All photos by Monique Carboni.

If you’re in NY or are coming here at all for the holidays, definitely do not miss FELA! It’s honestly one of the best musicals — if not the best — I’ve ever seen (and I don’t often like musicals!)

It’s a very “real” musical in that it takes place in a night-club in Lagos, Nigeria — called The Shrine — founded by  real-life Nigerian composer, musician, founder of Afrobeat, and human rights activist Fela Kuti (1938-1997). It’s the late 1970s and he and his dancers (mostly female) perform their unique — and fascinating — blend of what seems to me traditional African, Reggae, and funk, and you’re part of the night-club audience!

Through the songs — most of them are actual music by Kuti — Kuti tells his story, and that of his mother, Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti, who was killed by the police just months earlier, when they raided Kuti’s compound. Funmilayo was a feminist and human rights activist who was vocal in her opposition to colonialism, and to the corrupt government, and her death, along with the attack on Kuti’s compound, were politically-motivated.

It’s hard to understand the exact political problems in Kuti’s Nigeria — I’d think it would be near impossible to explain something that complicated in a show like this — but suffice it to say the government is corrupt, there’s no accountability of government officials, the police force / Army is murderous, Nigerian citizens are suffering, and Kuti is speaking out against it all through his songs.

The story-line moves back and forth in time, much of it devoted to Kuti’s memory of Funmilayo, played brilliantly by Lillias White (in photo above).

The show is expertly choreographed and directed by Bill T. Jones (photo above by Joseph Moran), who, I feel, does his best work on Broadway. The dancing is so incredibly stunning. I have never seen African dance done this well. Jones must have looked long and hard for those miraculous performers! The play obviously provides a great history lesson, but, seriously, you can go for the dancing alone and be completely blown away.

But, as I said, you’re made to feel you’re part of the Shrine audience — and Kuti (played, on my night, excellently by Sahr Ngaujah — Kevin Mambo alternates with him in the role) will ask everyone to stand up and clap, dance (at your seat!), sing, repeat words after him — it’s a lot of fun. At one point, they re-enact the police breaking into the compound, kidnapping several of the dancers, torturing them, beating Kuti, and throwing Funmilayo out of a top-floor window, killing her. But when the police storm the place, the dancers and cast -members run about the theater, through the aisles, you hear screams, shots. You feel like you’re one of them, and it’s really actually quite frightening for a split second. I actually wished they’ve have done a bit more of that — had not just the compound’s inhabitants running around screaming, but the police chasing them, waving batons, threatening everyone, including you, the “foreigner.” (My friend who I saw the show with, a black man, thought I was a bit off my nut wanting this — this rather authentic re-enaction of police brutality…)

Anyway, brilliant brilliant show — a definite must-see! I also loved Saycon Sengbloh as a female friend, whom Kuti meets during his travels. She mainly sings, and, like White, she’s got a really beautiful, powerful voice.

One last thing: at the end, the dancers and singers all emerge from the wings and carry through the aisles and out onto the stage small tombstones. It’s really cool — there are cameras all about filming live and the scene is supposed to be a political demonstration. Because of the cameras, even though the audience is all seated, everyone still kind of looks like they’re part of the demonstration. Very cool effect. Anyway, Kuti carries a tombstone bearing his mother’s name; the others’ bear words like peace, dignity, etc. At the end, they stack all tombstones atop one another onto a pile in the middle. I noticed as we were putting on our coats to leave that the one in the middle said “I am Sean Bell.” I thought that was interesting because obviously Sean Bell is a contemporary American reference and this took place in Nigeria decades ago. And, the Nigerian police stormed Kuti’s compound and attacked him and his followers for their outspoken political beliefs, whereas Bell was shot and killed by police during a failed prostitution bust because they thought — notoriously wrongly of course — that his friend was reaching toward his waistband to retrieve a gun. One outlash of violence seems so much more politically-motivated than the other. But then maybe the Bell case is political just in the fact that the police had targeted a club in a black part of town in the first place and were looking for criminal activity. Maybe both the Kuti and Bell communities were equally “under siege” in a way. I don’t know … racism in the U.S. these days takes such complicated forms because there are just layers upon layers upon layers of historical oppression.

Photo by Paul Kolnik, copied from NYCB website.

Okay, after blabbering on about the audience Friday night and new post-ballet restaurants, on to the actual performance.

It was magical, as always. Megan Fairchild and Joaquin De Luz were charming as the leads (the Sugarplum Fairy and her cavalier) — above headshots by Paul Kolnik, from NYCB website. I always love watching these two — Megan’s so sweet and she always seems to have this “cat who just swallowed the canary” smile on her face. She’s the ideal ballerina for this role. Maybe it’s just that I haven’t seen City Ballet in a while now, but Joaquin, who was injured at the end of last season, seems to be jumping higher and spinning far faster than ever before. As always, he was the perfect manly cavalier.

Beautiful Sara Mearns danced the other main role — Dewdrop. (Headshot by Paul Kolnik)

I wonder if something was done to the stage floor during renovations because Ashley Bouder had slipped on opening night in the new Martins ballet, and Mearns slipped twice on Friday night. I don’t think I’ve ever seen Mearns fall and Bouder was just kind of standing when she fell, so it made me wonder if something’s slippery. Anyway, Sara seemed a bit shaken at first, but she soon recovered and danced with her typical beautiful fluidity and lush, expansive lines.

