Ballet

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Boston Ballet brings back John Cranko's Romeo and Juliet

Return of the star-cross'd
Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet has probably inspired as many ballet translations as The Rite of Spring .
By MARCIA B. SIEGEL | November 08, 2011

end of era with retirement of Boston Ballet dancer Larissa Ponomarenko

Larissa Ponomarenko bows out

End of an era
The bad news — really bad news — this past week is that principal dancer Larissa Ponomarenko is retiring after 18 years with Boston Ballet. (She will, however, be staying on as a ballet master.)
By JEFFREY GANTZ | May 26, 2011

next generation of Boston ballet dancers

The BIBC, 'Next Generation,' and more of Boston Ballet's 'Balanchine/Robbins'

Ballet notebook
It's been a busy week and a half. The first ever Boston International Ballet Competition took place May 12-16 at John Hancock Hall, climaxing with a gala awards ceremony and performance last Monday. On Wednesday, at the Opera House, Boston Ballet presented its second annual "Next Generation" performance.
By JEFFREY GANTZ | May 26, 2011

Boston Ballet's 'Balanchine/Robbins,' plus a soupçon of tap

The pleasures of craft
Boston Ballet is ending the season with four prime examples of ballet choreography, displaying not only the rigors of classical technique but the different kinds of images technique can be crafted to evoke.
By MARCIA B. SIEGEL | May 19, 2011

Boston Ballet's 'Balanchine/Robbins'

Mind games
After the frenetic gutbusting of its Elo Experience and "Bella Figura" programs, Boston Ballet is closing out its 2010–2011 season with a breath of classical fresh air — or so it would seem.
By JEFFREY GANTZ | May 26, 2011

The meaning of 'THE'

Boston Ballet's 'Bella Figura'
William Forsythe's 1991 ballet The Second Detail begins with 13 dancers in ice-blue leotards and tights, facing away from the audience.
By MARCIA B. SIEGEL | May 09, 2011

Boston Ballet's 'Bella Figura'

Everything is beautiful
"Bella figura" in Italian is more than a phrase — it's a philosophy. It makes life beautiful. "Bella Figura" as the title of Boston Ballet's latest program is an invitation to find beauty in three disparate choreographic styles — one of them incorporating topless women (as well as men).
By JEFFREY GANTZ | May 02, 2011

A Midsummer Night's Dream by Boston Ballet

Boston Ballet’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Moonstruck
George Balanchine didn’t create a slew of full-length ballets, but it’s easy to see why a setting of Shakespeare’s ever-popular A Midsummer Night’s Dream is one of them — and not just because, back home in St. Petersburg, when he was eight, he played a bug in a theater production of the Bard’s moonbeam-muddled comedy.
By JEFFREY GANTZ | April 25, 2011

Jorma Elo and Anna Sokolow

What's in that box?
In silence a man slowly pushes a large, light-filled box across a dark stage. The box is bigger than an outhouse and smaller than a garage, and the light shows through only one side.
By MARCIA B. SIEGEL | March 30, 2011

Festival Ballet's latest 'up CLOSE on HOPE'

Natural grace
Watching a ballet or modern dance from eighth row center is a pretty privileged experience, but an "up CLOSE on HOPE" performance makes that seem like peanut gallery seating. Festival Ballet Providence is presenting nine company premieres through March 27 in their intimate Black Box Theater.
By BILL RODRIGUEZ | March 24, 2011

Boston Conservatory does Graham and Limón; Doug Varone gets literary at the ICA

Heroes and civilians
One thing that distinguishes the early modern dancers from their contemporary descendants is idealism, or the lack of it.
By MARCIA B. SIEGEL | March 25, 2011

Festival Ballet's emotional, sensual Carmen

Gypsy woman
Although the gypsy girl Carmen is most familiar from the 1875 opera of that name by Georges Bizet, local audiences have also become acquainted with the Carmen performed by Festival Ballet, which was commissioned by them and first appreciated in the 2003-04 season.
By BILL RODRIGUEZ | January 25, 2011

Live! — sort of

Fela! on screen
The success of the Metropolitan Opera's "Live in HD" experiment augurs well for dance on the big screen. Simulcast at select theaters, with tickets priced higher than for a movie but much cheaper than for a live opera, these events generate a sense of anticipation.
By MARCIA B. SIEGEL | January 14, 2011

