I saw the Celebrations performance of LA Ballet yesterday with a few dance friends. We've all been attending performances to support this company since its inception. This program consisted of two Balanchines (Raymonda Variations and Western Symphony) and a new piece created by Sonia Tayeh, who most people know from So You Think You Can Dance.
Sonia's Piece was beautiful and very moving, called The Greatest Fear, choreographed to Arvo Part's music. The lighting was very dramatic, adding to the drama on stage. The dancers were all wonderful, fully committed and completely involved in the piece.
You couldn't say the same for the two Balanchines. Raymonda Variations is wickedly difficult and the dancers were not up to the task, but even in the easier passages in both ballets, they seemed to be going through the motions, without any of the emotional connection that I thought they had with the Tayeh piece. Aside from Melissa Barak, very few of the dancers were familiar to me from previous seasons. It's a shame that the company appears to lose their best dancers to companies with longer seasons.
I'm looking forward to their next performance of Giselle. I'd like to see what they do with a non-Balanchine story ballet.
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