I know you’re not ever supposed to start posts saying ‘I’m sorry for not posting in forever.’ But I normally write once or more per day, so, really, I’m sorry for not posting in forever! I’m just working on this ridiculously hard short story that really should be a novel (it’s 20,000 words right now and I’ve already cut out a bunch of stuff)– and hopefully it will be someday. Well, it will be, but I don’t know if it will ever be a published novel. The industry isn’t looking too good these days and I don’t know if I have the nerve to self-publish…

Anyway, I went to see Alvin Ailey on Sunday night (Blues Suite — my first time seeing it– liked but didn’t love it; Flowers, about Janis Joplin, which grew on me, especially the dream sequence with all the hilarious but uber sexy ’60’s  era bootie shorts and leg fringe; and Revelations, which I could honestly see about 30 times per season — basically every night they do it — and never tire of it). I still have to blog about the two Ailey works that were new to me this season — Blues Suite and Masekela Langage, the second of which I loved. More about that later.

I always get very depressed around this time of year and I think it has a lot to do with Alvin Ailey ending their City Center season. I always get depressed when dance company seasons end but more so with this group than any other.

I also need to write my end-of-the-year favorites list (probably going to go with Nimrod Freed’s PeepDance as my overall favorite and Craig Salstein’s Time for ABT for new choreography, ABT’s Tudor Centennial and Alvin Ailey’s 50th anniversary celebrations for events), but I want to do links, and I don’t have time to do that now. Also desperately trying to make myself well. I somehow caught a nasty cold, which I want to be gone by tomorrow night so I can go out with friends and have a reasonably good time.

So, will blog soon! In the meantime, please check out dance tweeters and their tweets (see previous post). And have a most festive New Year’s eve!

So, the first ever “Shorty Awards”, for the best Twitter microbloggers, is underway. This competition has actually received a bit of attention — in NYTimes, BBC, and MediaBistro, as well as a bunch of techie mags. According to Shorty stats, more than 23,000 nominations have taken place in the past two weeks, since the competition was launched.

The competition is broken down into several categories. Of course there wasn’t a Dance category (or a Performing Arts category, or an Arts category), but, unlike with the Bloggies and other big blog awards, the Shorties allows users to create their own. So a few of us (and there really aren’t many; most dance people are still on Facebook only and don’t use Twitter) created a dance category and then nominated each other within it. According to Shorty rules, if there aren’t enough nominees, the category will be eliminated. But they don’t define “enough.” Not that it’s an enormous deal, but it’s always nice to put dance on the map, and Twitter does seem to be the next big thing.

Anyway, according to an email I just received from the Shorty people, Epicurious is sponsoring a food category. They asked if anyone out there was interested in sponsoring any other categories, to let them know. I have no idea what all is involved in sponsoring a category, but if any big, Epicurious-style magazine (Dance, Dance Spirit, Pointe, Ballroom Dance Channel, etc. etc.) is interested, you can email them at: info at shortyawards dot com. Just thought I’d put it out there. Nominations close at midnight on December 31st. Noms are followed by a round of voting and then an awards ceremony in NYC.

Hope everyone had / is having a happy holiday. I went to my friend Alyssa’s last night for Christmas Eve dinner. She made these delicious orange-peel-infused Manhattans.

And a duck with chestnut stuffing, which Alison is carving.

Alison’s salad of endive, pomegranate seeds, apples, and bleu cheese. And Kathy’s coquitos (Caribbean drink that tastes deceptively non-alcoholic!) in the background.

I think I’m the only one who brought something store-made (wine)! Oh well… food is not my forte.

From night before, Alyssa’s holiday party at Bowery Wine Company. She made these delic gingerbread cupcakes with peppermint-marshmallow frosting and candy cane bits sprinkled on top.

And Bowery Wine Co. bartender made us Cookie Dough martinis. Cookie dough martini FYI = vanilla Vodka, Frangelico and some pink stuff in a bottle labeled 43, which I’d never heard of before. Very tasty!

And after party having some pizza in the Village. Above, Alyss with some random guy we picked up and dragged off with us No, he’s not a random guy; he’s a BWC regular and his name is Dan. Funny, but when I mentioned my blog he revealed he’s friends with the people who run Gaynor Minden pointe shoes.

