September 21st, 2015

Two mid-size ballet companies in North America are in search of artistic directors. Gradimir Pankov is leaving his post at Les Grands Ballets Canadiens of Montreal after 15 years. John McFall is departing Atlanta Ballet after 20 years. In comparison to the majority of the 140-odd ballet troupes across the North American continent, which have minimal seasons and only a handful of dancers, Les Grands and Atlanta employ between 20 and 30 dancers and commission in-demand choreographers for their seasons and tours. So, what is required to helm a ballet company?

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Ballet Goes to Broadway, Again

Saturday, October 4th, 2014

The blogosphere is alive with news about the current forays of New York City ballet principal dancers Robert Fairchild, Megan Fairchild, and Tyler Peck into Broadway.

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Paz de la Jolla: A trip to the ballet, not to California

Friday, March 15th, 2013

Peck, a twenty-five year old City Ballet corps member, is not a complete novice in the art of choreography. La Jolla is his fourth work for City Ballet, following his most recent critical success, Year of the Rabbit. But La Jolla, set to Bohuslav Martinu’s Sinfonietta la Jolla, didn’t win me over. Peck’s choreography rarely conjures any sense of La Jolla as an actual place. The ballet seems to be in the service of displaying the dancers’ high level of technical ability, and Peck’s choreographic proficiency. He skillfully arranges his 18 dancers in geometric formations and patterns through an array of steps that feature the classical ballet lexicon. It’s a charming, impressive display. However the confounding part about La Jolla is what it actually evokes: the urgent, frenetic pace of New York.

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Lifting Ballerinas

Monday, May 7th, 2012

Have you ever wondered what it would take to partner a female ballet dancer? The May 6 matinee at New York City Ballet was an excellent primer for any one considering that question. In each of the four works from the All (Jerome) Robbins program, at the former New York State Theater, the male lead rarely left the side of his female partner.

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The joys of the ballet spoof

Thursday, January 26th, 2012

There is nothing like a good ballet spoof. At New York City Ballet’s January 21 matinee performance, the company danced at Lincoln Center Jerome Robbins’ “The Concert” (1956). Whether you get the inside jokes regarding specific ballets, Robbins’s jabs at ballet traditions—the good, bad and the ugly—directly communicate.

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The Orchid of New York City Ballet

Monday, January 24th, 2011

By Rachel Straus If you’re a ballet lover, you know her name. Sara Mearns. New York Times senior dance critic Alastair MacAulay recently called her “the greatest American ballerina of our time.” On January 21, she performed in Jerome Robbins’s Dances at a Gathering (1969) and Alexei Ratmansky’s Concerto DSCH (2008) with the New York […]

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