The little girls are so cute — you can hear all the ooohs and aaaahs when Dewdrop and her ladies in pink fill the stage. Below, Megan Fairchild in that role, photo by Paul Kolnik, taken from Explore Dance.

Other highlights were the magical-seeming Christmas tree that in little Marie’s dreams rises up from the floor and shoots straight through the ceiling, Sean Suozzi as Candy Cane — the incredible things he did with that hoop! — and, even though the Chinese stereotypes bother me in the Tea section, high jumper Daniel Ulbricht did expectedly well as the lead there, although I thought I remembered that dance being longer? And of course Justin Peck was a lot o fun as Mother Ginger, the role many of us most remember from seeing the ballet during childhood.

Balanchine’s version of the Christmas classic is a little shorter with a more children-heavy cast than most, making it the ideal holiday treat for families. It runs through January 3rd.

Reviewed by Christopher Atamian

The actress Lee Scher and her partner-choreographer Saar Harari belong to a generation of Israeli choreographers who have all been influenced to a greater or lesser degree by the immensely talented Ohad Naharin and his “Gaga” dance technique.  While I quite like Batsheva and Naharin, many of the choreographers that have followed in his wake, including Inbal Pinto and Lee Saar, have left me indifferent at best.  In Prima, four performers Jye-Hwei Lin, Hsin-Yi Hsiang, Hyerin Lee, and Candice Schnurr-all quite graceful and talented-dance around the stage, gesticulate, crawl and otherwise shake legs, arms and booties for the better part of forty-five minutes to a mix by d.j. filastine, Latino club music, and a fado or Arabic-inspired Spanish fusion of wailing and techno.  Sometimes they also crawl around in complete silence.

The highlight of the piece comes every so often when one of the dancers yells out her name, introducing herself to a somewhat weary audience.  At times the rather stock movement seemed influenced by break, rave, krump and even pole dancing, and at others it looked simply like random movement. I will not attempt to deduce the theoretical hermeneutics that I imagine may underlie this rather hermetic, uninspired choreography-what it either signified or meant is beyond me; on an aesthetic level it was rather bland as well.  Part of a critic’s job of course is to evaluate how close a choreographer or artist on comes to achieving his or her (stated) goals-in this context Lee Saar’s Prima was, I suppose, more or less successful.  But if a performance falls flat both theoretically and aesthetically then what, one wonders, is the viewer meant to take away from it?

Seen on November 22nd.

Photo taken from Broadway World.

New York City Ballet’s Nutcracker season opened on Friday night. Review coming soon, but first I just have to complain about what I assume is a new custom in the Koch Theater, at least during Nutcracker season — the selling of Twizzlers, gummy bears, M&Ms and other bags of candy, along with bottled water, in the concession area, which is situated so close to the auditorium, audiences are assuming they’re for consumption inside the theater.

My friend Mika and I were seated comfortably in our orchestra seats (my first time in the new Koch house orchestra — wonderful wonderful improvement from the old: each row of plush velvety seats is staggered considerably higher from the prior row so that you can easily see above the head in front of you! Yay!), the lights dimmed, Faycal came out and took his cute little bow, the orchestra began — this is some of my favorite music in all of ballet — and suddenly, the row behind me began this all-out candy fest. Multiple bags were torn into, water bottles opened. “Here, honey, have a licorice,” said the mother. I turned around and shot the mother a look but she completely ignored me — or perhaps didn’t even register that I was looking at her for a reason. This continued — the passing of the crinkly bags, the water bottle’s cap being removed and replaced, the noise the plastic bottle made as the water was drunk and it filled with air, the “here, have the rest of this cookie,” etc. continued throughout the entire first act. I don’t think anything has ever disturbed me so much in the theater. I felt like I was at a movie — and a noisy movie at that. I almost felt like crying during the mouse / soldier fight scene — I love those tantalizing flutes! And I could hardly hear them.

When the curtain went down on the first act, I turned around, but the family of four kept right on gorging, staring right back at me, like they had no idea what I was looking at, and not even trying to hide their food. I felt like lecturing them on manners, on music appreciation, on ballet-going not only being a visual experience. I looked down the row to see if anyone else was annoyed and then noticed several others were doing the same exact thing.

I decided this wasn’t a regular ballet crowd and some random audience member lecturing everyone would be ridiculous. So, I spent most of intermission walking up and down the aisles searching for an usher — did they get rid of half the staff or something? Finally, a woman dressed in black asked me if I needed something, and I asked her if she worked here. She said yes, and I told her about the picnic-ers, and led her to them, where she told them eating wasn’t allowed in the theater. They all looked rather astonished.