Okay, happy long (hopefully, for everyone) weekend, you guys!

So, my new, upgraded blog is almost up. Well, I guess it is up but there are still some kinks to be worked out, such as the comments. I am told all comments transferred, but for some reason they are not all showing up yet. Hopefully, Disqus will work it out.

Anyway, I will write a longer post as soon as I become un-intimidated by this crazy new software! In the meantime, everyone have a wonderful holiday, and New Yorkers, do go see Alvin Ailey if you have a chance. They’re showing through January 4th but there are only two more performances of Blues Suite. (Omg, there are like 20,000 options for links; hopefully the Alvin Ailey highlight will actually link to City Center…)

Okay, talk soon Let me know if you guys have any problems with comments. My web guy wanted to set me up with Disqus because I was getting overrun by spam. It’s supposed to be a cool comment system. We shall see…

Again, very happy holiday everyone!

Listen here.

(photo, of Vernard J. Gilmore and Antonio Douthit, by Andrea Mohin from NYTimes)

So Sir Alastair called Festa Barocca “rubbish”!

I didn’t really know what to think of it, to be honest (which is why it’s taken me so long to write about). I found it oddly intriguing and very different from his (choreographer Mauro Bigonzetti’s) other work that I’ve seen, Oltremare. That piece made perfect sense and was clear in what it was trying to express: the fear, sadness, and longing of poor immigrants bound for the New World. This wasn’t so clear.

The whole piece is set to Handel’s classical Baroque music, but the movement is extremely varied, encompassing ballet, Argentine Tango, African — a hodge-podge, and with styling that looked at times Asian (like the beautifully flexed wrists), Egyptian (the iconic “King Tut”-esque Cleopatra arms), and even some styling that reminded me of the movie Pulp Fiction (with the bandit eyes — where Uma Thurman and John Travolta are dancing, extending elbows outward, arms turned down, circling their eyes with their fingers — remember that?)

There was definitely a lot of humor, and Hope Boykin, whose enchanting solos frame the piece, smiles out at the audience a lot, kind of indicating she is taking us on a wild ride. I couldn’t really tell, though, if Bigonzetti was making fun of Baroque music, or if he was trying to expand our assumptions about how it could be used for dance. Don’t think I’d ever have thought of putting African to Handel. Or, if Baroque music is defined as representing the “perfect order” of the universe, of “avoiding trivialities as well as willful eccentricities,” then maybe he is playing with the definition of Baroque music itself.

By the way, Antonio Douthit (right in pic above) and Jamar Roberts I thought were the best in the ensemble parts. Jamar really threw himself into it full out and made the most of every little movement detail. And Antonio is one of those unbelievable dancers who seems to be able to excel at both ballet and African. Have I said that before here? Sorry if I have; I honestly forget what I’ve tweeted and what I’ve blogged. He has these gorgeously high extensions that he holds so well and he’s graceful and feathery, but then he can be so rhythmic with those beautifully snaky full body-undulations as well.

The dance is comprised of several ensemble parts, a couple of solos, and a couple duets that seemed by turns sexy, mysterious, and kind of violent. At points, it seemed like the men were casting a spell on the women, at other places it seemed the women became the mens’ puppeteers, like when the women would raise their legs to their partners’ faces or necks, gripping with their toes, kind of teasing them as they circled their feet about, head or throat attached, round and round, and then harshly pushing them away.

Macaulay seemed peeved because such movement (which he amusingly calls “acrobatic foot fetishism”) didn’t seem to fit the Italian lyrics of the Handel songs. I didn’t know those lyrics, but, assuming the translation in his article is correct, it is rather interesting how a husband’s singing “Where are you? Come, beloved, to console my spirit” to his wife (who doesn’t yet know he’s dead) correlates with a dancer throttling her partner’s throat with her foot. Either an unusual reinterpretation, or Bigonzetti is trying to throw in some comedy with the duets as well (which generally seemed more serious), or else he, like many choreographers, is more interested in putting movement to rhythms than actual words.

In the end I’m not sure what to make of it. I loved the dancers, as always. I’m not sure I could ever be dissatisfied watching them do anything. I’m interested to hear what others make of this piece though. They don’t yet have any of it up on YouTube, but let me know if you see it live.

