Rachel’s blog @ View Rachel @ Juilliard Dance | Published: October 14, 2015 Category: reviewBy Rachel Straus NEW YORK–New York City Ballet commissioned five ballets this season and four of them are compelling. It’s rare for City Ballet, or for that matter any dance company, to present new works that are overwhelmingly impressive. So there was much to celebrate on October 10 at the former New York State Theater when […] 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 the […] Published: October 9, 2013 Category: reviewBy Rachel Straus Sara Mearns as Odette. Photo by Paul Kolnik. On Sept. 17, New York City Ballet principal dancer Sara Mearns entered the pantheon of great interpreters of Swan Lake. Dancing the lyrical Odette (white swan) with elegiac grace, and the sharp Odile (black swan) with erotic hauteur, Mearns almost redeemed Peter Martins’s staging of […] 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: October 4, 2011 Category: reviewBy Rachel Straus NEW YORK — It’s not the silly, star-crossed-lovers plot that insults the intelligence in “Paul McCartney’s Ocean’s Kingdom.” Peter Martins’ athletic yet banal choreography isn’t the main cause of effrontery either. Nor is it the former Beatle’s score (his first for a ballet), although it does closely resemble the soundtrack to an animated […] |