Then Mika and I walked out front and I saw the concession stands overflowing with that same candy. Then I felt bad. I realized they didn’t just go to the Duane Reade and buy out the candy counter in preparation for the night; they bought it inside the theater, thinking, like at the circus or something, it was perfectly okay to chow down during performance. They’d dressed up their little girls in bright satin-y dresses, they’d obviously splurged on orchestra seats, and they didn’t look that wealthy. I felt like an obnoxious snob! On our way back in, I saw several others carrying bags of candy in with them. The family in back of me clearly weren’t the only offenders. (see the comments too)

I mean, it is about manners, but it’s not just about etiquette. It’s about art appreciation. Most mainstream movies don’t rise to the level of art; they cater to people’s preconceived notions and their plots don’t require many brain cells to understand. So it makes sense that people can take considerable time from looking up at the screen to focus on getting at their candy and passing it all around. But of course not every form of entertainment is so simple. In order to appreciate the artists’ abilities to subtly structure sound and movement to tell a story, you can’t be so focused on your food.

Anyway, happily, they obeyed the usher and didn’t eat at all during the second act (which I was able to enjoy much more). But I think, to avoid that kind of embarrassment and audience annoyance, if they’re going to sell circus-like candy at the concession stands during the Nutcracker, then there should be signs posted nicely but clearly instructing people to consume the food and beverages in the lobby, not the theater.

So, after NYCBallet’s Nutcracker Friday night (review coming soon), my friend Mika and I discovered a new place for after-ballet drinks and interesting foodie things — Ed’s Chowder House (located right across the street from Lincoln Center, two doors down from PJ Clarke’s and at the bottom of the Empire Hotel).

The dining area is nice, but the bar room (where you can get less expensive a la carte items — mostly fresh fish and chowders) is what really rocks. My friends and I always used to go to PJ Clarke’s, which is a bit cheaper, but it was always so crowded — both bar and resturant, the bar stools have no backs and are extremely uncomfortable, and the wait staff is always so pissy about seating you at a table if your party is not fully arrived or if you’re only getting appetizers or desserts — even if you get an expensive cocktail (or three) and a couple appetizers to share (which comes out to be far more money-wise than if you order one entree and a non-alcoholic drink). And then once you are seated the wait staff makes it their sole mission to get you out of there as soon as humanly possible, nearly opening your mouth for you and shoveling in the food. I once nearly had to smack a waiter on the hand for repeatedly trying to take my plate away… Plus, I was in there nearly every night last season, and could the hostess’s face ever register any recognition?…

Rosa Mexicano around the corner is lovely, but for me, it’s best in summer so you can sit outside. The bar is too cramped (though the chairs do have backs) and the restaurant area is not very interesting, imo, though the little swimmer guys diving down the waterfall-covered wall aligning the stairway are very dancerly and cute.

Anyway, we were extremely excited to find an excellent alternative in Ed’s! The bar area is spacious and there are multiple little tables behind the actual bar. Bar is made out of very cool material by the way — hard to describe — we weren’t sure if the objects underneath the glazed covering were sea shells, but they were very cool — do check it out! The restaurant area can get a bit pricey, but the bar serves really good a la carte items — oysters, various chowders, seafood appetizers like lobster rolls, scallop ravioli and mini crab cakes, and individually-ordered fish steaks and interesting sides like chili-glazed spinach and horseradish mashed potatoes. And they have a nice cocktail list and a pretty good wine selection. They made the best Tanqueray martini – which I now call the “Laura Jacobs martini” since she introduced me to it a few weeks ago when she and James Wolcott took us out for after-ABT dinner at Shun Lee — and it’s the best I’ve had since that evening.

And they have bowls full of chewy saltwater taffey on the way out

For people who missed it this past Wednesday, here is our Paloma Herrera on So You Think You Can Dance:

From what I can tell through Google, it looks like nearly all responses from the gen pub have been positive

Some people mentioned they’d have preferred a pdd (since SYTYCD is about partnering, after all) — something more like this:

Dancers above are our studly Jose Manuel Carreno and the Royal’s lovely Tamara Rojo.

I miss Jose; he hardly danced with ABT this past Met season…

Oh no. Roberto Bolle has had to cancel a couple performances in Europe, including a “naked debut” in the esteemed Opera Chic’s words, due to a slight injury that required minor surgery. Speedy recovery, Mr. Bolle.

Speaking of said naked debut, how in the world did I miss this post of hers?

Photo borrowed from OC.

There were rumors swarming around that NYCB’s Ben Millepied would be choreographing for the upcoming film starring Natalie Portman and Mila Kunis, and they appear to be true.

Says Director Darren Aronofsky:

“My sister was a dancer growing up and I was always in the background, so I always thought it would be a really interesting world to film in. And after wrestling and working with maybe the lowest form of art [in 'The Wrestler'], it was kind of interesting to move to the highest form of art,” he said, adding that dance appreciation can be an acquired taste: “It’s taken a long time to develop an understanding of the details, and the more you get exposed to it, the more complexity you see.”

Click on that first link, by the way, for an interesting script analysis.

There’s an interview with Mia Michaels in the Wall Street Journal about why she left SYTYCD. In it she reveals that she has not one but potentially three new shows in the works:

“Are the rumors that you might get your own show true?

These rumors are very true. I can’t go into details about it, but there are three separate shows we’re working on, and all three of them are very different. One is a choreography show, one is a doc-reality show of a stage show that will be touring the states and the third one was inspired by a Web site called ‘Mia Michaels, Please Choreograph My Life.’”

