Exploring Dance Madness, Grandeur, Wit —
The Ballets of George Balanchine and Pam Tanowitz
Marina Harss, dance writer
Join acclaimed dance writer and critic Marina Harss for an engaging discussion exploring the works of two visionary choreographers featured in Miami City Ballet’s February performance in Hayes Hall: George Balanchine and Pam Tanowitz. Balanchine, celebrated for modernizing and Americanizing ballet, is represented by La valse, a sumptuous ballet with a dark edge, and Walpurgisnacht Ballet, a windswept display of grandeur and abandon. In contrast, Tanowitz offers a fresh, cerebral and often-witty 21st-century perspective with Coincident Dances, her latest ballet set to music by American composer Jessie Montgomery. Featuring film excerpts, this conversation promises insight into the evolution of ballet across generations.
This presentation is part of Marina Harss' Exploring Dance series.
Marina Harss
Marina Harss
Marina Harss is a dance writer based in New York City, with her work featured in prominent publications such as The New York Times, The New Yorker, The New York Review of Books, The Nation, The Guardian, Ballet Review, Dance Europe, Tanz and Dance Magazine. In 2023, Farrar Straus and Giroux published her critical biography of choreographer Alexei Ratmansky, The Boy from Kyiv: Alexei Ratmansky’s Life in Ballet.
Harss has been recognized with the Robert and Ina Caro Research and Travel Fellowship, was a fellow at the Center for Ballet and the Arts in 2019 and is currently a fellow at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts. Beyond writing, she has moderated and conducted interviews at public forums on dance, both live and online, at venues such as the Guggenheim Museum, the National Arts Club and the New York Public Library.
In addition to her contributions to dance literature, Harss is an award-winning literary translator, translating fiction and nonfiction from French, Italian and Spanish. Her translations include works by Alberto Moravia, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Dino Buzzatti, Juan Forn and Élisabeth Gille. In 2012, she received the French-American Foundation translation prize for her translation of Gille’s Le Mirador.
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