(image taken from Joyce website)

With dance audiences supposedly dwindling, it seems like all the talk these days is how to attract the young (generally ages 20-40). Last week I attended two very different performances whose mission was basically just that. On Thursday I went to the Joyce in Chelsea for the tap dancing rock concert called “Revolution” by the show’s founders, tap dancer and rock and roller Michael Schulster, and the absolutely breathtakingly, mind-bogglingly spectacular Irish step dancer, Joel Hanna. Here’s a rather fun interview with the two very excited guys in Newsday. Anyway, If it isn’t clear from the list of adjectives I used to describe him, go see the show if you haven’t already if only to see Hanna. He’s the Joaquin Cortes of Irish step dancing. His fast fancy footwork is only the half of it; he dances with such an intense fiery passion it just sets the whole stage ablaze and makes you, as with Cortes, yearn to find out more about the underlying spirit of his dance. I remember seeing Riverdance when it first came out and I don’t ever remember seeing dancing quite like this. There was such a Latin fervor to Hanna’s pounding, beating steps I felt like he must have been influenced by Flamenco, or that Irish step dancing shared something fundamental with that Romani dance.

Unfortunately, I felt the rest of the show was unremarkable. It started out fun though. Electric guitars blared “Paradise City” by Guns ‘N Roses over the speakers (actually one of my favorite songs, not kidding!), and a set of six screens erected above the band showed different images of the dancers getting ready — in make-up, in a studio warming up, and eventually coming up the stairs to make their stage entrance. Very rock concert, maybe somewhat goofy, but uniquely cool for concert dance if you’re open-minded about it. As soon as an ensemble of dancers emerged onstage — four women and about eight men– and began tap dancing to the guitars, a camera guy entered and began filming them live from a variety of angles, the images then projected to the screens above.

I had a complicated oral argument in court Friday morning that I was nervous about, so my first thought was, excellent, something really to take my mind off my anxiety! After the initial heavy metal number, Schulster, a good tap dancer (though his rock and roll fascination makes him far different from my favorites in this department: Savion Glover or Jason Samuels Smith) took the stage for a solo. A tape was shown on the back screen of Schulster beating a punching bag with boxing gloves, explaining that his tap shoes were an instrument, akin to a musician’s guitar. The screen went blank, a combo of electric guitars and flashing strobe lights set the stage on fire and Schulster, center stage, began tapping like a fiend to the electrified strumming. Audience members (a combination of traditional dance-goers well over the target age and young’uns I’d never seen before) went nuts, screaming and cheering, raising their hands in the air as the strobe lights flashed through the crowd, blinding me at times, just like in a rock concert. I started laughing and couldn’t stop — it was really a lot of fun, and my argument was nowhere in my mind!

Then Hanna took the stage for the third number, the first of his thankfully many solos and I nearly fell out of my seat. It’s funny because here was true talent, and, at first the audience was so stunned they could only watch, no hoots and hollers, no screams, just staring at the stage in disbelief the way audiences unfamiliar with dance initially react to genius. After he finished of course everyone took a moment to process, then went wild with the applause.

The problem was, for me, it didn’t really move after this, as Sir Alastair’s rather sardonic review of the show indicates. It was just more of the same for the next hour and a half. Most annoying to me was the way the women were used. In their first number they wore skin-tight jeans, ridiculously movement-restricting, and such high stilettos everyone seemed off-kilter. Of course it didn’t matter that they couldn’t move in their attire because all they did was make a series of ludicrous sexy poses. It was like a Robert Palmer video, which, had Schulster played such music in the background, I might have actually liked the number, thinking it was intended as an ironic statement. Fortunately he didn’t confuse me. No ironic distance from his beloved rock genre there. Throughout this number, camera guy committed my cardinal sin — homing his camera in on the women’s body parts, and you can imagine just which body parts those were. While the men danced of course the camera captured their bodies in whole, often shooting them from below, making them look like demi-gods, or diagonally, making their dancing appear dizzyingly cool. I’ve noted before that I think dance filmed that way, at least in moderation so it’s not TOO dizzying, can be fun and engaging. But THE BOOBS AND BUTTS THING IS MY PET PEEVE, CAMERA MAN. It’s as if young men need to be told what to find sexy; they can’t figure it out themselves. What’s that about?

Anyway, later in the show, there was a number involving several duets with some nice partnering. At one point, a woman jumped on the back of a man, desperately attempting to win him back, he throwing her off. The audience gasped. The lift did look rather hard. I liked it because it was the one moment where I felt we got a little bit of meaning, a story. There were characters who wanted something from one another, who were having a conflict. It grabbed your attention. The show needed a lot more of that, a lot less of the sex poses, and more variety and depth. Even with Hanna’s fantastic dancing, I felt like more connection to Irish culture was needed. For example, when I’ve watched Cortes perform (whom I mentioned above), yeah he was a hot sweating shirtless guy dancing his heart out, but the performance was so much more than that. With the band playing the fascinating accompanying Gypsy music, at times celebratory at times haunting, his dancing expressed that complicated emotion. I knew nothing about Romani culture but from that alone longed to learn more. From the little I know of Irish culture, it contains the same dual complexity. Why not use Black 47 music, or something similar? Instead of just entertaining us, make us think.

It’s playing at the Joyce through next week; go here for tickets. As I said, worth seeing for Hanna’s raw talent alone.

The audience at Columbia University’s on-campus Miller Theater was almost the opposite of Revolution’s. This saddened and confused me. The majority of performances at Miller are of new music; this event, in combination with the Guggenheim’s Works & Process, was an ideal commission for the theater combining as it did new music and new dance. George Steel, the Theater’s director, says that he seeks to engage young people, at a minimum, the Columbia student population, in the arts. I saw very few students though. When I was in college and grad school (at University of Arizona and Brown University respectively) I went to practically every single thing the on-campus theaters took on. I remember seeing everything from Vienna Boys Choir to Cats to Christopher Durang’s play “Beyond Therapy” to Les Ballets Trockadero. I had so much fun taking in everything I could; youth is the ideal time to expand your mind with access to the most affordable culture you’ll ever have — that provided by your University. Perhaps with Columbia students, it’s just that there’s just so much culture in New York and everything’s easily accessible. I hope…

Anyway, the ballets included were: “dogwood” by Amanda Miller, a very modern piece in which four dancers made movements at times jerky and intentionally awkward suggestive of discomfort, at times more lyrical and fluid, and used chairs that to me resembled cartoonish mini-thrones and evoked something out of “Through the Looking-Glass”; “Four/Voice” by Italian choreographer Luca Veggetti, a very beautiful ballet exploring the intersection of dance and music; and “Sweet Alchemy” by Alison Chase, a charming ballet involving three sets of partners and their interactions with each other. Here’s the New York Times article (which I haven’t read yet).

My favorites were the latter two. I was surprised to have liked the Veggetti so much since I don’t know a lot about classical music and I’m usually not one to have much of an appreciation simply for danced interpretations of music. But here I was really mesmerized watching the dancers interpret in different ways the striking sounds made by a solitary cello played over a taped recording. The colors were really lovely as well, a combination of gold and black, the scheme repeated in the backdrop and stage lighting as well. These visuals worked very harmoniously with the music; somehow the colors just sounded like the cello, if that makes any sense. The dancers — two men (some of my favorites from New York City Ballet: Robert Fairchild and Daniel Ulbricht), and two women — at times resembled cello strings themselves. I really got lost in it, watching their bodies strike the chords. I was so disappointed when it ended! Beautiful!

