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 ...
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, ...
Sugar Plums for the ages, in ABT’s ‘The Nutcracker’ at Segerstrom Center
Nov
26
2024
Her name is Antonietta Dell’Era (1861-1945), and, as legend goes, in 1892 she was the first to dance to Tchaikovsky’s magical foray on the celesta as the Sugar Plum Fairy. That music the brilliant composer concocted to give aural evocation of “drops of water shooting from a fountain.” Ms. Dell’Era’s first performance received good reviews, ...
Mexican-born, American-trained Isaac Hernandez to join ABT as Principal Dancer
Jul
11
2024
Isaac Hernández. Photo: Erik Sawaya. Our friends at American Ballet Theatre, which under the guidance and decision-making of new Artistic Director Susan Jaffe seem to have awakened from a long Sleeping Beauty-like slumber, have stirring news to share. The company’s highest ranks will have a new addition. It’s a long, slim, classically trained dancer of ...
Mesmerizing balletic ode to Virginia Woolf new signature work for American Ballet Theatre 2
American Ballet Theatre, now in its eighth decade, reclaims its mantle as a font of top international repertoire with “Woolf Works,” a theatrical evocation of three novellas written by the most poetic of 20th century authors, Virginia Woolf. The ambitious full-evening ballet has contemporary-classical choreography by Briton Wayne McGregor to a moody and rambunctious original ...
What’s in ABT’s ‘Woolf Works,’ soon at Segerstrom?
Apr
3
2024
We’ve been seeing intriguing images, not to mention advertisements, including ones running here on artsmeme, for American Ballet Theatre‘s new production of Wayne McGregor’s Woolf Works, playing at Segerstrom Center for the Arts in five performances, April 11 – 14. Inspired by the writings of Virginia Woolf — an author this woman writer so greatly ...
Susan Jaffe presents: casting for ABT ‘The Nutcracker’ two-week run opening at Segerstrom tonight
Dec
8
2023
Appointed to her post as artistic director of American Ballet Theatre over a year ago, Susan Jaffe is very much in the drivers’ seat. A transition ensued following the 30-year tenure of Kevin McKenzie with whom she danced in the course of her 22 years as among the company’s most sparkling principal dancers. Seguing into ...
Boy, uninterrupted: Choreographer Alexei Ratmansky in new biography 3
alexei ratmansky, center, rehearses the sleeping beauty: from rosalie o’connor photo The Boy from Kyiv: Alexei Ratmansky’s Life in Ballet, Marina Harss’s biography of one of the world’s most active choreographers, is just exactly that: a beautifully written, close examination of the many ways in which the 55-year-old artist’s work and life are intertwined. Moreover, her ...
New moves for Misty Copeland
Misty Copeland‘s name is included on American Ballet Theater‘s current roster of principal dancers during its Metropolitan Opera House season (through July 22). But she is not scheduled for any performances, and has not appeared onstage with ABT since before the Covid pandemic interrupted performances in 2020. But Copeland was present nearby at Lincoln Center ...
On Misty Copeland, gold is the new pink 1
May
13
2020
What ‘ballet pink’ has been for more than a century has gone redefined. It is high time. Enough of that insipid shade. Enter a new theme, dusky gold, the color magnificently worn in these photos by the glorious, triumphant ballerina and principal dancer of American Ballet Theatre, Misty Copeland. Seen sculpting space in the skyscraper ...