Mearns

At City Ballet, a Swan Is Born and a Firebird Flies Into the Sunset

David Bale4 months ago011 mins

“It was pandemonium,” Maria Tallchief wrote in her memoir about her “Firebird” debut, in 1949. “The theater had turned itself into a football stadium, and the audience was in a frenzy.” The only thing that went wrong was that they hadn’t rehearsed the curtain calls. Tallchief was New York City Ballet’s first star, a thrilling…

In Ratmansky’s ‘Paquita,’ Worlds Collide to Make a Ballet Big Bang

David Bale5 months ago012 mins

It’s a test tube ballet: an experiment that at first glance might seem like pining for the past. But while Alexei Ratmansky’s new production of “Paquita” finds its footing from ballets of earlier centuries, it lands in the here and now as a daring proposal about legacy and lineage. What makes classical dancing modern? In…

A Ballerina Prized for Her Musicality Deals With Hearing Loss

David Bale6 months ago04 mins

It helped, Angle said, that he and Mearns are able to hear music in a similar way, their responses fueled by the same impulses. Because of that, he said, “she would have my body and my cuing and my breath to also help tell her what the meter was and what the tempo was.” Mearns…