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“The Notebook” and “Cabaret” land on Broadway. Olivia Rodrigo’s tour stops in Manhattan. Plus: Herbie Hancock, Heartbeat Opera and Trisha Brown Dance Company.
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Birmingham Royal Ballet has today announced that Royal Ballet Principal Dancer, Matthew Ball will guest star with the Company for the first time in The Sleeping Beauty alongside BRB principal dancer Céline Gittens at Birmingham Hippodrome on Saturday 24 February, 7.30pm and Thursday 29 February, 7.30pm.
Born in Liverpool, Matthew Ball trained at The Royal Ballet School and joined The Royal Ballet during the 2013/14 Season, promoted to First Artist in 2015, Soloist in 2016, First Soloist in 2017 and Principal dancer in 2018.
Ball’s roles with The Royal Ballet include Prince Siegfried (Swan Lake), Romeo (Romeo and Juliet), Apollo, Armand, Prince Florimund and Bluebird (The Sleeping Beauty), Prince (The Nutcracker), Crown Prince Rudolf (Mayerling), Des Grieux (Manon). In 2016 he was named Best Emerging Artist at the Critics’ Circle National Dance Awards. He also performed the role of The Swan/Stranger in Matthew Bourne’s Swan Lake.
Matthew Ball said: “I am thrilled to be offered the chance to perform as a guest principal with Birmingham Royal Ballet this coming week in The Sleeping Beauty. Peter Wright’s wonderful productions have formed an integral part of my career in The Royal Ballet and I can’t wait to appear in his sumptuous interpretation of this classic! It will be my pleasure to dance alongside the fantastic Céline Gittens and the entire BRB company for the first time.”
Following a sell-out success with one of the most talked about theatrical events of 2023 with Black Sabbath – The Ballet, Birmingham Royal Ballet has returned to the stage with one of the Company’s most beloved classics, Sir Peter Wright’s sumptuous staging of The Sleeping Beauty.
Marking the production’s 40th anniversary year, the 2024 UK tour opened last week at the Mayflower Theatre, Southampton where the production played until Saturday 10 February. The tour then continues to Birmingham Hippodrome (21 Feb-2 Mar), The Lowry, Salford (7-9 Mar), Sunderland Empire (14-16 Mar), Theatre Royal, Plymouth (20-23 Mar), Bristol Hippodrome (18-20 Apr) and London’s Sadler’s Wells (24-27 Apr).
The 2024 tour of The Sleeping Beauty follows on from the 2023 UK tour of Sir Peter Wright’s Swan Lake – BRB’s most successful spring tour to date, having been seen by over 53,000 people.
Last seen on UK stages over six years ago, The Sleeping Beauty continues Birmingham Royal Ballet’s legacy of presenting the acclaimed heritage classics and celebrating the beloved work of its founder, Sir Peter Wright. The Sleeping Beauty is the fourth of Sir Peter Wright’s productions to be presented by the company since autumn 2022, following Coppélia, The Nutcracker and Swan Lake. The acclaimed Royal Ballet Sinfonia performs Tchaikovsky’s glorious score live, with designs by Philip Prowse and lighting design by Mark Jonathan.
Listings:
Birmingham Hippodrome
21 February–2 March 2024
The Lowry, Salford
7–9 March 2024
Sunderland Empire
14–16 March 2024
Theatre Royal Plymouth
20–23 March 2024
Bristol Hippodrome
18 – 20 April 2024
Sadler’s Wells, London
24 – 27 April 2024
Choreography: Peter Wright, Lev Ivanov, Marius Petipa
Music: Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
Production: Peter Wright
Designs: Philip Prowse
Lighting: Mark Jonathan
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Fatima Robinson has been a choreographer for over 30 years - and she's seen a lot of changes in how we dance.
Andrew Macpherson
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Andrew Macpherson
Fatima Robinson has been a choreographer for over 30 years - and she's seen a lot of changes in how we dance.
Andrew Macpherson
Choreographer Fatima Robinson has had an incredibly prolific career: she gave us the iconic King Tut-style moves from Michael Jackson's 'Remember the Time' music video, she taught us how to 'Rock the Boat' with Aaliyah, and she was head choreographer on Beyoncé's Renaissance tour. And all through that time, she's moved through all kinds of changes in how we dance – including Tik Tok. Host Brittany Luse chats with Robinson about how she pulls rhythm out of stars – and what causes the dance moves of the day to change.
This episode was produced by Liam McBain with additional support from Barton Girdwood, Alexis Williams, and Corey Antonio Rose. We had engineering help from Gilly Moon. It was edited by Jessica Placzek. Our executive producer is Veralyn Williams. Our VP of programming is Yolanda Sangweni.
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The choreographer Alonzo King sees ballet differently. A dance is never just a dance. It’s a kind of faith, and the training necessary for it — day in and day out — is a way to keep that faith alive. His ballets have a way of sailing through sensations, of calming the nervous system, of realigning the body and mind.
“Deep River,” which will have its New York premiere at Lincoln Center’s Rose Theater beginning Feb. 22, is named after the spiritual, which is part of its score, and is rooted in ideas about courage and hope. It’s about a belief that King has: Within every person, a river flows.
“You can’t live a full life without having gotten in contact with the river that is inside of you,” he said in a video interview from San Francisco, where he lives and where his company, Lines Ballet, is based. “And it’s a knowing, it’s a knowledge. It’s your internal world. You want to tap into the knowledge that is waiting inside of you.”
That can seem like a lot to put into a dance. But “Deep River” is driven by more than choreographic invention. When he was speaking to the composer Jason Moran about the score for “Deep River,” King told him that it needed to be deeply soulful and heartbreaking. “I want it to get past intellect and touch people’s hearts,” King said. “To wake them up.”
