“If you learn to dance with people, with life, then nothing wrong can happen to you.” -Hugues de Montalembert
Here. Looks exciting — Pacific Northwest Ballet, Jason Samuels Smith (in pic above), Rennie Harris, Cedar Lake, Doug Varone, Merce, etc. etc. I hope I can make it up there for a day or two. Or three or four. So nice and quiet, and a rather studious atmosphere, like a college campus in the middle of the woods. See my photo album from 2007 here.
(photos by Paul Kolnik, taken from NYTimes)
Tuesday night I went to see New York City Ballet’s Founding Choreographers I program (I know, I’m very late; it’s been a nasty week of migraines and sanity-destroying upstairs neighbors — more on the latter later).
It was a good, varied program. First on were two short abstract but very musical “leotard ballets” by Balanchine, both set to Stravinsky, that went together nicely (though they were choreographed years apart), Monumentum Pro Gesualdo and Movements for Piano and Orchestra. The pieces are mainly abstract and play with geometrical shapes and configurations, and there’s a bit of cute “Egyptian” styling in the flexed hand and feet gestures, and the ballets really give the dancers the chance to show off their musicality, especially the second, fast-paced one. I’m liking Maria Kowroski (in the top picture with Charles Askegard) better and better. She was very charismatic. Even though the ballets were story-less, she was kind of playing a part, and it really drew your attention to her. Askegard was really on too.
Maria Kowroski, by Paul Kolnik
The second piece, Robbins’ Dances at a Gathering (pictured second, up top) was what I really went for. It was Kathryn Morgan’s debut in the ballet. She was very good, but who really ended up standing out to me was Sara Mearns. She danced her part in a way that really reminded me of ABT’s artiste supreme Julie Kent in Robbins’ similar but shorter, more virtuosic version, Other Dances. Mearns, like Kent, really connected with the music — not just like she was dancing to the music but with it; it, rather than the male dancer, became her partner. I remember in Other Dances when Kent girlishly lifted her shoulders and a big, joyful grin sweetly overcame her face when the onstage pianist first put his fingers to the keys. Sure Angel was there too, but the music is what made her dance, he was secondary. Robbins has I think three (that I know of) of these dancers-interacting-with-musicians dances: this one, Other Dances, and Suite of Dances, danced by a solitary man to/with an onstage cellist.
Sara Means, by Paul Kolnik
The problem to me with Dances at a Gathering is that there’s so much, it’s just too long, and you lose the quality and the mood that are so prevalent in the other two. Instead of one dancer connecting with a musician, or a duo with each partner connecting in his and her own particular way, here there’s a multitude of dancers, each trying to do that throughout the l-o-n-g dance. Every time I see it, I’m in love with it until about half-way through when it starts to drag. Then there’ll be another section that draws me in, and then another section that drags, then another section that drags, then another that begins to draw me in again where I begin to think, gee if there weren’t all those sections earlier that dragged, this one would be quite engaging, but by this point, I just want the damn thing to end already. And I know I’m not the only one who felt that way. You can feel the whole audience shifting in their seats. You can hear the heavy breathing. Someone needs to seriously edit that ballet!
Anyway, that said, I also really liked Benjamin Millepied. He dashed around the stage as if he were desperately searching for someone or something he’d lost. There was a longing and a quiet urgency to his performance that was really quite poignant.
Benjamin Millepied, by Paul Kolnik
(all headshots taken from NYCB site)
See principal Megan Fairchild talk about that ballet (and see excerpts) here.