Wow. Read the rest of the interview here.

Okay, okay I know it was Donny Osmond, but in my mind it was Kelly Osbourne! Or Mya. I thought Mya was by far the best dancer on the show this season, but Kelly was the most improved and that’s what this show should ultimately be about, imo. And there was something so relatable about Kelly; even though her father is a hugely famous pop star, she was still so human, and somehow so normal. Which is where she got her fan base, I’m sure. And of course Louis is my favorite dancer on the show, so there’s that for me.

I thought Donny was fine though, and I’m glad someone over 50 won that ball. I do wonder what the demographic was like this season — whether it was different from the rest? Good lord, has Marie lost weight since she was on the show or what?!

Anyway, how cool was it that Paloma Herrera (above image from here) was on SYTYCD tonight? I loved her — loved the beautiful tip-toes en pointe. Unfortunately my upstairs neighbor, Godzilla, was making such a heinous racket (the girl / beast has ruined just about every holiday for me for the past two years) that I didn’t get the full effect, and didn’t hear her announcement or her reception, but I wonder how well that classical Don Quixote solo fared with this audience? I guess we’ll see.

I admit I didn’t see last night’s show (I was out at NYCB and taped DWTS; can only record one thing on my recorder), but intend to watch vids if they’re up on YouTube yet. I’d love to see how Victor and Karen fared as a partnership. I mean, obviously those two were kicked off tonight but that doesn’t mean they did badly, just that the audience for whatever reason doesn’t care much for them and perhaps the judges felt like for political reasons they had to go with the audience a bit. I mean, how many weeks can you keep the same dancer on when the audience isn’t voting for them? And how much is that going to hurt ticket sales to the live shows if you actually advance them into the top ten?

Anyway, I liked Karen and thought she brought her own thing to the show and I’m sorry to see her go, and I’m really sorry to see Victor go since he was one of my favorite males. Oh well. I guess I’ll watch for Jakob and Russell from here on out.

Here are some photos of Peter Martins’ Naive and Sentimental Music, which premiered last night at NYCB. All photos are by Paul Kolnik.

Tiler Peck,

Charles Askegard and Maria Kowroski,

Darci Kistler and Jared Angle,

And cast of first section.

New York City Ballet officially opened its 2009-10 winter season last night, with a performance and black tie gala dinner. The performance included Alexei Ratmansky’s Concerto DSCH (above photo of that ballet — dancers are Ana Sophia Scheller, Gonzalo Garcia, and Joaquin De Luz — by Paul Kolnik, taken from NYTimes), stars of the Paris Opera Ballet Aurelie Dupont and Mathias Heymann dancing the central pas de deux from Balanchine’s “Rubies,”

(photo taken from Kulturkompasset; Dupont is center, Heymann is holding the hand of another dancer).

And then the evening finished off with the world premiere of artistic director Peter Martins’ Naive and Sentimental Music, set to John Adams’ (brilliant) score of the same name (I’ll post photos when I receive them).

But first, there was a short film of the reconstruction of the inside of the Koch Theater (still can’t help but think of it as the State Theater…) while the orchestra played Tchaikovsky’s Sleeping Beauty overture (as it turned out, the perfect music to highlight the comically sped-up but ultimately awe-inducingly huge renovation process). Highlights of the renovated theater are — most importantly and coolly — the orchestra pit with a floor that can rise to stage-level (! — and this is how the orchestra played the overture), and two aisles now carved into the orchestra seating section. (Before, orchestra section had no aisles — so, though this is how Balanchine wanted it, apart from being extremely hard getting to a middle seat, it was a fire hazard).

Anyway, after the mandatory thank-you speeches by Peter Martins and David Koch (who funded the renovation), came the  Ratmansky. The fun frolicking threesome in blue (top photo) were danced by Joaquin De Luz, Gonzalo Garcia and Ashley Bouder (all three brilliantly on, Bouder thankfully back from an injury), and the adagio couple in green were Benjamin Millepied and Wendy Whelan (photo below). I think this was danced better than I’ve ever seen it done before — it could have been because I was so excited to see Bouder return, or because the dancers are all beginning-of-season fresh… but this is by far Ratmansky’s best, imo — it’s got the most complex structure and original movement.

(photo by Paul Kolnik, taken from Danza Ballet)

Next were the POB couple, who danced “Rubies” brilliantly — not only with precision and clarity but with great exuberance as well. One thing I meant to say earlier about La Danse (the Wiseman film about the POB) and forgot, was that the POB dancers are all so trained to make meaning out of every little thing they do — every step, every gesture, no matter how small. You have to have some kind of thought in your mind whatever you do. (This is not what Balanchine taught his dancers; he taught them simply to do his steps and those would contain everything the audience needed to know.) I feel that this allows POB dancers to bring a certain passion and humanity to all of the works they do — I noticed that from performance footage from that film as well as from last night.

And third came the highlight — for me anyway — of the night: the new Peter Martins’ ballet. The John Adams music was absolutely gorgeous — rich, many-layered, complex, intense, varied and structured into many sections — some lighter, many heavier, evocative, etc. etc. Beautiful! Oftentimes music like that overpowers the dancing, but not here.

