The audience heartily approved the program, especially Robbins's fictions. But it chattered steadily through the orchestra's entr'acte performance (Debussy's Un bateau cortège) between the two Robbins dances, and the man in front of me clinked the ice cubes in his plastic cup throughout the Stravinsky. Fortunately, the company has programmed Symphony in Three Movements for a reprise next February, but that looks like the only chance the dancers — and the audience — will have to tackle the rigors of Balanchine till then.
You might not think ballet and tap dance are related at all, but the men's call-and-response dialogue in Divertimento No. 15 is a close cousin to the answering individual riffs that are at the heart of a tap challenge. We got a great example of this last Friday night at the Regent Theater in Arlington, where Josh Hilberman & Thelma Goldberg's Dance Inn produced a generous evening honoring tapper Lois O'Hara. In Hilberman's Cappella Josh, four women (Marijke de Braal, Kelly Kaleta, Lynn Schwab, and 15-year-old Demi Remick) moved out front one at a time to dance their own spectacular variations on the basic rhythm, to the envy and appreciation of their companions.
Most of the numbers in this show were based on choreographed groups of two or more, but there were virtuoso improvisations by tap masters Brenda Bufalino and Sean Fielder, as well as an uproarious four-hand piano invention by Paul Arslanian and Yoko Miwa.
Related:
The meaning of 'THE', Boston Ballet's 'Balanchine/Robbins', Boston Ballet’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, More 
- The meaning of 'THE'
William Forsythe's 1991 ballet The Second Detail begins with 13 dancers in ice-blue leotards and tights, facing away from the audience.
- Boston Ballet's 'Balanchine/Robbins'
After the frenetic gutbusting of its Elo Experience and "Bella Figura" programs, Boston Ballet is closing out its 2010–2011 season with a breath of classical fresh air — or so it would seem.
- Boston Ballet’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream
George Balanchine didn’t create a slew of full-length ballets, but it’s easy to see why a setting of Shakespeare’s ever-popular A Midsummer Night’s Dream is one of them — and not just because, back home in St. Petersburg, when he was eight, he played a bug in a theater production of the Bard’s moonbeam-muddled comedy.
- Boston Ballet's 'Bella Figura'
"Bella figura" in Italian is more than a phrase — it's a philosophy. It makes life beautiful. "Bella Figura" as the title of Boston Ballet's latest program is an invitation to find beauty in three disparate choreographic styles — one of them incorporating topless women (as well as men).
- The BIBC, 'Next Generation,' and more of Boston Ballet's 'Balanchine/Robbins'
It's been a busy week and a half. The first ever Boston International Ballet Competition took place May 12-16 at John Hancock Hall, climaxing with a gala awards ceremony and performance last Monday. On Wednesday, at the Opera House, Boston Ballet presented its second annual "Next Generation" performance.
- Festival Ballet's emotional, sensual Carmen
Although the gypsy girl Carmen is most familiar from the 1875 opera of that name by Georges Bizet, local audiences have also become acquainted with the Carmen performed by Festival Ballet, which was commissioned by them and first appreciated in the 2003-04 season.
- Jorma Elo and Anna Sokolow
In silence a man slowly pushes a large, light-filled box across a dark stage. The box is bigger than an outhouse and smaller than a garage, and the light shows through only one side.
- Here’s looking at you
Set in the usual small village — this one in the Carpathian Mountains of Eastern Europe — Coppélia might look like just another pleasant 19th-century ballet about a boy, a girl, and another girl. But appearances can be deceiving — and that’s theme of this work, whose title character is a life-size mechanical doll.
- Second sight
May in Boston has always been Storybook Ballet Month, as Boston Ballet finished off its season with Swan Lake or Sleeping Beauty or Don Quixote , something classical and highbrow and reassuring. That, after all, is what Boston audiences want, right?
- Photos: Boston Ballet presents Black & White (2010)
Boston Ballet's reprise of Jiří Kylián’s Black & White
- Boston Ballet brings back John Cranko's Romeo and Juliet
Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet has probably inspired as many ballet translations as The Rite of Spring .
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