Last on was Balanchine’s Stars and Stripes, the high-speed, super-energetic ballet danced to John Philip Sousa’s marching band music that today looks kind of goofy in its hyper-patriotism. At first you want to roll your eyes at what seem to be a cheesy series of Rockette-like high kicks and formation changes and almost circus-like high jumps and stage-traversing turning jetes in the soldier section, but then you realize that in 1958, when it premiered, it was still kind of a point at which America was becoming acquainted with ballet, with the movements and with the Petipa structure — the wondrous in sync ensemble work, the pas de deux with the breathtaking lifts, the solos with their athletic jumps for the man, fouettes and fast chaine turns for the woman. As eye-rolling as this ballet may now be, if you look at it with a historical eye it was very original in its celebratory Americanization of the classical.
photo of Alvin Ailey courtesy of Film Society Lincoln Center / AAADT
This Sunday, February 1, in honor of the start of Black History Month, the Film Society at Lincoln Center will be showing a full afternoon and evening of films about Alvin Ailey and the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater in the Walter Reade Theater. Onstage guests will include playwright and actor Anna Deavere Smith, dancer Donna Wood Sanders, filmmakers Orlando Bagwell and Patricia Birch who will present their films and answer questions afterward, and of course Judith Jamison. There’s also a poster exhibit in the Walter Reade lobby.
Sounds like a wonderful day! I can’t make all of the films but hope to see some. Go here for a full list of screenings.
My review of Champions of the Dance at Town Hall on Friday is now up at Explore Dance.
I spent practically the whole weekend at Miami City Ballet (at City Center). Wow, what a great, world-class company! They presented two programs of almost all Balanchine (one Tharp) and they really brought Balanchine to life for me. The company’s director is Edward Villella, who performed with Balanchine and was a very renowned dancer in the fifties and sixties, still considered by many to be the greatest American male dancer ever. He was there of course and took bows with the dancers. Twyla Tharp was also there for the program showing her In The Upper Room, bouncing around during the curtain calls in jeans and sneakers with her gray hair tied back into a pony tail, and of course her signature glasses. What fun!
Anyway, program one was: the excellent Symphony in Three Movements (my first time seeing it), La Valse (also my first time — gorgeous ballet), and Tharp’s Room; program two was: Square Dance, “Rubies” (the second section of Jewels), and Symphony in C.
My favorites were mostly from the first program.
Well, I was going to say it didn’t bother me this week as much as last, but then I watched the first 15 minutes (I had a legal seminar tonight and didn’t get home until after the show had already begun, so had to watch the first 15 after the rest). The Flatley number was horrendous. What was up with that girl in the bikini walking around playing Yankee Doodle Dandee with a flute at the beginning? What is this, a boxing match? Soft-core porn? I actually thought this whole show was kind of porn-ish — generally more about flaunting bodies than artistry.
Except for Maria Kochetkova — the Russian ballerina who competed — and WON thankfully! — in the solo category. I think that’s probably why I liked tonight better than last week — she was on, just about the show’s only saving grace. And I’m not just saying that because I’m a ballet fan. I would really have loved to have seen some wonderful ballroom, but, I’m sorry, I’m just not into that Australian couple. I thought the same of their Jive tonight as I did their Samba last week — fast footwork but just lacking in precision and clarity with an overall sloppy look. At least compared to the Latin I’ve seen at the big competitions.
I liked Victor DaSilva and Claudia Sawides — the South African duo — tonight better than the last time we saw them. The routine was still about the lifts — those exhibitions always are — but this one had a bit more narrative and emotion, passion to it. I felt like they connected better this time than last. I also liked the Argentine couple. Their Tango was very polished with sharp footwork. Lovely! I pretty much agreed with the couples results.
And I agreed with the solo results too, but only because I liked ballet. I’m sure Robert the popper is excellent at that kind of dance style, as was the Indian dancer at classical Indian dance. As I and others have said repeatedly, you just can’t judge these wholly different styles of dance next to each other.
I’m again annoyed at camera guy though. Camera person, I should say — don’t know why I think it’s a guy. S/he kept homing in on the Indian woman’s face and we couldn’t see some of her beautiful hand and foot gestures. You don’t dance with your face! I felt like she must have been going very fast with her feet at one point because of all the applause, and I think I heard the sound of the bells she wore around her ankles, but I’m not sure because the show’s acoustics weren’t so great. I also think I saw Maria Kochetkova do continuous fouettes with some double pirouettes thrown in, and at one point changing feet right in the middle — which is marvelous! But because of the camera panning in and out, then down to her feet, then a faraway shot, etc., I’m not exactly sure if that happened.