Winter Dance Preview: Toe shoes to tap shoes

Winter dance's top 10
Whether you're more likely to thrill to '80s funk, to groove on the tap-goes-flamenco experiments of hoofer Savion Glover, or to enjoy classical ballet with a side of buttered popcorn, the winter months' many offerings are guaranteed to keep your spirits up.
By DEBRA CASH | December 28, 2010

A dance critic's take on Black Swan

Bad-girl chat
WARNING: This article contains spoilers regarding the ending of Black Swan .
By MARCIA B. SIEGEL | December 14, 2010

Photos: The Slutcracker 2010

A burlesque take on The Nutcracker
The Slutcracker: A Burlesque takes its sexy Nutcracker makeover to the Somerville Theatre through December 24, 2010.
By DEREK KOUYOUMJIAN | December 16, 2010

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Portman, Aronofsky dance on the edge

Barre code
Barre code
By PETER KEOUGH | November 30, 2010

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Review: Festival Ballet celebrates Balanchine

By George
There is a long list of reasons why George Balanchine is regarded as the greatest and most influential choreographer of the 20th century.
By BILL RODRIGUEZ | November 02, 2010

Exploring the range of the body's possibilities with STREB

Take flight
Midway through last Wednesday night's performance of "Raw" by the dance company STREB, Cassandre Joseph stood frozen atop a metal scaffolding extending nearly the full height of the Merrill Auditorium stage.
By NICHOLAS SCHROEDER | November 03, 2010

Photos: Boston Ballet presents Black & White (2010)

Boston Ballet presents Jiří Kylián’s Black & White
Boston Ballet's reprise of Jiří Kylián’s Black & White
By ROSALIE O'CONNOR | May 28, 2010

Second sight

Boston Ballet reprises Jiří Kylián’s Black & White
May in Boston has always been Storybook Ballet Month, as Boston Ballet finished off its season with Swan Lake or Sleeping Beauty or Don Quixote , something classical and highbrow and reassuring. That, after all, is what Boston audiences want, right?
By JEFFREY GANTZ | May 28, 2010

Theme and variations

Boston Ballet’s ‘Ultimate Balanchine’
George Balanchine was famous for “non-story” ballets, but when you put three of his works — the usual number to fill up an evening — together, you always get some kind of narrative.
By JEFFREY GANTZ | May 13, 2010

Sparring with the Ultimate

Boston Ballet in The Four Temperaments, Apollo, and Theme and Variations
There’s never been a more brilliant exemplar of the ballet art than George Balanchine.
By MARICA B. SIEGEL | May 11, 2010

Happy returns

Boston Ballet’s Coppélia , Alvin Ailey at the Wang
George Balanchine didn’t go in for productions of the old classic ballets.
By MARCIA B. SIEGEL | April 20, 2010

Review: Dancing Across Borders

Dancing beyond conventions, also
Anne Bass’s documentary about a 16-year-old Cambodian boy whom she brought to the US to study at the School of American Ballet looks at first to be limited by its feel-good story arc, but it dances beyond that.
By JEFFREY GANTZ | April 21, 2010

Here’s looking at you

Boston Ballet sees into the heart of Coppélia
Set in the usual small village — this one in the Carpathian Mountains of Eastern Europe — Coppélia might look like just another pleasant 19th-century ballet about a boy, a girl, and another girl. But appearances can be deceiving — and that’s theme of this work, whose title character is a life-size mechanical doll.
By JEFFREY GANTZ | April 30, 2010

Reality riffs

Jerome Robbins's Opus Jazz on PBS
When Jerome Robbins's New York Export: Opus Jazz boogied onto the scene in 1958 then took Europe by storm. Created for Ballets: U.S.A., a company of ballet, modern, and jazz dancers that Robbins had put together for a government-sponsored cultural exchange tour, Opus Jazz was a kind of spinoff from the 1957 hit musical West Side Story , which Robbins directed and choreographed.
By MARCIA B. SIEGEL | March 17, 2010

High stepping

Dancing with the stars
The heavy-hitter repertory shows this season come from ALVIN AILEY and GEORGE BALANCHINE . But why not welcome spring by taking a chance on fresh experiences as well?
By DEBRA CASH | March 11, 2010