Ivy Lin's love of ballet began in high school when at the school dance she quickly realized she had two left feet. One always admires things one cannot do, and so Ivy began to attend dance performances to marvel at the grace and beauty of bodies in motion. Ivy's day job is a biology teacher and after a long day in the classroom she loves to unwind by watching dance. She also enjoys theater, opera, pop and classical music. Ivy has her own blog (www.humbledandoverwhelmed,blogspot.com)
Alexei Ratmansky's Ancient Greek take on Bolshoi-style dram-ballets gets its New York premiere as part of American Ballet Theatre's summer season at the Met.
A Greek-themed triple bill is presented with mixed success, although Agon still stands up well, with Unity Phelan making her debut in the central pas de deux.
The NYCB dancers are very at-home in this idiom, and they threw themselves wholeheartedly into this ballet. It was never less than watchable, but the music cried out for more avante-garde choreography than Peck provided.
The feeling at the end of the evening was one of triumph, with the future of the Martha Graham Dance Company looking as optimistic as the frontier couple in Appalachian Spring.
It’s only her third performance of role, and her New York debut, but it was so polished that Brandt immediately jumped to our writer's personal short-list of great Giselles.
NYCB has always had a mission to present new works and Saturday's program included Amaria, a creation by Mauro Bigonzetti for retiring ballerina Maria Kowroski.