Word: ballets
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...genuinely funny ballet is as rare as, well, a genuinely funny Broadway comedy these days. Choreographing humor, in fact, requires someone with the quirky genius of Jerome Robbins, whose seldom seen 1956 comic gem, The Concert, has just been auspiciously revived by the New York City Ballet. Completely restaged and updated by Robbins, it is still a hilarious, crowd-pleasing delight, especially for anyone who has ever suffered through a Swan Lake mangled by an underrehearsed road company...
...goes, in a series of dancing blackouts that range from satire to slapstick. Thanks to the precise timing of the City Ballet soloists, the intricate sight gags work to perfection. In an otherwise delicate sextet, one or another of six girls is either out of place, out of step or out of line. A lyrically complicated double duet turns into a Lao-coon-11ke tangle...
Robbins' more recent masterpieces, The Goldberg Variations and Dances at a Gathering, the latter also set, incidentally, to Chopin piano pieces, conclusively proved that he is the best of all American-born choreographers. The revival of The Concert shows that he is ballet's daftest, deftest clown as well...
Died. Mathilda Kschessinska, 99, prima ballerina assoluta of the Russian Imperial Ballet at the turn of the century and mistress of the Czarevich before he became Nicholas 11; in Paris. Isadora Duncan described her as "more like a lovely bird or butterfly than a human being," and Nijinsky tore at his costume in a jealous rage when she upstaged him in a 1911 performance of Swan Lake. Though regarded as a national heroine in Czarist Russia, Ksches-smska's close association with the royal family-she later married Nicholas' cousin Andre and became Princess Ro-manovsky-Krassinsky-made...
...inspirer of such love-hate feelings has long gray locks, chubby pink cheeks and an apple shaped figure. A onetime sailor, onetime ballet dancer, Russell now looks, at 44, rather like an amiable monk. On a set, though, the monk turns into Rasputin, roaring, stamping his feet, cracking a riding whip on the floor. Whole scenes, including choreography, are often invented after the cameras begin turning. "Instant creation," Russell calls it, beaming...