Sorry, by the way, to keep calling most of these dancers by their nationalities and dance styles. The show’s website doesn’t seem to have their names, only those of the judges and team leaders.
I didn’t think any of the group routines were anything to write home about, and both the intro to the American team and that silly Yankee Doodle Dandy number by Flatley and crew up front were ridiculously chauvinistic (I mean in a nationalist way). Why the need to celebrate America and proclaim it the nation with no boundaries, encompassing all the world, etc. on a supposedly international show like this? And is anyone surprised that our team, and our country, won the gold? The whole thing was just so corny. When Flately said at the end to his co-host, “I know, I’ve never seen anything like this on television!”, it looked like he was trying hard not to burst out laughing. At least he should have been.
And what happened to Pasha and Anya? Who knows. According to the website, team Russia was supposed to have two soloists from the Bolshoi, one pair of ballroom dancers, and a Cossack team. I saw two pairs of ballroom dancers and one soloist from San Francisco Ballet. But I missed the first night, so I might have missed the “other” Bolshoi soloist? I don’t know; I’m not a huge fan of the show’s website.
I think the idea behind this show is a good one. I like having dancers from a variety of countries dance different styles — some native to their country, some not, giving audiences wide exposure to the art. But there were just so many cheesy, corny, porn-esque moments, the camera work seriously frustrated my ability even to see what I was supposed to be seeing, and the judging was downright ludicrous.
Last Thursday (Balanchine’s birthday), New York City Ballet celebrated with a tribute to Nureyev and the premiere of a ballet, Lifecasting (photo above by Paul Kolnik), by young choreographer Douglass Lee.
The evening began with two films of Nureyev, the first of him dancing on PBS’s The Bell Telephone Hour (do wish they still had that show!) with Maria Tallchief in the pas de deux of August Bournonville’s Flower Festival in Genzano. After the little film tribute, out came Kathryn Morgan and Allen Peiffer who danced just that. I really get so much out of seeing the same thing danced twice back to back — I love it when Christopher Wheeldon will do that at Morphoses or when City Ballet does it with a tribute to Robbins, or, like here, Nureyev — and will show a clip of someone rehearsing a dance, and then the dancers come out and do it for real. You get different artistic versions of the same movement patterns, maybe a less polished then more polished version, you kind of remember the movement and see it through the dancers’ eyes as s/he struggles to perfect the same set of steps.
Anyway, interestingly, when I first saw these dancers doing the same steps, I thought, how much would I NOT want to be poor Allen Peiffer right now! To be compared to Nureyev like that!
Continue reading ‘New York City Ballet’s Tribute To Nureyev and New Lee Ballet’
By posing questions like, “how old am I?” And, “who am I?”
Karina Smirnoff, Blackpool 2006, photo by Tonya Plank
Regarding the first: apparently 10 years old, as I just became ridiculously giddy on Facebook’s pronouncement: “Tonya is now friends with Karina Smirnoff.” My longtime Latin ballroom IDOL 
Regarding second question: one of my new FB friends asked me, “Hey, what’s up with all this Miami City Ballet stuff? Are you a dance critic?” (My status updates lately have been about going to see Miami City Ballet, where I spent the past two days).
So, hmmm. I honestly don’t know. Do bloggers = amateur (or in some cases pro) critics in this new media world? I guess it depends on the blogger and how s/he defines him/herself. I guess I want to be taken seriously as someone who gives her honest opinions and assessments of things and certainly don’t want to be seen as a lackey to any dance company, but I also try to make my connection with dance personal in a way that a newspaper critic really can’t. Ie: writing in a bit of a persona, calling dancers I really like by their first names, etc. Makes it more interesting albeit less “objective” I think.