King sees behavior as movement, or a dance: “It begins in thought,” he said. “Thought leads to behavior and behavior is movement. How do you move in the world? How do you see and treat other people? That’s it. And so if we look at the lives of great folks that we admire, those are dances. You look at the life of Harriet Tubman. That’s an incredible dance.”
One quality present in King’s choreography, which can be rapturous one moment and grounded the next, is elongation. His dancers, agile and lean, ripple as they seem to stretch their bodies past their skin. They’re never stuck in positions; movement flows through them. And in “Deep River,” the music has a way of swimming alongside them, too, especially the voice of Lisa Fischer, a transcendent singer who appears onstage with the dancers. (A longtime performer with the Rolling Stones, Fischer is featured in “20 Feet from Stardom,” the Oscar-winning documentary about backup singers.)
In “Deep River,” King’s idea of a pas de deux seems to expand beyond just two bodies; Fischer feels that, too. “If I’m doing a hand movement that is reacting to the dancers’ hand movements, it’s almost as though I can see the energy between the space,” she said, referring to the air between those hands. “It’s not just reaching without a purpose. But for me, the purpose is throwing energy and exchanging the energy.”
At times in “Deep River,” Fischer touches the dancers — a shoulder, the back of neck. “It's like you feel their sweat, you feel all these years of preparation for that moment,” she said. “I keep that in mind, because everything that they are is in that moment. They’re breathing life into it and I get to share it.”
The dancer Babatunji said that Fischer — both her singing and presence — “unlocks a latent ability for us to give more.” Adji Cissoko, a dancer who performs a solo with Fischer, said, “It’s the craziest experience because she becomes me, and I become her, and it is as if her voice is coming through my body.”
Moran, who works often with King — Moran said he has five albums worth of music from their collaborations — first started the process for this ballet by recording with Fischer. They began with spirituals, including “Deep River” and “Lift Every Voice and Sing.”
“The way Alonzo and I generally work is he puts out his open call into my brain,” Moran said, “and then I try to flood him with things I think he might like.”
Moran said he knew that Fischer would help to carry the level of soul that King was after: “She has such an incredible instrument, whether she’s singing with text or with syllables.” Moran said. “She knows how to pull your soul out of your body and let you kind of shout in joy or cower and mourn.”
Onstage, their collaborations create a rare back and forth in which both dance and music seem radiantly present. King’s enthralling “Single Eye,” created for American Ballet Theater in 2022, featured music by Moran; together they created a mingling of ballet and the natural world that was eerily beautiful. “One of the first things I noticed years ago when we started working together was just how much air he loves in music,” Moran said. “New Yorkers want to make things dense. In San Francisco, he really appreciates air.”
Moran has changed his own approach because of it. “I think with Alonzo, he has been able to let me ease up off the gas and really send pieces that have more line and more shape and allow the mind to linger,” he said. “Because the dancers will do the rest of the work. The music does not need to do everything.”
And the movement is potent on many levels. “Deep River” dates back to the days when, because of the pandemic, dancers weren’t allowed to touch. The work began during a bubble residency with dancers quarantining together. “Every gesture, every hand grip, every movement meant so much more,” said Cissoko said. “I think that’s why it still feels like such a precious piece.”
In a pas de deux she dances with Shuaib Elhassan, the first thing they do is touch hands. “That still is the most special thing to me — how we touch hands” she said. “It’s different every time, but it’s going back to that moment of when that was so vulnerable and true and appreciated. It’s like we become one.”
Working with King, the Lines dancers know that they are not just performing steps — though the steps are there, and rigorous at that. King, Babatunji said, encourages them to think of “every movement as a prayer, or a declaration of, ‘I want to be a better person,’ ‘I want to spread love,’ ‘I want to affect others in a positive way.’” Bringing that to the stage, he added, “there’s no way that we cannot have a ripple effect.”
That prospect of dance having a life and an urgency beyond an arrangement of steps has fueled King’s path as a dancer and a choreographer. He grew up in Georgia and in California; his parents and stepmother were all involved in the Civil Rights movement.
King’s early memories of dancing were more typical: He danced with his mother. “I adored it,” King said. “It was a form of intimacy. And I also loved the way she moved. She moved through the music instead of on top of it.”
His ballet training took him to many academies, including at American Ballet Theater, the Joffrey, Harkness and the School of American Ballet, where he studied with important teachers, including Stanley Williams, Richard Rapp and the celebrated ballerina Alexandra Danilova, who, he said “was a trip.”
Alvin Ailey asked King to join his company. “I went and I rehearsed for about two weeks and I thought, ‘I just want to get back to ballet,’” he said. “Isn’t that funny? I was hungry for it, and I really loved it.”
He was offered other dancing jobs that he didn’t take: “I had a very stubborn, independent mind about where I wanted to go and what I wanted to do,” he said. “I just saw things really differently.”
After leaving New York, he went to Santa Barbara, where he had grown up, and began to choreograph. “And then I thought, I’m going to go to San Francisco because there’s a real dance community there, and it’ll be richer in terms of possibilities,” he said. “And so I did.”
That was in 1981; Lines had its first performance the next year. What would he have been if not a choreographer? “I like that question,” he said. “But I think, to be really plain and honest with you, I think everyone is a choreographer. You know, we’re shaping our lives. We’re moving in our time frame with an expiration date and making choices or following habits that could be hurting us, or creating new ones that could help us.”
