Eye On the Arts

 NYC BALLET OPENING NIGHT BY CELIA IPIOTIS                                     Serenade by George Balanchine for NYC Ballet. Photo by Erin Baiano. #Dance, #NYC Ballet, # Serenade, #America's Got Talent NYC BALLET: Serenade, After the Rain, Symphony in C September 23, 2021 Deafening applause washed over the exquisitely iconic opening image of George Balanchine's  Serenade . Ballerinas in soft blue tulle dresses stand poised in parallel position, one arm raised, as if saluting the grateful audience. In truth, the performance receded in contrast to the audience's pent-up enthusiasm. Built on poignancy and life's etherealness,  Serenade  generated the kind of  insistent applause associated with wildly voluble TV shows like "America's Got Talent."  For more

                                               George Balanchine teaching a ballet class in 1964 IN BALANCHINE'S CLASSROOM : Review by Celia Ipiotis IN BALANCHINE'S CLASSROOM: Film September 17, 2021 In Balanchine's Classroom  filmmaker Connie Hochman condenses 100 interviews with current and former NYC Ballet dancers into a portrait of the man they--and so many others--idolized as well as the mystery and science of passing dance from body to another. Inspired by the Americans' outgoing and inquisitive manner, Balanchine took a fresh approach to traditional ballet. Cutting between seated interviews, in-person coaching and crucial archival material, the film gazes at the man many consider responsible for redefining European ballet into American terms. Unique in the world, the Balanchine dancer shared European and Russian centuries-old ballet traditions streamlined through American rhythms and optimism. In 1933, when Balanchine arrived in America, Europe was on the verge

  PASS OVER at the August Wilson Theater by Celia Ipiotis                                     Photo by Joan Marcus: Jon Michael Hill, Gabriel Ebert, Namir Smallwood September 9, 2021 On a warm fall evening in NYC, the line to the August Wilson Theater moved with great dispatch. Masked audience members produced vaccination cards and ID before entering the theater, perhaps for the first time in 17 months. Excited theater-goers photographed playbills next to their faces and scanned the theater before applauding the opening seconds of Antoinette Chinonye Nwandu's jolting  Pass Over  viscerally directed by Danya Taymor and starring Jon Michael Hill (Moses), Namir Smallwood (Kitch), and Gabriel Ebert (Master/Ossifer). Under the harsh light of a single streetlamp, Moses and Kitch joust and macho strut actively slinging the N-word at each other. Wearing homeless attire--dirty sweats and baggy jeans (by Sarafina Bush) -- the two men champion existential hopes for the future infused by embod