A Parisian Dream
A participatory eagerness, a desire to be part of something sweet and beautiful, suffused the return of George Balanchine’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” to San Francisco Ballet on the cusp of spring.
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It isn’t as mainstream as the Opera Garnier’s season opening. Facing the Théâtre du Châtelet, the Théâtre de la Ville hosts a yearly festival as fall takes its toll on yellowish leaves of Haussmann boulevards. In spite of its great media coverage by contemporary dance enthusiasts and low pricing policy, Le Festival d’automne, is something of a well-kept secret. The 2016 edition is dedicated to Lucinda Childs’ postmodern vibes, featuring her famous piece, “Dance” the evening of the premiere. When first performed in 1979, “Dance” met with mixed reception. Later, it earned the status of ‘masterpiece’ and it’s rare to read a review where Lucinda Childs is not labelled as a genius choreographer, being a powerful dance mathematician. Now, “Dance” is back in the Childs-accustomed walls of Théâtre de la Ville, in a restaged version. The projections on the monochrome grid make the dancers move along with ghostly figures, as if emerging from the past. Sadly, Lucinda Childs' emblematic aura vanished, altering the uncanny dialogue which Sol LeWitt's original film used to trigger. And what's a masterpiece without the shadow of its creator?
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Lucinda Childs' “Dance.” Photograph by Sally Cohn
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A participatory eagerness, a desire to be part of something sweet and beautiful, suffused the return of George Balanchine’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” to San Francisco Ballet on the cusp of spring.
Continue ReadingEntering his 10th year as artistic director of Philadelphia Ballet, Ángel Corella put his artists through a ring of fire in their early spring concert at the Academy of Music.
Continue ReadingIn her 1951 autobiography Dance to the Piper, Agnes de Mille spends seven pages describing in colorful detail what it was like to be on the road with the Ballets Russes.
FREE ARTICLESix dancers enter from stage left and position themselves along the rear wall, their backs to the audience. Today, the light through a row of windows casts them in silhouette.
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