The unlikely double bill of rapper/actress (or raptress) Queen Latifah and clarinetist Richard Stoltzman will appear as guest artists at The New York City Ballet’s Spring Gala celebrating the 25th Anniversary of the American Musical Festival. Ms. Latifah will perform George Gershwin’s “The Man I Love” with the New York City Ballet Orchestra, and Mr. Read More
Premieres, revivals, debuts … With our two major ballet companies both in residence at Lincoln Center (as they are every May and June), the last few weeks have been a revolving door of sensational triumphs, disappointments and fiascoes.
Let’s get the worst over first. Melissa Barak, an ex-City Ballet dancer and sometime Read More
7 p.m. The School of American Ballet will celebrate its 75th anniversary at Winter Ball, David H. Koch Theater at Lincoln Center, Columbus Avenue and 63rd Street. Individual ticket prices are $2,500; $1,500; $1,000; young patron tickets are $300.
7 p.m. Gay Men’s Health Crisis hosts Savor, an annual four-course “New American Read More
What have we New Yorkers learned from our first exposure to Christopher Wheeldon’s new ballet company, Morphoses/The Wheeldon Company?
We’ve learned (or have been reminded) of how ambitious Wheeldon is. At City Center, he gave us two full—much too full—programs, made up mostly of his own work.
We’ve been reminded of how skillful Read More
A pale moon is projected onto the upper-left corner of the backdrop—a moon that turns into a huge eye that blinks and seems to weep. A huddle of dancers in brown suddenly spurt a single red rose. These and other startling effects somewhat animate Christopher Wheeldon’s new The Nightingale and the Rose at City Ballet. Read More
We are progressing step by inexorable step through City Ballet’s current Diamond Project season—seven new ballets by seven choreographers. The first step, an Eliot Feld evening featuring a particularly feeble new solo, was a low point from which things had to improve, and they did. Next up was In Vento by Mauro Bigonzetti, whose work Read More
“You gotta get a gimmick,” Stephen Sondheim instructed us in Gypsy, and the guys behind Kings of the Dance were listening. (They include the producer, Sergei Danilian; the “Artistic Associates,” Angel Corella and Ethan Stiefel; and the Orange County Performing Arts Center, to which Stiefel is connected and where the Kings premiered a week Read More
“You gotta get a gimmick,” Stephen Sondheim instructed us in Gypsy, and the guys behind Kings of the Dance were listening. (They include the producer, Sergei Danilian; the “Artistic Associates,” Angel Corella and Ethan Stiefel; and the Orange County Performing Arts Center, to which Stiefel is connected and where the Kings premiered a week before Read More
The mystery of Christopher Wheeldon deepens. Yes, he’s the most talented of the younger ballet choreographers—indeed, where’s the competition? Yes, he’s particularly good at nurturing dancers and identifying their essential qualities. Yes, he’s always intelligent, almost always interesting and rarely vulgar—I would have said never vulgar, except that the memory of An American in Paris Read More
You’ve heard of feast or famine? City Ballet’s Spring Gala gave us feast and famine. Five courses were dished up, and in a curious order: first, a heavy entrée; then, three hors d’oeuvres; finally, a fallen soufflé. You were left stuffed and stupefied-and hungry.
The program was a statement: The company’s future lies in The Read More
