Seeing the Miami City Ballet’s opening program of the season Nov. 18, which featured George Balanchine’s Jewels, was very much like opening a box and finding an array of precious gems inside, beautifully crafted in elegant and intricate settings. Each section of Balanchine’s acclaimed triptych was distinctly different but all were polished, multi-faceted and brought to … [Read more...]
Arts Preview 2017-18: The season in dance
Devotees of dance this season can sample Miami City Ballet’s continued artistic honing by Artistic Director Lourdes Lopez, the ongoing successful dance programming at the Duncan Theatre or the breakthrough PEAK presentations at the Kravis Center, as well as decide to experience the continuity and strength in the local dance scene. Amid this strong lineup, this season it … [Read more...]
Boca Ballet Theatre offers rich, varied summer program
Because it’s summertime, arts shows tend to get a more indulgent audience: Crowds are smaller, the big names and shows that come through are a few months away, and the youths involved in the various hot-months training programs show their stuff before the school year begins. On Aug. 6, Boca Ballet Theatre’s annual summer recital was presented in two programs at Spanish River … [Read more...]
Godden ballet intrigues at Harid’s season closer
Choreographer Mark Godden created his ballet Minor Threat, set to the first two movements of Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 20, some 20 years ago for Canada’s Alberta Ballet, but in a performance May 28 in Boca Raton, this allegory of courtship, love and birth came off with newly minted freshness. This well-designed modern ballet with a clever and moving punchline was the … [Read more...]
Fist & Heel’s ‘Citizen’ was powerful, subtle
There was a subdued elegance to Citizen, the multimedia work presented May 6 at the Rinker Playhouse in West Palm Beach. It wasn’t at all what I had expected from the Brooklyn-based dance company that calls itself Fist & Heel Performance Group. The clean and concise structure of the work was reminiscent of the post-modern dance movement of the 1960s and 1970s, when … [Read more...]
‘La Sylphide’ proves ideal fit for Boca Ballet Theatre
Smaller dance companies that don’t shy away from the big classical ballets usually have to make some compromises in order to get that shows up on the boards, be it a smaller number of swans or a tiny mouse king’s army, But there are other shows besides The Nutcracker that work well for smaller educational troupes like Boca Ballet Theatre, and in Bournonville’s La Sylphide, … [Read more...]
Momix’s ‘Opus Cactus’ stuns, but only intermittently
The Sonoran Desert in Arizona is a very impressive place. Imagine seeing it for the very first time if you grew up on a dairy farm in rural Vermont. How would you react? Moses Pendleton — who did — was so impressed that he created his own version of it to put on the stage. Although he is not really known as a choreographer, he created his first incarnation of Opus Cactus as … [Read more...]
MCB closes season with lively, elegant Program 4
Miami City Ballet finished its season at the Kravis Center for the Performing Arts with Program Four — an upbeat and lively show — that presented two Balanchine works and a Paul Taylor work from its repertory. But it was the first work, Divertimento No. 15, performed with elegant and confident finesse, that was the true jewel of the evening. The 1956 work that George … [Read more...]
‘Revelations’ still best thing about Ailey show
This time around, it was the past that was the highlight of the program when Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre came back into town Feb. 28 to perform again at the Kravis Center for the Performing Arts. Revelations, choreographed by founder Alvin Ailey almost 60 years ago and the undisputed cornerstone of the company’s repertory, was the backbone of the evening. Though the … [Read more...]
MCB’s ‘Fairy’s Kiss’ tops a rich evening of dance
It was the world premiere of Miami City Ballet’s The Fairy’s Kiss that grabbed my attention on Program Three on Feb. 25 at the Kravis Center. The eagerly awaited and highly publicized new work of the ballet world’s heralded master-choreographer Alexei Ratmansky was beautifully presented. It was all that it was expected to be, but it was the convergence of the creation of … [Read more...]