In a short film shown before the dance (methinks Martins is taking after Wheeldon here with these little introductory films), Adams says the title refers to the difference between musicians whose music was fresh and original (the “naive” composers — like Mozart, he says) and those whose music was meant to speak to the past, to convey a sense of history, music that kind of carried the weight of the world on its shoulders so to speak (the “sentimental” — which he considers Beethoven). You could really see that in the music — some of it lighter, much of it weightier. Martins said in the film he tried to evoke that visually through dance, and I think he did so successfully — there’s a lighter, adagio section with dancers dressed in pristine white, another light but fast section with dancers in red, and then the more intense, almost severe sections with dancers in blues and deep greens and black.

Though most sections are danced in ensemble, Martins created the ballet for the principals only. This created an interesting dynamic, because, except for the middle section with the three pairs of dancers in white, almost all roles had equal weight — and yet practically all of the dancers stood out. It was an overload of star power!

And, though some sections seemed a slight bit underrehearsed (or maybe it was just that the footwork was so difficult and fast), everyone shone since Martins highlighted each dancer’s strengths: Maria Kowroski and Sara Mearns as lyrical women in white, Sterling Hyltin and Teresa Reichlin as kind of sharp-edged, sassy women in fiery red, Andrew Veyette and Daniel Ulbrich at the high-jumping bravura guys in black, there were some jazzy moves for Amar Ramasar, etc. etc.

Oh and I just love Tyler Angle He partnered Yvonne Borree and I don’t think I’ve ever seen her so at ease and so fluid! She looked really beautiful. Nice also to see Stephen Hanna back from Billy Elliot! He partnered Darci Kistler in the white section.

It’s a rather long ballet but I was thoroughly engrossed and can’t wait to see it again. I hope they keep it in the rep.

Okay, that was the gala. Now onto the Nuts. Regular season begins in January.

SLSG has been named a top law blog in the criminal law category by Attorney.org, likely for my previous coverage of the Sean Bell shooting trial and some other related posts. This is particularly exciting because my soon-to-be-published novel is in part about the life of a young female criminal appeals attorney. I also plan to write more about the Sean Bell case. So I’m very honored!

And apropos of criminal defense attorneys, the movie Disturbing the Universe is a must-see. It’s a documentary about the life of civil rights / criminal defense attorney William Kunstler, made by his daughters. Since he was involved in practically every major trial of his time — disorderly conduct sit-ins protesting racial segregation, the Chicago Seven, the Attica Uprising, the standoff at Wounded Knee, the Central Park Jogger case, the trials of those accused of the 1993 WTC bombing — it ends up being, above all, an immensely informative history of late 20th Century race-relations in this country.  See it!

Photo by Andrea Mohin, from NY Times, of Complexions’ cast of Mercy, Desmond Richardson center.

Complexions is currently at the Joyce in Chelsea and they’ve got two nice new pieces (both by artistic director, Dwight Rhoden) — Dirty Wire and Mercy. I liked both but particularly Mercy. It’s spiritual but uses a medley of both classical and contemporary music, is very dramatic, and has themes of sin and treachery. I found the movement original and expressive, and the miraculous Desmond Richardson has a rather intense, mysterious solo. All of the Complexions dancers are excellent though. Rhoden really works them hard — his movement is almost always very fast — sometimes almost spastic, on purpose — and great precision is required in order to make those lightning-fast changes of shape.

They’re on through November 29th. Go here for details.

If you’re in NY, or are heading in over the holidays to see the show, here’s the latest list of casting updates. A few DWTS pros (Maks Chmerkovskiy & Kym Johnson, then Edyta Sliwinska & Alec Mazo) are taking over Pasha and Anya’s roles, then P&A return in mid-January to finish out the show, which now ends mid-Feb.

My friend, Michael Northrop, and I were invited to a rehearsal of a rated R Nutcracker on Sunday evening. I had to leave early but Michael kindly stayed and wrote up this review. I took the photo above with my iphone. Here’s Michael:

Did you see the movie Bad Santa? No, me neither, but you get the idea. Holiday traditions are familiar and tend toward the precious and that makes them excellent targets for parody and irreverence. The thing about parody in the dance world, of course, is that it has to be well danced. The examples that leap to mind, en pointe, are the bounding “ballerinos” of Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo. The modern ballet Nutcracker: Rated R fits the bill nicely, as well.

This raunchy, entertaining Nut is set in early 1980s New York, the era of subway trains tagged tip-to-tail with graffiti, collapsing tenements, and a drug dealer on every corner, rather than a Starbucks. I got an early Christmas present when I got to watch a rehearsal of Act I on Sunday night.

Choreographer/director Angela Harriell got right to business working through the kinks, so to speak, in an intricately choreographed fight scene pitting rats vs. the soiled soldiers of the Department of Sanitation. The rats knew martial arts, which was bound to happen in this city sooner or later. Hyosun Choi, a Mighty Mouse of a rat, flew over the top of a leaning Sanitation worker with a perfect miss of a kick only to take on another.

