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Team Spirit

When the Paul Taylor Dance Company returns to Lincoln Center November 1-13, iconic Taylor dances like “Esplanade” and “Company B” share the stage with world premieres from Amy Hall Garner and newly-appointed resident choreographer Lauren Lovette. Other highlights of the programming include a special evening celebrating the collaboration between Taylor and the painter Alex Katz, Kurt Jooss’s classic anti-war ballet “The Green Table,” and live music from the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, led by maestro David LaMarche.

BOOKSHELF | INTERVIEWS | By Martha Anne Toll

Searching for Mr. B

Jennifer Homans, The New Yorker’s dance critic, has written a must-read biography, Mr. B: George Balanchine’s 20th Century. While plenty of ink has been spilled about the iconic choreographer, what makes Homans’s work distinct is her ability to get inside his head and capture his spiritual and personal life in graceful, poetic prose. Reading this monumental work felt like a full-bodied experience.

BOOKSHELF | INTERVIEWS | By Martha Anne Toll

The Dancer and her Writing Life

Meg Howrey’s engaging new novel, They’re Going to Love You—her fourth—immerses readers in the ballet world. As a former ballerina, this is a place with which Howrey is intimately familiar. The plot revolves around a 40-something choreographer/erstwhile dancer, Carlisle, and her estranged father and his partner, James, both of whom are also in the dance world.

INTERVIEWS | By Karen Greenspan

For Mythili Prakash, Bharatanatyam is Personal

Squeezing in as much time as possible together in the dance studio, Mythili Prakash and her collaborating musicians are rehearsing their new work “Poo | Poo” for the Erasing Borders Dance Festival. Presented annually in New York City by the Indo-American Arts Council, the festival, this year, is celebrating India’s 75th anniversary of independence. Four days away from the premiere, Prakash and her musicians are still figuring out the ending. But that may be because of the collaborative nature of this endeavor (as well as the fact that half of them were stricken with Covid during one of their dedicated...

FEATURES | INTERVIEWS | By April Deocariza

Inspiration in Mexico

On a hot July Sunday in Monterrey, Nuevo León, Mexico, young dancers and their families are crowded outside the Teatro de la Ciudad awaiting to take master classes with renowned Mexican dancer, Isaac Hernandez. The excitement is palpable. A proud father captures video of his son on his phone, as he tells the camera about the class he is about to take. Scenes like this may be common in cities like New York or London, where ballet, and the arts in general, have found their stronghold. But for Hernandez, it’s something he has devoted the last decade to forging.

INTERVIEWS | By Lorna Irvine

Into the Wild

Dancer, choreographer and musician Mavin Khoo's career straddles many disciplines, from Bharatanatyam (he is a leading soloist in the artform) and Odissi, to classical dance, and Cunningham technique at the Cunningham Studios, New York. He has worked with Wayne McGregor, Christopher Bannerman and most recently, has become the coach and creative associate to Akram Khan as part of the prestigious Akram Khan Company. Lorna Irvine caught up with him ahead of the live performance of “Jungle Book reimagined” at Edinburgh Festival Theatre as part of Edinburgh International Festival in August 25-28, 2022.

INTERVIEWS | By Victoria Looseleaf

Movement Innovation with Molly Lynch

In 1991, Molly Lynch, who was then director of the Orange County-based Ballet Pacifica, launched an annual three-week workshop, Pacifica Choreographic Project, to provide the company with new works created for her dancers by four guest choreographers. Fast forward to 2004, when Lynch, who’d resigned from Ballet Pacifica the year before, founded the National Choreographic Initiative (NCI). Its mission, however, was essentially the same: to provide emerging and mid-career contemporary ballet choreographers a three-week laboratory to foster new works, with the workshopped dances then performed on stage for an audience.

INTERVIEWS | By Marina Harss

Amar Ramasar Moves on from New York City Ballet

For years Amar Ramasar was one of the most popular dancers at NYCB, admired for his joyful stage presence and exuberant dancing. He always seemed to be having more fun onstage than anyone, whether he was dancing Phlegmatic in “The Four Temperaments” or the “rhumba sailor” in “Fancy Free.” Choreographers like Justin Peck, Christopher Wheeldon, and Alexei Ratmansky were drawn to him. And colleagues like Sara Mearns and Peck involved him in outside projects like “A Dancer’s Dream,” with the New York Philharmonic, and “Carousel,” on Broadway.