If movement is the principal expression of life, he believes that the greatest art is the art of living. “There’s a beautiful thing I was reading from Yogananda” — that is, Paramahansa Yogananda, the famous yogi — “who was saying when you fall down, the ground that you fell down on is the same thing that you’re going to use to help you get back up. Isn’t that beautiful? I guess my point is there’s always a way.”
With “Deep River,” which King described as “about, as usual, humanity, consolation,” he shows a certain faith in the world, as broken as it is. “No matter how it feels or appears, we have the ability — if we are courageous — to overcome obstacles,” he said. “That’s part of a human being.”
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Following a successful world premiere, opening the Santa Barbara International Film Festival on 7 February, the Disney Original Documentary film MADUwill be released on Disney+ on Friday 29 March. From Academy Award-nominated filmmaker Matt Ogens (Audible) and award-winning filmmaker Kachi Benson (Daughters of Chibok), the film spotlights 14-year-old Nigerian ballet dancer Anthony Madu. The documentary is the story of Anthony’s journey as he leaves his community on the outskirts of Lagos to pursue a ballet career, training at Elmhurst Ballet School in Birmingham.
MADU captures Anthony’s story after being discovered through a viral 44-second video that was posted online in 2020 and garnered over 16 million views. Having grown up in an isolated community outside of Lagos and with almost no formal training, viewers will get a close look at Anthony’s journey after being awarded a scholarship to Elmhurst Ballet School, one of the most prestigious ballet schools in the UK. Anthony comes from a community with limited opportunities, making this a unique chance of a lifetime to pursue his dream. By engaging the audience in Lagos’s culture and fascinating surroundings, Ogens and Benson use their unique perspectives to bring the film to life. Featuring candid realism and stunning visuals, the film immerses viewers into Anthony’s world and examines his journey in profoundly inspiring ways.
Anthony’s journey is a captivating story of change, progression, belief and belonging. In telling his story, Anthony’s desire is to introduce and expose more of Nigeria to ballet and hopefully inspire other young men and women in Nigeria to pursue ballet. Forming a rich tapestry told across multiple continents, MADU introduces the world to a boy chasing a dream that will resonate with audiences everywhere.
Anthony first attended Elmhurst Ballet School in May 2021 after the school reached out to him following the viral 44-second video of him dancing barefoot in the rain outside his Lagos home. The video resulted in vast amounts of publicity for Anthony, including major broadcasters and newspapers all over the world. In May 2021, Anthony visited and lived at Elmhurst for three days, to experience life as a full-time boarding student at the school. During the three days, Anthony experienced dance and academic classes and was observed in ballet classes by the artistic team. At the end of his three-day stay, Anthony was offered a full-time place at the school. Anthony joined the school on a full bursary scholarship in September 2021 and boards full-time.
Filming of MADU at Elmhurst Ballet School began in September 2021 as Anthony settled into boarding, dance training, and academic classes. Over the course of the year, filming covered all aspects of Anthony’s life at Elmhurst, from artistic to academic classes, from boarding to the Health and Wellbeing offers. Filming also included Anthony’s UK life away from the school: his downtime in Birmingham; weekends and holidays with guardians and friends; and travelling home to Nigeria during school holidays.
Robert Parker, Artistic Director of Elmhurst Ballet School said, “I first encountered Anthony during his visit to the school in May 2021. The school invited him to join the year 7 boys in their ballet class and I was eager to observe him dancing in person, following the popular footage of him in Nigeria, dancing in the rain. Upon introducing myself, he immediately conveyed his gratitude and rushed towards me, enveloping me in a heartfelt hug!
As I watched him dance, it was immediately apparent that he possessed a great sense of presentation and artistic expression, which he used effectively to convey his passion for dance.”
Jessica Ward, Principal of Elmhurst Ballet School added,“When I first saw Anthony dancing in the streets of Lagos via Instagram during lockdown, I felt strongly that this young person had true grit! Anthony’s love for dance and music is unmistakable; it’s practically woven into his essence. His innate love for dance is lovely to witness.
Having closely observed Anthony’s growth during his time at our school over the last two and a half years, I’ve witnessed his remarkable strides in both ballet and academics. Anthony’s presence brightens our school; his enthusiasm is palpable in both the dance studio and the classroom.
At Elmhurst, our hope is for every student to flourish during their time with us. Watching Anthony’s journey unfold has been immensely rewarding. I’m incredibly proud of how much he has grown and developed. I eagerly anticipate the world witnessing MADU and experiencing Anthony’s exceptional talent and journey.”
MADU is brought to Disney+ by Academy Award®-Nominated Director Matt Ogens and Award-Winning Filmmaker Kachi Benson. Matt Ogens is known for capturing authentic human stories through an evocative visual and narrative aesthetic. Matt’s Netflix Original Audible was nominated for an Oscar® in 2022, an immersive coming-of-age documentary told from the perspective of deaf high school students and communicated through sign language. His debut documentary, Confessions of a Superhero, garnered critical acclaim and a devoted following. He subsequently earned a Primetime Emmy® Award for ESPN’s 30 for 30: From Harlem with Love. Kachi Benson is an award-winning filmmaker whose work primarily focuses on social impact storytelling. He became the first Nigerian to use VR for a narrative film when he released In Bakassi in 2017, a virtual experience of life in one of the largest IDP (Internally Displaced Person) Camps in Northeast Nigeria. In 2019, Kachi’s Daughters of Chibok made history when it won the Venice Lion for Best Immersive Story at the Venice Film Festival, making him the first African to win the prize.
Directors Matt Ogens and Kachi Benson said, “Our shared journey is about curiosity and creating an understanding of different cultures through our connection with each other. Ultimately, this film is a journey of discovery, growth, belonging and acceptance, themes we both personally relate to. Making Anthony’s voice heard has been our ultimate drive, and we believe Anthony’s extraordinary story makes the most captivating, emotional, and riveting film either of us have told.”
