Former New York Times chief dance critic Alastair Macaulay joins The Washington Ballet for a discussion of our upcoming program, BALANCHINE + ASHTON.

The Washington Ballet's BALANCHINE + ASHTON, onstage February 19-23, 2020 at The Kennedy Center, provides a mixed repertoire of styles and opposites that are still relevant to today’s audiences. Sir Frederick Ashton’s Birthday Offering and George Balanchine’s Slaughter on Tenth Avenue are both company premieres. Balanchine’s exuberant and athletic Allegro Brillante and the somber Méditation for Thaïs, one of Ashton’s more sublime and legato creations, round out the program.

“George Balanchine and Frederick Ashton were exact contemporaries, both born in 1904 but on opposite sides of the world, Balanchine in Russia, Ashton in Ecuador. Intensely aware of each other from the late 1920s until Balanchine’s death in 1983, they became the two prime shapers of the classical qualities that transformed Western ballet in the twentieth century. Much of twenty-first century ballet remains their creation.” -Alastair Macaulay 

Alastair Macaulay has been a critic and historian of the performing arts since 1978. In 1994-2007, he was chief theatre critic of the “Financial Times” in London; in 2007-2018, he was chief dance critic of the ‘New York Times’ in New York. Currently, he is preparing a critical biography of the American choreographer Merce Cunningham and a study of Balanchine, Ashton, and twentieth-century ballet classicism.