As for “Sweet Alchemy” — what a fitting name The ballerinas were dressed in short-skirted, flirty, rose-colored dresses evocative of a French countryside in summertime, and their slippers were tie-dyed dark pink on the bottoms. Music was performed by a string quartet. Chase is a former choreographer for the playful, comedic dance troupe, Pilobolus, famous for making shapes evocative of funny-looking creatures and other amusing objects. Although this was ballet and not modern (as is Pilobolus), you could see the influence. The dancers (all from NYCB), worked in partnerships of two, sometimes three, making interesting shapes and interacting with each other. At one point the men did what appeared to be hurdle-jumping over each other, in competition for the attention of the women, who at first sat facing them, then in unison, turned their backs. It was cutely funny. The women would climb all over the men, each using her danseur as a human jungle gym. Fun! At times the men would lift the women awkwardly upside-down, the way a father would carry a misbehaving child off kicking and screaming. Except the women weren’t kicking and screaming. So tables were turned. Men were tricked into doing heavy lifting, perhaps? At times the men would carry the women so that their feet would touch the back wall, she scampering along the wall as he skittered along on the ground, ala Larry Keigwin, except here it was light and humorous rather than more intense. It was all sweetly, playfully romantic. Similar to Revolution, there was a large screen on the back wall, which showed, instead of live filmed shots of the dancers, still pictures of them. Some pictures homed in on an embrace, torsos pressed against each other, arms wrapped around backs, bodies linked, enmeshed in each other. So much more sensual, maybe even somewhat erotic if you want to see it that way, than the Robert Palmeresque poses and shots of sexualized body parts, if you ask me. An abstract work, there was no linear narrative here. You had to piece things together for yourself, use your imagination. It’s not as easy as being told what to think, but I would hope young audiences, at least intelligent ones, would be intrigued by the challenge.

One more thing: it’s so weird, albeit very cool(!), to see ballet in such a small, intimate setting. You notice little foibles that on a majestic stage like the Met Opera House or NYCB’s State Theater are completely lost on the audience. You see the difficulty in a lift betrayed by a man’s shaking knees or a woman’s vibrating body as she holds herself in position in the air, intense concentration or fearful hesitation registered ever so discreetly in the eyes. You notice that Charles Askegard is, delightfully, like, eight feet tall I love this aspect of a small theater: it makes ballet more real, more human, to me.

Update: Here’s Apollinaire’s Newsday review of the pieces; here’s Tobi Tobias on the same; and here’s Claudia LaRocco’s NYTimes review (a different write-up from the one I linked to above). I’m the only one who liked the Chase! The others also found things I hadn’t in the Miller. Everyone seemed to like the Veggetti

by the Ethan bug! Yes, I’ve repeatedly rolled my eyes at friends for falling for his goofy macheesmo motorcycle-riding ballet boy in Center Stage, for swooning right out of their seats over his simple (non-dancing) self-introduction at the start of Stiefel & Stars; I’ve shrugged my shoulders at his macho motorcycle-riding real self in Born To Be Wild (Jose’s cuter and more interesting, being from the forbidden land, I thought), and his ceiling-high assemble during which he beat his feet together more times than I could count at ABT’s Met gala last year (pshaw, David can do that, I declared… well… almost). No one could understand my offensive nonchalance, my dumbfounding indifference, my mentally ill resistance to Ethan-infatuation. No, they couldn’t understand me, and I certainly couldn’t understand them.

Well, all that changed last night when I spotted him in the audience at the New Ballet program at Columbia University’s Miller Theater. (I’ll write about this very soon, along with the tap dancing rock concert, Revolution, which I saw at the Joyce in Chelsea Thursday night). He was watching the new ballets a couple of rows behind me, with Damian Woetzel. He had his hair all fashionably brushed forward and it looked like he had some highlights put in (yes, he has blonde hair to begin with, but his hair now seems to be different shades of blonde). He was just kind of sitting there flashing his cocked little half-smile at everyone who looked at him, seemingly slightly self-conscious about all the attention, but not in a shy way, if that makes any sense at all. At intermission, he got up and politely shook hands with some people, and when he sat down again I saw an older man — obviously a fan — approach him and ask him the obvious — was he coming back to the stage this Fall?? With a sad, wistful look in his eyes, he shrugged his shoulders and looked down at his knees. As they continued to talk, his cute cocked half-smile slowly returned. I could see him telling the man, “thank you.” Something about it was just so sweetly endearing. He just looked so handsome and forlorn. And I don’t know how to explain it, but something happened. I saw flashing lights. The skies opened. I saw what every other woman on the planet has seen. Right then and there I fell head over heels. I am in love with Ethan Stiefel! I am normal! All I could think about on my subway ride home was how I have to see him do that assemble again — soon! I almost even watched Center Stage again but then came to my senses I’ll wait for City Center.

Last night, Philip invited me to a type of concert dance I’d never experienced before: a combination of opera, dance, and spoken word labeled, by the work’s author Astor Piazzolla, a tango operita. Piazzolla’s MARIA DE BUENOS AIRES, performed by the Gotham Chamber Opera and the David Parsons Dance Group, focuses on the life of Maria, a young woman from the suburban slums of Argentina, who makes her way to Buenos Aires where, lured by the music and dance of tango, she becomes a prostitute and is eventually destroyed.

I found the amalgamation of the three art forms delightful. At the start, as an ensemble of dancers tangoed in pairs of two or three, a man acting as a kind of chorus standing atop a pile of chairs spoke, forebodingly, in Spanish. Then two singers emerged, one, contralto Nicole Piccolomini, playing Maria, the other bass-baritone Ricardo Herrera, as one of her lovers. Two dancers, each representing the two main characters, danced the words they sang. The main action was portrayed by the two pairs, with the chorus and ensemble re-appearing throughout. All words spoken and sung were in Spanish and there were no supertitles (although a set can be downloaded from their website). Throughout much of the operita, the dancers were onstage at the same time as the singers, so you really didn’t need the supertitles anyway — the dancers beautifully conveying as they did what those words were.

The dancing was breathtaking. Co-choreographed by modern dancer Parsons and tango great Pablo Pugliese, it wasn’t pure tango, but a fusion of the quintessential Argentinian social dance with ballet, with lots of beautiful lifts and sensual partnering, resulting in movement at times sexy and sultry, at times poetic. I enjoyed this combination more than the more pure concert tango I’ve seen by the likes of Guillermina Quiroga and Luis Bravo. The balletic movement added an ethereal dimension to the voluptuous social dance. I was so smitten by the dancing in fact, that I can’t wait to see Parsons’ company — a colorful, multi-ethnic bunch that worked well here to exemplify the full flavor of Argentina — again. Although… the addition of the opera made me wonder if I’d be as fulfilled with only the dancing. The song, dance and spoken word each added a layer to the whole portrait of Maria.

I don’t really know how to talk about opera since I haven’t seen a lot of it, but the voices of Piccolomini and Herrera were gorgeously, decadently rich. Piccolomini in particular has a lush, sultry voice that really just seduces you like a thick, full-bodied Merlot. And the woman has vixenish allure galore!

My only real qualm was with the story. I really didn’t see one. The program notes made clear there was to be no linear narrative, but rather the (eye-rolling IMO) theme — “Maria, both Madonna and whore, represents the spirit of tango, Buenos Aires, and all of womanhood” — was to be expressed through poetic vignettes. I certainly don’t need a linear narrative and I like the idea of the vignettes, but I only really saw “Maria the whore” here. Maria, young and naive, only appeared for a second at the beginning, throughout the middle I only saw Maria the seducer and rarely Maria the seduced, and, at the end, Maria gives birth to another version of herself, beginning the process from virgin to whore to mother anew. But I wouldn’t have known a birth was what I was witnessing as the dancer Maria pops out from under a table and is carried about flexed-footed by a male dancer if the program notes didn’t so indicate. And I would have been more moved if I would have seen more dimensions to Maria, if I would have witnessed her transition from naive young girl to seduced to prostitute to mother.

Still, the dancing and singing were so superb, and the amalgam of the three art forms unique, this is definitely worth seeing. But hurry, you only having tonight and tomorrow night! It’s at Skirball: go here for tickets.

Here is Philip’s review. (I didn’t post many photos because Philip has compiled a lovely little gallery here; two photos above are courtesy of Richard Termine, send to me by Philip).

when you completely forget about your countdown As of yesterday, just four weeks til City Center season!

I love this! When’s the book coming out here, when when when?! Perhaps the excerpt contains hints as to why Danny Tidwell may have felt not so at home in the world of ballet…

Also, I don’t have time to blog about Dancing With the Stars today, but hope to later in the week, after the results show tonight, which is, by the way, especially worth watching, even for those not solely into ballroom. The man widely hailed as the greatest tap dancer in the world will be on. That’s Savion Glover of course of course! So, that’s tonight, ABC, 8pm / 7 Central.