MADU is released on Disney+ on Friday 29 March: Watch Madu | Disney+ (disneyplus.com)
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Dance Company BODYTRAFFIC
“LA deserves to have a remarkable dance company that's representative of this community,” Tina Finkelman Berkett, co-founder and artistic director of Los Angeles-based dance troupe BODYTRAFFIC, told me.
BODYTRAFFIC is a 17-year-old dance company based in Los Angeles that will be performing at the Audrey Irmas Pavillon performance space at Wilshire Boulevard Temple (3643 Wilshire Blvd) on February 29 with a program, “In Pursuit of Love” that features three pieces, Love. Lost. Fly by Micaela Taylor, Recurrence by Ethan Colangelo and Blue Until June by Trey McIntyre, set to the music of Blues legend (and LA native) Etta James. Tickets are still available and can be purchased here.
Tina Finkelman Berkett, co-founder and artistic director of BODYTRAFFIC
“I was dancing my whole life,” Berkett recalled recently of the journey that led her to LA and co-founding a dance troupe. As a child she went to dance classes at a little studio near her home in New York. “The first dance performance I went to was on a New York City public school trip to City Center, and I saw Alvin Ailey and it changed my life.” However, she could not imagine a career in dance. “I just assumed: I love to dance but that's not going to be my life.”
Berkett grew up in New York in a family of math-adepts, mathematicians, accountants – non-artists. Berkett seemed on that same path. She attended Stuyvesant High School, New York’s special admission public school, and then Barnard where she double majored in Mathematics and Economics. “While I was at Barnard, I was really on a track to work at an investment bank or a hedge fund.”’
However, one day when riding the subway with her father, she shared that she had all these interviews at investment banks. To which he said, “Why would you do that?” Berkett assumed that her father wanted her to pursue a financially secure life. But he encouraged her to follow her passion for dance. “I shifted gears and within months of that, I was performing at the Joyce Soho [theater].”
Berkett’s big break was being part of Hell’s Kitchen Dance, Mikhail Baryshnikov’s dance company. She danced for Baryshnikov for almost three years, and that experience, that Baryshnikov credential, was like an Ivy League credential for her career.
In 2007, Berkett moved to LA. She was 23, newly married, and she wondered: “What am I going to do?” Berkett was trying to put something together for herself to dance in, and realized there was a real hunger in LA for a dance company. So, together with Lillian Barbeito, she founded BODYTRAFFIC.
Their first performance was in the catering hall of Sinai Temple of “Transfigured Night World” to music by Arnold Schoenberg. Randy Schoenberg, his grandson – filmmaker, philanthropist, genealogist, and attorney who won the Klimt Lady in Gold case, underwrote the performance. 700 people showed up.
BODYTRAFFIC
Over the next decade, the company won awards, performed at the LA Philharmonic opening Gala at Walt Disney Concert Hall, The Joyce Theater in New York, at Jacob’s Pillow in Massachusetts, The Broad Stage in LA, the American Dance Festival in Durham, North Carolina, the Tel Aviv Opera House, the Hollywood Bowl, The Wallis in Beverly Hills, the Banff Center for Arts and Creativity. BODYTRAFFIC were Cultural Ambassadors from the US to Jordan, Israel, Algeria, Jakarta & Indonesia, and performed at the Context Festival in Moscow & St. Petersburg.
At one point in her career, Berkett reached out to Ohad Naharin, then artistic director of Batsheva dance to mentor her. Naharin challenged her to come to Israel to dance a solo that was, Berkett said, “definitely amongst the hardest things I've ever danced.”
Based on the rehearsal I attended, BODYTRAFFIC features a diverse company of talented modern dancers whose performances display technique that remains rooted in ballet with touches of Gaga (Naharin’s school of movement) and contemporary dance movement – reminding me of the early work of Twyla Tharp.
For most of its existence BODYTRAFFIC has been better known and more appreciated outside of LA than in its hometown, in great part because LA has not built the infrastructure necessary for dance: the rehearsal spaces and theaters with permanent spaces and residencies devoted to dance are few if any and, as concerns dance, there is not the same history of philanthropy and deep bench of board members devoted to dance. That is changing.
Gillian Wynn, President of BODYTRAFFIC
In 2020, Berkett became the company’s sole artistic director. In 2022, Micaela Taylor became their first artist in residence. And in 2022 Gillian Wynn joined BODYTRAFFIC as President, not only taking over the management, business relations, logistics, and planning duties of running a dance company but also joining Berkett as a creative partner in bringing new choreographers and programming to the company.
Wynn had long been passionate about dance, having served on the boards of the Alvin Ailey Dance Company, Nevada Ballet Theatre, and as a champion of dance at the not-for-profit United States Artists (created to support American artists in all disciplines). Once Wynn came aboard BODYTRAFFIC, she quickly secured the company a summer residency in Sun Valley; together with the company’s agent Margaret Selby BODYTRAFFIC expanded the number of performance dates around the country and at various locations around Los Angeles; she invited choreographer Trey McIntyre to stage his original work, Blue Until June, for the company to perform; while at the same time, raising the pay and health benefits for the dancers.
“We really want to be known as Los Angeles's Dance Company,” Wynn told me, “And we're trying to make that happen.”
What Berkett would like to say to potential audience members is: “Come to the theater. I promise you it will be a positive experience.” Berkett says of her mission: “We have to entertain people …through music we have to hook people [to] build a community that has energy that people want to be a part of.”