I also want to try to avoid being too hard on an artist. I have been and it’s really upset a couple of them. As someone who’s really trying to segue from a career in law to a career as a writer — and especially a writer of fiction — I can relate to and have a deep respect for how difficult the artistic process is and how much you are really putting yourself out there when you subject yourself to public scrutiny. But then again, we all need to have thick skin if we are doing that. And writers do have to keep in mind that our readers are relying on us for our honest opinions; we’re not writing for the artists but for other dance-goers. I do make a distinction between creators who it seems are primarily interested in entertaining and maximizing profit above all else. That’s why I don’t feel badly about being harsh on the TV show producers
Oscar Wilde says a critic is a kind of artist.
So, I basically didn’t answer my the second question at all… Anyway, any other thoughts on the roles of blogger vs. critic in the age of new media, or on critic as artist?
Results from the UK National Championships, held this week in Bournemouth (and one of the most prestigious in the world) are now up.
Sergey Surkov and Melia, Blackpool Congress 2008, photo by Tonya Plank
Sergey and Melia take third in Latin!!! Woo hoo! They must have been so happy! And I’m so happy for them!
Slavik and Hanna didn’t do so hot though — they received a disappointing 6th place. Oh well, better next time.
Other placements were predictable:
Last night marked the start of Miami City Ballet’s New York City Center season, which is very exciting because, not only is this that company’s Manhattan debut, but it marks the return of the company’s director, the famous Edward Villella, to the stage on which he began his career as a ballet dancer, in 1957, with Balanchine’s company — New York City Ballet. NYCB’s current home, the State Theater (now known, after recent renovations, as the David H. Koch Theater) wasn’t yet built then so City Center was the company’s main stage. I’ll be going to a couple of their performances later in the week and can’t wait. I especially can’t wait for Tharp’s In the Upper Room, one of my favorites. So psyched they’re doing it!
Last night was also San Francisco Ballet’s opening night gala. The co-founder of Twitter was there and he mobile tweeted that the event was like an unofficial Twitter headquarters. Most cool! Hopefully, we’ll be getting a full report of the evening from Jolene.
As one of my Twitter friends said, “Feel like a kid on Christmas Eve. When I wake up, the world will be glorious, full of hope & promise & wonderous things to discover! Obama!”
(photo by Paul Kolnik, of Alvin Ailey’s Revelations)
It’s actually very early in the morning (like, still last night), but when I get up, I’ll probably be adding to this post, live-blogging the events throughout the day as I watch them (sadly, only on TV)
Happy happy day, everyone!
So, I’m watching on TV now but am thinking of going to one of the common areas in NY to watch on a big screen TV. I know I’ll be cold (I think the Apollo theater is the only inside venue and I’m sure it’s full by now) and probably won’t see as much, but sometimes it’s just fun for a sense of community.
I’m actually liking NBC’s coverage better than CNN’s. NBC has some knowledgeable people on — I liked the presidential historian who talked about the first inauguration (Washington’s of course) and the most difficult transition of power (1953, Eisenhower) — CNN is just interviewing people and the commentators are saying such cliched things: “It’s a new dawn, “it’s a new day,” “this is historical,” etc. What would David Foster Wallace have said…
And you know I haven’t said that about any of the other dance shows. I’ve been very open-minded so far. But the judges tonight seem pretty open about rewarding ass-shaking over artistry, subtlety, dance skill, interpretive skill, ingeniousness of choreography, you name it. What is dance if it is not those things?
That Australian couple performed one of the worst Sambas I think I’ve ever seen. Maybe I’m still coming off of my Alvin Ailey high, or maybe it’s just this show and the horrifying camera work that is completely destroying practically everyone’s dancing, but what I saw from that Australian couple was all flash, no substance.
Continue reading ‘Superstars of Dance is Completely Degrading to the Art Form’
(photo by Paul Kolnik, of Clifton Brown from Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, in Love Stories)
Happy Martin Luther King Day, you guys! Happy week!
(photo of Jock Soto in Chiaroscuro by Paul Kolnik, borrowed from Ballet Co.)
Methinks with Seth and Nikolaj now gone, Sebastien Marcovici has kind of taken over as NYCB’s hunky male dancer. He shone in two of my favorite ballets from the past week anyway.
