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Dance

The Floordlords celebrate 30 years

Hip-hop heaven
B-boys — b-girls had scant presence on this program — have gone commercial, but today's freestyle breaking technique builds on moves cut three decades ago (although a grainy Floordlords video indicates that the current generation has discarded stirrup pants for profanity-laced t-shirts).

By: DEBRA CASH | June 28, 2011

West Side Story does it all

A classic refinished
The touring production now at the Colonial Theater (through July 9) suits a modern audience without extinguishing the show's greatest assets.

By: MARCIA B. SIEGEL | June 24, 2011

Dawn Kramer's 'Body of Water'

Haiku in motion
Dawn Kramer's dance-and-video concert, "Body of Water," last weekend at Mass College of Art, ended with haiku projected on the walls of the performance space. It was almost too much.

By: MARCIA B. SIEGEL | June 09, 2011

Tudor, Millepied, Ratmansky, and Wheeldon at ABT

Expanding the envelope
NEW YORK — American Ballet Theatre devoted only four performances of its two-month spring season at the Metropolitan Opera House to a mixed bill of short ballets.

By: MARCIA B. SIEGEL | June 06, 2011

end of era with retirement of Boston Ballet dancer Larissa Ponomarenko

Larissa Ponomarenko bows out

End of an era
The bad news — really bad news — this past week is that principal dancer Larissa Ponomarenko is retiring after 18 years with Boston Ballet. (She will, however, be staying on as a ballet master.)

By: JEFFREY GANTZ | May 26, 2011

next generation of Boston ballet dancers

The BIBC, 'Next Generation,' and more of Boston Ballet's 'Balanchine/Robbins'

Ballet notebook
It's been a busy week and a half. The first ever Boston International Ballet Competition took place May 12-16 at John Hancock Hall, climaxing with a gala awards ceremony and performance last Monday. On Wednesday, at the Opera House, Boston Ballet presented its second annual "Next Generation" performance.

By: JEFFREY GANTZ | May 26, 2011

Brian Crabtree's unified fragments

Stanzas
The 10 dance fragments looked like a close-knit family with a couple of fractious siblings.

By: MARCIA B. SIEGEL | May 25, 2011

Boston Ballet's 'Balanchine/Robbins,' plus a soupçon of tap

The pleasures of craft
Boston Ballet is ending the season with four prime examples of ballet choreography, displaying not only the rigors of classical technique but the different kinds of images technique can be crafted to evoke.

By: MARCIA B. SIEGEL | May 19, 2011

Boston Ballet's 'Balanchine/Robbins'

Mind games
After the frenetic gutbusting of its Elo Experience and "Bella Figura" programs, Boston Ballet is closing out its 2010–2011 season with a breath of classical fresh air — or so it would seem.

By: JEFFREY GANTZ | May 26, 2011

Nell Breyer and Lostwax dance the unconscious

Dream games
Two offerings by Boston Cyberarts over the weekend opted for divergent ways of gaining enlightenment.

By: MARCIA B. SIEGEL | May 12, 2011

The meaning of 'THE'

Boston Ballet's 'Bella Figura'
William Forsythe's 1991 ballet The Second Detail begins with 13 dancers in ice-blue leotards and tights, facing away from the audience.

By: MARCIA B. SIEGEL | May 09, 2011

Boston Ballet's 'Bella Figura'

Everything is beautiful
"Bella figura" in Italian is more than a phrase — it's a philosophy. It makes life beautiful. "Bella Figura" as the title of Boston Ballet's latest program is an invitation to find beauty in three disparate choreographic styles — one of them incorporating topless women (as well as men).

By: JEFFREY GANTZ | May 02, 2011

Photos: Boston Ballet's A Midsummer Night's Dream

At the Opera House through April 17
A Midsummer Night's Dream | Opera House

By: ERIC ANTONIOU | April 13, 2011

A Midsummer Night's Dream by Boston Ballet

Boston Ballet’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Moonstruck
George Balanchine didn’t create a slew of full-length ballets, but it’s easy to see why a setting of Shakespeare’s ever-popular A Midsummer Night’s Dream is one of them — and not just because, back home in St. Petersburg, when he was eight, he played a bug in a theater production of the Bard’s moonbeam-muddled comedy.

By: JEFFREY GANTZ | April 25, 2011