Andrea Miller’s ‘YEAR’ for A.I.M meets ‘The White Lotus’
We’re not suggesting that choreographer Andrea Miller‘s “YEAR” (2024) for A.I.M by Kyle Abraham, is literally “The White Lotus” in dance. No way! But somehow, Miller’s ingenious, mesmerizing, tribal, thirty-minute ballet goes for the jugular in a way that syncs with the neurotic energy with which the HBO series wrapped up its Thailand adventure. The ...
This week! Ailey Company in two rich, vital programs at The Music Center
Apr
1
2025
sacred songs, matthew rushingphoto: paul kolnik We’re spoiled rotten! Springtime at the Los Angeles Music Center brings an annual visit of our resident dance company, no less than Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. “Gorgeous,” “stellar” and body-beautiful” does not begin to describe the dancers of this historically important dance company, a beacon of Black excellence ...
Wheeldon’s wonderful world of Shakespeare: ‘The Winter’s Tale’ for ABT at Segerstrom
Mar
24
2025
Springtime in Southern California brings big, full-evening ballets to Segerstrom Center for the Performing Arts in Costa Mesa. We last experienced Christopher Wheeldon’s work with American Ballet Theatre in his Like Water for Chocolate in 2023. Now again, the British choreographer draws inspiration from yet another literary source: a Shakespearean comedy: The Winter’s Tale in ...
Death of a dancer: the great Christian Holder (1949-2025)
Mar
16
2025
ed. note: With permission of the author, artsmeme is very proud to republish William Whitener‘s marvelous obituary of a F.O.A.M. (Friend of Arts Meme), Christian Holder, who passed away, too soon! too soon!, at his home in London recently. How we loved this Renaissance man of the dance. Whitener’s homage, which Dance Magazine originally published ...
ABT Studio Company will ‘love you two times’ in Pepperdine showcase
Mar
7
2025
[marvelous studio footage set to The Doors, click above] ABT Studio Company, the junior company of American Ballet Theatre, is comprised of future stars of the ballet world ages 17 through 21. They hail from all over the world. Nearly 80 percent of current dancers in American Ballet Theatre are alumni of ABT Studio Company, ...
DANCE REVIEW: Twyla Tharp talks
Feb
26
2025
Dance critics like to use the word “language” in describing the identifiable steps, movement chains, and tonality associated with choreographers of stature. At sight, you know it is Balanchine, Taylor, or Cunningham. You know it’s Fosse or Cole. But that metaphor does not often move to the next level, viz., whether (or not) in drawing ...
Free tix! Twyla Tharp, Sunday at The Soraya
Feb
18
2025
Yeppie, it’s Twyla. Twyla’s back and The Soraya‘s got her. First at the Segerstrom Center and then, this coming weekend at the Younes & Soraya Nazarian Center for the Arts, February 22 and 23, Tharp is hitting the stage with fourteen best-in-class dancers in a 60th anniversary of her career as a choreographer. Here’s what ...
High fliers in Brooklyn: STREB’s ‘Do Not Try This At Home’
Feb
16
2025
photo credit: stephanie berger High-octane and daring. Action-packed and gravity defying. Surely we’re describing Hollywood stunt work, right? Wrong! We’re talking about rarefied choreography of extreme physicality, innovation, and near-misses that have made Elizabeth Streb a genre leader in this limit-pushing display of human action. Others in this niche of dance that we have written ...
Ratmansky rocks the classical ballet form, in ‘Paquita’ for New York City Ballet
We’re all about high-quality dance. And while we weren’t at the performances, thanks to the vivid writing of dance critic Marina Harss, and the superlative dance photography of Erin Baiano, we can experience Alexei Ratmansky‘s restaging of Petipa’s “Paquita” (1881) vicariously. According to Harss, Ratmansky infuses this warhorse ballet to music by Minkus with his ...
Rarefied air: Justin Peck’s new work at New York City Ballet
Mystic Familiar, choreography by Justin Peck, photo: Erin Baiano The symmetry is uncanny. Almost exactly eight years ago, on January 26, 2017 – six days after an impactful inauguration — Justin Peck delivered a robustly explosive, invigorating ballet, The Times Are Racing. Set to four sections of Dan Deacon’s 2012 album “America,” it throbbed with ...