A near-weekly ritual has embedded itself in the news cycle since the beginning of social distancing measures. Following each weekend, photos of beachgoers crowded together on the shore will plaster CNN and social media feeds as angry commenters gawk and express outrage at this wreckless recreational activity. The romantic idyll of the beach has soured […]
Dance Review: Alvin Ailey’s old and new revelations
Technically, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater’s evening at the Kennedy Center Opera House Tuesday was a performance. But following a pre-concert gala, with an audience in sparkling gowns and tuxes and loosened up by flutes of champagne, it felt more like a love affair. The DMV hearts Ailey in a big way. And for good […]
Dance Review: National Ballet of Canada’s opulent production of The Sleeping Beauty blends extravagant visuals with subtle artistry
Washington balletgoers rarely get to see the National Ballet of Canada so it is a special treat when this extraordinary company performs at the Kennedy Center, as it is now through Sunday, February 2. Following a mixed repertoire earlier this week, the troupe kicked off the first of five performances of its opulent Sleeping Beauty […]
Dance review: The National Ballet of Canada Offers a Contemporary Choreographic Bouquet
The National Ballet of Canada presented an exotic bouquet of contemporary choreography Tuesday by William Forsythe, Jiri Kylian, and Alexei Ratmansky. The works, all but one performed to music from a live orchestra conducted by music director David Briskin, displayed a superbly prepared company brimming with energy and artistic ambition. The opener, Forsythe’s “The Vertiginous […]
Review: Bourne’s New Adventures: ‘Swan Lake’ still shocks with its transgressive beauty
It seems like just yesterday that Matthew Bourne’s groundbreaking reinterpretation of a classic triggered gents to walk out at the sight of two men partnered and young girls to cry when confronted with a narrative so different from the storybook tutued tale they had anticipated. A quarter-century later, his radical take still shocks, but less […]
Dance review: The Washington Ballet’s Nutcracker
As A Christmas Carol is to the theatre, so is The Nutcracker to the dance. It’s the perennially performed ballet that defines the holiday experience for many families — and provides a dependable revenue stream for many companies. A particular DC tradition these last many years has been Washington Ballet performing a production choreographed by […]
Dance review: Atlanta Ballet’s innovative and first-class Nutcracker
Washingtonians are unusually lucky to have two top-notch Nutcrackers to choose from every year. The Washington Ballet’s charming D.C.-themed production is an area favorite and it is always interesting to see productions from the ballet companies the Kennedy Center presents annually. This year’s offering by the Atlanta Ballet, which opened Wednesday night and runs through […]
Dance review: Mark Morris’s Beatles tribute ‘Pepperland’ lacks an emotional core
The deconstruction of a cultural touchstone by an acclaimed choreographer is an appealing notion, all the more so to live music. But although it was superbly performed Wednesday night, Mark Morris’s 2017 Pepperland, riffing off the Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, feels conceptually slapdash. As brilliant and original as Morris is, that’s not […]
The Washington Ballet’s NEXTsteps: breathtaking, athletic, beguiling
Honest artistry is flourishing at the Washington Ballet these days and it was on delightful display Thursday night when the company opened NEXTsteps, a program of three world premieres that runs through Sunday at the Harman Center for the Arts. Of the three works, Reverence, choreographed by Jessica Lang, a former member of Twyla Tharp’s […]
Review: Paquita from The Mariinsky Ballet, rarely produced and newly conceived
The Mariinksy Ballet marks its annual appearance at the Kennedy Center this week with an unusual offering: a full-length three-act Paquita, a ballet that is rarely performed in its entirety. While it is worth seeing for that reason alone, this production fuses new and historic choreography in interesting ways. Most ballet audiences have seen the […]
Review: Merce Cunningham at 100. The choreographer’s pioneering spirit lives on
Eleven dancers in white unitards with horizontal black strips at the top extending to gloved hands. In a dawn of pastel light, they hold a marvelous stillness. Four musicians play a minimalist John Cage score with a fragile, simple, ever-so-slow piano line and occasional extended single-high-pitch violin notes over the cascading micro-percussive tumbles of a […]
Review: Superb ‘Prufrock’ is among Chamber Dance Project premieres
The irresistible paradox of T.S. Eliot’s “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” is its gritty transcendence. It is grounded but out of body, a free-floating passage through a quotidian life with all its tedium and worries (baldness, aging, misunderstanding), as well as its elusive pleasures (flirting, art, peaches). With sad humor, it both acknowledges […]
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