The Washington Ballet’s Contemporary Masters program, which opened Wednesday night at the Harman Center for the Arts and continues through Sunday, is a master class in late 20th Century modern dance works that is both thought-provoking and awfully fun to watch.
Bracing new works from San Francisco Ballet’s Unbound Festival
A meditation on the arc of a lifetime. A message piece about soul-eroding communication technology. A frenetic exploration of Jung’s notion of male and female psychic elements. Such was the heady fare in a bracing evening of new works from San Francisco Ballet Wednesday night at the Kennedy Center.
Dance Review: Deborah Colker’s Dog Without Feathers, enigmatic and beguiling
Companhia de Dança Deborah Colker’s Dog Without Feathers (Cão Sem Plumas) at the Kennedy Center’s Eisenhower Theater though Saturday is a small spectacle, but it’s a powerful spectacle and one with substance and a menacing kind of beauty.
Review: Through the Wall at Capital Fringe
We are all cautious by design. When faced with a life-changing decision, there is a moment of hesitation – our hearts race as we face an infinite number of thoughts compounded by a simple choice: to speak or to be silent, to help or to ignore, to act or not to act.
Dance Review: Step Afrika!’s Soul-Stirring ‘Migration’
The painter Jacob Lawrence’s 60-panel Migration Series chronicles the exodus of more than six million African-Americans from the South to the North starting around 1916. The WPA-funded project was published in 1941 when he was 25. Step Afrika!, D.C.’s home-grown step dance company, takes spirited inspiration from these works in The Migration: Reflections on Jacob […]
Review: Final thoughts on 2018 Spoleto Festival. Strong women, fake news and favorite performance
Some of the best of Spoleto comes happenstance and often spills out onto the streets. So don’t let the size of your wallet dictate whether you can take part in the joyful exuberance of the Spoleto Festival, which runs through June 10, 2018. There are plenty of free or mostly free concerts, including jazz and […]
Review: Ballet Nacional de Cuba performing Don Quixote
It was 40 years ago that the Ballet Nacional de Cuba made its U.S. debut at the Kennedy Center and 30 years ago that it premiered its production of Don Quixote. It was 70 years ago that Alicia Alonso founded the company bearing her name that would become the Ballet Nacional after the 1959 revolution. […]
2018 Spoleto Festival USA – Miami City Ballet is sublime and a diva dies twice
To judge the relative importance of a performing arts festival, one must ask the questions: “How are the arts furthered?” and “How are the artists being pushed?” Challenges come in all shapes and sizes. Though “classic” in form, the Miami City Ballet is a relatively young company that boasts some terrific soloists from America’s two […]
New York City Ballet: Justin Peck’s dazzling “Pulcinella” makes DC debut (review)
Justin Peck’s “Pulcinella Variations,” an ecstatic circus of the soul, made its sensational D.C. debut Tuesday in an altogether winning evening of mixed repertory by the New York City Ballet.
Review: The Washington Ballet presents three impressive world premieres
“With any new endeavor,” said Washington Ballet’s Artistic Director Julie Kent before Friday night’s performance, “there is an element of risk – and excitement.”
American Ballet Theatre’s delectable Whipped Cream (review)
The Nunes memo, election tampering by Russia, the refugee crisis, mass shootings, harassment and molestation, Olympic doping, North Korean nukes, climate change, fascism, nationalism, racism, terrorism… We interrupt our regularly scheduled dread for Alexei Ratmansky’s Whipped Cream, a ballet about pastries.
The Suzanne Farrell Ballet takes its final bows this weekend with Forever Balanchine (review)
Parting really is sweet sorrow as The Suzanne Farrell Ballet, after 17 years, offers its final performances this week. Its budget and company size have been unsteady, but you’d never know it from Thursday evening’s stirring, polished swansong performances of Balanchine classics.