CELEBRATED RETURN

Allan Ulrich

Sunday, November 4, 2007

(11-04) 04:00 PST Costa Mesa -- In recent years, West Coast ballet fans desperate for their American Ballet Theatre fix had to head south. It has been worth the effort.

ABT is riding a remarkable high these days, and not even the decidedly mixed response to the company's new "Sleeping Beauty" here at the Orange County Performing Arts Center can dim the luster. The dancing is more exciting and more consistent than it has been in a couple of decades, and in its increasingly varied repertoire, ABT can transform a standard mixed bill into an evening of unmitigated thrills, both for dancers and audiences.

Review: American Ballet shows two sides of its performance skills

Rachel Howard, Chronicle Dance Correspondent

Friday, November 9, 2007

There was a moment at American Ballet Theatre on Wednesday night when everything changed. Herman Cornejo came tearing out of stage left at UC Berkeley's Zellerbach Hall and launched himself so high you wondered if he'd used an invisible vaulting pole. It was the kind of jump in which the dancer seems to have created a ladder out of air.

The "Corsaire" pas de deux that followed was an intoxicating combination of recklessness and control. Cornejo's pirouettes torpedoed right through the moment where most dancers give themselves a little break with the waltz step known as balancé. He threw himself into the next set of pirouettes, threatening to veer across the stage like a Tasmanian devil - but when he centered himself by turn four or five, he looked as if he'd known what he was doing all along. Cornejo is small and muscled - he has a body like a Corvette.

ABT brings power, grace to Zellerbach
By Anita Amirrezvani

CORRESPONDENT
Article Launched: 11/08/2007 11:32:12 AM PST


Superhuman male dancers are American Ballet Theatre's claim to fame, and Herman Cornejo is no exception. At ABT's opening night program on Wednesday at UC-Berkeley's Zellerbach Hall, Cornejo sprang into a series of leaps that had members of the audience literally gasping and laughing in awe.

Cornejo seemed to bounce off the stage like a rubber ball in the show-stopping pas de deux from "Le Corsaire," danced with partner Xiomara Reyes. He produced the kind of astonishment that's expected from the New York ballet company with high standards and a little bit of everything in its large repertory.

Choreographer of moment struts multidisciplinary stuff

Rachel Howard, Chronicle Dance Correspondent

Monday, November 12, 2007

American ballet today tends to cloister itself from the contemporary arts in a big, box-office world of sylphs and swans - and nowhere more so than at the star-driven, perpetually "Swan Lake"-propelled American Ballet Theatre. But during its New York City Center seasons, ABT has started doing more varied and adventurous things, a smattering of which came to UC Berkeley's Cal Performances last week. Possibly the best thing ABT has done is snap up a new work by the hot Finnish choreographer Jorma Elo, whose "C. to C. (Close to Chuck)" on Friday at Zellerbach Hall formed the heart of ABT's Program B.