Atlanta Ballet: Tu Tu & More

Posted on April 14, 2018 by Robbie

I generally enjoyed Atlanta Ballet’s program last night. Up first was Tu Tu by Stanton Welch, set to Ravel’s piano concerto. Costuming was pretty fun, with everyone in shiny, Klimt-esque attire. The women were in pancake tutus with bare legs and the men were just in shorts. The set was fairly simple, making use of a white backdrop lit with a color gradient with black panels in front of it. Each movement had a different configuration: for the first movement, only a center panel of the colored white backdrop was visible, the second was all black, with the dancers lit mostly from above, and the third was an inverse of the first movement, with a black panel in the middle and a blue gradient stretching to the wings on either side.
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Dance Canvas: 10th Anniversary Performance Series

Posted on March 24, 2018 by Robbie

One of the reasons that I like going to Dance Canvas’ annual performance series, Introducing the Next Generation, is because it always features a good diversity of dance forms and aesthetic styles from an equally diverse group of emerging choreographers. This year’s production marked their 10th anniversary, so they celebrated by bringing back 10 choreographers from their previous shows.
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Atlanta Ballet: Black Swan

Posted on March 17, 2018 by Robbie

At the end of the last piece of last night’s performance of Atlanta Ballet’s Black Swan program, a violinist sitting next to me asked me if that was it. She also asked if I noticed how off the dancers were. I said yes to both questions; it was a disappointing show. It felt rather short and it just wasn’t very well done. It didn’t help that of the two pieces, the first was an excerpt that ended in a cliffhanger and the second didn’t really have a very strong ending.
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Atlanta Ballet: Don Quixote

Posted on February 4, 2018 by Robbie

I mentioned to a friend at work on Wednesday or Thursday how I wasn’t feeling excited about going to the ballet this weekend. It was purely my mood at the time, though, and had more to do with my general lack of interest in anything at all and nothing to do with my expectations. I wasn’t really able to shake that feeling by the time Saturday rolled around and I was worried because Atlanta Ballet tends to program their February show to be more accessible to a non-dance audience. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but it does generally mean that it will be an evening-length narrative ballet with nothing particularly avant or challenging for the audience. That, of course, means that if I wasn’t able to feel drawn into the work then I’d not be able to fall back on my general interest in the art as an art. Fortunately, just as children often have misgivings about taking a bath and then won’t get out of the tub until the water is cold and their skin has wrinkled, I found myself happily drawn into the show once “Don Quixote” began.
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State Ballet Theatre of Russia: Sleeping Beauty

Posted on January 7, 2018 by Robbie

When I bought my ticket for the State Ballet Theatre of Russia’s production of Petipa’s “Sleeping Beauty” at the Fox, I was kind of taking a gamble. I like Petipa, but only when I’m in the right mood. His work generally ranges from pretty to gorgeous, but the way that he just tosses solos around in a work can turn me off sometimes: I’m just much more taken with ensemble work than solo virtuosity. Also, the touring company performs to canned music and, though I love Tchaikovsky and think his ballet is excellent, the sound system at the Fox can irritate me at times. The gamble paid off, thankfully, because I needed a good dose of beauty and this was just the ticket.
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Terminus Modern Ballet Theatre: Extasis

Posted on October 14, 2017 by Robbie

Every time that I see the TMBT abbreviation on Terminus Modern Ballet Theatre’s logos, I can’t help but read it as standing for “Teenage Mutant Ballet Turtles.” This weekend, Atlanta’s newest ballet company came out of their shells for the first time to present “Extasis,” choreographed by company cofounder Tara Lee. It was a strong debut for the company, with a polished staging and general presentation that really showed the benefits of their good fortune to fall in with Westside Cultural Arts Center and Serenbe. Their support, along with the company members’ existing connections established through their time with Atlanta Ballet, allowed the Ballet Turtles to hit the ground running in their first season.
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Atlanta Ballet: Firebird

Posted on April 15, 2017 by Robbie

The evening began with a rather mediocre performance of Balanchine’s “Allegro Brillante.” The staging itself, I think, also detracted from the piece: I think that it would have looked better on a smaller stage or, perhaps, keeping the dancers closer to center. As it was, the stage often seemed to swallow the pastel and light-gray dancers. Had it been perfectly staged and performed, though, I’d still have found it dull. Like most people who enjoy ballet, I like a lot of Balanchine’s work but I also dislike a lot of Balanchine’s work. I suspect that there isn’t a perfect overlap between what interests a dancer about his work and what interests the audience and, with a large repertoire developed in near total absence of local competition, the disjunction between the two points of view leaves a lot of opportunity for audience disappointment.
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Category Archives: Ballet