All posts filed under: Performance Reviews

A review of Alex Ekman’s US Premiere of “Midsummer’s Night Dream” Chicago, April 27,2018

“Midsummer night is not long, but it sets many cradles to rock.” An old Swedish proverb.   Writing a short review of two hours of one man’s dream that morphs into hallucination would not do justice to the brilliance of Alex Ekman’s stunning re-imagination, more of a renewal, of Midsummer Night’s Dream.   As I took my seat in the fourth row center of Chicago’s Auditorium Theatre I was confronted with a rustic iron single bed painted white cradling a handsome sleeping man, feet out of the covers, head tucked away in his slumber. Who knows how long this sleep has overtaken him before the anxious Joffrey Ballet audience began to fill the theatre…and fill it they did to standing room.     Two small spots resting on the stage floor on the audience right skimmed under the bed throwing the first of Ekman’s creative shadows laterally across the floor projecting the raw frame to repeat on the wall. An imaginary alarm sounds and a hand reaches out of the eiderdown in an unsuccessful search …

A little less TU TU……

At long last star power returned the stage at Cobb energy Center last Saturday night! It was untypically dark in the cavernous theatre as a mellow hush came across the small Saturday night crowd. Without fanfare a wash of light quietly skimmed across the floor and dancers appeared from inside long slits in far distant opaque curtains dressed in skin-tight white, as pure as the work would turn out to be. It has been two years since Atlanta Ballet made a swift reversal in direction, back to clumsy staid ballet that has no place in the wallets of young professionals and hipsters, as the case was until then. The company began to fire people right and left until the last few long-term stars defected, having no desire to step so far into the past.  They had seen the excitement of The Indigo Girls on stage, Big Boi and Outcast with Janelle Monae swinging high above the stage in full voice sporting her then-signature front puff of dark hair. Gone for the most part are the …

Theatre and Dance – A Little Boy’s Story

  I have long been a supporter of the arts in every city where I have lived and I can tell you that number is not small! It all began when I was six years old in Louisville, Kentucky at a time I was courting a favorite Aunt. I was enrolled in a tiny dance school for tiny people. There was simple tap, Shuffle ball tap, and shuffle ball tap only with a teddy bear to the strains of “Me and my Teddy Bear”. Sweet, right? Amy Grimes was my mother’s just older sister who was not able to bear children and married a highly successful business executive with the L M Berry Company. They were the sole advertisers for the Yellow Pages at the time. Having no children and plenty of disposable income the couple was the height of glamour to all of the nieces and nephews. It was my goal to squeeze in and become her surrogate child. As soon as I thought I had my dancing and singing role down pat I …