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 [...]

There was definitely a beginning-of-the-season buzz in the air at the NY State Theater on Wednesday night. I heard plenty of snippets of gossip about dancers, and just as many opinions about their dancing. But the mood shifted ever so subtly when Peter Martins came on stage before the performance began. He [...]

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, [...]

Over the past week, I’ve heard two pieces of music for dance on WYNC, New York public radio: John Adams’ The Chairman Dances, which Peter Martins used for a 1988 ballet of the same name; and Georges Bizet’s Symphony No. 1 in C major, which is the score for George Balanchine’s 1947 Symphony in C, [...]