Sondra Forsyth - Page 8

With Fashion Week 2014 under way in the tents at Lincoln Center from February 6th to 13th, New York City Ballet dusted off Peter Martins' 2012 tribute to iconic designer Valentino for the evening performance at Koch Theater on Saturday, February 8th. A description of 'Bal de Couture' on the company's web site enthused that we would feel as though we were 'on a runway at the ballet'. Not so much. The unwieldy black and white ball gowns with red petticoats, described in a handout available in the lobby as 'dazzling', managed to make the svelte ballerinas appear to be thick-waisted as they maneuvered through Peter Martins' uninspired choreography along with male dancers in black suits. Three dancers in tutus darted in and out of the scenes set to the waltz and the polonaise from Tschaikovsky's Eugene Onegin, looking as though they had ended up at the wrong party. The central section, a cliched love triangle to Tschaikovsky's Elegie in G for Strings, went on far too long - as often happens in ballets by Martins.

I promise I'm going to give you a complete and serious review of the New York City Ballet's performance at the Koch Theatre on Saturday, February 1st 2014. However, I can't resist starting with the two most endearing and unforgettable moments of the evening. First, a pair of prodigiously talented little girls danced with astonishing precision and panache as the Pearly Princesses in Balanchine's "Union Jack". Kudos to Natalie Glassie and Phoebe Golfinos who are surely headed for stellar careers if the promise they showed that night does indeed come to full flower.

Nearly 31 years have passed since George Balanchine, the prolific and pioneering 20th century choreographer, died on April 30th 1983. Yet the New York City Ballet, the company he co-founded with Lincoln Kirstein 80 years ago, continues to revere and remember him with equal parts fondness and awe. That legacy of love and respect for Mr. B was especially evident on January 25th 2014, the 4th annual celebration of "Saturday at the Ballet with George" in honor of his birthday. He was actually born on January 22nd 1904 but scheduling the event on a Saturday allows for a daylong series of workshops and performances, all of them affordable and some of them free.

As I mentioned last week in my largely favorable review of one of the San Francisco Ballet's mixed bills at the Koch Theatre in NYC, the company under the direction of Helgi Tommasen is first rate. Yet the excellent dancing in Christopher Wheeldon's 'Cinderella', which I saw on Friday evening, couldn't save the production from being overwrought and hard to follow. The opening scenes, with the child Cinderella suffering the untimely death of her mother and the teenage Cinderella meeting her overbearing stepmother and the stepsisters, were promising indeed. So was the scene in which Prince Guillaume as a boy makes mischief with his friend Benjamin, a foreshadowing of the trickery they will engage in as young men trying to keep the prince from the fate of an arranged marriage. Unfortunately, the story line wandered from that auspicious beginning although the plot plant (no pun intended) of the tree at the mother's grave seemed to be an attempt to hold the narrative together.

With "Sleeping Beauty", the third ballet in Matthew Bourne's Tchaikovsky trilogy that includes "Nutcracker!" and "Swan Lake", the award-winning British choreographer has once again proved himself to be not only a gifted dancemaker but a masterful storyteller. The production, correctly billed as "A Gothic Romance", is playing at New York's City Center on West 55th Street between 6th and 7th Avenues until November 3rd with the superb original cast of world class dancers from Bourne's London-based New Adventures company.

I still remember how surprised I was as a young dancer to learn that the first professional ballet company in the United States, the San Francisco Ballet, was not established until 1933. Given the fact that the Paris Opera Ballet was founded almost three centuries earlier in 1673, I realized that dance in America is very young indeed. Yet I am happy to report that on the evening of October 18th 2013 at the Koch Theater during the San Francisco Ballet's brief but welcome return to NYC, I watched the troupe that launched the liveliest art on these shores prove that it has become one of the finest companies on the planet.

I have always told my ballet students that because the art form is kept alive by each new generation of dancers, we must be as proficient in historical styles as we are in contemporary techniques. The important works of the past cannot be hung on museum walls the way the paintings of the masters are. Instead, we have to recreate what came before us or else the ballets will be lost. Years ago when I made that speech, I was referring to the centuries-old ballet classics. Yet on the afternoon of October 13th 2013, when the New York City Ballet offered a mixed bill of Balanchine's iconic 'black and white' ballets at the Koch Theater, I was reminded that now the dance gems of the 20th Century

On the evening of Sunday, October 13th 2013, an invitation-only crowd filed into Studio II at Steps on Broadway in NYC to share fond memories of David Howard, the beloved ballet teacher who once said that he arrived in New York 'as an upstart and became part of the American Dream.'

New York City's dance luminaries, rising stars, and fans were out in full force at the fabled Apollo Theater in Harlem on the evening of Monday, October 7th 2013 to attend the 29th annual Bessies Awards. The ceremony, named for contemporary dance legend Bessie Schonberg and produced in partnership with Dance/NYC, recognizes established as well as upcoming artists who have made outstanding contributions to the many disciplines of the liveliest art in the Dance Mecca of the World.

Long celebrated for his unique brand of contemporary choreography that combines powerful athleticism with profound emotional sensitivity, Takehiro (Take) Ueyama did not disappoint his opening night audience on Friday, September 27th at Peter Norton Symphony Space, Broadway at 95th Street. The program, which was repeated on September 28th, treated Take's fans to the world premiere of his 'Dark Mourning' as well as the world premiere of Kazuko Hirabayashi's 'A Baited Soul'. The closing piece was a favorite staple of Take's repertoire, his critically acclaimed 'Flight'.