The mental flexibility of the dance audience is truly astonishing: Didn't they applaud Goyo Montero frenetically in Nuremberg until a few months ago? Now, with Richard Siegal and his Ballet of Difference, a completely different register comes into play: classically grounded, with a penchant for the pointe shoe, which is danced here as a contemporary tool. Et voilà—the new ensemble, a mix of Siegal loyalists, newcomers, and ex-Montero dancers, receives no less applause than its predecessors.
And deservedly so, although Siegal's Stravinsky double bill— the world premiere of Pulcinella and the Cologne production of Petruschka—labeled New Ballets Russes—comes across as relaxed and joyfully plays with all sorts of academic declensions: flexible feet, hands with precisely bent joints, arm lines ...