(photo by Paul Kolnik, from NYCB site)
I went to City Ballet’s all Jerome Robbins program mid-week and today’s “Four Voices” — featuring ballets by four different choreographers (Lynne Taylor-Corbett, Peter Martins, Alexei Ratmansky, and Balanchine).
Both programs were excellent. My favorite ballet from today was Chiaroscuro by Taylor-Corbett, whom I’d never heard of before but whom I now won’t be forgetting.
Continue reading ‘New York City Ballet: Robbins, Chiaroscuro, and Sebastien Marcovici’
Not to sound melodramatic, but it just seems like the recession is really changing the way some people live. My apartment building seems like party central during weekday days now. Halls are filled with the cacophany of TV cartoons, soap operas, talk shows, and blaring stereos, all of which easily penetrate walls, floors, and ceilings. Either a lot of people are out of work or they work at home and enjoy lots of background noise. And people are up all night, blaring stereos, the same noise, till all hours of the morning. You ask someone politely to please turn it down a bit and they mumble and slam the door in your face. And the other day I smelled pot coming from someone’s apartment, again, during a weekday day. This used to be a professional building, with lawyers and journalists and the like as residents. Now everyone’s rude and antisocial. Maybe the middle-classes are starting to get a small sense of what those in poorer communities have had to deal with: hopelessness, frustration, anger, boredom…
…and other questions I had after seeing Young Jean Lee’s The Shipment, a very compelling off off-Broadway play about Black identity in America by a Korean-American playwright, starring an all-black cast.
(image by Sara Krulwich, taken from the NYTimes).
Warning: if you’re in NY and you plan to see this, you may not want to read this yet!
I’d been really excited about seeing this play for a while and it definitely didn’t disappoint. Also made me think. A lot. And methinks this “review” may be all over the place because of those thoughts.
The play is divided into three sections, or acts. The first consists of a foul-mouthed Eddie Murphy-type stand-up comedian who says he’d love to spend all his time telling jokes about pooping (his very favorite subject of comedy) but is being forced to talk about race instead (because he’s black, because it unfortunately affects him as a black American). He remarks on some of the differences between whites and blacks: whites obsess about their weight throughout their lives, blacks — once they get married, forget about that shit. Occasionally, he’s confrontational but in a funny way, and, though I think he made many in the mostly white, mostly young, very liberal audience somewhat uncomfortable at points, everyone laughed. This was my least favorite section, mainly because I wish Lee would have been more specific at times and also because she overlooked class differences a bit. For example, the comedian says that whites love to accuse blacks of “whining,” but look at what whites whine about: “Ooh, I just don’t know what to dooo with my life!,” he says in falsetto, or “Ooh, am I too fat?!” It’s funny — because that’s exactly what a lot of whites do whine about — but upper-middle-class whites. Believe me, poor whites are not worried about how they look; they’re worried about putting food on the table, about how far they can stretch their next paycheck. Just visit any small working-class town in the south or the mid-west.
But also, I don’t really know what whites accuse blacks of whining about. Historical oppression? The disproportionate rates of incarceration? Racial targeting by the police? I’ve never heard any whites accuse blacks of whining about any of these things. Most whites don’t even want to think about those things.
Continue reading ‘Blacks Acting “White” is Hilarious, But What Would the Reverse Be?’
I am really excited about this! It’s for one night only, Friday, January 23 at 8 pm, at Town Hall in midtown, and it’s starring a couple of my favorite pairs: Delyan Terziev and Boriana Deltcheva (in the above pic, far left) and Iveta Lukosiute and Gherman Mustuc (far right). Delyan & Boriana are a tall, thin, dramatic Latin couple I really like (she has these really gorgeous spidery limbs); they usually place in the finals in national competitions (and used to be competitive for top awards with Pasha and Anya when they were still competing). Iveta and Gherman are ten-dance champs (meaning, they compete in all ten dances, both Latin and Standard). They also do wonderful ballroom showcases.