But he didn’t say much. And I should probably stop calling our new(ish) Chief Dance Critic ‘Sir Alastair’ and come up with a different nickname; he came across more as a jolly, down-to-earth commoner than a lord. Anyway Mr. Macaulay, along with dance writer and professor Mindy Aloff, addressed a crowd of mainly students, critics, and dance insiders last night at Barnard College. He spoke of: his move to New York (he’s still not completely moved into his new apartment and has no television, allowing him neatly to evade the question of the moment — what about all this dance stuff on tv?); what he misses about London (his garden, the West End’s plethora of Shakespeare plays); how he felt about becoming the NY Times’ chief dance critic (it was a welcome mid-life change, he and his audience at the Financial Times in London had grown a bit tired of each other, he was worried his appointment wouldn’t be well taken since he was from out of town — and rightly so, why should a critic not be homegrown?– people laughed at this, not sure why); his most trying life moments (serving jury duty and having to announce the verdict to a raucous courtroom, being charged with taking indecent pictures of minors after an officer saw him photographing frolicking children on a beach– don’t worry, it all worked out well as charges were eventually dropped); his dance training (ballroom, reading ballet technique books and sitting in on ballet classes); his favorite artists (Shakespeare and Mozart), etc. etc. — things on that level. It was nice to see his face and hear his voice, and it did make you realize he was human despite his sometimes harsh reviews, which was probably the point of the whole thing, but it was hardly the in-depth discussion of issues important to the dance world that I was hoping for.

During the Q & A, a student asked him if he felt that bad reviews played any part in declining dance audiences. He thought for a moment and answered that he didn’t know how much of an effect reviews really had on audiences. He thought his reviews had absolutely no effect on that of American Ballet Theater, as the Met Opera House was far from packed each week during the their summer season regardless of what he’d said in his most recent review. He also felt as a critic a certain degree of harshness was necessary, as it was the critic’s responsibility to “hav(e) a passionate subjective response” to a work. Wendy Perron, editor in chief of Dance Magazine, after noting that he’d largely written subjective reviews frequently inserting his own voice, asked if he’d ever taken a more objective tone. He responded that he wasn’t sure of the difference between subjective and objective with respect to criticism, but felt that his writing was a combination of the two. He viewed the objective part as describing what he saw, the subjective to tell why it mattered.

Eva sweetly asked him in her beautifully mellifluous voice whether he was going to explore the entire New York City dance scene and all the wonderful things it has to offer. He brightened considerably and said he’d just discovered “downtown” and had gone to a performance entitled something like “Accounting” and really liked it. He sounded authentic and it was actually rather cute. I don’t think he knows he got reemed for his review of that Countercritic guy asked him something along the lines of whether he had to consider something beautiful in order to value it. I thought it was an interesting question and Macaulay did too, and even said so. “But I’m not sure how to answer it,” he replied. He said he liked it when a choreographer challenged his notion of beauty as Mark Morris has on occasion. Which I thought was a good answer. He mentioned other such choreographers, but I’ve forgotten who– I’d put my notebook away by then and was packing to go.

Hmm, what else do I have in that notebook?… He takes a few notes during performances but usually they don’t amount to much. He was first seriously impressed with the New York Times when he picked up a copy of the paper in London and saw a review of a classical dance performance on the front page. Such a thing would never have happened in a London paper, he said, as concert dance wasn’t considered “sexy.” He doesn’t regularly read others’ reviews of a piece because he doesn’t want them to influence his own, although his favorite critics are the New Yorker’s Joan Acocella (who has an “engaging” “shrewd” voice that, even if you disagree with, “you really want to spend time with”) and Wall Street Journal’s Robert Greskovic, who has a gift for detailed description (and is his good friend and sends him copies of his reviews). He said dance and music criticism were very challenging because the dialog one had with the piece was not a direct or natural one (as with a play) but forced the critic to translate from one language into another. I thought that was nicely stated.

That’s all. It was about an hour and twenty minutes altogether. It was okay, just wish the discussion would have gone deeper.

I came home and watched the video I’d taped of Dancing With the Stars. I’ll blog about it more tomorrow — am too tired now — but, very briefly: ridiculously, he hasn’t even danced yet and I am totally in love with Helio Does Marcelo have that same accent Am also in dancerly love with Mark Ballas How great were the perfs by those “girls” – Cheetah and Spice?! Whoa! And that opening pro number: you can’t say the ballroom dancing, despite Pasha and Anya, is better on So You Think You Can Dance! I wish there were more pro numbers like that! You can tell how different the demographic is for this show as compared with SYTYCD though — they have a lot of older contestants here. I thought Marie Osmond was a bit of a goof, but charming in her own way, and Jane Seymour was sweetheart Could some ballroom insider please smack Chmerkovskiy for me for that self-description: “I’m known as the bad boy of the ballroom. But how can I be so bad when it feels so good?” Okay, more tomorrow, I’m off to bed…

I don’t know who in the dance community annoys me more: those who consider themselves hipper than thou and call themselves “downtown,” or those who consider Ballet the only form of dance.

Spurred by Eva’s suggestion, I went to Bryant Park this afternoon to take part in the first ever group photograph of the New York dance community, organized by Belgian online dance initiative Sarma and local dance collective Chez Bushwick. Everyone who considered themselves part of the dance community was invited. Since I’m a dance blogger, ballet and modern fan and amateur ballroom dancer, I decided that included me.

When I arrived I spotted a robust, jovial-looking, curly-haired man wearing a t-shirt that announced he was a member of the photo op, and headed toward him. I kind of look like Sylvia Plath but shorter and with darker hair, or maybe Suzanne Farrell but not anywhere near as pretty I have long hair and was wearing a ballet-y black bouncy-skirted sundress bow-tied at the waist by a red silk scarf, and sandals whose straps were topped with embroidered flowers. I was carrying an oversized pink bag bearing books. After making brief eye contact with me, the man peered around me to another woman and began greeting her, until I stopped right in front of him.

“Oh hi,” he said to me, surprised. “Um, we’re actually taking a photograph of the New York dance community here. Would you like to participate?” he asked hesitantly.

“Uh-huh, that’s what I’m here for,” I said.

“Oh. Oh good,” he said handing me a piece of paper announcing the rules (you gave them permission to use the photos of you on the internet and in magazines, yadda yadda). He also told me after the picture was taken, I was to sign my name on a roster of attendees and would receive a sticker entitling me to a free drink at one of the concession stands. He then told me they were running a little behind schedule and directed me to take a seat at one of the tables in an adjacent elevated area along the path.

I did as he suggested. Turned out to be the perfect little perch for me since its elevation gave me a good view of the crowd. I enjoy being an observer. Plus, I was having a bad hair day and was a little worried of running into Marcelo or David or one of my ballet heartthrobs, so could be on the lookout and duck for cover if need be. I had nothing to worry about as it turned out: there wasn’t a soul from the ballet world there.

Many people began arriving, and I didn’t know anyone. Finally, I spotted a fellow blogger in the crowd. As he was making his way to the tabled area after receiving his instruction paper, I waved to him.

“What are you doing all the way over here?” he said as he approached. I didn’t really understand the question so responded with a quizzical look.

“We don’t ever see each other,” he then announced, “because you’re a snobby elitist who only goes to uptown things. I go to all the cool downtown things.”

I just stared at him, not really knowing what to say. He laughed. Apparently I was supposed to take it as a joke.

“Well, I’m going to go around and meet new people while you sit here like a wallflower.” And he was off.

I kind of sat there stupefied. I think I saw Eva, but after that didn’t feel like getting up to say hello. Maybe some other time. I saw Jonah Bokaer, one of the organizers of the event and a dancer with Merce Cunningham. He’s rather cute in person He was going around giving people who looked like they belonged small bottles of water. That didn’t include me. He looked right through me when he passed directly in front of my table even though I had my piece of paper with the instructions prominently displayed. A twenty-something woman with dark hair bearing a green “press pass” around her neck was going around with a notepad. She stopped at a table in front of me at which sat a man and two women with really cool-looking dreadlocks. I overheard them tell her they were retired dancers, now choreographers. I wondered if the interviewer was Gia.

About half an hour later, an announcer muttered something over a microphone that barely worked. From the crowd’s actions, I figured he was telling people to line up to his left. I followed suit, but kind of wish I’d just have stayed where I was to take pictures. I got a space all the way in the back of the crowd. I could hear him now telling taller people to move to the back, but apparently the average man over six feet either doesn’t understand English or has no sense of his size in comparison to others. Or else “downtown” male dancers are just rude. Some tiny women in the back brought over some chairs and stood on them. Soon, a security guard was in on the action ordering the people to get off the chairs. They paid him no mind. He yelled louder. They continued to ignore him. I couldn’t believe their audacity. And it did look dangerous: the plastic chairs were very insubstantial and the ground was really rocky and unstable. I wouldn’t stand on such a thing and these were dancers. He walked right up to one of them and yelled in her face to get off the chair or else. This was far more exciting than the photographer up front!

