Reviewing the Drama: Broadway, Off-Broadway, Ballet, Movies, and TV Reviews

Notes on the Stravinsky x Five program, five ballets, all set to Igor Stravinsky compositions: Scenes de Ballet : This is an early Christopher Wheeldon work. In fact, as program notes state, it was Wheeldon's second ballet for NYCB. As the title suggests, the ballet shows scenes from a ballet class, starting with young children and maturing through about-to-graduate. (All the dancers are SAB students.) Ian Falconer 's scenic design sees a ballet barre running down the center of the stage, with a suggested but unseen mirror atop, just like in class. For much of the ballet, there are dancers on either side of the barre mirroring one another. This is a lovely ballet, showing the romanticism of the art form, from the little tiny dreamers to the slightly older dreamers. It's certainly nothing remarkable (like Wheeldon's breakthrough Polyphonia or After the Rain ), but delightful nevertheless. The Cage : I think this Jerome Robbins ballet is fabulous. "The...

Notes on the Stravinsky Festival/Balanchine Black + White program: Stravinsky Violin Concerto : Principal dancers Sterling Hyltin and Rebecca Krohn are so well-suited to this. Their long, sinewy limbs make particularly sharp and powerful angles, which is what this ballet is about. It's not about looking as graceful as possible; it's about exploring your joints and the ways you cam move. Hyltin's pas de deux with Robert Fairchild is more contentious than the Krohn- Amar Ramasar duet. You can hear it in the music, the violin sounds more violent, like it's being played with more verve. I like the moment in the final movement when Fairchild and Ramasar dance together—they look like brothers having a blast. Such a great score; a fabulous representation of what can happen when you stick to the basics. Good music, simple costumes (i.e., none), and deliberate choreography. I always like classic with a twist, a break from the tutu ballets. Monumentum pro Gesualdo : T...

New York City Ballet is back in full swing. For the first of my five ballet outings this spring, I got to see four ballets, three of which I hadn't seen in at least two years. We began with Bournonville Divertissements , which was paired with La Sylphide last spring . These are selections from August Bournonville 's repertoire, and feature music by Holger Simon Paulli and Edvard Helsted. (Based on Bournonville's choreography, Bournonville Divertissements was originally stage by Stanley Williams; it was later staged for NYCB by Nilas Martins.) As divertissements should be, all four movements are presentational, mostly meant to be pretty and pleasant and fun. The first movement is "Ballabile," led by Erica Periera and Troy Schumacher , and it's the most presentational of all. From my view, it actually looked a little sloppy, and like the men were having trouble partnering with the women. Of course, that's part of the choreography (all I had to do ...

The New York City Ballet fall season has come to a close, but before it did, I got to see works by founding choreographers George Balanchine and Jerome Robbins. First was George Balanchine 's two-act narrative ballet, Harlequinade . I tend to shy away from narrative ballets, as most of them have a lot of graceful gesturing and not a lot of dancing. I was pleasantly surprised, however, by the wealth of actual dancing in Harlequinade , which is Balanchine's tribute to Marius Petipa's Les Millions d'Harlequin and features a host of commedia dell'arte characters. (The ballet is set to Riccardo Drigo 's music, which he composed for Petipa's ballet.) The story is fairly simple. Columbine ( Ashley Bouder ) and Harlequin ( Andrew Veyette ) are in love but Columbine's father, Cassandre ( Giovanni Villalobos ), disapproves. He hires a few stooges to get rid of Harlequin, while bringing in Leandre ( Aaron Sanz ), his wealthy choice of suitor. Meanwhile, ...

My first night at the ballet during the 2015-2016 New York City Ballet season was a celebration of American composers, and featured a mix of choreographers. First up was the 1991 Peter Martins ballet, Ash , with a commissioned score by Michael Torke . Ash  started off feeling a little chaotic (which it shouldn't; the ballet only uses ten dancers), and it wasn't a controlled chaos. I was feeling uncomfortable. After the first few minutes, though, the ensemble left, leaving Ashly Isaacs and Taylor Stanley to dance a pas de deux. Their dynamite dancing brought things back under control. When the ensemble returned, a bit of the chaos did, too. I suppose this is fitting, at there is a great deal of tension in the non-stop score. Still, I found Ash  to be a rather unimaginative ballet. Next was Sonatas and Interludes , a Richard Tanner  ballet set to a John Cage  composition that is played on a prepared piano. (Wednesday night's pianist was Cameron Grant .)...

My final ballet outing of the 2014-2015 season was a mixed repertory program that included my favorite, NY Export: Opus Jazz . But before that Jerome Robbins classic were works by Mr. B and Peter Martins. First up was George Balanchine's Raymonda Variations . In the program notes, Balanchine is quoted as saying the Alexander Glazounov score for the three-act Raymonda  ballet is "some of the finest ballet music we have," and Mr. B's adoration of the music shows in his choreography. In Balanchine's plotless ballet (having nothing to do with the original ballet), we are treated to, as the title suggests, variations on a theme. The piece begins with the curtain down and the orchestra playing the musical theme, an overture for the ballet, if you will. Once the curtain rises, the ensemble (all women) enter for a pretty group dance, and then soloist Erica Pereira and principal Andrew Veyette perform a nice pas de deux. Then come the nine variations, all bri...

New York City Ballet's fall season continues, and on Saturday afternoon, I had the pleasure of seeing three of my favorites. But before the repeat viewings, the program began with George Balanchine 's Chaconne . Set to music by Christoph Willibald von Gluck , Chaconne  is a repurposed ballet that was originally part of the opera Orphee et Euridice . As program notes state, "a chaconne is a dance built on a phrase in the bass and was often used by composers in the 17th and 18th centuries to end an opera in a festive mood." My best guess says that this ballet did just that.  Chaconne  is a pretty ballet, with much pageantry, much like most of the ballets with roots in opera divertissements.  Chaconne  opens with a section that seems almost like a warm up. The dancing and the music are light and airy. The women wear their hair down, and their costumes are subtle and flowing. Soon, the music picks up, and we're treated to a series of five movements....