Berkett believes things are changing in the dance world post-pandemic in ways that favor an LA troupe. It used to be that dancers flocked to New York for the permanent companies that can offer contracts as troupe members with better pay along with support, teachers and choreographers, physical therapy, insurance and other benefits and perks. However, increasingly, dancers are freelance artists, and for them quality of life issues (as well as the high cost of living in New York versus LA), make LA increasingly attractive.
BODYTRAFFIC has become a company where dancers can broaden their “awareness of what is possible in your dance career,” Berkett said. What BODYTRAFFIC offers dancers “is really about leadership, empowerment, positive work environment, advocating for yourself, mental health. I mean, these are the aspects of working at BODYTRAFFIC that are unlike working in other dance organizations.” Berkett says BODYTRAFFIC is focused on “broadening people's awareness of what is possible in your dance career.”
Looking forward, Berkett says, “the next few years, my goal is to be able to offer all of our education programs for free, and to do a tour of school shows across the city.” Berkett believes that if young people in LA have access to dance, “it will change their lives as it did mine.”
“So it's a really simple,” Berkett concluded, BODYTRAFFIC is about, “Love and [our] mission, and I think that more and more people want to be a part of it.”
BODYTRAFFIC touring schedule can be found here. Tickets are still available for the February 29 Los Angeles performance, here.
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Twyla Tharp takes making dances very seriously but, at 82, she appears to be having some fun with it — and even poking fun at herself, lightly, in the process. Her new ensemble work, “The Ballet Master,” which had its premiere on Tuesday at the Joyce Theater, depicts a choreographer immersed in the tortured and revelatory journey of bringing a work to life.
That boisterous ballet closes a program that shows three sides of Tharp, beginning with the punchy “Ocean’s Motion” (1975) and continuing with “Brel,” an introspective new solo for the American Ballet Theater principal Herman Cornejo. (The New York City Ballet principal Daniel Ulbricht performs it on alternate nights.) While “The Ballet Master” concerns itself with the choreographer’s inner world, “Brel” zooms in on the dancer’s.
Before any contemporary self-reflection, though, Tharp takes us back to where she’s been. “Ocean’s Motion,” to a compilation of 1950s and ’60s Chuck Berry songs, feels resolutely of its time and quintessentially Tharp, with its brew of ballet and social dance idioms. Its five fabulous dancers — in short shorts, tight pants and a lot of hot pink — are like a clique of teenagers on the prowl for a good time. They seem less interested in one another (early on, Miriam Gittens sassily brushes Jake Tribus aside) than in the promise of something beyond their closed world, wired with the energy that the music sends surging through their limbs.
With sunny tracks like “Almost Grown” and “School Days” as their motor, feet swivel, shoulders shudder, hips circle and thrust. A time capsule in some respects, the work plants itself in the present thanks to the high-wattage performances of the cast: Daisy Jacobson, Skye Mattox, Reed Tankersley, Gittens and Tribus. The women, especially, volley between a kind of sultry melting and hard-edged snap with uncanny precision.
It must be said plainly in 2024 that the jazz and social dance influence in Tharp’s work is, at its root, a Black American influence. Indebted as she is to Black music and dance lineages, it would be nice to see a more open acknowledgment of these sources — and more than one Black dancer (the phenomenal Gittens) in her current troupe.
“Brel,” to music by Jacques Brel, brings about a tonal shift: away from bubble gum-popping extroversion and into a single dancer’s contemplative space. Tharp has chosen recordings of Brel that include the sound of audience applause, and in this way the solo becomes a performance about performing, alluding to the psychological toll of a life in the spotlight.
Cornejo is known for his stunning athleticism, and while his impeccable leaps and turns are on full display here, the most stirring moments in “Brel” are the quieter ones, and those that acknowledge his relationship to our expectant eyes. Dressed simply in all black, he at one point stands still and scans the audience, his gaze sincere and patient. Later, with one hand at a time, he grasps at something we can’t see, and then releases it toward us. When he breaks out the kinds of steps that win instant adoration — including a finale of coupé jetés circling the stage — they look as effortless as his walking. You feel relieved for him when, as the curtain lowers after his bow, he plops down on the floor with a smile, not masking his exhaustion.
The toil of a life in dance is treated more comically in “The Ballet Master,” which stars the longtime Tharp dancer John Selya as a choreographer trying, haplessly at first, to get his work just right. For the dancers under his direction, that means loops upon loops of repetition, with incremental revisions, beginning with a jocular duet for Tankersley and Tribus. Gittens and Jacobson, arriving as if for rehearsal, leap into the fray as the complexity builds. Tharp captures all this swiftly, aided by the syllabic vocals of Simeon ten Holt’s “Bi-Ba-Bo.”
While Selya appears first as a disheveled guy in jazz shoes and a decorative scarf (the whole program is costumed by Santo Loquasto), he unexpectedly transforms into a (still disheveled) Don Quixote character, and his clipboard-wielding assistant (Ulbricht) into a Sancho Panza sidekick. Inspiration has struck him in the form of a dancer in pointe shoes and layers of pink, a role embodied by the American Ballet Theater principal Cassandra Trenary. Initially just a fleeting presence at the back of the stage, she seems to grow in his imagination. Who’s the real ballet master here?
As the wondrous Trenary works her way into the dance, passing through some mildly creepy artist-muse moments, she also undergoes a transformation: from a ballet dancer to a Tharp dancer, now in gold spandex shorts and matching sneakers, her bourrées replaced with a runner’s strides. (The music has switched to high-drama Vivaldi.) It’s Tharp quoting Tharp. Ulbricht becomes Trenary’s partner, and the original four dancers a corps in perpetual intricate motion. From a whirlwind of exits and entrances, of trying and trying again, passages we’ve seen before — a deliberate fall, a tricky lift — begin to find their groove.
