2/13/15 O&A Shall We Dance: Lloyd Knight – A Dancer’s World

Shall We Dance

photo

One of Martha Graham’s most memorable quotes, “It takes ten years, usually, to make a dancer. It takes ten years of handling the instrument, handling the material with which you are dealing, for you to know it completely.” This year marks Lloyd Knight’s tenth year with the Martha Graham Dance Company. His ascent through the ranks of the company culminated with Knight becoming a principal dancer prior to the 2015 New York City season. Continue reading

(REPOST) 2/6/15 SHALL WE DANCE FRIDAY: Appalachian Spring- Celebrating the 90 Anniversary of the Martha Graham Dance Company

Shall We Dance Graham Letter to World 1

To celebrate the 90th Anniversary Season of the Martha Graham Dance Company April 14th, 15th, 16th and 18th at New York City Center O&A NYC Magazine reposts Martha Graham’s Appalachian Spring.

Appalachian Spring premiered on October 30th, 1944, at the Library of Congress, Coolidge Auditorium in Washington DC, with Martha Graham dancing the lead role. Created during the darkest days of War World II Graham wanted to create inspiring art that came out of the American experience.  Graham spoke of the work, “To be great art… it must belong to the country in which it flourishes, not be a pale copy of some art form perfected by another culture and another people”. Continue reading

10/11/24 O&A SHALL WE DANCE FRIDAY: The Fountain of Bakhchisarai Starring Galina Ulanova and Maya Plisetskaya

Shall We Dance Friday

pliset04

The Fountain of Bakhchisarai (Russian: Бахчисарайский фонтан) is a Russian ballet inspired by the 1823 poem by Alexander Pushkin of the same title. With music by Boris Asafyev and choreography by Rostislav Zakharov, the ballet premiered in Saint Petersburg, (then Leningrad) in 1934 at the Kirov Academic Theatre of Opera and Ballet (now the Mariinsky Theatre). Continue reading

1/2/15 O&A Shall We Dance Friday: Storyboard P- An Urban Storyteller

Shall We Dance illabilities_01-590x393

Storyboard P has pushed street dancing in a darker, more mature direction of urban storytelling he calls Mutant. The twenty-three year old Brooklyn dancer  combines jarring feats of contortion, pantomime, floating footwork and simulated levitation. His choreography, most of it improvised, has a wide range of influences: Jerome Robbins, especially his work in West Side Story; the Nicholas Brothers, whose acrobatic tap-dancing routines amazed Fred Astaire in the nineteen-forties; and, above all, Michael Jackson.  Continue reading

12/19/14 O&A Shall We Dance Friday: Just Dance 2015 Bollywood Santa – XMas Tree

Shall We Dancemaxresdefault-1

Just Dance 2015 Bollywood Santa – Xmas Tree: The dance appears to take place on a frozen lake with snow covering the area around it. It also takes place during the night and elephants and elves appear. A huge snowy Christmas Tree also remains in the background throughout the routine. Continue reading

12/12/14/ O&A Shall We Dance Friday: Radio City Rockettes

Shall We Dance

The Rockettes in the "Parade of the Wooden Soldiers" in the Radi

The Radio City Christmas Spectacular is an annual musical holiday stage show presented at Radio City Music Hall in New York City. The show features over 140 performers, lavish sets and costumes and an original musical score. Since the first version was presented in 1933, the show has become a New York Christmas tradition seen by more than a million visitors a year. The 2014 show is scheduled to run from November 7 to December 31, 2014. Continue reading

12/4/14 O&A Shall We Dance: Mikhail Baryshnikov and Gelsey Kirkland- Nutcracker Grand Pas de Deux

Shall We Dance

nutcracker-baryshnikov

During the Christmas season of 1977, CBS brought his highly acclaimed American Ballet Theatre production of Tchaikovsky’s classic ballet The Nutcracker to television. The production has remained to this day the most popular and most often shown television production of the work in the U.S.  Mikhail Baryshnikov performed the title role, with Gelsey Kirkland as Clara.
Continue reading

11/14/14 O&A Shall We Dance Friday: Anthony Dowell and Natalia Makarova

Shall We Dance

f84a3c71e495c13b0df519de7c6d65fb

These two great artists perform excerpts from three works; Kenneth MacMillan’s Manon, Sir Frederick Ashton’s  A Month In The Country and Act 3 Swan Lake Continue reading

10/31/14 Shall We Dance Friday Halloween: Pas de deux From Roland Petite’s NotreDame de Paris featuring Sylvie Guillem and Cyril Atanassoff (1988)

Shall We Dance

maxresdefault-1

Cyril Atanassoff created the role of Frollo in Roland Petit’s ballet Notre-Dame de Paris, but he soon made Quasimodo his own. Here, towards the end of his career, he dances with the 23-year-old Sylvie Guillem at the beginning of hers. Continue reading

10/24/14 O&A Shall We Dance: Misty Copeland at the 2014 Youth America Grand Prix Gala

Shall We Dance

misty-copeland-awesome-human

 American Ballet Theater Soloist Misty Copeland dazzles on stage at New York City’s Edward Koch Theater performing a contemporary ballet choreography by Derek Hough of ABC’s Dancing With The Stars. Misty Copeland is the first African-American soloist to perform with the prestigious American Ballet Theater in over 20 years. In recent years Copeland has become one of the few ballerina’s to achieve celebrity status, particularly after performing at the Madison Garden with singer Prince. Her fascinating life and rise to fame is chronicled in her new auto-biography Life In Motion: An Unlikely Ballerina. Continue reading