Ballet

Review: ‘Juliet and Romeo’ by the Royal Swedish Ballet

The Swedes take on an old classic and make it relevant. Mats Ek’s Juliet and Romeo for the Royal Swedish Ballet, at The Kennedy Center for only four more shows, is a bold retelling of Shakespeare’s...

Reviews: The Washington Ballet’s ‘Carmina Burana’ and ‘Bowie/Queen’

Going Out With a Bang: The Washington Ballet’s Carmina Burana and Bowie/Queen The standing ovation came before a single dancer took the stage. It lasted about two minutes to honor the final time The...

George Mason University’s College of Visual and Performing Arts Awards the ‘2016 Mason Arts Award’ to Septime Webre

George Mason University’s College of Visual and Performing Arts awards the 2016 Mason Arts Award to Septime Webre, artistic director of the Washington National Ballet. The Mason Arts Award is awarded...

Review: ‘Cocktail Hour: The Show’ at Bucks County Playhouse in New Hope, PA

Traditional ballet gets the “shaken, not stirred” treatment in Cocktail Hour: The Show, a unique piece produced and performed by New York company Ballets with a Twist, and presented by Bucks County...

Howard University’s Spring Dance Concert ‘DRIFT’ on April 8 & 9

We close our season through movement with DRIFT~ Spring Dance Concert! This production will surely take you on a journey through time, generations, emotions and movement. Dance Coordinators Royce...

Review: ‘Hamlet’ at The Washington Ballet

Hamlet, a modern, dramatic contemporary ballet based on William Shakespeare’s original, The Tragedie of Hamlet, published in 1603 premieres in The Kennedy Center. An “ongoing dialogue between...

Review: ‘Becoming Sugar Plum’ at Metropolitan Ballet Theatre & Academy

What a wonderful way to spend an early Sunday afternoon with Dancing Meringues, Petit Fours, Gumdrops and some bot-so-nice goblins, twirling fairies, a prince, a Fairy Queen, poison Thistle Berry...

Performances Today at Noon & 4 PM for ‘Becoming Sugar Plum’ at Metropolitan Ballet Theatre at Montgomery College

I am so proud and grateful for my students. They are such hardworking, dedicated, and talented individuals. I have witnessed some of my youngest dancers execute movements with such elegance and...

Review: ‘New York City Ballet Program A’ at The Kennedy Center

The Yankees of ballet are in top-notch form after a successful winter season in Manhattan. Someone recently asked me why I favored the New York City Ballet above all other American ballet companies. I...

Review: ‘Director’s Cut’ at The Washington Ballet at The Kennedy Center

Ballet Elevated Earlier this month, the dance world rumbled a bit upon learning of the resignation of The Washington Ballet’s high-energy, effervescent Artistic Director Septime Webre. Since his...

Review: The Mariinsky Ballet’s ‘Raymonda’ at The Kennedy Center

Marius Petipa’s, Raymonda, still continues in ballet for the 118th year since its world premiere on January 7th, 1898. This week, the romantic ballet, set in three acts, is brought to the Opera House...

Review: ‘Sleeping Beauty’ at Ballet Theatre of Maryland

So you think ballet is boring. Or maybe you’re a ballet fan but would rather see something “new” and “innovative” instead of one of the old classic standards. Perhaps you just feel like the story of...

Review: ‘The 33rd Annual Choreographers’ Showcase’ at The Clarice

The 33rd Annual Choreographers’ Showcase presented by The Clarice and The Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission (M-NCPPC) and adjudicated by notable choreographers and teachers Zvi...

Review: American Ballet Theatre’s ‘The Sleeping Beauty’ at The Kennedy Center

Alexei Ratmansky’s newest staging of the great classical ballet The Sleeping Beauty feels like that moment in the classic MGM film The Wizard of Oz when the scene goes from black and white to...

Review: ‘The Winter’s Tale’ at The Kennedy Center

The Winter’s Tale: Warm Production for a Cold Winter’s Night Choreographer Christopher Wheeldon has taken a challenging late Shakespearean play – The Winter’s Tale from 1623 – and revitalized it into...

DCMetroTheaterArts’ Best of 2015 #19: ‘A Look Back at Dance in 2015’ by Lisa Traiger

For reasons that continue to surprise me, 2015 was a relatively light dance-going year for me. That said, I managed to take in nearly a top ten of memorable, exceptional or challenging performances...

Moscow Ballet’s ‘Great Russian Nutcracker’ at Strathmore

The anticipation before the start of a show is always palpable to friends, family, and performers alike. I sat in the Music Center at the Strathmore, waiting for Moscow Ballet’s Great Russian...

‘The Nutcracker’ at Metropolitan Ballet Theatre

As a fan of dance and ballet, I have seen a number of professional productions of The Nutcracker over the years, but this particular performance by the Metropolitan Ballet Theatre is going to stick...

‘The Nutcracker’ at Ballet Theatre of Maryland at Maryland Hall for the Creative Arts

A sure sign the holiday season is in full swing is the annual return of classic ballet, Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker. It is almost as iconic as Santa Claus, a Christmas tree and catching the final...