Without fanfare, Selya exits. His vision realized, the dance goes on without him.
Twyla Tharp Dance
Through March 3 at the Joyce Theater, Manhattan; joyce.org.
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Following a sell-out success with one of the most talked about theatrical events of 2023 with Black Sabbath – The Ballet, Birmingham Royal Ballet has returned to the stage with one of the Company’s most beloved classics, Sir Peter Wright’s sumptuous staging of The Sleeping Beauty.
Marking the production’s 40th anniversary year, the 2024 UK tour opened last week at the Mayflower Theatre, Southampton where the production played until Saturday 10 February. The tour then continues to Birmingham Hippodrome (21 Feb-2 Mar), The Lowry, Salford (7-9 Mar), Sunderland Empire (14-16 Mar), Theatre Royal, Plymouth (20-23 Mar), Bristol Hippodrome (18-20 Apr) and London’s Sadler’s Wells (24-27 Apr).
At select performances on the tour, the role of the villainous Carabosse will be danced by Gabriel Anderson, marking the first time a male dancer has debuted in the role of Carabosse with BRB for 34 years. Other notable male dancers who have danced the role in the Company’s history include previous BRB Director, Sir David Bintley back in 1986.
Dame Darcey Bussell DBE has been joining Birmingham Royal Ballet in the studio during the rehearsal process, coaching dancers who will be taking on some of the ballet’s most iconic roles such as Princess Aurora – following in the footsteps of Dame Darcey herself. Coached by Dame Darcey, Yu Kurihara and Beatrice Parma will make their debuts as Princess Aurora during the UK tour.
The casting information and performance dates are published 2 hours before the performance, with some earlier versions available too.
The acclaimed Royal Ballet and English National Ballet Principal, Alina Cojocaru will return to the London stage for special guest star performances at Sadler’s Wells at evening performances on both Thursday 25 April and Saturday 27 April 2023. Throughout her illustrious career, Alina Cojocaru has received acclaim for her performances in classic roles such as Odette/Odile in Swan Lake, Juliet in Romeo and Juliet, Giselle and, perhaps most famously, Princess Aurora in The Sleeping Beauty – for which she won the Critics’ Circle Dance Award for Outstanding Female Classical Performance in 2017. Alina is a regular guest artist with the Hamburg Ballet as well as appearing with companies across the globe. In 2020, she presented her own programme “Alina at the Wells” at Sadler’s Wells. Alina Cojocaru presented and performed in La Strada, a new ballet based on Fellini’s cinematic masterpiece, at Sadler’s Wells in January this year.
The 2024 tour of The Sleeping Beauty follows on from the 2023 UK tour of Sir Peter Wright’s Swan Lake – BRB’s most successful spring tour to date, having been seen by over 53,000 people.
Last seen on UK stages over six years ago, The Sleeping Beauty continues Birmingham Royal Ballet ’s legacy of presenting the acclaimed heritage classics and celebrating the beloved work of its founder, Sir Peter Wright. The Sleeping Beauty is the fourth of Sir Peter Wright’s productions to be presented by the company since autumn 2022, following Coppélia, The Nutcracker and Swan Lake. The acclaimed Royal Ballet Sinfonia performs Tchaikovsky’s glorious score live, with designs by Philip Prowse and lighting design by Mark Jonathan.
Sir Peter Wright said: “I find it hard to believe that this tour marks the 40th Anniversary of The Sleeping Beauty. This has always been the most opulent of ballets, but Philip Prowse’s incredible design created a unique fairy tale world (with almost 30 fairy character tutus alone!) that allows dancers to really inhabit some of classical ballet’s most famous roles.”
Director of Birmingham Royal Ballet Carlos Acosta said “I am thrilled to be reviving Sir Peter Wright’s production of The Sleeping Beauty in the Spring of 2024. The Company is excited to be delighting audiences once more with this definitive version of one of the great classical ballets, welcoming people of all ages to our performances throughout the UK.
“I am also honoured that the acclaimed Principal Ballerina, Alina Cojocaru, will be joining the Company for selected performances at London’s Sadler’s Wells, sharing her celebrated interpretation of the role of Princess Aurora.”
Listings:
Southampton Mayflower Theatre
8–10 February 2024
Birmingham Hippodrome
21 February–2 March 2024
The Lowry, Salford
7–9 March 2024
Sunderland Empire
14–16 March 2024
Theatre Royal Plymouth
20–23 March 2024
Bristol Hippodrome
18 – 20 April 2024
Sadler’s Wells, London
24 – 27 April 2024
Choreography: Peter Wright, Lev Ivanov, Marius Petipa
Music: Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
Production: Peter Wright
Designs: Philip Prowse
Lighting: Mark Jonathan
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“Who’s really motivated to change the system if it’s working for some people?” – MSN (The Telegraph UK)
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In this work, inspired by Quentin Tarantino’s “Kill Bill” films, Croatian performers address the fraught director-actress relationship at its core.
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On 24 March, the Vienna State Ballet presents John Neumeier’s ballet classic The Lady of the Camellias, the second premiere of the season at the Vienna State Opera.
Based on the 1848 semi-autobiographically novel La dame aux camélias by Alexandre Dumas fils, John Neumeier created in 1978 one of the most moving story ballets and – with its dramatic construction, the clarity and intensity of its characterisation, and the subtle images and magnificent costumes, which Jürgen Rose has re-adapted for the Viennese premiere based on his original designs from 1978, congenially evoke the Parisian flair of the 19th century,
In addition to Stuttgart Ballet and Hamburg Ballet, by whom the work was first seen in Vienna in a guest performance in 2014, only a small number of companies carefully chosen by John Neumeier have been permitted to dance Lady of the Camellias. From 2024 the Vienna State Ballet will join them, and this large-scale production will not only enrich its repertoire with a Neumeier treasure but also one of the great story ballets.