“Oh come on, officer” she whined like a character in Rent. Thankfully the last picture was snapped and the whole experience over, so there was no further trouble.

Good thing about being in the back was I was first in line to record my name. That of course didn’t mean I was actually first to do so. As the man handed me pen and paper, someone reached over my head and snatched the whole right out of my fingers, bumping me on the crown with the back board. Other pens and rosters were handed about, arms flying feet stomping everywhere. About fifteen minutes later I was finally able to scribble my name, identity (blogger), place of birth and email address, and receive my sticker, which I promptly took to the nearest concession stand.

“What’s this thing?” the clerk snapped.

“We’re supposed to get a free drink?” I said.

She laughed shaking her head. “I don’t know nothin’ about this.”

“The dance community gathering, over there,” I pointed to the raucous crowd bombarding the man with the rosters and stickers.

“I don’t know and I don’t wanna know,” she spit.

I guess it was a fitting end to a discomfiting experience. Weird, I was just saying how good it felt to be part of the dance community.

Dance community photo in bryant park

Originally uploaded by swan lake samba girl via mobile.

It’s getting crowded.

“‘What color would you say this is?’ Lana asked, handing her the pump. ‘Not quite turquoise.’

‘Oh I’d say Bluebird. Very franco-russe, very Petipa.’”

Hehehehe, I’m really enjoying this novel, Women About Town, by dance critic, Vanity Fair contributing editor and novelist Laura Jacobs. One of the main characters, Lana obviously, is a dance critic, and it’s so fun reading about her world. At times kind of frighteningly competitive and at times sweet. Dance critics so live, breathe, sleep (and shop!) dance, sometimes more so I think even than the dancers… Anyway, can you imagine going shopping with your girlfriend and speaking about the clothing and colors in ballet terms? I love it — can totally see me and Ariel doing such a thing, when she moves to NY Probably with us, it’d be more like, ‘whoa, that’s Tybalt yellow!’

Claudia LaRocco writes briefly in today’s NYTimes about TV show So You Think You Can Dance and whether it’s of any value in bringing concert dance to a larger audience. She didn’t mention the lively debate taking place on Apollinaire’s blog, in which I nominated the wonderful Rasta Thomas as “Ambassador of Dance.” Apollinaire sweetly made me feel good about the Times’ mention of him as well in that role, since when all the other nominations came in and people began talking, I felt really stupid, as if I’d nominated Playgirl’s Playmate of the Year (if they even have such a thing ) So, I’m glad the powers that be were on a similar wavelength

I’m also glad that Ms. LaRocco interviewed Kristin Sloan of the Winger to weigh in on the question, and so didn’t completely leave out the blogosphere. Unfortunately, SYTYCD was mentioned not once on the Winger. I don’t mean to be critical at all, it’s still my favorite dance blog and I dearly love many of the contributors, but I think with so many of them now, no one’s really in charge and everyone’s expecting someone else to take on the important issues, so the debates have been had elsewhere. I just wish the dance community was a bit more cohesive. I just feel sometimes like everyone’s writing, blogging, talking in a vacuum, and that’s unfortunate for dance because it cuts down the level of discussion…

Update: Kristin just published a really interesting post on a Chinese TV show on cable that she compared to our SYTYCD. I like the sound of this one! Okay, I take back what I said above

Okay, how come I always look like an ass in ballet class, but a ballerina in all the other styles of dance I take? Tonight, I took my first dance class in four months now (yikes) — a beginner Flamenco class at 92nd St. Y. Seriously, in lieu of the beautiful palmas (fluidly wrist-bending Latin / Indian hand movements that are one of the three basic elements of the dance), I did the perfect port de bras (balletic arm movements). I mean, I’m sure they wouldn’t have looked like perfect port de bras in ballet class, but they sure did in Flamenco. No matter how much Latin I take, for some reason I always have the tendency to turn my wrists inward so that my palms are toward my body (as in ballet), rather than turned out, away from it, as they usually are in Latin. It’s ridiculous.

And damn do those castanets require patience! We only did basic taps, but tapping the pinkie finger, then the ring, then the middle, then the pointer, then moving to the left hand in a continuous one-two-three-four-five rhythm, faster and faster and faster was so unbelievably trying on my nerves, for some reason. I had to keep shaking my hands like I was shaking off a bug or something. And keeping my arms up in the air was a bit painful, embarrassingly. I am just a bit out of shape here And forget trying to coordinate the castanet taps with the wrists with the arms with the foot toe / heel stomps (my favorite part — gets rid of some real aggression )… forget it! This dance is so hard. It’s not athletically hard in the way ballet is, but it requires maximum coordination that I don’t have!

I’ll probably stick with it anyway; it’s good for me Unfortunately, the teacher has a strict dress code — all black — so I can’t wear my pretty purple Flamenco skirt (above). Don’t really understand this — I took a Flamenco class at Ballet Hispanico months ago and wore the skirt to Paso Doble classes at two different ballroom studios and no one’s ever had a problem with the color. It cost $75 too, so I have no intention of buying another one in black. My black ballroom skirt will have to do, though it doesn’t have the pile of ruffles at the bottom so is not going to look wholly right for Flamenco… I just always pride myself on being different, so was rather pleased with myself for finding such a color.

I’ll never forget the first dance class that blew me completely to Heaven, made me feel like I was experiencing a whole new level of humanity, made my heart race: it was basic ballroom Samba with Roula Giannopolu at DanceSport studio. I remember I was squealing when I came out of there, practically crippled with blisters, my classmates trying to steady me and asking if I was okay. “What kind of music was that?” I screamed out demandingly, collapsing on the lobby sofa. No one knew and Roula had sprinted off to her next class. “That was like ballet and African and Latin and just the whole world!” I cried, flailing about. I haven’t had that same exact experience since and I so long for that feeling again. I think I may sign up for group ballroom classes next month. I like the solitary Latin dance classes I’ve taken — Brazilian Samba at Alvin Ailey and now Flamenco. But ballroom’s really where my heart is.

Anyway, on another note, here are some more pictures I took today during my lunch hour of the Bill Shannon “Window” site-specific dance performance that I blogged about at the beginning of the week. It was funny seeing it down on Liberty Plaza this time, after having watched from the high-rise before. I had thought when I was inside looking down that people were trying to be good New Yorkers and avoid any weirdish person making a “scene,” but being down there with the people, I realized that the area the dance was performed in was so vast, without music, it was actually pretty hard even to notice. You had to really seek him and his dancers out to see him. Dance is also so music-dependent I realized. Upstairs we had the music blasting from the speakers to accompany the movement we saw out on the plaza. It really got you into it, made you move a little yourself. Being down there with no speakers, the movement just didn’t have the same meaning, it wasn’t as fun, it wasn’t as noticeable, it wasn’t as “performancey” which I guess was the point…

One of Shannon’s break-dancers.

The guys in white are the performers. It might be apparent, it might not.

This is Shannon himself, on the crutches. I didn’t notice him zooming around on the skateboard this time; he used it more as a prop than a vehicle, unless I just arrived a bit late and missed that part of it.

On, and another thing, at one point a woman walked up to him while he was on the ground break-dancing. I guess because he had the crutches, she thought he was hurt and tried to help him up! He spoke with her a bit, but with all the city noises, I couldn’t possibly hear what they were saying. I wonder whether he went along with her, told her what was really going on, or if I just completely misunderstood the whole interaction and she was actually part of the performance!

Matt posted a little video he made of him and David Hallberg attending a live taping of the Broadway play “Legally Blonde” for MTV. Pretty good video, Matt! But interesting thing to me is, this is the first time I’ve actually ever heard David speak! He’s more fragile-seeming than he appears onstage. He’s so cute It’s just funny because in dance (in contrast to theater, movies, etc.) you see a favorite dancer onstage many many times and you never hear the sound of his voice.

