The New Criterion
America’s leading review of the arts and intellectual life
- Harry Mount, the London Telegraph
DanceSeptember 2008 Ratmansky by Laura Jacobs On Alexei Ratmansky, Rabbit and Rogue at American Ballet Theatre, and Jupiter Symphony at Pennsylvania Ballet. When Alexei Ratmansky’s Bright Stream was presented during the Bolshoi Ballet’s 2005 engagement at the Met, it was New York’s first good look at his work. A full-length ballet set on a Soviet collective farm (“tractor ballet,” this genre was called), Bright Stream possessed a first act of charming manners and a toylike scale, which was ingratiating. The ballet lost its way in Act Two, devolving into a barnyard farce, a cross-dressed switcheroo so lumbering and unfunny it trampled the charm. And it wasn’t just that. In this act as well, one saw that Ratmansky had trouble focusing his more classical pas, having a penchant for dualities that split the stage, frustrating the eye—for instance, two duets danced simultaneously. And yet, Bright Stream received raves, as if it had answered something quite a few critics were hungry for. What that was, though, I couldn’t say at the time. This article is available to subscribers and for individual purchaseSubscribe to TNC (Print and Online editions) Subscribe to TNC (Online only) This article originally appeared in The New Criterion, Volume 27 September 2008, on page 32 Copyright © 2010 The New Criterion | www.newcriterion.com http://www.newcriterion.com/articles.cfm/Ratmansky-3889
rate this article for your user profile
E-mail to friend
|
by Laura Jacobs On the American Ballet Theater, the New York City Ballet & Veronika Part. by Laura Jacobs On American Ballet Theatre's Sleeping Beauty at the Metropolitan Opera House, New York.  The New Criterion is now optimized for Mobile Devices 
Webcasts
Elucidations & Corrections: Arts Criticism
Swallow Anthology Reading at The Grolier
New Criterion-Social Affairs Unit Conference: Part 4 |
add a comment
you must have an account to post a comment. {register now}