ballet

Kaatsbaan continues with its Fall Festival 2023 through October 1. Kaatsbaan Cultural Park in Tivoli, New York, was founded on 153 acres adjacent to the Hudson River in 1990, by American Ballet Theater stars Martine van Hamal and Kenneth McKenzie, with Gregory Cary and Bentley Rotton. Curated by Adam Weinert, Artistic Director, Kaatsbaan’s outdoor Mountain Stage offers a glorious backdrop for dance.

The Catskill Mountain Foundation’s unique production of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” - conceived by former Metropolitan Opera ballerina Victoria Rinaldi, transports the audience to an enchanted wood to witness what hilarity unfolds, when fairies meddle with the love lives of mortals.We are joined by Victoria Rinaldi and Executive Artistic Director of Aquila Theater, Desiree Sanchez.

The New York City Ballet brought a program of three classic mid-twentieth-century ballets Friday night to a packed amphitheater crowd of 5000 at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center, with hundreds more watching from the lawn.

In 2011, In Creases, Justin Peck’s first dance for the New York City Ballet, enjoyed its world premiere at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center. Since then, he has made twenty-two more works for the company, and Thursday’s matinee at SPAC brought his newest. Copland Dance Episodes, billed as his first evening-length work, is a big, bold, winning ballet for thirty dancers, filled with pure feeling and excellent performances.

Much of the New York City Ballet’s worldwide fame depends on its matchless repertory by its two founding choreographers, George Balanchine and Jerome Robbins. Surprisingly, though, NYCB also commissions more new works than any other ballet company in the world. Wednesday night’s SPAC Premieres program at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center featured four twenty-first century ballets made for the company, each by a different choreographer. Three of them appeared on the SPAC stage for the first time, while one, Justin Peck’s Scherzo Fantastique, had its world premiere there in 2016.

For the third summer running, the one-week New York City Ballet residency at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center opened Tuesday night not with a spectacular full-evening ballet, or gems from the permanent repertory, or a mix of classics and exciting new works, but with an anthology of excerpts from most of the week’s offerings. While most dance goers would rather experience the thrilling emotional architecture that a great company like NYCB can provide in complete ballets, the lecture-demo proved entertaining and illuminating, with the guidance of principal dancers Adrian Danchig-Waring and Tiler Peck.

The Saratoga Performing Arts Center (SPAC) is ready to welcome back its resident companies -- New York City Ballet and The Philadelphia Orchestra -- to their summer home in Saratoga for a celebratory season that will feature masterworks from the classical cannon, alongside SPAC premieres and debuts.And there is an amazing amount of other cool things happening as well. To find out what is on tap – we welcome our friends from SPAC and getting the run-down.We do so this morning with Elizabeth Sobol, president and CEO and Christopher Shiley - Vice President of Artistic Planning of Saratoga Performing Arts Center.

Jacob's Pillow gets underway soon for this summer's Dance Festival. This season features nine weeks of performances in the Ted Shawn Theatre and on the outdoor Leir Stage as well as special events, parties, workshops, exhibits, talks, pop-up performances, around Berkshire County, and more. Jacob's Pillow Executive and Artistic Director Pamela Tatge joins us.

A cornucopia of dance is offered this summer in the Hudson Valley, Catskill and Berkshire Mountains. Summer showings, from now through September, range from ballet to belly dance to hip hop to crouched polka, a representation of the variety of dance genres presented by adventurous curators.

The full New York City Ballet company is at SPAC in Saratoga Springs, New York this week with six performances featuring the timeless works of Balanchine and Robbins, as well as the return of Merce Cunningham’s Summerspace and SPAC debuts by Jamar Roberts and Pam Tanowitz.The week kicked off with NYCB On and Off Stage and closes with “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.”To tell us more we are joined by dancer Indiana Woodward.