Review: Kansas City Ballet Performs DANCES DARING (THEN AND NOW)

With enchanting beauty and grace, the Kansas City Ballet brings Dances Daring (Then and Now) to the stage of the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts. From the moment of the first curtain rising, to the fall of the final curtain the beautifully crafted and performed movements of the four-part ballet mystifies the audience.

Edwaard Liang choreographs Wunderland, a contemporary ballet with music by Philip Glass. Wunderland comprises six marvelous dances Pas de Deux 1, Pas de Deux 2, Men's Trio, Sextet Couple 1, Sextet Couple 2, and Sextet Couple 3. From the moment the dancers come in to view, squatting yet raised on their tiptoes, the audience knows they are in for something special.

Todd Bolender choreographed The Still Point (Movement 3) with music by Claude Debussy. Dances Daring includes only the third movement of Bolender's ballet of the same name. T. S. Elliot's poem inspired Bolender to create the ballet set to Debussy's string quartet. In 1956, the New York City Ballet performed a restaged The Still Point and in 1981, Bolender brought it to the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. Bolender who would have been 100 years-old this year was the artistic director of the Kansas City Ballet from 1981 to 1996 and artistic director emeritus until his death in 2006.

Amy Seiwert provides the choreography for Concertino with music by Arcangelo Corelli. The fabulous performance of by the Kansas City Ballet gives credence to the national acclaim Seiwert has received for her remarkable works that expand the definition of ballet.

George Balanchine choreographed The Four Temperaments with music by Paul Hindemith and piano solo by Samuel Beckett. The ballet is in eight parts and Balanchine commissioned it from Paul Hindemith in 1940. Balanchine wrote of the ballet in Complete Stories of the Great Ballets, that it "is an expression in dance of four different humors, or temperaments. Each one of us possesses these four humors, but in different degrees. . ."

The Kansas City Symphony accompanies the Kansas City Ballet in Dances Daring (Then and Now), which concludes the 2014-2015 season of the Kansas City Ballet. Purchase tickets by calling the box office at 816-931-8993 or visit the Kansas City Ballet website. Photo courtesy of the Kansas City Ballet.

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