REVIEW: Back to New York City Ballet — with sets and intermissions!

Dance · Reviews
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isabella lafreniere, jovani furlan christopher wheeldon’s DGV: danse à grande vitesse Scenery! Intermissions! One takes these for granted – or used to. But experiencing them as part of New York City Ballet‘s opening night marked another step toward normalcy, after the company’s fall repertory season consisted of intermissionless programs featuring ballets that require no time-consuming ...

Review: ‘Ailey,’ the choreographer, the man, the figurehead, in PBS American Masters doc

Dance · Film · Reviews
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The opening moments of Ailey—Jamila Wignot’s deeply rewarding documentary about Alvin Ailey’s life, work and company—show the choreographer receiving a huge ovation as a Kennedy Center Honoree. Cicely Tyson speaks movingly about the depth of his achievements; his company performs a fervent finale from Revelations as he takes evident pride in watching them. Ailey, 57, ...

Beloved Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater stays safe on stage & screen

Dance · Film
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Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater in Alvin Ailey’s Revelations, 2021 Opening Night Gala. Photo: Christopher Duggan On December 1, the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater returned triumphantly to New York City Center – its home base in the city for 50 years – having foregone its 2020 season (and a great deal of touring) during ...

REVIEW: Modern dance’s vivid origins in St. Denis/Shawn historic restagings 1

Dance · Reviews
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DANCES BY RUTH ST. DENIS & TED SHAWN September 30 – October 3, 2021The Theatre at St. Jean’s 150 East 76th St, New York City Bradley Shelver in Japanese Spear Dance by Ted Shawn (1919)photo Julie Lemberger Of the eloquent, elegantly presented sampling of choreography by Ruth St. Denis and Ted Shawn on view in ...

Film review: ‘In Balanchine’s Classroom,’ a dance documentary

Dance · Film · Reviews
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George Balanchine (1960s). Photo: Ernst Hass. As seen in In Balanchine’s Classroom. A film by Connie Hochman. A Zeitgeist Films release in association with Kino Lorber. Watching In Balanchine’s Classroom, the new dance documentary directed by Connie Hochman, you wait and hope for a movie about a significant, if rarefied, subject to add up to ...

Live performance lives! at Vail Dance Festival

Dance · Reviews
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Melissa Toogood with other Festival Artists in Michelle Dorrance’s “New to the Session” at the Vail Dance Festival. Photo by Christopher Duggan As New York City’s dance venues gear up to re-open next month, in early August a heady mix of the city’s finest dancers brought the thrill of live dance to the Vail Dance Festival. ...

Dance world on fire, at Jacob’s Pillow

Architecture & Design · Dance
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Heart-rending sight, courtesy BerkshireEdge.com The dance world responded with shock and sorrow on Tuesday to the news that an early-morning fire had completely destroyed the Doris Duke Theater at the Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival.  Located on a bucolic 220-acre campus in the Berkshire area of Massachusetts, the internationally-known Festival had added the more intimate Duke ...

Best of: Guggenheim’s ‘Works & Process’ artist videos

Dance · Film
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Ed. note: We’ve been tracking the rollout of virtual (video) commissions by artists reacting to life in a new abnormal — a global pandemic. As part of her previous story about the commissioning of these works by the Guggenheim Museum’s Works & Process, writer Susan Reiter carefully selected “best of best” videos with commentaries, which ...

Guggenheim ‘Works & Process’ spurs artists in limbo

Dance · Fashion · Film · Music · Theater
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Dylan Crossman When performance venues shut down abruptly in mid-March, innumerable planned events were put on hold. That included the Guggenheim’s modest but high-profile “Works & Process” series, midway through its spring season which featured a mix of dance, theater and music events.  Launched in 1984, the adventurous series “explores artistic creation through stimulating conversation ...

Vail goes virtual

Dance
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Alonzo King’s LINES Ballet and New York City Ballet perform Alonzo King’s The Personal Element. Photo by Christopher Duggan. This is the year of the virtual summer festival. Staying in front of your computer, you can have a virtual Tanglewood, Jacob’s Pillow, Aspen Music Festival experience – and many more. One yearns to experience each ...