The ballet world will converge on San Francisco this month for San Francisco Ballet’s Unbound: A Festival of New Works, a 17-day event featuring 12 world premieres, a symposium, original dance films and pop-up events. “Ballet is going through changes,” says artistic director Helgi Tomasson. “I thought, What would it be like to bring all […]

In a surprising move last February, Les Ballets Jazz de Montréal announced it had struck a deal giving it worldwide exclusive dance and circus rights to legendary singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen’s repertoire for five years. The particularity of the terms and Cohen’s godlike status in his hometown of Montreal indicated this was not business as usual […]

While directing and choreographing the Paper Mill Playhouse production of the musical Bandstand, Andy Blankenbuehler found himself tied into knots. After the wild success of the juggernaut Broadway musical Hamilton, for which he would win the 2016 Tony Award for Best Choreography, he began comparing his unsatisfactory rehearsal rut to what he called “the best […]

Happy Halloween! If you’re still not in the spirit, who better to turn to for some spooky style inspiration than your fellow dancers? These pros’ costumes caught our eye (and made us laugh). 1. Recreating a Legend James Whiteside on Instagram: “Legendary Russian ballerina, Anna Pavlova, took to the stage today, for @abtofficial’s annual Halloween […]

Lately, when Daniil Simkin hasn’t been performing with American Ballet Theatre or flying off to dance in international galas, he’s been putting together his own project: INTENSIO. “I miss European contemporary dance,” explains Simkin, who grew up in Germany. “This is an outlet for me and my colleagues to experience that and approach the ever-looming […]

  Ballet Hispanico in Annabelle Lopez Ochoa’s Sombrerisimo. Photo by Paula Lobo, Courtesy Ballet Hispanico.   Anchored in the old, hungry for the new, contemporary ballet is a style that remains ambiguous. It allows the body to careen off balance and the stage relationships to shift. It’s less bent on creating masterworks, and more curious […]

What’s behind the recent comeback of narrative ballets?   The Royal Ballet’s Jonathan Howells and Sarah Lamb in Wheeldon’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Photo by Johan Persson, Courtesy Royal Opera House Everyone loves a good story. They drive our imaginations, teach us life lessons and entertain us. They also warn us not to hold grudges […]

Last May Sarah Kaufman wrote a tirade in The Washington Post entitled, “Make Room Onstage for More Than One Genius.” In it she claimed that “we are cursed with an overload” of Balanchine’s works. She pined for more “human” ballets, like those of Lew Christensen, Eugene Loring, and Catherine Littlefield in the 1930s, and called […]