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.
Continue ReadingWorld-class review of ballet and dance.
Overall it must be questioned whether ballet is the right medium for a biographical tribute. Ballet by the limits of its nature is only able to give a broad brushstroke, a stylized impression of what a person stood for. Details of historical context, complex personal stories and exploration of inner drive fall by the wayside; all questions you seek in a biographical treatment remain opaque. In “Frame by Frame” a new ballet for the National Ballet of Canada directed by Robert LePage and choreographed Guillaume Côté, ballet was interspersed with film and overlaid with interactive effects by Ex Machina, yet it remained a fragmentary picture of their subject, Norman McLaren.
Performance
Place
Words
Harrison James and Heather Ogden in “Frame by Frame.” Photograph by Karolina Kuras
“Uncommonly intelligent, substantial coverage.”
Already a paid subscriber? Login
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.
Continue Reading
comments