Yes, I agree about the dancers too. I definitely have my favorite dancers, as well as my favorite roles and pas de deux — MacMillan’s Romeo and Juliet pdd being one. And certain dancers surely do excel in certain roles (and I’m sure it’s the same for opera, though I don’t really know much about it so can’t really speak to that!) I’ve definitely seen dancers flub my favorite parts, or maybe not completely screw it up but just not really do it to my liking, but then I know I still love the pdd and whole ballet and will see it again and again. I think the problem is when someone is new to ballet and they don’t know the dancer or the role yet; they have a hard time connecting because they haven’t had a chance yet to develop a favorite. I sometimes forget that and will bring a friend to the ballet and they won’t understand my fascination with it because they don’t share my love of the particular dancer or ballet we’re seeing.

Yeah, I think there were just too many pieces in this particular program that contained themes that I couldn’t identify (I think I’m going to use the term “unidentifiable theme” from now on instead of “abstract” now since I’m not really sure if “abstract” adequately conveys what I meant). I’m definitely willing to give it another chance though. I’ve liked too many of Wheeldon’s other works not to.

I think part of the problem is the performance space itself. I *hate* the City Center with a passion. I can’t imagine that it’s a good performance space for anything. There are only certain seats in certain sections that have decent sightlines. If you are on a budget and cannot afford the more expensive seats, you must suffer with the lousy sightlines and equally lousy acoustics. I was actually disappointed to hear Wheeldon announce that City Center will be Morphoses home for the next few years.

I wish they would gut the interior of the City Center auditorium (but not the facade which I find fasinating) and replace it with a redesigned theater. Sadly, I doubt there’s any chance of that happening.

I didn’t go to the Fall for Dance Festival this year because I had forgotten that the tickets went on sale that Sunday morning. By the time I got to the website that afternoon, there were only seats left in the rear mezzanine and the rear gallery. I hate those seats! To me, they’re not even worth $10.

As far as separating the dancer from the dance, or any performer for that matter from the work they’re performing, I’d say that’s difficult. Everyone has favorite performers. Obviously, the “classics” in the various arts are acknowledged as great works, but that doesn’t guarantee that I’ll love every performance of Don Giovanni or Swan Lake. This all depends on the level of performance. On a certain level, I can separate a work from its performer, and realize a its greatness, but, at the same time, a good performer always brings something special to the work.

For instance, most people would agree that the aria “O mio babbino caro” from Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi is beautiful, if overly familiar; however, in last year’s production at the Metropolitan Opera, the soprano who sang the aria was inconcievably bad and simply miscast.

I have no idea whether she could sing the role well, but at the performance I saw, and the broadcast I heard on the radio, she did not deliver the goods. Her phrasing was horrible. She took breaths all over the place. All I could think of was, “Out of all the sopranos in the world, why is *she* singing at the Met? And yet, there were people shouting “Bravo” when she was done, which makes me question their knowledge of opera and what constitutes a performance worthy of “Bravos”. Perhaps, they were expressing their admiration for the aria itself and not the actual performance? I can only hope so. :^) But I digress…. Long story short, she gave a lousy performance, but I still know that “O mio babbino caro” is a beautiful aria. Does that make sense?

Another example comes to mind. You might see a play one time and not think much of it, but then see it later with a different actor, and suddenly, you find you like the play. Does that mean the play is not good? The second performer brought something else to the dialogue. Was it the actor, the director, a coach, or the actual play that you liked? Sometimes it’s not possible to separate these things out.

It makes me yearn for the good ol’ days when one could see Herman Cornejo and Joaquin de Luz alternating performances of the same role at ABT. Their performances were different, yet equally valid. Of course, the best was when they danced together in Carmina Burana. :p

Griffin, that’s what I was trying to say, that’s what I meant by abstract — not that there was no story but that there seemed to be no theme. I don’t think that abstract necessarily means themeless, right? It just means lacking a linear narrative. I think it can also be what Natalia called “representative” in a comment on an earlier post, which I took to mean evocative of some thought or idea. (I feel like representative is an art term, but evocative is the term dance people use, although I may be completely wrong…Maybe Delirium knows?) Anyway, to me, that’s what was lacking here — a discernible theme or evocation, although obviously some of you found themes albeit maybe not fully drawn out.

