The big news at the City Ballet gala on Nov. 24 at the David H. Koch (nee State) Theater was the theater. The most dramatic change, predictably, is the reconfiguration of the orchestra seating: Two new side aisles mean no more wiggling past dozens of irritated seat-holders to get to your own seat, and no Read More
“It’s not like a hoedown; c’mon, girls, it’s the ballet!”
Two weeks before the New York City Ballet’s Nutcracker was set to open, Garielle Whittle, the ballet mistress who teaches all the children’s roles, was still drilling the basics. “None of this—” Ms. Whittle mimed a square dance, dipping her shoulder down and Read More
It was a disappointing spring at City Ballet. Part of the problem was no one’s fault: Two of the company’s crucial dancers were out for almost the entire time. The absence of Ashley Bouder, the strongest and most brilliant of the younger women, and of the always interesting Sara Mearns meant that the rest of Read More
Why do so many of us still go obsessively to the New York City Ballet? Not, alas, to see Balanchine danced fully and expressively; it happens on occasion, but not nearly often enough. Not, certainly, for the procession of new works—“novelties,” as they’re called in the ballet business—that crop up every season and, with a Read More
It’s a new year. The Aileys and the Nutcrackers have come and gone, and so, alas, have Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo—the Trocks, to their friends. They recently spent almost three weeks at the Joyce, and it wasn’t enough. It’s never enough.
No company has evolved more conspicuously than this group of Read More
The climactic moment—the defining moment—of City Ballet’s exhausting spring season came two nights before it official- ly ended. The occasion was a gala performance staged for the benefit of the Dancers’ Emergency Fund, a worthy project dreamed up years ago by Jerome Robbins and now revived by Peter Martins. The program was the usual gala Read More
Why would the world’s foremost classical ballerina choose to turn up in New York leading a small company performing three works newly choreographed on and for her? Idealism? Vanity? Artistic ambition? Chutzpah? Her program was called “Beauty in Motion,” a real misnomer. How about “Vishneva Goes Contempo”? Or “A Long Night at the City Center”? Read More
Alexei Ratmansky, the artistic director of the Bolshoi Ballet (one of the premiere Russian companies), has confirmed that he is not renewing his contract at Bolshoi and is in negotiations with New York City Ballet to become its resident choreographer. He would replace Christopher Wheeldon, who is leaving at the end of this month to Read More
I’ve been seeing Balanchine’s Jewels for more than 40 years, and that’s a lot of jewelry. In the beginning it seemed to many of us unique in its ambitions and its splendor; to others it seemed gaudy—paste. But no one thought it would ever travel. Too expensive, too many styles to absorb and what company Read More
The New York State Theater will go dark during New York City Opera’s 2008-9 season so that it can be renovated. Susan L. Baker, chairwoman of the company, said that opera officials did not resent having to lose the company’s home for 2008-9, even though the New York City Ballet is not making similar sacrifices. Read More