‘The Nutcracker’ at The Washington Ballet at The Warner Theatre

Resplendent visions of sugarplums danced both on the Warner Theatre stage and in the heads of hundreds of hardy multi-generational audience members Friday evening when the Washington Ballet...

Spine: JOY and Twyla Tharp’s 50th Anniversary Tour

Twyla Tharp’s 50th Anniversary Tour came to the Kennedy Center’s Eisenhower Theatre last night. Four pieces: two short “Fanfares,” a Preludes and Fugues, and a Yowzie. And the stage was aflutter with...

The Suzanne Farrell Ballet: ‘Balanchine, Béjart, and the Bard’ at The Kennedy Center

Suzanne Farrell – still fairest of them all From the early 1960s until the late 1980s (except for a five-year escape to Belgium), Suzanne Farrell reigned as George Balanchine’s muse at the New York...

Bowen McCauley Dance 20th Anniversary Celebration at Dance Place

Bowen McCauley Dance is currently celebrating its 20th anniversary season with a four-piece retrospective. All choreographed by Lucy Bowen McCauley, the opening number takes the audience back to the...

‘Latin Heat’ at The Washington Ballet

Latin Heat does what the Washington Ballet does best: spotlight its dancers’ strengths and individual personalities. However, Latin Heat also illumines the WSB unhinged and unrestrained. Never before...

In the Moment: BalletNova Center for Dance Presents A Global Dance Showcase on Saturday, 10/17/15@7:30 PM

BalletNova Center for Dance will present a Global Dance Showcase, featuring ethnic dance companies from around the DC metro region. The performances will be held in the Fredgren Studio Theatre – a...

Ardani Artists Presents: Eifman Ballet of St. Petersburg: ‘Rodin’ at The Kennedy Center

Boris Eifman is a choreographer critics love to hate and audiences simply love. In fact, in his 2011 opus, Rodin, detailing the loves of the great French sculptor who chiseled the art form into the...

‘Tour-de-Force: Serenade’ at The Washington Ballet at The Kennedy Center

The dancers, dusted in long, white tulle, reflect—shells on a dark beach. It is an opening, a closing, a commencement, an ending. Arms raise. Hands flex. Heads turn, diagonally, toward a common...

‘Cinderella’ (‘La Cenerentola’) at Washington National Opera #1 (Isabel Leonard)

Every spring, the Washington National Opera launches a family friendly show in time for their M&M’S® Opera in the Outfield, and this year they tackle Rossini’s wickedly funny Cinderella. I love what...

ALICE (in wonderland) at The Washington Ballet at The Kennedy Center

The Washington Ballet‘s performance of ALICE (in wonderland) is delightful for someone like me who is not a connosseur of ballet. Here, sets and costumes change frequently, the performances are...

Ballet Theatre of Maryland Ends 2015 Season with ‘Innovations’

Ballet Theatre of Maryland closed its most successful season to date with three performances of Innovations – a program of classical and contemporary dance – on April 17-19, 2015 weekend at its...

‘We Wait in the Darkness by Rosy Simas Danse at Dance Place

As a long-time dance observer, I like to say the language of dance is universal and that in performance specificity on stage can imbue a work with universality. Saturday evening at Dance Place in...

The Washington Ballet’s ‘Swan Lake’ at The Kennedy Center

Under a moonlit, cloudy sky, a young, overwhelmed Prince Siegfried seeks refuge in the forest following an evening of birthday revelry. A weighty anticipation gives a lag to his steps, for tomorrow he...

The Washington Ballet’s ‘Swan Lake’ at The Kennedy Center

Swooning over the first ‘Swan’ Step aside, Baryshnikov. There’s a new kid on the block and he’s taking the dance world by storm. The Washington Ballet’s Brooklyn Mack took his royal place last night...

New York City Ballet: Program B: 21st-Century Choreographers’ at The Kennedy Center

Principal dancer Teresa Reichlen unwraps her leg into a développé, a blade curling a bow, then—suspends—playfully, before hiding it away. Her partner, principal Zachary Catazaro, approaches with a...

‘Cinderella’ at The Russian National Ballet Theatre at Hylton Performing Arts Center

I attended the Russian National Ballet Theatre’s enchanting Cinderella on Friday night at the Hylton Performing Arts Center. Cinderella moves to George Mason University’s Center for the Arts on April...

‘Cinderella’ at Ballet Theatre of Maryland at the Modell Performing Arts Center at the Lyric

Entering the closing phase of this season, Maryland’s premier ballet company –Ballet Theatre of Maryland (‘BTM’)- returned to the scene of last season’s major artistic triumph in Swan Lake for a...

‘An American Southwest Carmen’ at Ballet Theatre of Maryland

To close its 2014-2015 season on March 14, 2015 at Bowie Center for the Performing Arts, Ballet Theatre of Maryland chose An American Southwest Carmen – a work originally choreographed by BTM Artistic...