Pick your Sugar Plum Fairy NOW!

Dance · Music
Hey, you Sugar Plums and Snowflakes! Stop dancing in our heads, and start whirling ’round the Segerstrom Hall stage. This will occur sooner than you can shake a candy cane. In a real first, Segerstrom Center of the Arts is presenting a big-city-style, lengthy run of American Ballet Theatre’s “The Nutcracker” at the esteemed Orange ...

Sit down and clap! 4

Ideas & Opinion
Is polite, even fervent, audience applause from a seated position a bygone social custom? This nicety has not completely disappeared; last month at the conclusion of  “Raymonda,” at Segerstrom Hall, it was a joy to regard the massive Mariinsky Ballet’s elegant bows in full view. The audience, perhaps still enthralled by the enormity of the ...

Raymonda “likes” Jean de Brienne’s profile picture

Dance · Ideas & Opinion
In this image from Act I of the Mariinsky Ballet’s “Raymonda,” the heroine’s faraway beau, Jean de Brienne, sends his honey a Medieval version (a kind of tapestry that gets unfurled) of his Facebook profile picture. From her posture, don’t you think she seems to be giving it a “like”? I do.

Mariinsky’s massive, still relevant, “Raymonda” at Segerstrom

Dance
A whirlwind weekend included the privilege of watching the great dancers of the Mariinsky Theatre deliver a rarity: the full three-act version of Petipa’s Hungarian-themed, “Raymonda,” which the massive dance troupe exactingly performed, a tad jam-packed, on the Segerstrom Hall stage. It went beyond a complete balletic experience; it felt like a life experience to ...

Why “Raymonda”? Segerstrom’s Judy Morr shares love of this ballet

Dance
In advance of the Mariinsky Ballet and Orchestra’s upcoming presentation of the full-evening version of “Raymonda,” dating to the late 19th century, we spoke to Segerstrom Center for the Arts Executive Vice President Judy Morr, who is the longtime dance curator at the Orange County arts complex. Judy, why present this ballet now? “Raymonda” is ...

Mariinsky Ballet: Southern California viewing guide

Dance
That life can be difficult is no news. We all have to make tough decisions all the time. The latest? Where to see the great Mariinsky Ballet, also known as the Kirov Ballet, lately reverted to its Imperial Ballet nomenclature, in the ballet-and-orchestra conglomerate’s upcoming visits to Southern California. The Mariinsky ports some of the ...

Gone fishing

Dance
Natalia Alonso & Gary Jeter II
A lot of chatter, lately, amongst dance geeks on Facebook about the great classical ballet pose the “fishdive” which, according to pundits was not part of the original Petipa choreography (way too athletic and upside down for that era) but seems to have been introduced in the 1946 version of “The Sleeping Beauty.” This notwithstanding, ...

Pure Petipa, courtesy of American Ballet Theatre

Dance
In this great portrait by dance photographer Gene Schiavone, American Ballet Theatre principal dancers Marcelo Gomes (Prince Desire) and Diana Vishneva (Aurora) pose in “The Sleeping Beauty” the full-evening ballet that just had its world premiere at Segerstrom Center for the Arts. ABT resident choreographer Alexei Ratmansky’s restaging of original choreography by Marius Petipa may ...

Library of Congress ABT exhibit to roost at Disney Hall

Dance · Visual arts
In this photo dated 1938, dancer John Kriza stars in choreographer Eugene Loring’s characteristically American ballet about the notorious outlaw, Billy the Kid. Loring created the work for George Balanchine’s Ballet Caravan to a score by Aaron Copland. American Ballet Theatre first performed the work in its Chicago season in November 1940. [Loring’s significant southern ...

Stellar casting creates “Beauty”ful ABT quandary @ Segerstrom Center

Dance
Southern California, wake up! Stop your behind-the-wheel slumbering … Don’cha know that we’re hosting the dance event of the season? And it’s a real sleeper! That would be “The Sleeping Beauty,” in a prestigious new production presented by American Ballet Theatre. The new “Beauty” will have its festive premiere March 3 at the Segerstrom Center ...