Alexei Ratmansky's 'Symphony #9

Sarah Van Patten and Luke Ingham in Ratmansky’s Symphony #9 from Shostakovich Trilogy, San Francisco Ballet, April 2015. - Vanessa Zahorian and James Sofranko gleefully led their sporty fellow villagers in folksy dances, while Sarah Van Patten and Luke Ingham’s adagio suggested the dread that underlay the smug Soviet façade; Hansuke Yamamoto wandered among them with pliant jumps and turns…
 

Dance

Rashaun Mitchell - Light Years (New York,  April 2015) -  - The dance had a pleasingly interplanetary feel, as if it were taking place outside of time and gravity’s pull. Within this unfamiliar landscape, the four dancers engaged in curious behavior, launching into loping runs and dives and slithering glides. They seemed half-animal, half-extraterrestrial, at times relating to each other, at others orbiting off into their own worlds…

 

Sara Mearns

Sara Mearns in Ratmansky’s Pictures at an Exhibition, New York City Ballet, Pictures at an Exhibition, October 2014. - Some dances, including the first solo (by Sara Mearns), had a wild, improvisatory, part-stumbling, part-inspired quality. The tailor-made nature of the ballet’s solos reflects one of Mr. Ratmansky’s greatest gifts: dancers are vividly, individually, intimately revealed.