Oh, and costumes (by Marc Happel) were gorgeous. Men and women both wore long, brightly-colored flowing skirts in the ensemble pieces, donning more form-fitting garb for the intricate pas de deux.

(Hope Boykin in solo, above; below, Gwynenn Taylor Jones and Clifton Brown in first duet; photos by Steve Vaccariello)

Last night I went with Dance Times Square on their holiday party outing to the Latin Quarter, a salsa nightclub in midtown on the east side, near Grand Central.

It was fun — I haven’t social danced in a really long time! Do think I might have hurt my knee though. How, I have no idea. I’ve damaged my meniscus coming out of a fish dive weirdly, trying to force turnout on an arabesque in attitude (back leg up, bent knee), trying to force turnout on rhumba walks, trying to force turnout in samba walks, trying to force turnout in ballet, yadda yadda, but I didn’t know you could really hurt yourself doing basic salsa steps?! Hopefully it’s just a bruise…

Anyway party started at the studio, where we had an hour-lesson in open Salsa taught by Tony and Melanie (who are back from Canada’s So You Think You Can Dance). Picture above, student Elaine (my friend) is in foreground dancing with Tony. After the class, we had food (lots of good munchy things like pate and cheese and meat slices and this enormous cheesecake, and bottles and bottles of wine ), then walked several blocks to the club.

The club was nice, but small dance floor … although I have nothing to compare it to since I don’t go out to a lot of social dance clubs. They had a few bars (although, I find it a bit hard to dance drunk) and little areas for sitting around and chatting. We took an area on the second floor, and, when it got too crowded on the main floor, just danced up there. I danced mostly with my friend Steve, but then this guy who was not in with our group kept asking me to dance, which was nice at first, until I realized he was kind of a pelvis-grinder. Just too close for comfort. So, I told him I was tired the next couple times he asked, which of course made it hard to dance with others then. Steve told me I was fun to dance with because I unwind (out of a turn) like no one else, thanks to my “sinuous” body!

Salsa band was fun, but it’s kind of funny; I’ve mainly been to parties at dance studios where they play a variety of music. So, I kept getting ready for a samba or rhumba or swing or something, and it never happened. Also, I really kind of wish people danced more in groups here, like they do in this video (when you get to the salsa club part, around 4:50). How fun would that be? And would seem to cut down on someone’s hogging another person all night. But I guess that kind of group dancing necessitates sharing a culture where you all know the same words and funny little moves, which doesn’t really happen these days … I guess except for the Electric Slide.

Anyway, very fun to see old friends again. I really should start taking a group class again at some point because it’s good for socialization, and, I realized after the night was over what a real workout it had been.

More formal review coming soon on ExploreDance.com.

I know I’m very behind on my Alvin Ailey posts (on all my posts actually). Promise to catch up!

Here are some pictures from Hope Boykin’s sweet Go in Grace, which premiered at Ailey last week and which I wrote about here.

The “family” — “daughter” Rosalyn Deshauteurs, “father” Amos J. Machanic (who blew me away, as always!), Renee Robinson as “mother”, Clifton Brown as the “son” (my “son” was Matthew Rushing), and Kirven J. Boyd and Antonio Douthit as the up to no good boys (spelled “Boyz” in the program)

(First two photos by Steve Vaccariello, taken from the Alvin Ailey website)

The dancers, with Sweet Honey in the Rock members, who provided live singing and acted as a kind of chorus, interacting with the dancers throughout, warning the daughter not to let herself be taken advantage of by boys, shaking their heads at the boyz for leading the son astray, comforting family members dealing with the pain of the father’s death, etc.)

(This photo and the next two are by Paul Kolnick)

Amos as the father, having his final, heartbreaking, dance.

Rosalyn as the daughter, being carried off by the crowd.

At the end she and her father dance side by side, doing the same steps, the father in a kind of shadow position behind her, a spirit guiding her.

Go in Grace is showing a few more times this season. Go here for the City Center schedule.