John Neumeier reveals in his choreography Armand Duval’s passionate relationship with Marguerite Gautier retrospectively. The couple meet for the first time in a play-within-a-play, but Marguerite also sees her own life disturbingly reflected in the ancient love story that is presented in ballet form: the tragedy of Manon Lescaut and Chevalier Des Grieux. Neumeier skilfully employs a filmic dramaturgy, overlaying lightly drawn »exterior« scenes of Parisian society with »interiors« that focus on the emotional states of his characters, in which his dances reveal every possible psychological nuance: full of elegance and carefree joy, immersed in passion, erupting into existential drama and affecting the audience deeply with fragility in the face of death.
In Frédéric Chopin, Neumeier found the ideal musical partner to bring both great virtuosity and a melancholy sense of loss to his depiction of the superficiality of Paris’s high society and of human passion. The largo from Chopin’s B minor sonata forms the recurrent leitmotif in a score of piano works (including both concertos, together with other pieces for piano and orchestra) for which two pianists join forces in a Chopin marathon whose demands go far beyond a conventional recital. Markus Lehtinen is the musical director, with Anika Vavić and Igor Zapravdin at the piano.
Venue Wiener Staatsoper
Premiere 24 March 2024, 6.30 pm
Further Dates 26 March, 5, 7, 12, 15, 17, 22, 27 April, 1, 4 May 2024
Music Frédéric Chopin
Choreography & Director John Neumeier
Stage & Costumes Jürgen Rose
Lighting Ralf Merkel
Staging Kevin Haigen, Janusz Mazon, Ivan Urban
Musical Director Markus Lehtinen
Piano Anika Vavić & Igor Zapravdin
Orchestra of the Vienna State Opera
Vienna State Ballet
The cast of dancers will be announced at a later date.
INTRODUCTORY MATINEE
In the introductory matinee to the premiere of The Lady of the Camellias, you will learn interesting background information about John Neumeier’s choreography, its Viennese rehearsal, and the musical score from those involved in the production. Dance excerpts and musical contributions from pianist Anika Vavić round off the morning at the Vienna State Opera. The event will be held in German and English.
Venue Wiener Staatsoper
Date 17 March 2024, 11 am
For further information click HERE.
DANCE MOVIES: FOCUS ON JOHN NEUMEIER
In cooperation with the Filmcasino, the Vienna State Ballet will be showing the new film John Neumeier – A Life for Dance (2024) as an Austrian premiere on 7 April as part of the DANCE MOVIES film series. In the documentary made for the broadcasters Arte/NDR, director Andreas Morell paints a portrait of a great dancer, a wonderful teacher, a man deeply rooted in art and religion and provides insights into John Neumeier’s current artistic work.
Followed by a discussion with those involved in the production of The Lady of the Camellias.
Venue Filmcasino
Date 7 April 2024, 1 pm
Further information can be found HERE.
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SYRACUSE, N.Y. — The Syracuse City Ballet is publicly calling out its former dancers for the “misinformation campaign” they allegedly led against the company’s artistic director and administration.
In an Instagram post made over the weekend, the SCB’s Board of Directors released a statement, sharing the news that the allegations eight of its former dancers made against artistic director Caroline Sheridan were deemed unfounded by an independent HR company.
On Nov. 10, 2023, eight dancers with the SCB wrote to the executive staff and board of directors to express concerns about their physical and emotional well-being, as well as that of the student dancers involved in the highly popular performance of “The Nutcracker,” with problems stemming from issues with Sheridan.
The dancers alleged that Sheridan put dancers at risk when it came to performing certain moves and often created a hostile work environment.
“There were several instances where we felt like we were absolutely not to go over her head. And so we had no recourse for any kind of issues that came up. We had to go directly to her. There were a few instances that got really hostile, and it made us all feel like we couldn't - we had nowhere to go with our issues,” dancer Cara Connolly told CNY Central in December.
The issues came to a head when Sheridan allegedly cornered a student dancer involved in “The Nutcracker” production, who posted her concerns with the company on Facebook.
Connoly said that Sheridan verbally accosted the student and asked her to report any disparaging comments about the company made by fellow dancers directly to her.
In its statement, SCB rebuffs the allegations, “Despite the apparent lack of substantial evidence to support their allegations, several of the Ballet’s former dancers have waged misinformation campaign in the media and on the internet, with particular vitriol directed at Ms. Sheridan, management and the Board of Directors of the Syracuse City Ballet.”
Brett W. Messenger, a consultant to Central New York Ballet, told CNY Central that the independent HR investigation into Sheridan was limited to the incident involving the student dancer, claiming that the student, nor her parents, were ever interviewed.
Messenger is also weary of the independent investigation’s findings, noting that it was never made clear if the investigator had any prior experience investigating this sort of case, what her qualifications were or if she was connected to SCB administration in any way.
The ballet asserts that at the time of the allegations, it took immediate action to address the dancers’ concerns, but that their ultimate decision to strike directly harmed the ballet’s efforts to produce “The Nutcracker.”
The unfounded attacks waged against our organization in the weeks leading up to The Nutcracker, including calls to boycott the Ballet’s Nutcracker, did result in substantially lower ticket sales than in previous years.
Following their termination from SCB, six dancers came together to form the Central New York Ballet and held its first performance, “A Celebration of the Season” at the Palace Theatre on Dec. 19, 2023.
