Tonya Plank's Blog, page 45

BARYSHNIKOV RETURNS TO THE STAGE

Here's an interesting preview by Joel Lobenthal of Baryshnikov's return to the stage, which happened at BAC this Wednesday. He danced three solos, along with two other men — Steve Paxton and David Neumann. Program was called, aptly, "Unrelated Solos." I went last night, and particularly loved the last piece for Baryshnikov, a work in progress by Susan Marshall, which, to me was a meditation on how dance is meant for an audience, a performer must have a viewer or s/he is not a performer. It...

DAVID HALLBERG AWARDED BENOIS DE LA DANSE PRIZE

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For his portrayal of Albrecht in Giselle. Read more about it here.

Above photo from NY Times, of Hallberg as Albrecht opposite Natalia Osipova's Giselle.

GET WELL SOON, ROBERTO!

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There's been a casting change for ABT's La Bayadere tomorrow (Saturday) night. Roberto Bolle (above, with Julie Kent) is injured and is being replaced by Cory Stearns (below). This will be Cory's debut as Solor. Veronika Part is still dancing Nikiya. I hope the injury's nothing serious; speedy recovery Mr. Bolle!

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All images from ABT's website.

COMMENTS

As everyone who may have tried to post a comment in the past couple of days has probably noticed, something is awry. You can write a comment but then there's no button to click "post" or "publish" or whatever. I wrote to Disqus and they said they've recently upgraded their system and my Wordpress plug-in was too old to automatically upgrade. Which means I have to uninstall the old one and reinstall the new edition. Since I'm really busy right now, not to mention technologically inept, this...

AHA, IRINA'S DRESS!

That I was talking about in my ABT gala post. Photo from here. Thank you to Fleegull, my Twitter friend, for the link!

WAYNE MCGREGOR'S OUTLIER

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Some photos of the new ballet, which premiered last Friday at NYCB, by Paul Kolnik. Top is of Wendy Whelan and Craig Hall, bottom is of cast with Gonzalo Garcia and Sterling Hyltin front and center.

I liked Outlier if mainly because it provided something different for New York audiences, and the dancers seemed to love dancing it, perhaps to be challenged by a different movement vocabulary. Music was to Thomas Ades and was generally sharp and made for an unsettling vibe, which the movement...

ABT OPENING NIGHT GALA MET SEASON 2010

Photo from inside the gala tent last night at American Ballet Theater's opening night gala taken from NY Social Diary, who, sadly, don't seem to have any pics up of Irina Dvorovenko in her beautiful red gown. It was one of the most beautiful dresses I've ever seen — long and many-layered but each layer seemed to be made of a light, sheer piece of fabric, so the whole thing looked light and diaphanous, though it wasn't really see-through, just looked that way. Anyway, if anyone finds a...

PURO DESEO, PNB AT THE GUGGENHEIM, BALANCHINE LEOTARDS AND ROBBINS & ASTAIRE

Photo of Luciana Achugar's Puro Deseo, from NYTimes, taken by Chad Batka.

You guys, I am really sorry but there are several things I've seen lately that I don't have time to write about. So, I'm linking to other writers' reviews. The first is Luciana Achugar's exploration of the occult, Puro Deseo, which premiered recently at the Kitchen. I generally agree with NYTimes' Gia Kourlas that Achugar needs to go a bit deeper with this piece, but this is a strong start, and parts of the performance I...

PHOTOS OF DEMA DANCE COMPANY'S FIRST SEASON

Here are some photos, all by Kim Max, of DeMa Dance Company's recent debut season, at the Alvin Ailey Citigroup Theater. There were six dances — three choreographed by the company's founding sisters — Despina and Matina Simegiatos, and three by visiting choreographers TOKYO + TOKYO the company, Yesid Lopez, and of course So You Think You Can Dance's Sonya Tayeh. My favorite piece was Zaloggos, by the Simegiatos sisters, which depicted the true story of a group of Greek women, who, during the ...

SWALLOW WINS AN IPPY GOLD MEDAL!

My book won a gold medal for Best Regional Fiction, U.S. North-East in the 2010 IPPY awards! Here is a list of the other winners. And here is a list of the winners of the outstanding books of the year. So happy [image error]