“It turned out it was Lana who had to have the stage. Not in the way they did, not being on it. . . Each production was a mystery to be solved. . . Lana would answer with her own performance — on the page. . . Deep down, Lana knew she would end up in New York. A city where they argued about the arts. And respected critics.” (emphasis added).

From the novel, Women About Town, by Laura Jacobs.

Look what Matt sent me: I am very happy! I hope no one takes it down…

Last night, I met up with fellow dance blogger, Art, at the NY Library of the Performing Arts to watch a newly restored film of George Balanchine’s 1965 ballet Don Quixote, performed by the choreographer and his then muse (and one of the greatest and most famous ballerinas of the 20th Century) Suzanne Farrell. The film, which is now available for private viewing in the library’s research carrels, was shown last night to an audience.

I’m currently reading Ms. Farrell’s autobio (one of MANY books overspilling my night table…) but this was my first time actually seeing her dance, and, oh my gosh, I was beyond blown away. She was just the epitome of grace and serenity and beatific, angelic, ethereal purity. Her arms were like water and her body at times looked like a candle’s brightly flickering flame. I can see why she was his muse! And she was only 19 in the film; all of those qualities that make a sublime dancer thusly so are present from the get-go, several of us agreed after the showing in the lobby.

The film is a bit wobbly in places. The filmming wasn’t sanctioned (making the movie a piece of bootleg!) So, at times the light is so dim you can’t really make out what is happening; sometimes the camera is focused on a dancer who isn’t dancing, cutting off someone else who is, there’s lots of blurriness, and the sound is often distorted. Somehow you can always see radiant Suzanne, though, which is what is most important of course!

Also, this version of the ballet is rather dark, based closely on the original Cervantes, not on (19th Century ballet-maker) Petipa’s more fun-loving, celebratory classical ballet filled with flirty characters and thrilling, virtuostic dancing. I rather liked Balanchine’s more melancholy interpretation. I wish New York City Ballet was still performing it today. Sadly, the ballet got mixed reviews, so they nixed it.

It was really fun seeing this with an actual audience. I think if I’d viewed it at a private carrel or checked it out and watched it at home on video I might have got bored. But seeing it with other ballet fans (some very long-time), hearing their gasps when Balanchine’s Don Quixote has his feet washed by Farrell’s Dulcinea, then dried by her long, flowing hair (Balanchine, many many years Farrell’s elder, suffered an unrequited romantic love for her), their heavy applauding at the end of one of Farrell’s solos, their enthusiastic whispering when someone who was obviously a famous dancer back then came on the screen, all made it so much more intriguing, made it all come alive. Some of the faces I’m seeing at all of these dance events are beginning to become familiar now, and it’s really nice sensing that you’re part of a community, especially in the hugeness of New York City.

Speaking of familiar faces, Art and I ran into Monica in the lobby and we chatted for a bit, which was fun. Her daughter is an aspiring ballerina and currently studies at the School of American Ballet, founded by Balanchine and connected to New York City Ballet.

Art is just amazing, and, after reading his blog for several months now, it was so great finally to meet him! So knowledgeable about ballet, though so young He lives in L.A. but was here checking out grad schools in art admin. After the showing, I dragged him to Cafe Mozart because I’m a pig and a half to chat more. As an undergrad at USC he took a dance history class with the (in)famous critic Lewis Segal! He said I should be reading Edwin Denby (which Terry Teachout and my friend the great dance writer Apollinaire Scherr have told me as well), so when my next Borders coupon arrives via email, I will have to break down and buy it. We discussed dancers, dance companies, dance journalism, dance presenters, theater, London verses New York for all of the above … he recommended for my next Blackpool trip (in May / June next year), I fly into London instead of Manchester so I can bookend my ballroom dancing extravaganza with some dance at Sadler’s Wells. He even knew what was on their agenda at that time of year! See, smart!! It was so nice meeting you, Art, and I hope you do relocate here for grad school In the meantime, keep blogging!

til City Center season that is

By the way, in an effort to vary my countdown photos, I did the following Google images search: “Marcelo Gomes + Sinatra Suite.” Look what came up. How embarrassing.

Last night I went to my first Works & Process discussion of the Fall season to investigate the Boston Ballet, who will soon be performing as part of the Fall For Dance Festival at City Center. These Works & Process events held by the Guggenheim Museum, by the way, are really a good value. For only $25 you can see, in a very intimate setting, prestigious dance companies perform new pieces from their upcoming reps, and hear the artistic directors and/or choreographers talk about the works.

Last night’s program featured speakers Mikko Nissinen, Boston Ballet’s artistic director, and choreographers Helen Pickett and Jorma Elo. Elo is the main reason I wanted to attend, as I have loved both of the two very modern ballets I’ve thus far seen of his: “Slice to Sharp” performed by New York City Ballet; and “Glow Stop” by my favorite American Ballet Theater This makes me a bad person, as dance critics just lurve to hate Elo I guess many find him vapid and aerobic. But I think his ballets are fast, fun, sharp and bedazzling, and they both showcase the dancers’ athletic abilities with their numerous mid-air turns, high jumps, and fast precise footwork, and take dancers out of their comfort zone (as this favorite of mine once put it) which, in a weirdly extended way, does the same to us.

Anyway, tonight’s piece of his, an excerpt from “Break the Eyes” was the best thing I’ve seen by him yet. The music alternated between a section consisting of heavy, disconcerting, foreboding sounds (at first sounded almost like something out of “Jaws”), and was accompanied by the voice of a young woman breathing frantically and speaking urgently in Finnish, and a section of sweetly mellifluous Mozart piano music. A solitary ballerina danced to the foreboding soundscape, her movements at the start sharp, jerky, and frazzled, which became less so as the ballet went on. The Mozart pieces were danced by a small ensemble whose dance vocabulary — pretty partnering, lifts, quick-paced but mellifluous allegro steps — mirrored the flowing music, the solitary ballerina’s angular, harried, awkward movements a stark contrast to theirs. As the piece developed, the music was at times played together, the frantic Finnish woman’s voice crying out over, disrupting the Mozart. The ensemble and solitary ballerina seemed to struggle with and react against each other, eventually helping to define each other. The dance was intriguing: though I didn’t “get” everything the first time around, as I never do with abstract ballets, there was a real development there, a kind of story, and I felt Elo was trying to say something, making me curious to see it again. I’ll get that chance with Fall For Dance, as Elo’s is the piece the company will perform.

Boston Ballet, as Nissinen explained, seeks to perform a blend of contemporary and classical ballet. Ballet, he said, is “not just a church or museum, but must pave the way for the future.” I like that, and it’s true. There’s nothing more beautiful and romantic and fairytalish than classical ballet, but for the art to stay alive, there must be new along with old. (What if the only plays performed on all of Broadway were by Shakespeare? Going to theater would be a historical enterprise, like visiting a museum.) In this vein, the company also presented a Swan Lake pas de deux — you realize just how beautiful classical ballet is, what genius possessed Ivanov, and how iconic Tchaikovsky is when you see something like this juxtaposed with the modern — along with an excerpt from the first professional work by new choreographer Helen Pickett. Interestingly, Pickett said her process was to choreograph a dancer’s solo, then allow the five or so others sharing the stage to improvise their own moves, taking cues from the soloist’s movement “reading” her vocabulary and reacting to it. She said it was empowering to the dancer, which I can see. Still think I’d be very nervous making up my own movement right on the spot before an audience though!

Anyway, if you wish to see the Elo piece at Fall For Dance, go here; for Guggenheim’s W&P schedule, go here.

Watching “window” by bill shannon

Originally uploaded by swan lake samba girl via mobile.

This was so cool! Review to come. Definitely try to go if you can!

Okay, now that I’m back at my desk I can write more. Bill Shannon’s “Window” is the last of the works shown as part of the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council’s “Sitelines” series (consisting of site-specific dance performances) in its “River to River Festival” for this year. (“River to River” takes place downtown each summer). The two others I was able to see, I blogged about here and here.

I really really liked “Window.” Bill Shannon is a disabled dance / conceptual artist who uses crutches. (If you’re in L.A. right now, he is one of the performers included in the David Michalek “Slow Dancing films” exhibit.) Here he and three other men — one wearing black pants, top and hood, one wearing all white, and one dressed in a business suit — performed break-dance and hip-hop out on Liberty Park Plaza while Shannon, skateboarding on crutches, zoomed around on the streets surrounding the park. At points Shannon would skate into the park and dance, very well mind you, on the crutches.

