Word: baryshnikov
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Kirov, the revered Soviet classical company that nurtured George Balanchine, Rudolf Nureyev, Mikhail Baryshnikov and Natalia Makarova, came stocked with an impressive repertory. It has been 25 years since it played New York City, and in that time Manhattan has become entrenched as the dance capital of the world. Local fans are well informed and tough. Balanchine, who died in 1983, is still very much the presiding genius, and the purity and speed of his choreography set the pace. In addition to the perennial Giselle and some short pieces, Kirov artistic director Oleg Vinogradov brought his new production...
...good are the Kirov dancers? There is little question that Americans are technically superior -- faster, stronger, more rigorously trained. Some credit must go to Russian immigrants. Balanchine revolutionized ballet by demanding that a performer move swiftly through positions rather than prepare for them and then hold the pose. Baryshnikov, as artistic director of the American Ballet Theater, adapted Balanchine's methods to the old story ballets...
...arrival of Leningrad's classical troupe, cradle of Balanchine and Baryshnikov, poses a question: Why is Soviet style so different from American...
...plays have been comedies, three of them sex farces, and the cheapest of four new musicals cost $5 million to stage, it is heartening to see work as simple, spare and serious as Metamorphosis. One just wishes it were better. Despite an effective stage- acting debut by dancer Mikhail Baryshnikov, the most ballyhooed highbrow event in the theater so far this year is all but bereft of emotional force. At the finale, two actresses stand rigid, their cheeks glazed with tears, yet much of the audience reacts only with uneasy titters. Director Steven Berkoff's highly stylized script and direction...
...right to say the performances are bad. Presumably at Berkoff's behest, they are as exaggerated as in a Victorian melodrama, the emotional colors underlined by music as tinkly or percussive as in Beijing opera. In a further attempt to weight the scales in favor of the sensitive outcast, Baryshnikov's speeches are candidly written and delivered with touching directness. Most remarkable, however, are his agility and grace in evoking the lumbering, graceless creature. Skittering across the floor, or toppled over backward and trying to right himself, or dangling from the spider web of piping that represents a ceiling, Baryshnikov...