Here’s a picture (by Steve Vaccariello) of the Go in Grace choreographer, dancer Hope Boykin, in the company’s other big premiere this season, Mauro Bigonzetti’s Festa Barocca. I thought I’d moblogged about it, but I actually tweeted. (I sometimes get things I do with my cell phone a bit confused…) Anyway, I have to go to bed right now, but I will blog about Festa tomorrow.

thanks to us dance tweets

Here’s a new support network for parents of male dancers. Via Dance Advantage.

If you don’t want to miss a Christmas classic, but don’t want to shell out the money in this crap economy, no worries. San Francisco Ballet’s Nutcracker is going to be on PBS this Wednesday.

I viewed an advance copy and it’s really one of the better Nutz I’ve seen. San Francisco Ballet is one of the best ballet companies in the country, in the world really, and they’ve done a lovely production. Kristi Yamaguchi, Olympic gold medalist in figure skating and Dancing With the Stars champion last season, introduces. She’s from the Bay area and talks about how this company, which her mother would take her to see as a child, really made her fall in love with the beauty of movement and the thrill of performing. This production is set in San Fran, during the 1915 World’s Fair, so it’s a bit updated in terms of the costuming and sets (both of which are gorgeous), and Yamaguchi gives a nice little half-time historical talk.

(photos of Karapetyan and Kochetkova by David Allen, from SFB website)

And the dancers are spectacular. Davit Karapetyan is probably the hunkiest Nutcracker / Cavalier I think I’ve ever seen (remember how I was going on about him when I saw the company here in September!), and Maria Kochetkova is radiant as the grown-up Clara. Yuan Yuan Tan is a lovely Snow Queen. And of course the music — Tchaikovsky is the greatest composer ever. Okay arguably…

So, PBS Wednesday, the 17th at 8pm in NY. Go here for local listings.

Tonight at 8pm, Deborah Friedes will livestream Misnomer Dance Company’s Being Together on The Winger. You can watch and chat with other viewers. I wrote about the dance here. If you can watch, please tell me what you think!

(photo by Katsuyoshi Tanaka, of Marcelo Gomes with Lua)

Last night I went to my lawyer friend’s holiday party and met one of her co-workers, a Brazilian lawyer named Beatrice. Our conversation naturally led to a discussion of dance, which of course led to a discussion of Samba, and eventually even ballet. She revealed that as a child and teen, she danced with Laura Alonzo’s student company of Ballet Nacional de Cuba!

She remembered Marcelo! Said she never danced with him because he was so “little”; much smaller than she. I was like, “Little?! No, he’s huge, much larger than life!” She said, not then! What’s he like, what’s he like, I asked?! She said, well, when he was 10 he was really sweet! Said his parents always went to the studio with him and seemed so supportive, which was so cute, and so unusual for the parents of a boy dancer in Brazil back then. She said he used to always get partnered with this really bitchy girl who thought she was god’s gift and she was such a prima, always demanding and blaming him for anything that went wrong. But he was so nice, he was always a sport about it.

So, not much has changed for poor Marcelo then?

Beatrice also got to dance once with the great Jose. Said he was huge back then. She never talked to him, only danced one brief duet once. She still has the picture of him lifting her little body far above his head. How very lucky to have grown up in Latin America…

(photo taken from here).

Last night I went to see Pina Bausch’s Bamboo Blues at Brooklyn Academy of Music. This was my first time seeing something by Bausch live (I’d only ever seen her work in film and on YouTube, and of course in Almodovar’s Talk To Her), and I see why she is so popular. She really knows how to create a provocative spectacle. Performed by her Tanztheater Wuppertal, it, like I think all of Bausch’s work, is not pure dance but a combination of dance and theater with spoken word, little acted-out vignettes, and video installations.

Being so visual and composed of many sub–pieces, the work is hard to describe, but basically several women dressed in gorgeous, richly textured ballgowns danced, mostly alone or with one or two men, who were, in contrast, dressed in rather mundane white sheets wrapped around their waists like towels. Much of the music was Indian-based and -inspired, but with a Western beat, and at times with lyrics in English or French. The movement in the solos was Indian-inspired as well, with beautifully flexed wrists and feet, splayed fingers and toes. Not surprisingly, the dancer who had the most pronounced gestures in this regard was Shantala Shivalingappa, who is Indian and trained in classical Indian and modern dance. See NYTimes article on her here.

