Rachel Straus - Dance Writer

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Juilliard Dance

 
Published: February 11, 2019
Category: review

City Ballet Honors Its Famed Collaborators

By Rachel Straus, Musical America February 11, 2019

The components of the Balanchine-Stravinsky Greek-themed trilogy Apollo (1928), Orpheus (1948) and Agon (1957) are infrequently seen together, perhaps because the middle ballet is not an outright crowd pleaser. But the sum of the whole is greater than its parts. Seen side by side, these works provide […]

Published: February 12, 2013
Category: review

At City Ballet, ‘New’ Is Hardly New

By Rachel Straus

NEW YORK — New York City Ballet has become the house of retrospection. Not only because of the Balanchine legacy, but also because some of its newest works are suffused with images of the past, delivering culturally conservative messages. Take Justin Peck’s third City Ballet work, Paz de la Jolla, which premiered […]

Published: February 8, 2012
Category: review

Ballet's Global Currency

By 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 10, 2011
Category: review

A New Apollo: Chase Finlay of New York City Ballet

By Rachel Straus

There is no better way to anoint a rising City Ballet male star than to award him the title role in Balanchine’s “Apollo.” On May 5 corps dancer Chase Finlay hit the big time, receiving curtain calls and roars of applause. The 21-year-old looked like a young Nordic god (much the […]

Published: May 9, 2011
Category: review

Vintage Wine, Nubile Bodies

By Rachel Straus

NEW YORK — Not a tutu or jewel-encrusted bodice was in sight at New York City Ballet’s opening night, May 3 in the former New York State Theater at Lincoln Center. The dancers wore the minimum — leotard and tights — but delivered the maximum, forming configurations of crystalline complexity as created […]

Published: April 29, 2011
Category: review

The Dance Against Cancer Wins

By 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 […]