Category Archives: Dance

Atlanta Ballet: Don Quixote

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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

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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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RAIIN Dance Theater: in Human

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I caught a sort of working preview of some of Raianna Brown’s choreography in RAIIN Dance Theater’s “in Human” at group performance concert put together by Nadya Zeitlin at the Midtown Players Club last May and I thought that it was pretty good. Because it was a small excerpt with only a few dancers without any kind of lighting or set pieces, I wasn’t quite expecting the remarkably large production that they put on last night. Remarkably large and really quite good – exceptionally good if you consider that these were mostly semi-professionals and students, the largest proportion of whom are studying things like engineering or psychology and are not dance majors.
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Ailey II

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I didn’t really know what to expect of the performance last night by Ailey II at the Rialto Center. I knew that Spelman professor and local choreographer Juel D. Lane had a piece in the show, but I otherwise didn’t know who else was programmed. It’s a junior company for developing dancers, so I didn’t expect the level of performance that I’ve seen come from the Alvin Ailey American Dance Company, but I was pretty sure that it would be an enjoyable show. I had some complaints, but I wasn’t disappointed at all.
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Terminus Modern Ballet Theatre: Extasis

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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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The Modern Atlanta Dance Festival

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According to the “About” section of the MAD Festival’s Facebook page, “The annual Modern Atlanta Dance Festival (MAD) presents the best of Atlanta’s modern/contemporary dance.” This year’s lineup, however, was bookended by a couple of choreographers from outside of the Metro area, Melissa Pihos and Sarah Wildes Arnette, both of whom are assistant professors of dance at Valdosta State University. If, perhaps, this goes against the mission statement of the festival, I think that there is enough value to creating the opportunity for Atlanta audiences to see artists from elsewhere in Georgia to justify the geographic expansion. I don’t think that it betrays the sense of the festival’s localness to look outside of the economic domain of the State’s largest metropolitan area, so long as it doesn’t stray too much beyond the boundaries of the State. That said, I’d love to see a separate Southeastern regional dance festival in Atlanta, though I wonder if there’s really a big enough audience for it or, for that matter, a good funding source.
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Atlanta Ballet: Firebird

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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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