“We made a set of rubies,” said Howard Merlin, Boston Ballet’s director of costumes. “But diamonds and emeralds we’re renting from National Ballet of Canada.” In late October, Merlin and his staff of ...

A great ballet is a still point in dance history, its movements delicately fixed in time. But, unlike a great movie or a great book, dances are shaped over their lifetimes by the many different ...

Through his art, George Balanchine — a Russian immigrant to the United States called the father of American ballet — was happy upon occasion to pay tribute to the red, white, and blue. But in “Jewels, ...