The women wore their hair (all of it long, long, long) down and repeatedly swung their heads about, creating generally a very sensuous effect, that turned a bit violent at times, when it became aggressive. The men were the same.

(photo by Ulli Weiss)

But then the duets and ensemble dancing was more comical, at times also violent. After one woman performed a solo, a sensual dance, in front of white, billowing curtains, her dress billowing along with them, several women took the stage, coming out one by one. Dressed in the exquisite gowns though they were, their gait was more an aggressive strut than a stylized walk, and they all seemed to be chomping on something — tobacco perhaps? They all took a position, and lay, making sexy poses, directed at the audience. But of course the sexiness was undermined by that exaggerated chomping.

(photos by Nelvin C. Cepeda)

Then the women left and the men came out in their towel-sheets, walking in a more sexy, more feminine manner, which caused the audience to laugh. I laughed too, but wondered if I was the only one who questioned why this, the gender juxtapositioning, was necessarily funny.

And there was a kind of battle of the sexes / battle of the self undercurrent, as women and men paired happily — for example in the picture at top where a woman and man rocked themselves to sleep in each others’ arms; but at times violently, when, for example, a man would repeatedly pick up a woman and throw her aggressively over his shoulder in a dangerous-looking lift, or when a man would grab a woman’s hand, run around the stage pulling her along, put a chair in her path, and rush her toward the chair, forcing her to run atop and jump off of it, falling — or crashing more like — into his arms. At times the women seemed to enjoy this aggression, at times their faces would show strain and unease.

Sometimes it was actually kind of confusing how much the women were willing participants in this, how much they controlled the men, or how much they were being controlled by them. At one point a woman took the straps of her gown down over her shoulders, as if she was going to do a strip tease. She didn’t. Instead she began rubbing, caressing her shoulders with her hands, criss-crossed over her chest. A man came up and angrily began smudging her chest with red paint, his strokes like slices of a knife. She didn’t see him, but moaned in pleasure as his hand sliced her chest. The more he “stabbed” the more she ecstatic she seemed to become.

Some of those images and vignettes with their contradictions and twists and turns from sexy, sensual, and playful, to manipulated and violent, won’t be leaving me for a while. The dance shows through December 20th; for info and to see a video go here.

Okay, here is what I was writing last night when my internet crashed:

I’m always so happy when I come out of an AA performance; I could just dance home! Tonight was Maurice Bejart’s Firebird, which was more breathtaking than the first time I saw it last year; Clifton is beyond belief — just this huge guy who’s so amazingly graceful. Ditto for Jamar — the only person who I can imagine being able to lift him, and those lifts at the end when Jamar’s bringing Clifton back to life are so stunning.

(photo by Paul Kolnick).

Then, on second, was the new Hope Boykin piece, Go in Grace, which was kind of a play without words, utilizing the singers — Sweet Honey in the Rock — along with the dancers, the singers acting as a kind of chorus and interacting with the dancers throughout. It told, in expressionistic pieces, the story of a family, the father and mother good, upstanding people trying to keep their daughter and son from going astray. They’re successful with the daughter but the son kind of gets involved with the wrong crowd (namely, Antonio and Kirven!) Eventually he comes back, but only after the father dies, which is really heartbreaking. Amos J. Machanic danced the father and I noticed from last night (which I still have to write about!) and tonight that he is the most expressive, emotive dancer, and such a great actor, he really pulls you into the dance, and creates such sympathy for his characters. He broke my heart both last night as a junkie in Masekala Language, and tonight as the dying father who wanted nothing but the best for his children in Boykin’s ballet.

(photo of Machanic by Andrew Eccles)

And last on was Revelations, which I’ve written about here. Yannick LeBrun blew me away as the second Sinner Man!

(photo of Lebrun by Eduardo Patino)

He was, yes, even better than Clifton! He is definitely one to watch. And Antonio Douthit was mesmerizing tonight as well, as the guy getting baptized in Wade in the Water. Funny though, he had some kind of large tattoo — a cobra or some kind of winged creature perhaps — creeping out of the top of his pants in back, which was kind of funny given his character here But I love it — & am sure I’m the only one who noticed such a thing… Also, someone’s big church hat flew off and created a bit of a funny nuisance onstage in Rocka My Soul. Always very funny when something goofy happens with a prop

Anyway, I have to upload and post pictures from last night and write about the night before — Masekela Language and Suite Otis, but will have to do it when I get back from Pina Bausch at BAM.