There were two sets of audiences: the random passersby in the park and on the street who got caught up in all the commotion; and us, those who RSVP’d to the event through lmcc’s website and were escorted into the 8th floor of the high-rise at 140 Broadway, where, amongst the bemused real-estate brokers who regularly inhabit the office, watched the scene down below through the window. A couple of camera people outside filmed the performances by Shannon and the three others and those films were projected live onto four screens inside, where we stood. One screen was set up in such a way that it would reflect on the ceiling, where you got kind of an upside-down version of what was going on outside. The filmmakers also played with the projections a bit so that the colors of the dancers’ clothing would change, or, at points, the dancers would be projected onto a different background; at times the images looked rather 3D. So, you had your choice of watching what was actually going on outside through the window, or the way it was projected onto the screen, as intermediated by the filmmakers.

They also had speakers set up inside, which played a variety of hip hop, techno and pop music. Shannon had headphones bearing a small microphone so he danced to the music and interacted with us through the mike.

I preferred watching what was actually going on through the window, partly because, Liberty Park being so big and crowded, everytime I took my eyes off of Shannon, I lost him. I also found it more interesting seeing how normal everyday besuited business people and tourists, not expecting to see a show — and a rather odd one at that (I didn’t see any speakers down there so assumed they couldn’t hear the music and only saw a bunch of guys rocking out to silence), interacted with him. Of course this being New York, most pretended not to notice him at all, although you could kind of see them spying him out of the corner of their eyes. They didn’t have the roads blocked off and at one point I thought he may be hit by a large white van barrelling down Liberty Street, but the driver thankfully saw the crazy guy bopping around on crutches whilst skateboarding and slowed to a stop. “Whoaaa” Shannon sang over the speakers.

At the beginning, Shannon looked up at us and called out, “How do you put rhythm into a city? How do you make a city come alive?” while clapping his hands above his head and shaking his hips to the percussion like a rock star. There was something at first eery but eventually comforting about watching him rockingly skateboard around what was once a triage unit, the construction site that was once Ground Zero and before that the World Trade Center diagonally behind him.

Celebrity sighting, celebrity sighting! Of course I would have to be looking like a complete dumbass. I’d just been at the street fair and was making a quick run to the drug store a few blocks away. It was the first coldish day of the not-yet-fall and a bit windy out, so I had a runny nose and hair flying out of my ponytail and scattered haphazardly all over my face and head. Hadn’t washed my hair this morning because wasn’t planning a big day and so make that greasy hair scattered all over face and head… Plus, I’d just finished eating some street food bought at the local Italian restaurant’s stand, so likely had Alfredo sauce somewhere on my cheek, and perhaps a mashed pea too… Thank God it wasn’t Marcelo!!!

And dancers — at least the principals — always know when you recognize them. You look at them and they look right back at you, and you try to look away but you can’t help doing a double-take and they lock eyes with you again on the double! So embarrassing when you’re shy and too timid to say hello, and especially at a time when you look like a total dumbass.

Anyway, he has really beautiful eyes. But really kind of frighteningly intense, but in a beautiful way.

Bronzed baby shoe booth

Originally uploaded by swan lake samba girl via mobile.

Should i ask if they do dance belts?

Another sunday street fair

Originally uploaded by swan lake samba girl via mobile.

With a little tap performance in front of danskin. Girls were sweet.

Okay, what bumblehead recommended this movie?! I have got to stop doing this — going to see a movie or play based on the fact that there’s supposed to be some miniscule amount of dancing. (Did the same with Gypsy, knowing only that the production I was to see contained original Jerome Robbins choreography and therefore expecting West Side Story, not realizing “choreography” can sometimes mean simply placement of actors on a stage). Someone — I think it was Dance Magazine in one of their e-newsletters — mentioned that the brilliant Desmond Richardson was to be in this movie (Julie Taymor’s “Across the Universe” — could they have come up with just a slightly more imaginative title??), which, according to the credits, he was, but I have no idea where. Probably in the one scene that looked like it was trying incredibly hard to be something out of The Wall, with cartoonish block-headed military goons doing some kind of group number that looked like it required people slightly more skilled with body movement than actors, but cannot under any circumstances be called dance. Why someone of Desmond’s stature would take on something that amounted to extra work I have no idea.

Anyway, lack of dance and the beautiful Desmond aside, this movie in a word sucked. It was full of cliches, bad acting, an utterly boring and predictable narrative, cheesy cameos (could anyone make Bono look creepier than Taymor), and renditions of the greatest songs of our time that somehow, obscenely sucked the life right out of them (the sole exception to this being “Let it Be” which begins with a young African American boy cowering in the entrails of a burned-out car during a race riot and climaxes with a black choir belting out the lyrics during the slain boy’s funeral).

The only way I made it through the whole thing was this guy. I guess you can’t really blame actors for crappy material; perhaps the fact Joe Anderson gave all the scenes he was in an actual heartbeat attests to his skill. I’ll have to see more of him. Dana Fuchs’s Janis Joplin-esque diva was fun at the start but somehow began to drain you, likely because of the predictability of her character. I enjoyed her performance far more in the original, off-Broadway play, “Love, Janis.”

Interestingly, there’s a split-second Butoh sequence during one of the Vietnam scenes that failed only semi-miserably because of, once again, the cliched way in which it’s used. Of course, unlike with real Butoh, the dancers here are all women instead of a combo of sexes since male nudity in movies might spook the fifteen-year-old straight boy who it’s assumed is their main patron, or maybe his parents, or whoever … the powers that be who need to maintain for whatever reason the sexist, homophobic status quo. Anyway, I guess kudos to Taymor for even trying to inject a bit of multiculturalism into her film.

The twenty-somethings in my audience cheered wildly at the film’s end, so maybe it’s just that I am just too old for it What gets me is, gasp and moan though these young people did during the scenes involving the Vietnam war and the violent police crackdown on campus protesters, do these people see any relevance whatsoever to what is going on in the world today? What’s the difference between the 60s and today? No baby-boom-produced generation gap? Is it because those who are serving in the current war are largely not white and from middle-class families?

So, to the young people who happen to read my blog: perhaps you will really enjoy this movie. If you do see it, though, please please please please please think when you see those aforementioned scenes of all the people coming home in body bags today. Just because they are black and Latino and working-class, unlike the characters in the film, they are still human.

My friend Dea and I went to see Martha Graham dance company last night. This was only my second time seeing them live and the first was many years ago and I now can remember nothing but the magnificent costumes. I want to do more research before I write my review. In general, I felt like the dancing was superb, the dancers were excellent actors as well as movers, and they gave everything they had. Miki Orihara (pictured above) in particular was stunning as the woman scorned, the Medea character, in the first of the three pieces I saw, “Cave of the Heart.”

It takes only one viewing to grasp how original Graham’s movement style is, along with the costumes and sets, and the overall themes and storylines of her dances. She was into dramatizing into dance Greek tragedies and Biblical stories. Lots of toga-style costumes; lots of Greek / ‘Egyptian’ movements: palms up, arms out to the sides, elbows bent; lots of flexed feet, large steps, lots of angularity. Her movement style was clearly that of the stories she was enacting through dance. My first impressions of her thematically are that she saw sex and sexual relationships as very destructive and often fatal.

Two of the pieces I saw — as with almost all dances in the company’s rep this season — were from the 40s and 50s; the third was from 1981. “Cave of the Heart” was a re-telling of the Greek tragedy, Medea, and “Embattled Garden” the story of Adam and Eve. Timeless stories for sure. My question is, is a certain movement style equally timeless? Are sets and costumes timeless? I felt like I was getting an important lesson in history, much the way I felt when I investigated that Merce Cunningham exhibit at the NY Public Library. I have a masters degree in History, was once on my way to becoming a professional historian, so obviously I care greatly about the subject. But I kind of think dance companies need to have an equal amount of the new with the old.

The third piece in last night’s program, “Acts of Light,” the one from 1981, was gloriously abstract, movement for movement’s sake, likely the least “Graham-ish” and my favorite, Dea’s least, go figure Some toga costumes on the first couple doing a duet, but in the end, the stage was ablaze with the ensemble dressed in very tight-fitting unitards that at first looked nude, but when the lights lit up I realized were radiant gold. So much more sensual than actual nudity.

