Designed by NYCB soloist Craig Hall The New York State Theater was packed on Friday night, and not just with the typical crowd of New York City Ballet devotees. Young people, too, had flocked to Lincoln Center to see the Dancers’ Choice program, a benefit for the Dancers’ Emergency Fund. Principal dancer Jonathan Stafford [...]

A curtain call for Damian Woetzel (click to enlarge) Photo by Evan - Please do not use without permission. Watching one of my favorite ballet dancers - who I’ve watched for about fifteen years - dance his final performance and take his final bow at the New York State Theater last night was not easy. Writing about [...]

Christopher Wheeldon’s Rococo Variations - photo by Paul Kolnik “Here and Now” was a fitting title for a program that featured four contemporary works - the oldest premiered in 1998 - by some of the most sought-after choreographers in ballet today. But I was swept far away from the here and the now, traveling to [...]

There are a ton of upcoming performances and events that I’m really excited about. I’ll certainly try to post reviews of them all, but in the meantime, here’s a peek at some of the performances that I’ll be seeing over the next two weeks: 1) New York City Ballet’s “Here and Now”: This program includes [...]

Albert Evans, Rebecca Krohn, Jonathan Stafford, and Rachel Rutherford in Russian Seasons (photo by John Ross) Every season, the artistic staff at New York City Ballet has the daunting task of creating a variety of programs that will attract audiences, show variety and breadth - choreographically, musically, and thematically - and will offer the dancers room to [...]

At the end of March, American Ballet Theater’s artistic director, Kevin McKenzie, announced the launch of a new multi-year program that will invite female choreographers - one per year for the next three years - to create works for ABT II, a pre-professional company of dancers no older than 20.  Funded by Altria Group, Inc, [...]

  A 2006 NY Times Magazine article about Wendy Whelan, a principal dancer with New York City Ballet, included several comments from Christopher Wheeldon, who has choreographed many of his best works on Whelan (She’s often referred to as his muse). The following is a quotation from Wheeldon that I’ve always remembered: “Wendy can take your [...]

The quadruple-bill “Matters of the Heart” program at New York City Ballet was definitely worth seeing, just maybe not on Valentine’s Day. Three out of the four ballets ended with heartbreak, death, or loss (or all of the above), the exception being the story-less Raymonda Variations. Maybe Peter Martins should have thought that [...]

Last night I attended New York City Ballet’s “Four by Four” program, which presents pieces from four choreographers inspired by four different composers. Reflecting on the program, I realized how diverse the ballets were, not only because of the different “voices” in each ballet, but also because of the varied settings - ranging from [...]

Evan wrote at length about the incredible performance that we had the honor of seeing on Sunday evening- Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet’s presentation of an all-Naharin choreography, ‘Decadance.’ (Thanks again, Caleb!) Naharin’s choreography is truly phenomenal in that it has the rare quality of being powerful and moving without the slightest bit of pretentiousness. It [...]