Harriell gave the dancers plenty of freedom to improvise: “And then it’s whatever you want,” she said. “Wrestle! wrestle! And then there’s the hitting sound.”

Many hitting sounds later, a quick run-through revealed a fun, feisty fight scene, and it was on to the next piece: the Party Scene. The Tchaikovsky was cued up and the partners took their places. A few more quotes from Harriell should give you a good idea of the action:

“Then there’s the moment when you pick up the dildo and you’re like, ‘Nobody needs to know about that,’ and you keep it for yourself.”

“So let’s get back to the drunk parents dance . . . Yeah, you’re totally easy.”

“Then it’s open step and closed step and open and shake-a, shake-a butt.”

Sometimes the dancers had questions:

“So on the second triple thing,” said Eddie Gutierrez, “there’s no butt at the end?”

Harriell had the answers and kept them on the music:

“And roll in, and throw up, and 1-2-3-4!”

The party scene ends on a late-night subway platform. [I'll pause here so you can remember what that's like.] And then there was a final run-through of “most of Act I.” The marked steps and questions were replaced by muscular lifts-at a few points, dancer Michael MacLaren was defending three women against the ground-dramatic extensions, and long stretches of seriously good dancing. The dancers were having fun, and it came through in the movement. It was a blast, even in an unadorned studio after two and a half hours. I don’t see what chance the audience has to resist it when the full production hits the stage.

Nutcracker: Rated R begins its fourth season, December 17-31, at New York’s Theater for the New City in the East Village.

I am extremely behind on reviews but here are a couple of pictures (by Erin Baiano) of the cast of Christopher Wheeldon’s Rhapsody Fantasie, which the choreographer premiered with his company, Morphoses, in October. I can’t write a full review but I guess it’s interesting to see what lingers in the mind. I remember a variety of movement — from neo-classical ballet to more contemporary with some ballroom thrown in — I remember some swing-y moves and even some salsa basics! I remember interesting ensemble work — with dancers at times breaking into pairs for partner dancing, at times the men dancing together, performing various complicated lifts, which I found rather mesmerizing. And I remember Wheeldon’s signature modern ballet pas de deux with the complicated “pretzel shape” lifts (as in the top photo, of NYCB’s Wendy Whelan and Australian dancer Andrew Crawford). Besides Whelan and Crawford I found Drew Jacoby and Rubinald Pronk to be the most compelling pair, dancing their series of twisted shape after twisted shape with passion and psychological intention.

Opening Morphoses program 2 was Continuum, a Wheeldon ballet from several years ago (photo above, also by Erin Baiano). This was a very abstract work set to sharp, at times tense Ligetti music with brilliant lighting that made the dancers appear ghostly, as if their shadows, silhouetted on the back wall, were doing the dancing.

I love Christopher Wheeldon, who’s always trying to give audiences insight into the dance-making process. At the beginning of this program, he spoke a bit about the dances, and, regarding Continuum, he told us all to look out for a part where, as he was making that dance, he became mesmerized by a neighbor’s cat and dog. It was only all too obvious which pas de deux this was, and everyone laughed as the two dancers kind of crouched around each other getting ready for a playful (or maybe not so playful) attack. I don’t think the audience would have thought anything of it if he hadn’t pointed that out. Now if he can give us insight on how the whole thing comes together!…

I’m surprised there’s been so little written about American Ballet Theater’s recent, historic trip to Beijing. It seems that newspaper art reviews are declining everywhere, not just in the U.S. Anyway, the company was recently in China to participate in the Beijing International Drama and Dance Festival. They presented the same three new works they performed at Avery Fisher here in October: Ratmansky’s Seven Sonatas, Barton’s One of Three, and Millepied’s Everything Doesn’t Happen at Once. You can see part of the Ratmansky in the video posted here, on CCTV.com, an English language website.

There’s an excellent interview with young, newish ABT virtuoso (and very intelligent-sounding) Daniil Simkin at the Ballet Bag. Simkin talks about his experiences thus far with American Ballet Theater, dancing with major stars at the World Ballet Festival over the summer in Japan, and a gala he’s organizing next month in Athens. He also talks about how dance professionals can use social media to connect with fans and what he thinks ballet companies need to do to keep ballet alive. Excellent interview, superb questions, “bag ladies”!

And it gives me the opportunity to post, for people who don’t have the opportunity to regularly see ABT, some of his more astounding YouTube clips. Enjoy:

And The Flames of Paris, the first thing I ever saw him do (but with Sara Lane, at ABT). Look for the barrel turns around the 5:55 mark:

For more clips, go here.
Above photo, by Gene Schiavone, taken from Simkin’s blog.

Over the weekend, the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art celebrated its 30th anniversary with an evening of performances, including one by pop star Lady Gaga, who debuted her new Speechless while members of the Bolshoi danced along. Milan-based artist Francesco Vezzoli orchestrated the pairing, telling the Daily Beast, “Gaga is one of the Nijinskys of our epoch. So I don’t know if it’s going to be great artwork. But so far I think I made a good choice.”

Hmmm, not completely sure what he means by the Nijinsky ref (unless he means she has scattered moments of genius mixed with a bit of insanity, or that she’s iconoclastic…), but anyway, here’s a sampling of what happened:

Via Black Book.