Dea noticed we appeared to be the only two people under 40 in the audience, an increasingly disconcerting phenomenon at dance performances these days.

Anyway, sorry these thoughts are so disjointed. I want to read over the materials I was given and do a little more research on Graham before writing a longer review, and I’m busy at work today I promise to get my write-up posted this weekend though! In the meantime, here are Apollinaire’s blog thoughts (she went opening night and loved it), here’s her Newsday story, and here’s Sir Alastair’s upbeat take.

[One note regarding Apollinaire’s blog review: there are three pieces by contemporary choreographers that were shown on opening night but that aren’t part of the company’s repertory — one, by Larry Keigwin, seems to have been in tribute to 9/11 which was nice. Apollinaire asserts that one of these works each is to be performed each night during the season, which would have been nice, but last night none of those contemporary works were shown).

Martha Graham is showing in NYC from now through September 23rd; tix, which can be purchased here, are $44 for non Joyce members, except on Sunday nights when they’re only $25. It’s most definitely worth seeing whether you end up liking her very specific style or not, or think it’s dated or not. Graham is a seminal figure in dance in this country. So please go if you can (and let me know what you think)!

It’s that time of half year again As of yesterday, it’s six weeks ’til City Center season!!!!!

Also, last night was Martha Graham’s opening night at the Joyce Theater in Chelsea. I didn’t go, but am eagerly awaiting reviews from those who did. I will be going later this week. I can’t wait! If you like, read Gia’s preview of this foundational American dance company’s comeback.

I can’t believe it’s already been six years. This anniversary is particularly haunting for me because it’s the first year since that the date has fallen on a Tuesday, as it did in 2001. I’ll never forget that entire week, or even some events the week preceding. I remember on Wednesday the 5th, a friend and I went to hear Salman Rushdie read from his then new novel, Fury, at the Barnes & Noble at Union Square. My friend whispered to me that there were likely a bunch of secret agents dressed in plainclothes hovering about, and I laughed and told her not to be ridiculous, the fatwa was over, fundamentalism was totally passe.

I remember taking a four-day end of summer mini jaunt to Nantucket, and just returning to work on Monday, the 10th. It was a completely nothing day as I spent hours just trying to re-orient myself, go through mail and phone messages, and get myself psyched up for an upcoming oral argument, and my entire fall caseload. I kept telling myself I’d get it together the following day. I set my alarm for early Tuesday morning, but, not being a morning person, didn’t get the early start I’d planned. I was living in Hoboken, New Jersey then, just across the Hudson river from lower Manhattan and I remember cursing myself silently as I walked to the WTC-bound PATH train for being a lazy-ass and hitting that snooze button. Of course it was a blessed thing for me that I did since if I’d gotten up at my planned time, I would have been passing through the WTC concourse about the moment the first plane hit. (My mom cried to me on the phone she’s never been so thankful for my habitual morning tardiness.) Instead I watched everything from across that river.

I remember waking up the next few mornings and thinking it was all a horrible nightmare and I was so crazy to have dreamed it up. I only had to open the window and take a breath to realize it wasn’t. My cat even knew something was up; she kept peering out the window all spooked. I watched TV — CBS, the only station not dependent on the radar from the north tower — constantly for the next week. We were forbidden from entering our office for the next month, until the City had time to test our building’s structure and thoroughly HEPA all the floors. When we were finally allowed access, we had go through about a 45-minute National Guard checkpoint, only to be stricken with headaches and sore throats after about three hours inside. At our office meeting on that first day back, my boss went to address us and burst out crying. She supplied us with surgical masks and each room a HEPA cleaner, and arranged for a group therapist to give us a few sessions, but nothing seemed to help all that much. I did a lot of working from home for the next six weeks.

But that week, I remember my friend Judy, who lived on the upper east side, inviting me to come up and hang out. We were both so depressed; it was better to be with a good friend at such a time. I’d stayed briefly with Jude when I first moved to NY before going to law school, so we went out for drinks at our favorite haunt, Martel’s. There were people laughing and screaming and having themselves a blast. I couldn’t believe it; I was mortified. It was as if what had happened downtown had no effect on uptown in the least.

I remember the only place I felt at all better for the next two weeks was at Union Square, amongst the speakers, protesters, and all of that beautiful public art. It was good just to be around people who were talking about the obvious rather than living in ignorance, and to feel a part of something again.

I remember being scared to take the PATH or Lincoln Tunnel bus into Manhattan for weeks. I remember riding the subway or a city bus and being afraid of people because of the way they looked. I hated myself for that.

My friend, Kathy, lost her father that day. She didn’t even know until several days later, as he was a carpenter and had only been assigned a job on a top floor of one of the towers early that very morning. I guess I should consider myself lucky that I didn’t personally know anyone who died. Although, I still after all this time have this feeling of dread that one day I’m going to find out a long lost friend was in one of those buildings.

I know, it doesn’t exactly have the ring of “Oh, Marcelo Marcelo Marcelo!” does it? Hehe, oh we so love our Eastern European dancers and their ever so fun names (and their ingenuousness at not even thinking to Americanize them…)! But, though he looks nothing like him, Vaidotas Skimelis (whom I’ve been on about here and there throughout the comp) actually kind of reminds me of my favorite ballet dancer, mainly because of their large sizes and the kind of virility that almost naturally entails. I mean, large bone structure is difficult with Latin because speed is so important to the style — and certainly Vaidotas’s jive will never look anything like winner Max Kozhevnikov’s. But still, I like his size — as I do Marcelo’s — there’s something so sexy and romantic about a big hunk of a guy, right Plus, difference is good! Who wants all the dancers to look the same whether it’s Latin or ballet — boring, I say!

One of the not horrible things about Pasha and Anya leaving (at least for now) the competition world is that it made room for Vaidotas and his lovely plum-haired partner, Jurga Pupelyte, to be seen, to make it to the top ranks, where they most definitely belong. I only wish he didn’t live in California! As one of the only non-tiny Latin dancers, he’d be perfect size-wise for me as a teacher. But of course I shouldn’t even be thinking of private lessons because they are too expensive! So, good rather that he lives all the way out in California…

Anyway, here are a few more pics of my favorite couples and other stuff I did in Florida:

Emmanuel Pierre Antoine and Julia Gorchakova, a super fun couple with creative routines and great show quality whom I wanted to take American Rhythm, but who ended up placing third.

Matt and Karen Hauer, semifinalists in American Rhythm and second-place finishers in the National Mambo championships, who teach at my former studio. He does do a mean Mambo, I think second only to Jose DeCamps’s, and they’re young and in love and cute and their dancing reflects all that

America’s sweethearts, Anna Mikhed and Victor Fung, second-place, as always, in International Standard. Okay, they may not be as perfect technique-wise as Jonathan Wilkins and Katusha Demidova, but they’re the king and queen of charm, those two.

The adorable Anna Trebunskaya (from Dancing W/ Stars) and her new partner, Pavlo Barsuk. They placed sixth in the finals, which is excellent for them.

Hehe, am I a paparazzi in the making or what? Here’s her hubby Jonathan Roberts (the brown-haired guy here, also of DWTS) intently watching her. She’d look out in the audience for him and he’d give her a little wave and a wink and she’d smile like she was on cloud nine. So cute!

Very sexy Latin couple that I like a lot, Nikolai Shpakov and Tatiana Banko. Friends keep telling me Nikolai (who resides in NY) would be a good teacher for me … But of course I am not listening since I can’t afford ballroom lessons anymore…

Aw, the just-displaced now former National Latin champs Andrei Gavriline and Elena Kruychkova. They are an immensely good couple and no one flies across that dance floor like Andrei. He’s truly beautiful to watch; so slender and light-footed his feet sometimes look inches above the parkay. And I certainly don’t think it’s impossible for them to get their title back at some point in the future; I just think others need to be given a chance as well. And this was simply Max and Yulia’s year.

Speaking of the new champs… look at Yulia’s gorgeous arch! How is she even supporting herself like that?

An American Smooth couple I like, Eulia Baranovsky and Stephen Dougherty. I actually thought they’d win, but they placed fourth or fifth. So, I was off on that! I think that couples like these two and the winners J.T. Damalas and Tomasz Mielnicki are bringing the life back into what was becoming a rather staid and boring style. The Smooth championships, placed between Latin heats though they were, were actually really exciting to me for once.