Also performing are some dancers who were featured on the PBS show America’s Ballroom Challenge (which should be airing again soon, in early February): Evgeny Dyanchenko and Inna Ivanenko (above pic, in the middle), Tony Scheppler and Erin Bomboy, and Mayo Alanen and Lisa Vogel.
Tix are $45-$50. If you’re in New York, go here for more info. There isn’t a lot of Latin / Ballroom concert dance in New York so I’m very happy about this!
I’m loving Maria Kochetkova! (She’s the ballerina dancing for Russia). I love how polished and perfect she was — all those turns! And her technique and precision were incredible. But I also love her personality — that she said she wanted to be on the program to show people who may not have seen ballet before what it’s like. I love how fascinated she is with everyone else’s dancing — like how she remarked that it was so wonderful to see so many forms of dance from around the world. Honestly, a lot of ballet dancers turn their noses up at other forms of dance, mainly because, having spent so much time in ballet school, they lack exposure to much else. So, it’s so reassuring to see a young ballerina who is not like that at all. And who’s a brilliant dancer!
So, if you watched the Golden Globes last night, you know that the Danny Boyle movie Slumdog Millionaire took home just about all the top awards. Did you guys see it? I did, and I generally liked it, was on the edge of seat throughout (which doesn’t often happen at the movies for me), liked Boyle’s signature fast paced cinematography, the scenery of Mumbai, etc. But I also had some problems with the unreality of it all and am kind of dumbfounded that it got so much blind praise.
For one thing, I found the romance so over-the-top and unbelievable, it really kind of ruined the whole for me. We’re not really supposed to believe that he could have found his girl, and she’d still be there for him, after all those years, right? And if it is supposed to be a bit of magical realism, then I think it kind of undercuts the rest, which is supposed to be brutally realistic, right? Or is it? Do the police in Mumbai really torture a suspect like that, and over whether he cheated on a game show? I thought initially his torturers were mafia, but, according to the story, they were just plain old police, who became his friends later on. And there was so much suffering — the Christian mobs brutally murdering the Muslims, the gangs of organized kidnappers gouging out the eyes of the children before using them to make money, the selling into slavery. It was all so horrid. But then given the outrageous love-story plot and then
So Twitter’s Shorty Award finalist nominees are up. They deleted the Dance category, as I kind of expected they would, for, I assume, not enough nominations. Typical. Though they also deleted the Books category, so I’m not taking it personally Anyway, if you want to check out the finalist Tweets and vote, go here.
Thursday night, Cedar Lake Dance had their winter season opening. As usual, they had a big celebration, serving free champagne and wine and inviting all the bloggers, critics, and choreographers. Philip, Taylor and I enjoyed standing around during intermission sipping champagne and people-watching; it was kind of a who’s who in the dance world, the most famous of the ‘who’s’ probably being Baryshnikov, who was looking rather tiny, but snazzy in a beret.
I went a little early to take in some of the Chelsea arts scene, which was extremely happening. Practically every gallery from 24th through 26th streets, 10th-11th Avenues, was having an opening. Roslyn Sulcas from the New York Times apparently had the same idea as me! Anyway, I had more than a few glasses of (free) wine by the time I got to Cedar Lake, mid-way down 26th Street…
They had three dances, two of which were premieres. One, memory/measure, was by Italian choreographer Luca Veggetti. The stage was minimalist, consisting only of a white mat. Two male and two female dancers took turns walking around its perimeter as the others danced duets in the middle. The soundtrack consisted of industrial sounds (a helicopter, clanking, etc.) and a voice-over telling a story. Unfortunately because I was so taken with the movement — complicated, emotionally intense partnering; stunning, difficult-looking deep plies on pointe by Acacia Schacte, I kept forgetting to listen to the words, so I didn’t get any “story.” One thing that struck me was how the dancers each moved so differently around the perimeter of the stage. One would kind of creep around cat-like, one would have more of a bravado to his strut, one kind of tiptoed. I’m not sure if it was intentional or simply different dancers having their own style.
