Rachel’s blog @ View Rachel @ Juilliard Dance | Published: December 9, 2015 Category: reviewBy Rachel Straus NEW YORK–The long-awaited new work for the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater by Robert Battle, who took the artistic helm of this renowned company in 2011, did not disappoint. Awakenings, which premiered on Dec. 4 at New York City Center, begins as feverishly as it ends. The work’s intensity is typical Ailey. […] Published: February 12, 2015 Category: reviewBy Rachel Straus NEW YORK — It was as if the feisty spirit of Agnes De Mille had cast a wicked spell. De Mille, whose ballet first brought Copland’s Rodeo to life in 1942, would not have looked kindly on Justin Peck’s decision to make an abstract dance on that classic score. And so when […] Published: February 8, 2012 Category: reviewBy Rachel Straus Like the 18th-century itinerant ballet masters who entertained and often taught aristocrats, choreographers Christopher Wheeldon, Alexei Ratmansky and Wayne McGregor crisscross the globe, creating dances for the world’s elite ballet companies and their audiences. On Jan. 28, New York City Ballet devoted an entire evening at the former New York State Theater […] Published: May 31, 2011 Category: reviewBy Rachel Straus NEW YORK – New works by three of the ballet world’s most in-demand choreographers were among the calling cards on American Ballet Theatre’s “From Classics to Premieres” program, May 25 at the Metropolitan Opera House. Alexei Ratmansky and Christopher Wheeldon were represented by world premieres, Benjamin Millepied (a.k.a. Mr. Black Swan) by […] Published: April 29, 2011 Category: reviewBy Rachel Straus NEW YORK — Dance Against Cancer, the April 25 benefit performance at the Manhattan Movement and Arts Center (MMAC), began with a movie. On screen, New York City Ballet principal Maria Kowroski said the last performance her mother saw her dance before she died of cancer was Balanchine’s “Mozartiana.” Later, when Kowroski […] |