Woo hoo, my cable is up. At least for these five seconds. Quickly, before it crashes again, here are my Explore Dance articles on Columbia’s Starry Night Winter Showcase and the Dance Times Square in-house comp.

Oooh, maybe I can even get my Ailey review up if I hurry…

Time warner cable sucks

Originally uploaded by swan lake samba girl via mobile.

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Internet service out for over 24 hours already. Just called and they said it may be another 48 hours. Do they realize how many people rely on internet for work?

Happy night at ailey, bad night at home

Originally uploaded by swan lake samba girl via mobile.

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Dead modem. So sick of time warner. Wrote a big alvin ailey post and about to publish when connection bit the dust.

Go in grace premiere

Originally uploaded by swan lake samba girl via mobile.

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Aw, it was sweet! And interesting – was just as much about the music – sung live onstage- as the dance if not more. Amos machanic is so good, breaks my heart. Think i saw will from so u think u can dance talking to choreographer hope boykin.

The awesome Deborah Friedes has set up a new dance blog directory here. So, you can find all participating dance blogs in one place. So much easier than going down blogrolls clicking on URLs one by one, and so much more aesthetically inviting than RSS feeds. Thanks Deborah! And, if you write a dance blog, be sure to add yours!

Here’s a lovely set of Flickr photos of Columbia U.’s Starry Night Winter Showcase, taken by someone with a much superior camera to my own! Enjoy!

(photo of Twyla Tharp’s Brief Fling by Lois Greenfield, from American Ballet Theater)

There’s a good article by Joan Acocella in this week’s New Yorker reviewing a couple of recent dances at Brooklyn Academy of Music. In it, she talks about American choreographers and their uneasiness with ballet, their distrust of the dance form as inherently European (and snobbish). Hence, their need constantly to compare and contrast it with other forms of dance, even to deconstruct it.

Funny, but when I saw Tharp’s Brief Fling recently during American Ballet’s Theater’s City Center season, as much as I liked the fun of it (especially since my favorites Marcelo Gomes and Craig Salstein danced in my program — both of whom really up the drama and humor as far as they can possibly go), I couldn’t help but get annoyed thinking, why do so many choreographers either contrast ballet with other dance forms (with modern, with American social, with aerobics, with tango — in Brief Fling, it was with traditional Celtic or Scottish dance) or try to take it apart and show its underpinnings, to critique it — like early William Forsythe, like Jorma Elo, like even the new piece ABT commissioned by Lauri Stallings? So, I was thankful for Acocella’s little historical discussion of American choreography and ballet. Go here for the article.

She also reviews, Urban Bush Women and Compagnie Jant-Bi and falls for African dance! Yes, Joan

So, on Saturday, because Tony Meredith and Melanie LaPatin are in Canada choreographing for Canadian So You Think You Can Dance, Mercedes Ellington took over emceeing responsibilities at the Dance Times Square student / teacher in-house competition.

It was interesting seeing her emcee since she talked a lot about the various musical pieces played for the comp and ran little trivia contests on who was the singer (Lena Horne, Bobby Darin, Johnny Mathis, etc. I got none right). At one point she asked the crowd what all Broadway shows they’d seen lately. People shouted out various shows. I think Spring Awakening had the most shout-outs. “Well hurry up and go see all these shows before they close,” she said, “so you can tell your ancestors that there was once this great thing called Broadway.” OUCH…

Here are the judges: former champs Vibeke Toft (who also coaches at the studio), Allan Tornsberg (of the always interesting hair, and snarky Blackpool commentary), and current top competitor Plamen Danailov (my friend Mika’s former pro/am partner, who was judging for, I think, the first time).

Hunky new Latin teacher at Dance Times Square, Manuel Favilla, with his students.

Long-time teacher Michael Choi in foreground, with his student.