Haha, I kept my TV on (for once) after SYTYCD ended and I just overheard some story on Fox News about an ABT dancer who also models. I turned around to face the screen and there was our Cory Stearns, lifting Stella Abrera in Benjamin Millepied’s Everything Doesn’t Happen at Once during ABT’s recent season at Avery Fisher Hall! I didn’t hear the first part of the story because I wasn’t really paying attention, but apparently Cory was standing in line at a deli and was discovered by some modeling agent. He’s now a model, as well as of course, an up and coming ABT danseur. Then they showed an excerpt of a music video he did with Kylie Minogue, which he apparently made when he was 17 — so a few years ago. Wow — I’d never seen it: he made her look like a real dancer.

Then they had a little interview with him. They asked him if he had a girlfriend and he laughed and said no, he’s currently available, but added that he prefers dancers. Funny how male ballet dancers (well, the straight ones) always do that. Female dancers seem more willing to “date outside the box” so to speak. Hmmm…

Anyway, since I didn’t get the first part of the story I have no idea what the point was — is he in a new modeling spread in some magazine this month? Did anyone else see it?

Wow, I’m so happy Kelly Osbourne and Karen Hauer are staying, on DWTS and SYTYCD respectively, after this week.

Re DWTS: I was really blown away by Kelly and Louis’s Quickstep Monday night and I have to take back what I said last week about her self-esteem not seeming to improve much. She danced that Quickstep with so much intelligence and sophistication and a real inner confidence. She was like a pro. I still think Mya is technically the best, but I’m rooting for Kelly!

I’m not at all surprised Joanna Krupa was booted. I think she tried hard but, as I’ve said before, I thought she didn’t have good enough dancer form and discipline in her body. Interestingly, as I was preparing to record the show, I happened upon the Ellen Degeneres show and saw her and Derrek on, where it was revealed that she’s in Playboy this month. And of course Monday night Hugh Hefner was on DWTS giving his esteemed opinion on why she should win. Anyway, when Ellen asked, Krupa denied using the Playboy cover to try to gain more votes, but I’m not so sure I believe it — even if it’s more the show’s producers who are behind such a stunt and not Krupa herself. So it backfired, unsurprisingly — I don’t think consumers of mags like that and this show come from the same demographic exactly.

Re SYTYCD: I really like Karen and think she’s so versatile and has such immense performance quality in her dancing. So I’m glad the judges decided to keep her this week and let Channing go. I kind of knew when both dancers ended up in the bottom three, the judges would do that. Karen’s different; she adds something unique. Channing’s like a slightly less compelling version of Mollee, who, with Nathan, surprisingly ended up in the bottom three as well. Well, maybe it’s not that surprising though, after what Nigel said about Nathan last week — I think his cutting him down and telling him his head was too big and he was only staying on because of his female teeny-bopper fans made all of the non-teeny-bopper watchers weigh in with their votes.

At any rate, this week Nigel told Nathan he was glad he seems to have listened to him and learned his lesson because he is truly one of the best dancers ever to be on the show. I was like “HUH???” Has he forgotten about Danny Tidwell, and don’t they keep saying Jakob’s by far the best this season? I mean, come on — what’s Nigel trying to do? Nathan is fine — he’s not a jerk and he’s not the best dancer this show has ever seen; he’s just a decent dancer and a regular contestant — stop trying to create drama.

Anyway, I do really like Russell too and he and Noelle’s Foxtrot was I think overall my favorite dance last night. That was so enjoyable. They both just floated over the floor, seemed to have perfect ballroom technique though he’s a krumper and she a contemporary dancer, and they gave it even more umph than regular ballroomers do. Excellent excellent job. I like Russell so much, I’ll even be happy if he wins over Jakob — so long as Jakob is in the finals

I also thought Victor came to life for the first time this season last night. I didn’t much care for Tyce’s kooky birds breaking out of their cage routine but I thought Victor really made the most of the movement, hitting every line right on and making very bizarrely intriguing shapes with his body.

I think overall my favorite moment of the show was when Tony Meredith asked Legacy if he knew what Paso Doble was and Legacy said dramatically and humorously, “No! I know that it’s pronounced Paso Doble (and of course he said that with a perfect Spanish accent), but other than that I know nothing!” For some reason that comment just really cracked me up; I couldn’t stop laughing. I thought the routine was okay but I really didn’t think he and Kathryn looked like professional ballroom dancers the way Russell and Noelle did. Still, I like Legacy’s personality — well, I like both of them personality-wise, and want them to go far.

I loved Jakob and Ashleigh’s hip hop and thought they completely nailed it and it was one of the best hip hops I’ve ever seen on the show. The contemporary and ballroom dancer — that shows you just how remarkable they both are.

I liked but didn’t love the other two routines. I did like Ryan in Travis Wall’s contemporary but I just didn’t feel the passion there, unlike the judges. The judges were going on and on about him, saying he was the best Latin dancer ever to dance contemporary and I felt like saying, “Hey, you all said that about Janette last season!”