Another Latin couple, Andrei Strinedko and Olga Kinnard, who caught my eye big time this comp. A lot of women wearing these shiny gold dresses this year… What I really love about this photo though is that they are doing my very favorite Latin dance step in all of life, a Samba roll in shadow position. From here, they’ll arch far back together in beautiful unison, then they’ll bend way forward from the waist and then back again making a circle with their upper bodies while doing a hip-rolling side step across the dance floor. It’s hard because you have to be in perfect harmony or you’ll step all over each other’s feet or bop him in the crotch with your butt or whack him upside the face with your arm (I know all of this because…) , but gorgeous when done properly

Another proud paparazzi photo of mine This is Nick Kosovich who designs the dresses for Dancing W/ Stars (and he appeared in the show a couple of seasons ago — partnered Tatum O’Neal). When he was on the show I thought he was a bit nerdy-looking, but after seeing him in person at the last few competitions, I realized how good-looking this man actually is. Tall dark and handsome Aussie! He’s retired from competition but at Blackpool did this James Bond-styled showcase with his partner, who I’m pretty sure is his wife and they really blew me away, which is highly odd since they’re Standard dancers. Anyway, the fact that he is so gorgeous makes my former stupid “breast” experience with him all the more embarrassing… (he was the “Austrailian guy” / “LeNique guy” — as I later found out — in this post).

More Latin favorites of mine — Delyan Terziev and Boriana Deltcheva, who placed third, moving up a whole three notches from last year! Good for them; they’ve been working very hard and they deserve it. To me, this couple is one of the most artistic. She moves just like a spider and she’s just bewitching. She kind of reminds me of a Latin, raven-haired version of ballerina Janie Taylor, with her kind of ethereal, goddess-like sexiness.

Andrej Skufca and Katarina Venturini from Slovenia who competed in the Open-to-the-World Latin category on Saturday night. This is the competition I was hoping my favorites Slavik Kryklyvyy and Sergey Surkov would participate in, as they did last year, but oh well. Andrej and Katarina (4th in the world in Latin, right behind Slavik & partner Elena) were the only top couple to compete, so it was rather boring; they easily took first. For some reason, Max & Yulia didn’t stay and compete in this category, like they did last year. Not sure what happened. Maybe they were too tired. I hope no one was injured … that’s happened before in competition, couples injured during last-minute practice. Anyway, I loved Katarina’s bright emerald dress. Looked spectacular with her carrotty hair (which I personally love, though I know that opinion is most definitely not shared by all )

Look who this is!! They had the hallway leading down to the ballroom lined with blown-up pictures of former champions. This one’s of Tony Meredith and Melanie Lapatin (choreographers from SYTYCD) in their heyday, circa 1995! Look how young he is — such a little cutie!

Ewwwwww!!!! It was some ungodly hour of the morning and comps were still going on (judging by the rows behind us, I think many departed the ballroom already, save us insane diehards) and I, not being a late night owl, am half dead here, no makeup and flat as a pancake hair thanks to the lovely Florida humidity. Plus the angle gives me a quintuple chin. Oh well. Michele, my roommate for the comp, is being herself

Okay, I am almost done, I swear. I took one day off from comp-spectating and went to Epcot Center. I’ve never been to Disney World though, growing up in Phoenix, went often to nearbyish Disneyland as a child. So, of all of the parks, I chose Epcot because I figured, not to sound like a dork, but I so loved the “It’s a Small World” ride at Disney as a kid, I figured I’d have the most patience and respect for one that introduces children to the world beyond our borders. But I found it disappointing, and this picture epitomized why. It was so Disney-fied — the cartoons completely overtook the exhibits. Everything was so cheesy, not at all educational. “Viva Donald”?? Great way to introduce kids to a foreign language. Maybe I’m misremembering things and my child’s mind over-glorified them, but, a bunch of silly dolls though they were, that Small World ride really made me promise myself that I’d go to Argentina, Holland, Spain, etc. one day. The dolls were so sweet and their costumes so beautiful. And everyone singing that song in their native language sounding so mellifluous — definitely made me so curious to hear more (and I did take a ridiculous amount of foreign language classes in high school and college). And who wouldn’t be enthralled with Africa by that nutty laughing hyena! I don’t know, maybe if I went on that ride again, I’d feel differently, but it definitely gave me an appreciation for foreign culture as a child. I can’t imagine this doing the same at all. Kids are too busy laughing at the stupid cartoon characters, and the adults buying all the horrendously cheesy souvenirs.

A great celebration of Italian culture for sale. It was like you paid $75 just to be able to buy a bunch of souvenirs. I don’t get it…

This guy demonstrating how to extract pearls from oysters in the Japanese souvenir shop was okay. Demo was interesting and the guy pretty flamboyant.

Returning to NY. Could they have blurted over the loudspeaker one more time at the Orlando airport that the alert level had been raised to orange / four, and we were all to exercise great caution in leaving bags unattended, etc. And then there had to be some crazy hurricane off the coast of North Carolina. I’m a nervous flyer man! Fellow fearful flyers have recommended Valium, but I don’t like drugs. I much prefer alcohol. In case of emergency, you can always talk yourself out of being drunk; not the same if knocked out cold by prescription medication! This wine, by Best Cellars, was pretty good.

Anyway, okay I’m done, I’m done! Thanks for humoring me and my ballroom fetish, you guys

I’m really tired and still haven’t unpacked and have to work tomorrow, but really quickly wanted to post a few pics of the new champions! (Well, three new, one same):

J.T. Damalas and Tomasz Mielnicki in American Smooth (new);

Joanna Zacharewicz and Jose DeCamps in American Rhythm (new);

Jonathan Wilkins and Katusha Demidova in International Standard (same); and

Max Kozhevnikov and Yulia Zagoruychenko in International Latin. New!!!
It was such an exciting competition, I’ll be talking about it for a while But for now, I must unpack and go to sleep…

Max & yulia win latin!!!

Originally uploaded by swan lake samba girl via mobile.

T-Mobile

[Edit: Hahaha, how ridiculous is this. I had to send this four times before it finally went through Flickr. Why?! Anyway this post pertains to Friday night, and should have come about six posts ago, but here it is. The finalists are lined up here after competition and waiting for their placements to be called. Andrei & Elena, then current, now former, national champs are on the end closest to the camera. Places number six through three were called, leaving Max & Yulia (in the middle) and Andrei & Elena, as usual, the last two up there (they call sixth position first, working up to number one). When the announcer prefaced the second runners up with "ladies and gentlemen, placing second in all five dances, from New Jersey..." everyone gasped. Max & Yulia usually place first in at least samba, if not samba and jive, and Andrei & Elena place first in the other three (cha cha, rumba, paso doble), making them the overall winners by a slight margin. So when the announcer said the second runners up had placed second in all five dances, everyone immediately thought Max & Yulia were really screwed royally by the judges and didn't even get number ones in any dance). Max & Yulia thought the same thing apparently. Max looked stunned and Yulia looked like she was going to cry. "No, that can't be, that can't be," the couple next to me moaned. I knew though - I swear, at that point I knew Max & Yulia had won. They don't ever place second in samba! That is their dance! Then the announcer, after putting the entire audience, not to mention the poor dancers, through absolute hell with a horrendously long drawn-out pause, finally continued, saying, "ladies and gentlemen, second runners up ... from New Jersey ... ... couple ... number ... ... 166 (which was Andrei and Elena's number). The audience was silent; what the announcer had said had to register. Then, slowly, the crowd came to and began going nuts, as Max and Yulia are the favorite of most spectators. I don't think it even hit Yulia that she had won until Andrei & Elena (looking horribly crushed - -I felt so badly for them) walked up to the podium, received their medals and took their place on the second-tier winners' stand, and the announcer then called out, "ladies and gentlemen, the new national champions..." Then she covered her mouth and started to cry. She could hardly dance her "honor jive" she was so emotional. They've worked so hard for this for a long time and have wanted it so very badly. Everyone was screaming. It was so fantastic, and that moment alone made my whole trip worth it ]

Standard fairytale

Originally uploaded by swan lake samba girl via mobile.

All the men in their tux & tails and ladies in beautiful gowns, takes you to another time and place…

I’m over slavik and sergey

Originally uploaded by swan lake samba girl via mobile.

Bc andreij sculfca & katarina venturini (from slovenia) r here. 4th in the world – woo hoo!!