American - Writer | April 29, 1931 -
It's always fascinating - and sometimes a little disquieting - when two first-rate critics violently disagree.
Robert Gottlieb
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How can educated and sophisticated viewers react so differently to a work of art? Is it just Kulture Klash? No, since most of the time there's no Klash at all. On the occasions when we disagree, it may be because we're looking for different things in dance.
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'The Sleeping Beauty' is the greatest, most challenging and most vulnerable of classical ballets. Everything can go wrong with it, and all too often, everything does.
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'Empty Moves' is elegantly and coolly inventive. Two pairs of dancers shadow each other in slow, deliberate rearrangements and manipulations of legs and torsos, only occasionally switching partners or breaking free of the formal patterning.
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Yes, bad or mediocre ballets can be useful to the dancers and temporarily fun for the audience, but in the long run, the lowering of standards can only erode the art form we all love.
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'A Midsummer Night's Dream' is one of George Balanchine's greatest creations - and one of the greatest of all story ballets.
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The mystery of Christopher Wheeldon deepens. Yes, he's the most talented of the younger ballet choreographers - indeed, where's the competition? Yes, he's particularly good at nurturing dancers and identifying their essential qualities.
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In traditional 'Swan Lakes,' it's Prince Siegfried's 21st-birthday celebration, his coming-of-age. The entire court, from his mother the Queen on down, is on hand.
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A lot of people have a lot of faith in Karole Armitage. They see her as bold, inventive, indefatigable. 'America isn't working out? There's always Europe. Ballet? No? Go modern. Keep going! Show 'em!'
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Classics are constantly being re-imagined and transformed, and the originals are none the worse for it; they endure.
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The best thing you can say about Hubbard Street is that if you were a dancer, this is a company you'd fight to get into.
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We know how Merce Cunningham works and how he thinks - we've been told, over and over again, by him and by others.
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