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 [...]

I’ll be the first to admit that I love Chopin’s piano pieces. They are breezy, thoughtful, and at times dramatic and intense. With such beautiful music, it is easy to let the mind wander (as mine did several times throughout the performance), to lose yourself in listening to the music, which is exactly what Jerome [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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, [...]

From the New York City Ballet press release: “Having a clear and well-branded presence on YouTube provides an opportunity for us to reach out to a broader audience in a consistent way,” says Kristin Sloan, NYCB’s Director of New Media.  Well said, Kristin!  Check out the full press release on the company’s website, and then click here [...]