The newly formed dance company consists of Cara Connolly, Lucy Hamilton, Claire Solis, Xavier Pugliese-Ciulei, Abigail Stewart and Lukas Figliozzi.
The SCB alleges in its statement that the ballet company was actually formed over a year ago to compete with the Syracuse City Ballet, saying that the Dec. 19 performance may have resulted in a violation of the non-compete agreements that former dancers signed with SCB.
In response to this claim, Messenger said that it is incorrect to say that the dancers planned to start a competing dance company over a year ago. A family member of a dance did indeed form a non-profit over a year ago, but it was unknown to most dancers and there were no plans to start a ballet company.
The company also announced its first official production “Swan Lake Act II and Bolero” will debut at the Oncenter’s Carrier Theater on Apr. 6 and 7.
In the press release announcing the show, the Central New York Ballet shared that the organization is centered around the artists, “who have voice and influence on all levels of the company.”
The dancers elected Aldo Kattón to be the company’s artistic director and elected Hamilton and Solis to serve as dancer representatives to management and artistic teams.
In a statement to CNY Central, the Central New York Ballet said it has “blossomed out of the outpouring of support from this community. We could not be more excited for the future or more grateful for how much support we have received from so many.”
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“Can you get my drink, and I’ll get Merce?“
In certain circles — OK, mine — that name can belong to only one person: Merce Cunningham, the 20th-century choreographer who reshaped modern dance. Over the past few weeks, his name has come up in the strangest of places: “The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills.”
On recent episodes, Sutton Stracke traveled to Spain with her fellow Housewives. Along with racks of designer clothes, she brought Cunningham’s ashes packed in a Ziploc bag. Cunningham, it turns out, was one of the most important men in her pre-“Housewives” life, and she wanted to release the ashes “in a significant place and make this a really meaningful trip.”
Dismay ensued. “Put me in a Birkin, fine,” Kyle Richards, another Housewife, said. “But a Ziploc? No.”
And out of Erika Girardi’s tipsy mouth poured this gem at dinner: “Merce is in the purse.”
Worlds are truly colliding. Cunningham, who died in 2009 at 90, is an indelible part of dance history but less familiar to the general public. As Stracke told her castmates, “He’s a real big deal.” How big? Stracke explained that he was a founder of modern dance.
Girardi asked, “With Martha Graham and all them?”
“Yes,” Stracke said.
“Twyla?” Girardi said, referring to Twyla Tharp. Girardi, who performs pop music as Erika Jayne, has long worked with the choreographer Mikey Minden, and knows a thing or two.
“Twyla studied under him,” Stracke said.
“OK,” Girardi said with detectable pride, “There you go.”
Cunningham and his partner, the composer John Cage, believed that music and dance could exist independently. Cunningham also used strategies of chance to determine, say, the structure of a dance by rolling dice or using the I-Ching. This “Housewives” plotline is like shaking out a pair of sixes. It seems against every odd.
Stracke, blonde with a peppy, Southern accent, is on the kooky side but maybe the most no-nonsense of the Housewives. (My favorite non-Merce moment was when she set a timer during a shopping trip.) In her 20s and an aspiring dancer, she worked at the Cunningham Dance Foundation in New York as a studio manager and later as an associate director of development. It wasn’t unusual for people in his orbit to have been given a small envelope of his ashes.
“Merce and I had a bond immediately,” Stracke said on the show. “I think he liked me as a dancer and he liked my work ethic. And I would go over to his apartment, and he would cook. He also liked, I guess, how I watered his plants.”
Did Stracke, who is on the board of American Ballet Theater, create the ashes arc to make Cunningham a little bit more of a household name?
Last summer the choreographer Sarah Michelson created a response to a Cunningham work that featured a plane flying over Rockaway Beach, Queens, pulling a banner: “Dear Merce Cunningham — You Busy RN?” Now the question is “Dear Merce Cunningham — What Are You Thinking RN?” Would he be mortified for his remains to be on “Housewives”? Amused?
Maybe Stracke really just wants to spread the gospel of modern dance. Some credit goes to Girardi: “I kind of feel like a loser for not knowing about him,” she said. “Because I know so much about, like, Bob Fosse, Alvin Ailey or other greats. So when I said to Mikey” — the choreographer Minden — “‘Like, who’s Merce Cunningham?’ He goes, ‘How dare you?’ And I got checked by my own friend.”
Stracke brought the ashes to Sitges, in Catalonia, describing it as one of the first places Cunningham’s company performed in Europe. The group did perform there in 1966, but by then it had been to Europe plenty, having completed a world tour in 1964. Oh, whatever. Trevor Carlson, the former executive director of the Cunningham Dance Foundation, lives in nearby Barcelona. He and Stracke are friends. He joined the Housewives for dinner and the Merce send-off.
When the day came to release the ashes, Stracke was full of emotion — thinking also about her father’s death and the breakup of her marriage. “It’s really over two decades of my life that I’m starting to realize I need to let go of,” she said.
She chose a view overlooking the sea. “All right, let’s do it,” she said to Carlson. With an arm wrapped around him, she tossed the ashes into the water. Soon there were screams. The Housewives, standing off to the side, weren’t safe: Merce was out of the purse — and speckled onto their dresses, their faces, their hair.
“Sorry, girls!” Stracke yelled.
Once Girardi might have felt like a loser for not knowing who Cunningham was. Now she was mad. “I don’t know this man,” she said. “I don’t want to taste this man.”
Stracke was filled with glee. “Merce didn’t get on me at all,” she said. “He was known for these great leaps. He leaped over me and got all over those girls! It was so good.”
Choreographically speaking, it was tremendous. And just like Merce.
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