JAMES SEWELL left a promising New York career as a dancer and choreographer to return home to Minneapolis in 1993. Mr. Sewell, who had studied at the School of American Ballet and performed with Eliot Feld and the junior company of American Ballet Theater, was not renouncing his art.

Ballet Today
The James Sewell Ballet is finding ways to bring modern influences to bear on the classical dance form.

For his annual fall production at the O'Shaughnessy, Sewell is premiering "Lover," set largely to music Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart composed for stage and screen during the 1920s and '30s.

Balletic Sonnets, Surprises Included

By ANNA KISSELGOFF, NY Times

Someone needs to give the James Sewell Ballet from Minneapolis and Mr. Sewell's always imaginative, often exquisite ballets a full season in New York. <a href=http://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/15/arts/dance/15SEWE.html target=_blank>more</a>

A Classical Approach, Wrapped in Surprises

By ANNA KISSELGOFF
The New York Times
January 22, 2004

Surprises abound in James Sewell's choreography for the James Sewell Ballet, a polished gem of a chamber dance troupe from Minnesota that opened its first extended season in New York at the Joyce Theater on Tuesday night.

Mr. Sewell is no stranger to the city, but few New Yorkers have been able to watch him develop, at 43, into one of American ballet's most inventive choreographers. A leading dancer in Eliot Feld's company in the 1980's, he founded his dance troupe in New York in 1990, but then moved it to his hometown, Minneapolis, in 1993.

When the group, essentially a new company, appeared in New York briefly for the first time since then in 2001 at the Kaye Playhouse and again last year at Brooklyn College, Mr. Sewell's creative breakthrough was more than obvious. Different and unpredictable, this is the company to see.

Having Taken Flight

By DEBORAH JOWITT
The Village Voice
January 28 - February 3, 2004

Legibility of design is a major component of his choreography. In Moving Works (1996), with music ranging from Monteverdi and Bach to Combustible Edison and Kodo drummers, his eight dancers print their every position on the space.

James Sewell Ballet delivers stunning performance

By RACHAEL GILMAN
University Register
December 02, 2004

Last Saturday, November 20, I went to Edson to see the James Sewell Ballet perform "Amahl and the Night Visitors." I thought "Oh great, ballet...this will either be really good or really boring." I was almost right.a It was really good and it was more than I expected it to be.

Point Shoes and Gumshoes: Guy Noir Helps a Dame Using Power Tools
by JENNIFER DUNNING for the New York Times

The centerpiece of the program by the James Sewell Ballet that opened on Tuesday at the Joyce Theater was a murder-mystery ballet set at the Acme Tulle Company. It sounded almost as deadly as an evening of Gilbert and Sullivan. But Mr. Sewell mostly avoided the pitfalls in his lighthearted "Guy Noir: The Ballet."

published: April 6, 2006

James Sewell Ballet - The Joyce Theater, New York
by HILARY OSTLERE for the Financial Times

Sewell's Guy Noir (Benjamin Johnson) is a dancing detective cast in the Chandler mould: he chomps a cigar, wears a trenchcoat and fedora and is dazzled but not duped by a double-crossing blonde (Peggy Seipp-Roy). He's also adept at multiple pirouettes. Keillor's deadpan voiceover narrates the story about a contest held in a power tool factory for the best dance commercial.

published: April 10, 2006

Time Flies/Creeps By
A bright troupe in from the prairie channels Garrison Keillor
by DEBORAH JOWITT for the Village Voice

Without Keillor's words, the plot wouldn't scuttle along as expeditiously as it does, but Sewell comes up with some clever dance ideas for his whodunit, which centers on a choreographic competition sponsored by the Acme Tulle Company (the "Tulle" is a silly joke; it's tools we're dealing with). Penelope Freeh as Martha Isadora gets a lot of mileage out of a buzzing chainsaw with a very long cord.

published: April 18, 2006