(photo of Acacia Schachte and Jon Bond by Julieta Cervantes)
My favorite piece of the night was Dutch choreographer Didy Veldman’s “frame of view.”
Image taken from Explore Dance, photo by Paul Kolnick; dancers: Yvonne Borree and Robert La Fosse.
New York City Ballet doesn’t often put on full-length story ballets, but when they do, they do very well with them. Coppelia was very entertaining. The leads were danced charmingly by Joaquin De Luz, probably the most actorly of the male dancers, and the doll-faced Megan Fairchild.
(photos of De Luz and Fairchild by Paul Kolnick, from NYCBallet website)
This is kind of a sad comedy that takes place in 19th Century Galicia. It’s the story of toymaker Dr. Coppelius (played by La Fosse, also in top pic) who creates a life-sized doll whom he rather sadly comes to love as his own daughter. Frantz (De Luz) is a country bumpkin in love with Swanilda (Fairchild) but also can’t help flirting madly with the doll (yeah, he is not too bright).
If you’re in New York, please do join the performance club dance writer (and my friend) Claudia La Rocco has set up over at the WNYC blog!
I had to miss out on last month’s performances, but this month the group is seeing Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet (which I went to last week and will post about very shortly) and Young Jean Lee’s The Shipment, a new dance by a Korean-American woman about black identity politics, which looks fascinating and which I can’t wait to see.
I think she has it set up so that you can either go to these performances with the group, or go see them at another time more convenient to you, and then everyone will discuss them online at the club’s WNYC forum.
In the meantime, or if you’re not in NY, watch the video and interview she posted. This is from Cedar Lake’s performance of the Didy Veldman dance that I’d gone on about earlier. I love the slow motion fight scene!
I’m re-posting the post. I don’t know how to retrieve comments from Disqus so I’m re-posting the comments in the body of the post.
Parsons: An Evening of Classics, Some of Which I Love, Some of Which I Still Have Issues With
January 8, 2009
Tuesday evening I went to the opening night of Parsons Dance at the Joyce Chelsea. The season opened with Program B, all classics by founder David Parsons; later in the week the company will premiere Program A, a new rock opera.
I like this modern / contemporary company and always find them to be a lot of fun. They’re smallish but have a diverse repertoire (some dances are more lyrical and set to more classical music, others more jazzy and disco-y, set to light rock or soul music, some focused more on lighting effects), and a kind of cult following.
Actually, my favorite dance of the night was a short duet called Ebben, which is going to be part of the larger work premiering later in the week. It was just oozing with sexiness and passion, and I can’t wait to see the whole! Abby Silva, probably the most stand-out dancer in the troupe stood on high releve and kind of tip toed around Kevin Ferguson, standing with his back toward the audience, as if she was just kind of discovering him, then searching, maybe trying to understand him, to breathe in his essence.
If you’ve read my blog in the last couple of days you’ll notice I took down a post. Yes. As a Twitter friend just DM’d me, “When will dance companies learn that any publicity is good publicity?” I agree. When will they? Most of the things I said in that post were quite positive.
It’s not easy to make me this mad. It’s really not.
Kristin Sloan just wrote this excellent post on The Winger. Apparently, the Berliner Philharmoniker is doing like Misnomer did and is live-streaming their performances. Except they’ve set theirs up so that they have a permanent website and they charge people for viewing. You can buy either single or season tickets. And then you watch live on the internet.
I think this would be such an excellent idea for dance companies. Nothing can take the place of a live performance but there are so many people who don’t get a chance to see those because of where they live, because of finances, etc. Why not live-stream so everyone can see? Then I wouldn’t be having so many of these discussions about my favorites with myself or with very few fortunate others who happen to live in New York or another big city.
Every season at Alvin Ailey they put out a souvenir book that includes pics of the dancers and info about the history of the company, which I always get. This year, in honor of their 50th anniversary, they had a section where the dancers were quoted saying something about what being in the company, dancing, etc. means to them. Kirven Boyd, one of my favorites, said how amazing it was to perform under the Parthenon in Greece, “to be on stage under the stars.” Of course initially I felt a pang of jealousy. But then I thought, how great that would be for all their home-based fans to see as well. And others who’ve never had the chance to see them. This is a company that travels widely, all over the world. How cool would it be for them to live-stream their international performances?
