The Riches of the Kirov

New York balletomanes are in for a royal treat when the Kirov Ballet performs at New York City Center from April 1 through 20.


The grand scale of this event is merely hinted at in the statistics: 100 dancers from this 200-year old St. Petersburg, Russia-based company performing 19 works in six different programs. Some of the finest ballet dancers today will be performing during this substantial run, including Diana Vishneva, Andrian Fadeev, Uliana Lopatkina, Leonid Sarafanov, Alina Somova, Danila Korsuntsev, and Igor Kolb. The company's artistic director is Maestro Valery Gergiev, and Makhar Vaziev is the director of the ballet. The April 1-20 season is presented by Ardani Artists in association with City Center.


Naturally, the Kirov Ballet--a descendant of the Russian Imperial Ballet, and known in its homeland as the Ballet Company of the Mariinsky Theatre of St. Petersburg--will perform beloved classics and excerpts from full-length ballets, including Raymonda, Scheherazade, Le Corsaire (all three of which will use sets reflecting their respective sections' full productions), Le Spectre de la Rose, Chopiniana, La Bayadere (The Kingdom of the Shadows), and The Dying Swan, as well as pas de deux from Don Quixote, Diana and Acteon, Paquita, and more.

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Akram Khan's Journey

A multitude of influences and wide-ranging interests come together in the work of the intrepid and acclaimed choreographer Akram Khan, who brings two works to New York City Center beginning April 23.

After establishing himself as a major force on the British dance scene in his mid-twenties, his work was first seen in New York in 2001--most recently in collaboration with Steve Reich marking the seminal composer's 70th birthday in 2006.

His own strong presence as a performer--a fluent, inventive blending of Kathak, the South Indian dance style that was his earliest training, with the contemporary modern dance he studied later--has been a major part of each of the works seen this side of the Atlantic. But next month, New York City Center will present his newest work, bahok, the first major group work he has created in several years, and his first piece choreography in which he will not perform--a distinction that, he admits, "feels really strange and bizarre."

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