Sondra Forsyth - Page 4

The World Choreography Awards announced today that seasoned actor/dancer Kenny Wormald will host the seventh annual World Choreography Awards, taking place at the Saban Theater in Beverly Hills, Calif. on Monday, Oct. 23.

The 14th annual Fall for Dance Festival at New York City Center continued the tradition of offering performances of world premiere commissions for works in diverse dance genres by companies from NYC and around the world.

As I noted in my 2015 review of Ballet West's debut at the Joyce Theater in NYC, this company based in Salt Lake City has an admirable command of contemporary ballet . That fact was in evidence once again on October 11th 2017, opening night of Ballet West's five-day run.

In my 2015 review of the Peter Martins version of Swan Lake for the New York City Ballet, I focused on my dismay about the d cor and costumes by Per Kirkeby that strip this classic of its time and place. Yet because I was prepared for that disappointment this time around, I was able to find more to like about the production on the evening of September 20th 2017 when I attended at the Koch Theater in Lincoln Center.

On September 19th 2017, opening night of a three-week engagement by Twyla Tharp Dance at the Joyce Theater, a program insert listed an addition to the roster previously slated for the evening.

During a historic evening that was by turns a star-studded celebration of dance and a solemn remembrance of 9/11, the inaugural Chita Rivera Awards offered both joy and solace to the packed house at the Al Hirschfeld Theatre on September 11th 2017.

On the evening of Wednesday, July 26th 2017 at Lincoln Center's Koch Theater, the most exciting moment during the Bolshoi Ballet's performance of choreographer Jean-Christophe Maillot's ham-handed retelling of the plot of Shakespeare's rollicking comedy, The Taming of the Shrew, was a false fire alarm that sent many audience members scrambling for the exits. The dancers gamely carried on, as noted later in an excellent curtain speech by Lincoln Center Festival Director Nigel Redden, who congratulated them for dancing “impeccably” in spite of the scare.

From July 20th to 23rd 2017 as part of the Lincoln Center Festival in NYC, three of the world's greatest ballet companies danced together for the first time ever in celebration of the 50th anniversary of the premiere of George Balanchine's plotless evening –length masterpiece, Jewels, as well as the 50th anniversary of the festival itself.

John Cranko's Eugene Onegin is often referred to as a “story ballet for grown-ups” since it is devoid of the fantasy birds and other magical creatures that populate so much of the classical ballet canon. The dancers portray real people with real emotions as Cranko brings to life Alexander Pushkin's iconic verse novel. Cranko's version of the tale has new plot twists that some critics have found dismaying while others have applauded them. I fall into the latter category.

An overview on the NYC Metropolitan Opera web site of choreographer Alexei Ratmansky's newest work, “Whipped Cream”, calls the ballet a “dollop of delightful whimsy”. Yet the full-length production by ABT's Artist in Residence, with a run at the opera house from May 23rd to July 1st 2017, is in fact a heaping serving of horror-infused revelry complete with drunken characters and an illness caused by overindulgence in sweets.

Youth America Grand Prix (YAGP), the international competition that gives accomplished young dancers the chance to vie for coveted scholarships and company contracts, held the 2017 Final Rounds at the Koch Theater in Lincoln Center on Wednesday, April 12th. On Thursday, April 13th, the annual “Stars of Today Meet the Stars of Tomorrow” showcased some of this year's winners in Act I and offered stellar performances in Act II by an impressive roster of professionals. Then on Friday, April 14th, a tribute to Julio Bocca marked the occasion of his 50th birthday as part of YAGP's “Legends in Dance” series.

The Steps Beyond Foundation, Steps on Broadway's non-profit arm that launched in 2015 with Diane Grumet as Artistic Director, offered a panel discussion entitled “Dance Criticism in Uncertain Times: A Conversation About Art and Politics”.

The Joffrey Ballet is back on the boards in NYC for the first time since the company decamped to Chicago in 1995. At Lincoln Center's Koch Theater from March 29th to April 2nd 2017, the troupe founded by Robert Joffrey and Gerald Arpino in 1956 and now under the artistic direction of Ashley Wheater offers a new version of “Romeo & Juliet” choreographed by Krzysztof Pastor, as well as a one-evening Gala on March 31st.

The Hamburg Ballet made its Joyce debut with a six performance run of John Neumeier's Old Friends from March 21st to 25th 2017. The cast of 25, billed as the Joyce Theater New York Ensemble, was selected from the full company roster of 60.

From a humble beginning in 1979 when Carol Paumgarten, the Artistic Director of Steps on Broadway with her then partner Patrice Soriero opened for business in a small space on 56th and Broadway in NYC, Steps has burgeoned into a bustling, internationally acclaimed dance studio boasting top teachers and a huge clientele that ranges from pre-schoolers to leading professional dancers.

On the evening of Saturday, February 25th 2017 at the Koch Theater, a triple bill showed off the versatility and genius of Jerome Robbins, who with George Balanchine was a Founding Choreographer of NYCB.

The venerable Martha Graham Dance Company, founded 91 years ago in 1926, is thriving anew after getting past protracted legal battles following modern dance pioneer Graham's death and coping with the loss of historical material during Hurricane Sandy in 2012. Much of the credit for the success of the current iteration of the troupe goes to Janet Eilber, a former Graham principal who has been at the helm as Artistic Director since 2005. She has instituted a policy of not only presenting Graham's classics but also commissioning fresh visions from today's finest choreographers.

China Arts and Entertainment Group (CAEG) returned to the David H. Koch Theater at Lincoln Center on January 5th, 6th, and 7th 2017 with Confucius, a new dance drama performed by the China National Opera & Dance Drama Theater. The production, directed and choreographed by Kong Dexin who is a 77th-generation direct descendant of Confucius, was a mesmerizing display of dance that was seamlessly infused with expert acrobatics. I expected nothing less after having covered three previous offerings by CAEG over the years.

For 42 years and counting, the all-male Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo has been delighting audiences around the world with the company's unique blend of superb technical prowess flavored by spot-on humor that never fails to elicit laugh-out-loud reactions.

Celebrated Russian ballerina Natalia Osipova crossed over to contemporary along with her real-life partner Sergei Polunin, the 'bad boy of ballet', in a triple bill of U.S. premieres at New York City Center from November 10th to 12th 2016. Watching these two consummate classical dancers believably embody a 21st century movement aesthetic was both astonishing and heartening. I have long told my own students that because dance is ephemeral and cannot be hung on a museum wall for posterity, each new generation of artists must be capable of dancing not only what was then but also what is now. Osipova and Polunin, as well as Jason Kittleberger and James O'Hara who shared the stage for this run, proved unequivocally that this goal is achievable.