All students did very well. It’s amazing how fast people improve at that studio. Some of Michael’s students began same time as I did, and they are so amazingly good now…

Yet another TV dance competition show. Read about it here.

Of course we weren’t allowed to take videos of the performances at the Starry Winter Night Showcase (part of Columbia University’s Big Apple Dancesport Challenge, that I went to Saturday night — see post below) but here are some videos of a recent performance by Slavik and Hanna in Greece. The showdances are very similar to the ones I saw. I don’t feel as bad for my thoughts; if you read the YouTube comments, a lot of people felt as I did. Here’s their Rumba, their Samba, the Jive (with the suspenders ) , the Paso, and the Cha Cha.

Unfortunately, they had the lights turned down so low all my pictures all turned out to be crap. Witness below:

(See what I mean. I still think Slavik’s greatness is recognizable )

And here’s Katusha Demidova taking a bow. (I didn’t even try to take pictures of the Standard — I knew they’d never come out). But totally forgot to mention how wonderful she and Arunas Bizokas were. They are a veritable Fred and Ginger. I’m totally serious. The best ballroom dancers this country has EVER seen. EVER.

Anyway, I’m writing reviews of this event and the Dance Times Square in-house competition (always a blast) for Explore Dance and will link when they’re up.

People are going to hate me for this…

Originally uploaded by swan lake samba girl via mobile.

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On a scale of one to ten, Hanna is a ten, Slavik a 20000. In other words, no match. No match at all. I’m seriously depressed.

Update:Â Now that I’m home, I’m re-thinking this. I just think my expectations were so high for a Slavik and Hanna Karttunen partnership because I’ve found her so mesmerizing in her exhibitions. I just felt like her Latin wasn’t all there. Maybe she just had a bad night. Maybe she wasn’t feeling well. Or maybe good women just tend to suffocate under the weight of great male partners. But why? I think when a woman is dancing with a great man — one who’s both uber-charismatic and technically excellent with mind-boggling speed and precision of movement — she really needs to find herself, to bring out her artistry. We’re never going to be as good as the men in the athletic department, so we need to excel in other ways. I think I remember Melia saying something like that during her and Sergey’s Blackpool Congress lecture — she had to work hard to find her own “voice” to keep from getting lost under Sergey’s strength.

I just felt like even though she has great flexibility and has lovely extensions, etc., Hanna was really just all but invisible tonight.

On the other hand, Slavik! Slavik had people screaming. This girl next to me moaned loudly in ecstasy when he started to play with his suspenders, and she got so embarrassed her head practically ended up in my lap, but how much could I relate I realized this is actually the first time I’ve ever actually seen him perform live. I’ve only ever seen him compete before. He is a performer beyond any other I’ve ever seen — and I mean any — ballet (Marcelo Gomes, Angel Corella), modern, flamenco (Joaquin Cortes) — I mean everyone and every kind of dance included. It’s quite impossible to exaggerate the man’s performance ability.

And, among other things, I really don’t see how it’s humanly possible for anyone’s pelvis to move as fast as that man’s does…

And then, at one point he took the microphone and gave a little speech. Said he lived and worked in New York for a few years, back when he was competing for the United States (with Karina Smirnoff) — everyone cheered like nuts — and that New York and the U.S. in general occupied a special place in his heart, it’s “part of my soul.” A bunch of people went “ooooooh, aaaaawww,” and he looked out and smiled and said something that made people nearly fling themselves to the floor. I wish I could have heard what he said — his Russian accent is pretty strong.

Anyway, more thoughts on this later. It’s been a long day and I’m tired…

At columbia

Originally uploaded by swan lake samba girl via mobile.

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There’s a Sikh guy warming for tonight’s after-show comp. Never seen that before. College ballroom’s so different, so open. Wish it existed when I was in school.

I find this very interesting. Can totally relate to the queue graphic (Via)

Busy busy weekend for me.

Today is Dance Times Square’s student in-house competition which I’m not participating in but am covering for Explore Dance.

Ditto for tonight’s Starry Night Winter Showcase, part of Columbia University’s Big Apple DanceSport Challenge, where Slavik Kryklyvyy and Hanna Karttunen will perform! Slavik is my favorite Latin dancer and I haven’t seen him dance in a while now, so am very excited. I’ve never seen Hanna dance Latin before but have seen her amazing exhibitions at Blackpool. So, yes, very excited, to say the least. Also, Arunas Bizokas and Katusha Demidova (America’s top ballroom couple) are dancing Standard.

