Ah, the Olympic ceremonies: When athletes of the world parade with their flags into the international spotlight, when host countries pay tribute to their cultural heritages and when I (without fail) tear up at the beauty of it all. Ballet doesn’t usually play into the Olympic mix as a sport, but the opening and closing […]
This story originally appeared in the December 2014/January 2015 issue of Pointe. Newly appointed BalletMet Columbus artistic director Edwaard Liang says he didn’t know he wanted the position until it fell into his lap. The 39-year-old internationally known choreographer had just returned from creating a work for Bolshoi Ballet’s Svetlana Zakharova in Russia when he […]
In company class at Boston Ballet, Keenan Kampa moves with the purity and nobility of a classical Russian dancer. In adagio, the long-limbed corps member seems most at ease with her leg by her ear, yet during grand allégro she leaps gracefully across the high-ceilinged studios. “She has everything a ballet dancer needs,” says Shannon […]
Outside, the bright sunshine and gentle breezes made for one of those perfect days of May—ideal conditions for the epidemic of spring fever that seemed to have broken out in American Ballet Theatre’s Studio 5. One ballerina crossed the floor in a pair of snowshoes. Another zipped by on roller skates. A pretty redhead pulled […]
Royal Danish Ballet Tackles Twelfth Night Nikolaj Hübbe is setting the Shakespearean classic on some of the company’s youngest dancers. Shakespeare seems to be on choreographers’ minds these days. In addition to Christopher Wheeldon’s new Winter’s Tale for The Royal Ballet (p. 39) and American Ballet Theatre’s reprise of Alexei Ratmansky’s recent Tempest (p. 42), […]
We have to hand it to the Russians. Olympic opening ceremonies are always brilliant spectacles, but rarely do they involve appearances by world-class ballet dancers. Last Friday night, the Sochi opening ceremony offered a smorgasbord of rich, theatrical images, many of them created by Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark choreographer Daniel Ezralow. But the highlights […]
This interview originally appeared in the October 16 Pointe e-newsletter. To sign up for the newsletter, click here. This month, the Joffrey Ballet presents Stanton Welch’s production of La Bayadère for the first time. Pointe‘s e-news spoke with 22-year-old Jeraldine Mendoza, who will make her debut as Nikiya this Saturday, about learning the ballet. When […]
Wendy Perron, editor in chief of Pointe‘s sister publication, Dance Magazine, is currently in Moscow at the Benois de la Danse. Here, she shares her impressions of the 2012 event. For the first time in its whole 20 years, the Benois de la Danse award in choreography went to an American: Lar Lubovitch. For […]