And how cool to live-stream as well performances by other intriguing and provocative dance companies — Morphoses, William Forsythe, Tere O’Connor, Jerome Bel, to name a few? Then we could all have these discussions about choreography, about how meaning is made through movement, about what constitutes art, etc., that the people who make these annoying TV shows are so insistent on not having!
Okay, so I made sure I saw it tonight. Eh, yeah agree with people saying it’s rather boring (see comments on first post, below). Something about the television just kills some forms of dance, unfortunately.
I loved Maria Kochetkova (who is currently with San Francisco Ballet) dancing the Kitri solo from Don Quixote, but it was so disappointingly short! And somehow ballet doesn’t always translate so well to the screen. But I loved that the judges recognized what a great technician she is and all gave her high scores. I thinks she was second of the solosists.
(photo of Alvin Ailey cast in Masekela Langage by Steve Vaccariello from Alvin Ailey website)
I managed to be sick for the last two weeks of December, so, horribly, I wasn’t able to go to as many Alvin Ailey performances as I usually do. Now, I’m depressed and feeling like I really missed out. Especially since I was just told how excellent the season finale was last night. Sob sob.
I did get to see all the major things though: the revivals (Blues Suite and Masekela Langage); the two premieres (Go in Grace and Festa Barocca), which I wrote about here and here and here; Suite Otis, a fun piece set to Otis Redding and comprised of jazzy all-male and all-female ensemble numbers and cute vignettes of couples in various stages of a relationship; and of course several Revelations.
(Linda Celeste Sims and Glenn Allen Sims in Suite Otis, photo by Paul Kolnick)
(Suite Otis, photo by Steve Vaccariello)
(Suite Otis, Paul Kolnick photo)
Blues Suite was Mr. Ailey’s first major dance, made in 1958, when the company began. It’s a bluesy piece that takes place in a nightclub, based on The Dew Drop Inn, an African American hangout in his Texan hometown, and consists of a set of female cabaret dancers and jazzy dancing men, who mostly perform in groups for the audience but sometimes dance together as if we, the audience, are getting not a “performance” but are eavesdropping on what goes on in a real club. The latter were my favorite parts.
With Masekela Langage, my overall favorite of the season besides Revelations, we get just that: a glimpse into another world, a troubling world.
(Steve Vaccariello photo, Masekela Langage)
And that’s what I liked about it so much. It was described to me as a “political” work (a totally loaded term!) portraying racial violence and oppression both in the era of South African apartheid (it’s set to music by the South African trumpeteer Hugh Masekela) and in 1960s Chicago. So, I expected to see all these scenes of white farmers burning black farms, of bands of white police attacking black men on the streets, etc. But it wasn’t.
Continue reading ‘Masekela Langage and the Brilliance of Revelations’
Okay, I’m a dumbass and missed it last night. I thought it was premiering tonight. Did any of you guys catch it? What did you think? I just learned that San Francisco Ballet’s Maria Kochetkova will be on tonight, dancing as the ballet soloist for Russia! According to her blog, she’ll be dancing a Kitri solo from Don Quixote. Will definitely be taping and / or watching!
Okay, here’s my (late) list of favorites from 2008: (click on highlights to read what I wrote about each dance)
Favorite overall dance of the year:
Revelations by Alvin Ailey. Because the movement language — a unique blend of American Modern with African — is highly evocative, richly varied, and, because it’s set in a specific time and place recognizable to most if not all of us, it’s imbued with meaning and feeling accessible to everyone. And because it speaks to the human condition like no other dance I’ve ever seen. I’m still looking for something to top this and don’t know if I’ll ever find it.
(photo by Paul Kolnick)
Favorite new dances:
1) Nimrod Freed’s PeepDance in Central Park;