INTERVIEWS | By Veronica Posth

Essential Quest with Philippe Kratz

Born in 1985 in Leverkusen, Philippe Kratz first encountered dance with the German Tanztheater through pedagogue and choreographer Suheyla Ferwer. He then studied classical ballet at the École Supérieure de Dance du Québec in Montréal and at the Staatliche Ballettschule in Berlin. As a former long-time company member of Italian Aterballetto, he has worked with numerous international dance makers before deciding to deepen his understanding of, and artisanship in, choreography. In 2018 he created and danced “O,” which won Hanover’s choreography competition, as well as a residency with the Australian Dance Theatre. His work often focuses on resilience and its myriad...

INTERVIEWS | By Karen Greenspan

Jacob’s Pillow Honors Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui

I drive the winding ascent to the bucolic grounds of Jacob’s Pillow on opening day of the longest-running dance festival in the United States. The historic farmstead in the foothills of the Massachusetts Berkshire Mountains was purchased in 1930 by modern dance pioneer Ted Shawn. Today it is abuzz with activity gearing up for its 90th anniversary season and gala. The Pillow’s artistic and executive director Pamela Tatge gives me a rundown of what has been accomplished in the 90 years since Ted Shawn and his all-male company began holding “Tea Lecture Demonstrations” in 1933─the beginning of what was to evolve into the...

INTERVIEWS | By Victoria Looseleaf

Peter Boal, Devoted to Dance

Born in 1965 and raised in the town of Bedford in Westchester, New York, Peter Boal began studying ballet at the School of American Ballet at age nine. His life has been devoted to the art ever since. Boal joined New York City Ballet’s corps in 1983 and became a principal dancer six years later. In 2003, while still at City Ballet, he founded the eponymous Peter Boal and Company, a risk-taking chamber ensemble that commissioned original works, often from little-known postmodern choreographers. (He had also been a full-time faculty member at his alma mater since 1997.)

INTERVIEWS | By Rachel Howard

Global Moves with Margaret Jenkins

On June 16th, San Francisco’s Margaret Jenkins Dance Company will premiere perhaps its most ambitious work yet, “Global Moves.” An indoor/outdoor site-specific work moving between more than a dozen “stations” at the Presidio Theater, with its view across the Presidio National Park, “Global Moves” extends its horizons far beyond the Pacific Ocean. For nearly two years, Jenkins has been working with India’s Tanusree Shankar Dance Company, China’s Cross Move Lab, and dancers emeritus from Israel’s Kolben Dance Company. She has collaborated with these dancers separately since 2006, but this is the first work to draw the creators from all four...

Featured Reads

REVIEWS | Lorna Irvine

Teenage Angst and Institutions

Watching Matthew Bourne's reworked version of the “star-cross'd lovers,” I was briefly reminded of Veronica, played by Winona Ryder, in the dark 1988 comedy by Daniel Waters and Michael Lehmann, Heathers, and her line, “my teen angst bullshit has a body count.” Yes, this is the darker side of Bourne's repertoire,...

INTERVIEWS | Marina Harss

The Me of Today

The choreographer Alexei Ratmansky reflects on the war in Ukraine, the connection between geopolitics and ballet, and joining the house of Balanchine.

REVIEWS | Rachel Howard

Starry Nights

Beneath blue California skies, manicured trees, and the occasional hum of an overhead airplane, Tamara Rojo took the Frost Amphitheater stage at Stanford University to introduce herself as the new artistic director of San Francisco Ballet.

REVIEWS | Faye Arthurs

America, F**K Yeah

After a week of the well-balanced meal that is “Jewels”—the nutritive, potentially tedious, leafy greens of “Emeralds,” the gamy, carnivorous “Rubies,” and the decadent, shiny white mountains of meringue in “Diamonds”—the New York City Ballet continued its 75th Anniversary All-Balanchine Fall Season with rather more dyspeptic fare.

REVIEWS | Emily May

Acosta Danza’s Choreographic Soup

An “Ajiaco” is a type of soup common to Colombia, Cuba, and Peru that combines a variety of different vegetables, spices, and meats.