And it’s not that a dance that’s visually stimulating is always bad. Sometimes I like those kinds of works (like “Clear” that ABT does); I just can’t take that for the whole night, and especially if the visuals are so similar throughout. Someone on Ballet Talk called the shapes the partners made “pretzel lifts” and that’s exactly what they looked like to me too. When I first started watching, the pretzel shapes were really visually interesting, but when they just kept repeating and repeating, I felt like, okay enough of this already, give me some content, some idea of what is going on here or what I’m supposed to be getting from this.

Sometimes the theme can be stated in the program notes (as they were in last night’s performance of Nacho Duato’s company at BAM, which was marvelous and which I’m going to blog about today), and sometimes, as Duato said during the audience Q&A after the show, the audience gets something entirely different than the choreographer intended, because they hadn’t read the program notes! He said that’s okay, that’s great actually, as long as I made you feel something, as long as it worked for you on some level, evoked something for you. I don’t think dance (or any art for that matter) has to tell a linear story but I do feel that if dance isn’t evocative of something, if there’s no theme whatsoever, if it doesn’t make me think of something, then what is the point?

Also, regarding beauty and visual stimulation, I don’t really think that was what Wheeldon intended here. The problem is that I don’t know what he intended because I felt he didn’t give me enough to go on. Certainly he didn’t mean for me to think, oh that’s an interesting pretzel, another interesting one, oh yet another cool pretzel twist. Wow, I’ve never thought of that kind of pretzel shape before. I guess that’s what’s so frustrating: I feel, not that he’s just a crappy choreographer whose work I don’t ever want to see again, but that he really meant for his viewers to take something away from it all, and I can’t figure out what it was.

You guys are right though: art is subjective and different works speak to different people. I’m just trying to figure it all out for myself, I guess. Thanks for writing, you guys!

Although I definitely agree with you about the mounting sameness of the choreography and the endless pas de deux, I find myself disagreeing about the abstraction. First in a general sense: I don’t think that exclusively abstract work shows a lack of respect for the audiences intelligence, but rather that it forces us to think differently about what we’re seeing and consider different aspects of the work. I think some (perhaps many) of the story ballets are actually rather less intellectually challenging because the stories don’t necessarily hold together or make sense. In some ballets they’re just a kind of framework on which to hang various dances.I also find it’s very easy to ignore anything going on beneath the surface of the stories, in which case they become about as deep as a kiddie pool.

In this case though, I also agree with Delirium Tremens about the work not being entirely abstract. I thought that there were threads of emotion and story in the works presented, although at times these threads could have been developed better.

On another topic, I think they idea of being a fan of the dancers as opposed to the dance is certainly plausible, although not something I feel particularly positive about. I’m so new to dance that right now pretty much all dancers are new to me. When I go to something, I’m often seeing those dancers for the first time. I haven’t even really had a chance to develop favorites. But I can certainly imagine that after seeing a dancer many times one would notice the nuances of their dancing and performance to a greater extent and that this would lead to a greater appreciation and understanding of their work. At the same time (going back to that negative feeling for a moment) it seems to me that it should be possible to separate one’s feelings toward a dancer from one’s thoughts and feelings about the choreography. I don’t know though…I’m new to this, after all.

Sorry to leave such a long and rambling first comment, but this post gave me a lot to think about.

On the whole I loved the program. I do think there could have been more variety (it, and of course ashley bouder was what made Dance of the Hours stand out so dramatically).

