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Martha Ullman West
Martha Ullman West
Martha Ullman West
Martha Ullman West began her checkered career as an arts writer in New York in 1960. She has been covering dancing in Portland and elsewhere since 1979 for many publications, including The Oregonian, Ballet Review, the New York Times, and Dance Magazine, where she is a Senior Advisory Editor. She is a past-co-chair of the Dance Critics Association, from which she received the Senior Critics Award in 2011. Her book Todd Bolender, Janet Reed, and the Making of American Ballet was published in 2021 by the University Press of Florida.

A painting’s long and personal journey

How Beauford Delaney’s “Twilight Street” got from 119 Waverly Place in New York’s Greenwich Village to the studio of art conservator Nina Olsson to the Portland Art Museum’s walls.

Dance by the book: Moving stories

From the rhythms of tap to the glories of Nijinska to “Why Dance Matters” and more, Martha Ullman West prepares a list of great dance reads just in time for giving.

On writing ‘The Boy from Kyiv’

Marina Harss talks about dance, writing, and her new biography of Ukrainian American choreographer Alexei Ratmansky, whose “Wartime Elegy” will be performed Nov. 3-12 in Seattle.

Curtain call for a beloved ballerina

After a beautiful last performance in the title role of “La Sylphide,” Xuan Cheng takes her final bow as Oregon Ballet Theatre’s principal ballerina.

Ballet review: OBT’s ‘Midsummer’ & more

Oregon Ballet Theatre opens its season with sparkling versions of Christopher Stowell’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” Balanchine’s “Tchaikovsky Pas de Deux,” and Christopher Bruce’s “Hush.”

The Year of Living Cautiously

Dance critic Martha Ullman West looks back on a year of isolation and remembers moments of beauty that broke the spell.

All-American at the ballet

“Dance like you’re real people,” Trey McIntyre told the original cast members of his Robust American Love when he made it on Oregon Ballet Theatre for the 2013-14 season.  McIntyre’s take on the real people, particularly the women, who settled the American

Chauncey Parsons’ final bow

Chauncey Parsons, long dark cloak whipped behind him by the speed of his movement, makes an anguished, running entrance onto the Keller Auditorium stage, which is set as a medieval German graveyard, and flings the cloak aside as he kneels before Giselle’s

Stepping lively: Parsons Dance

On Thursday night I made my way down seven flights of cement steps in my building, plus God alone knows how many ditto steps leading from the Park blocks down to the Newmark Theatre, to see Parsons Dance, White Bird’s tenth show

Minh Tran’s journey to rebirth

When does the personal become the universal? That is one of several questions raised by Minh Tran’s Anicca (Impermanence), the Vietnamese-born choreographer’s first new piece in eight years, which premiered on Thursday night in Reed College’s Massee Performance Lab. Two years in

Fresh, vibrant, still the ‘Nutcracker’

Oregon Ballet Theatre has opened its current run of George Balanchine’s ®The Nutcracker at the Keller Auditorium with a meticulously detailed, swiftly paced, high-energy performance of a ballet that can be a chore for people like me to watch. And I say

Ballet dreams: stage for students

This is the season of visions and dreams and hope, whether symbolized by Hanukkah candles, Kwanzaa feasts, Christmas trees, fairies in snowy or summery forests, or budding dancers who stand at the barre in their various schools, doing their pliés and tendus

A Danish pastry, via Napoli

Teresina, the heroine of Napoli, is a woman for our time. Don’t believe me? Go see Oregon Ballet Theatre’s sparkling new production of August Bournonville’s signature ballet, which opens the company’s 29th season at the Keller Auditorium on Saturday night. With a

Warm hug from (and for) a giant

“Thank you, thank you. Now go home and do your homework,” Arthur Mitchell told 1,500 or so cheering children in the Keller Auditorium, his voice descending from the first balcony, sounding like the voice of God. Dance Theatre of Harlem, the company

Tripping on Memory Lane

A visit to Balanchine’s grave (and my mother’s). The departure of Eric Skinner for a new life in Chicago. A reunion of Pacific Ballet Theatre’s dancers. The death of Paul Taylor. These are the happenings of the past five weeks that have

Dancing in the Underworld

With its glorious melodies , menacing harmonies, and inclusion of music for dances that actually drive the plot rather than functioning as interludes giving singers a chance to catch their breath, Christoph Willibald Gluck’s 1762 opera Orfeo ed Eurydice has inspired some

American Ballet Theatre's new "Firebird." Photo © Gene Schiavone

Backstage at the Big Stage

NEW YORK – All New York’s a stage, and there is nothing “merely” about its citizens as players. I witnessed the following players make their exits and entrances in a packed visit to my hometown last month, in no particular order: Taxi

A lioness of the mind

I have been reading the many tributes to Ursula K. Le Guin, my friend of 52 years, who died on Monday at age 88, and they are, mostly, wonderful. They make me remember my own reactions to her work, as novelist, poet,

Bonnie Bronson 2024 Fellow Wendy Red Star Reed College Reception Kaul Auditorium Foyer Portland Oregon
Kalakendra Indian Classical Instrumental Music First Congregational Church Portland Oregon
Portland Center Stage at the Armory Nassim Portland Oregon
City of Hillsboro Walters Cultural Arts Center Tony Furtado Hillsboro Oregon
Maryhill Museum of Art Goldendale Washington
Portland State University College of the Arts
Portland Chamber Orchestra A Feast of Beethoven Kaul Auditorium Reed College Portland Oregon
PassinArt Theatre and Portland Playhouse present Yohen Brunish Theatre Portland Oregon
Golden Road Arts Grey Raven Gallery Near the Reser Beaverton Oregon
Triangle Productions presents Eleanor starring Margie Boule Portland Oregon
Pacific Maritime Heritage Center Prosperity of the Sea Lincoln County Historical Society Newport Oregon Coast
Newport Performance and Visual Arts Centers Newport Oregon Coast
Portland Art Museum Virtual Sneakers to Cutting Edge Kicks Portland Oregon
Portland Area Theatre Alliance Fertile Ground Portland Oregon
Northwest Dance Project Sarah Slipper Newmark Theatre Portland Oregon
High Desert Museum Sasquatch Central Oregon
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