And, this weekend is the Independent / Small Press Book Fair in midtown, which I hope to slip in and out of today while at Dance Times Square down the street, and attend most of tomorrow.

Also, last night I saw Jose Limon Dance Company’s Program B, which is their classic Limon program (The Moor’s Pavane (probably his most famous work), The Traitor (excellent excellent), and Suite From a Choreographic Offering (beautifully rich spiritual dance set to gorgeous Bach music). Don’t have time to write about it now, but I highly recommend Program B, showing through December 7th. Here is Philip’s review.

I went to the opening night of Misnomer Dance Theater’s Being Together at the Joyce SoHo last night. I almost don’t want to write anything yet since they’ll be broadcasting live their December 14th performance. I know, how coolly innovative, right! So, I encourage everyone to watch that. It’s going to be here, on their website. Don’t worry; I’ll remind you again closer to the date

The work is divided into three sections: “Too Late Tulip”; “Rock.Paper.Flock”; and “Zipper”. All deal with different ways human beings have of connecting to each other. The second and third also deal with (a related issue, I suppose, of) how meaning is made in dance — is it due more to the choreographer or the dancers? — which to me, as someone who’s never danced anything but ballroom, is something I’ve always wondered about. I mean, with all other kinds of artists — writers, painters, composers — the work is due entirely to the person at the helm. Sure, actors (in the case of a play) and musicians over time add their own interpretations, but it’s ultimately the writer or composer’s words or notes. I’ve never understood choreographers who say they couldn’t have possibly made their dance on anyone else. That seems to contribute to the ephemeral nature of dance. And that ephemeral quality would seem to negate that a dance, like the other arts, can have a history, and a future. And yet great dances, thankfully, do survive the dancers on whom they were made.

Anyway, choreographer Christopher Elam says his dances are completely open to interpretation, but my interpretation of the first, “Too Late Tulip” was that it’s the story of a woman who has trouble connecting to others. She enjoys swaying to the music on her own, but when others try to join her, to connect with her in various shapes, she kicks out at them, pushes them away. Soon, she is taken with a male dancer, who has a female partner already. The effect is at times chaotic, at times sweet.

The second part I really can’t write about because so much of it was improvised, albeit “directed” on the spot by the choreographer, by Elam. His commands to the dancers are at times hilarious in their generality or seeming contradictions: “Coco, I want you to do what I am thinking” (she playfully shoved another dancer); “Dorian, take center stage with intention and an air of mystery stage and then act like a bowling trophy”; “Luke, focus intensely on something beyond our comprehension” (this was actually rather mesmerizing); “Coco, transform yourself into a magical being and engage in a battle and negotiation with Luke”; etc. It was hilarious watching the dancers take on these commands and this section will be the most interesting to watch repeated on December 14th.

The third part, “Zipper,” seemed to be an extension of the themes of the first two. A dancer (Coco Karol, pictured above with Elam) moved her arms about as if conducting an orchestra. Two dancers would at points move along with her gestures, like they were her instruments, and she’d smile; at other times they’d do their own thing and her face would express surprise or concern. Was she in control or were they? Later, Elam dances, conveying (to me) a loner trying desperately to connect, at times with Karol, at times with the other male dancer in the troupe, Luke Gutgsell.

One thing about Elam — his movement language is so original, something I can’t say of many other choreographers. I’m sure this is the effect of having lived and studied abroad, working in a variety of non-Western cultures. The movement is somehow still evocative of the familiar though, and emotionally moving — the creatures he creates can be funny, sad, pathetic, cute, always endearing. (If you watched So You Think You Can Dance, think Mark Kanemura). In “Zipper”, he moves at times like a gorilla, at times like a crab. To me, this speaks to the interconnectedness of life forms, of how humans can be animalistic and non-human animals human-like. It’s worth going to see his work just to see such unique movement and partnering.

So watch on December 14th! And hopefully, they’ll put a permanent video on the website for watchers who aren’t before a computer at that time…