I also think that if he wants to make a go of it as a company, he needs to do works that aren’t based purely on partnering, he needs to move dancers individually as well as in groups. That said I thought the partnering was fantastic and was in fact quite varied between the works and within the larger works (though there things were sometimes echoed creating a sense of theme).

I also DID feel that stories were being told in the works. More in some than in others, but I didn’t think it was as abstract as you clearly did. And I felt that the works (especially the first) were things that I would understand and appreciate more deeply based on repeated viewings.

I guess I also disagree with you on your definition of “depth” or however you would phrase it, in ballet. I love story ballets. In fact I’d say they were without question my favorite pieces, but I can appreciate the sheer aesthetic beauty of works. I don’t think dance shouldn’t try for intellectual content. If thats what the choreographer wants, I’m all for it. But you can have a bad ballet with a lot of content, if its visually uninteresting and pedantic.

Personally I found the Morphoses program aesthetically pleasing and intellectually challenging and interesting.

Of course its hard to define art, and personal taste can and does vary widely.

PS–While I’d be very interested in seeing Pereira I don’t think you need to feel sorry for those of us who saw Alina Cojocaru–She was engaging and beautiful. And I’m very glad for the opportunity to see her perform live at long last.

Tonya, in a nutshell – I agree with a lot of what you said but with nowhere near the degree of disappointment that you experienced. I think the pieces on the program were much too similar – so the program became monotonous. But I actually liked everything I saw, it just needed to be spread out over several programs and mixed with some different stuff.

I am a bit on the fence about Wheeldon’s work, it really seems to be hit or miss. But that’s what I think about Balanchine, which I know many people disagree wtih me about

btw, I actually didn’t like Wheeldon’s “American in Paris”, I thought the movie original choreography was so much more interesting …

One more thing..”"Abstract ballet” in Balanchine’s world always was associated with the music the dance was set to, even in his most abstract works: Episodes and Movements for Piano & Orchestra. As mentioned above, abstract meant there was no literal story to attach to the ballet, not that there wasn’t some sort of theme or connecting thread in the work itself.

Not having seen the new Wheldon work, I wonder if abstract in this case also means detached from the music or lack of thematic structure in the dance.

As for Forsythe’s Slingerland, I didn’t really get it either. What partially redeemed it for me was the incredible artistry of Wendy Whelan. But take away Wendy, and Slingerland (What does that title mean anyway?) falls flat.

In the opera LA GIOCONDA it is staged as an entertainment for Alvise’s guests at Ca D’Oro during a party which ends with Alvise revealing his wife’s corpse to the assemblage. He thinks he has poisoned her for being unfaithful but in fact she is only sleeping: Gioconda – one of opera’s most complex characters, has substituted a sleeping draught for the poison. It gets more complicated from there. Christoper re-choreographed the piece for the Met’s last revival.

Anyway, it was a tradition in the 19th century for grand operas to include ballets and the music has often been lifted by choreographers for stand-alone pieces. Thus we have Balanchine’s BALLO DELLA REGINA using the ballet music from Verdi’s DON CARLOS (the French version) and his DONIZETTI VARIATIONS with music from DOM SEBASTIANO.

I would guess that HOURS was added to the City Center rep to give the evening some colour and fun…

They were a poor new company that had been rehearsing at our studio all summer and we knew they were great. But, at their real show they did the 9 1/2 minute version of our favorite piece… not so great after seeing the 4 minute version.

Then, there was a pas de deux. There was about 3 paragraphs in the program explaining what it meant. Let me tell you, I wouldn’t have understood any of that piece (yes, it was a contemporary company. Forgot to say that) if it werent for the program. The two dancers came out in those dance undergarment things. Like tan mesh-ish bandeau bras, things, bike shorts, etc.

According to the program, they were “spelling their names” through contact improv.

First, they flailed around like they were being tortured to death. Then, they ran to eachother and started rolling all over eachother on the ground.

It was pretty… abstract. But the company really did end up being great. Just… odd.

Wow, the mother of all long comments.

Selly