I have to say I really got upset about the judges’ remarks to Karen last night — at least Nigel’s (and Mary always says whatever he says; it’s like she’s afraid to disagree with him; Adam not so much so, though he does defer). Nigel’s said each week that she’s the sexiest dancer ever on the show — the sultriest, the most sensual, the most sexual — how many ways are there to say it? And she just kind of smiles at him, not flirtatiously but like she’s a woman who knows herself too well to let his words pierce her. So he puts her into this box — she’s the official “sex goddess” — and then this week he tells her that when she’s given a routine where she’s supposed to play “cute” — when she can’t be his said “sex goddess” — then her dancing doesn’t do anything for him. I love her expression when he said that — another wholly self-contained smile. But he really made me so mad for that. It wasn’t like she did the wrong thing — it wasn’t like she did a cutely girlish character like a sexed-up vixen. She performed the character right. I’m glad Adam stood up for her and said he liked it when she could show other sides of herself — which she did, and she did so well.

I saw Billy Bell in line yesterday morning at Starbucks. I didn’t speak to him (I’m shy) but wanted then to tell him how wonderful I thought he was and how much I want to see him on the show next season. But after last night, I wanted to tell him to finish Juilliard and try to get a good job with a great ballet company instead. Now, I don’t know. I feel a bit better about the show after tonight, after they didn’t dismiss Karen and gave as their reason for not dismissing her that she was a great performer and a quality dancer and not that she made Nigel hot.

Ugh, these shows. I mean, what is dance? It kind of breaks my heart that these shows tend to make it more about selling women’s bodies than about creating art.

Reviewed by Christopher Atamian

I caught Meg Stuart/Damaged Goods for the first time on November 8th at the Baryshnikov Arts Center. Auf Den Tisch is more a collaborative piece than Stuart’s choreography per se: a huge room is filled with tables lined up against each other with the audience sitting around it-critics, fellow artists, the general public and an occasional straggler or two judging from their reactions.  The performers: Trajal Harrell, Keith Hennessey, Janez Jansa, Jean-Paul Lespagnard, Jan Maertens, Yvonne Meier, Anja Müller, Vania Rovisco, Hahn Rowe, George Emilio Sanchez, Stuart and David Thomson are a diverse, talented lot. It would be impossible to describe the action, as these twelve artists performed just about every possible type of improvisation imaginable in a nod to Grand Union and other experimental groups from the past.  Jansa stood on a balcony looking out at the audience complaining in a Croatian accent that no one was risqué enough today to get naked in public as Richard Schechner did in the 60’s-then he proceeded to get naked and climb down among the hoi polloi: my older French colleague was unimpressed, noting with distaste that he had dirty feet. I thought he looked fine naked. The immer intellectual, immer thinking Harrell was alternately baffling as he read Rancière aloud (who could process the French philosopher at such break-neck speed?), fascinating as he fielded questions about forgiveness and charming as he zipped around the table in a bumble bee outfit.  By now, you must get an idea of what the performance was like…Parts of Auf den Tisch were also terribly slow.  Stuart officially “curated” this project-with a bit of nipping and tucking, it could have been much shorter and more enjoyable-not that pleasure was at the top of anyone’s agenda…Oh yes, as usual Yvonne Meier was her dry, hilarious self.

Photo taken from the Performa 2009 website.

Reviewed by Christopher Atamian

Miro Magloire’s ballets are like exquisite little jeweled music boxes-each one opens up simple, precious and lovingly crafted.   Some are prettier than others and a few seem perhaps a touch unfinished, but each one is charming in its own way. Magloire’s company-New Chamber Ballet-presents its work at the intimate City Center Studios: it’s not the most elegant setting and Magloire must occasionally compete with some heavy-footed colleague stomping on his head on the floor above, but overall the setting works.  It’s also an intelligent model to adopt in this depressed economy, a great way to keep low overhead and still present four or fives times a year. Magloire, a former musician, is also an exponent of live music: it’s a delightful two-in-one presentation and his usual muse on piano, the lovely Melody Fader, is a gifted, nimble artist and a wonderfully quirky personality. On Sunday November 8, Magloire presented two solos: Sonatine, set to music by the same name by the late Karlheinz Stockhausen (a mentor of sorts to the choreographer) danced by Madeline Deavenport and brilliantly played by Fader and Erik Carlson-a veritable prodigy on violin.  Moments was danced with equal bravura by Lauren O’Toole to Salvatore Sciarrino’s Caprices No. 2 and 6 for violin.  Pas de…is an interesting experiment, a riff on the traditional pas de trois, with Madeline Deavenport, Emery LeCrone and Victoria North taking turns dancing alone and in twos and threes.  What a treat it was to finally hear a piece set to Magloire’s own music-Two Pieces for Piano-a spare, modernist composition.  But it was Silk, set to Giuseppe Tartini’s simply gorgeous Sonata No. 7 per Violino Solo that stole the evening-enchanting, vigorous music that LeCrone, Vanessa Woods and Lauren Toole easily matched in terms of bravura and execution.  Kudos as well to Candice Thompson for her simple, sexy, elegant costumes.

Photos by Kristen Lodoen Linder: above of Madeline Deavenport; below of Erik Carlson and Lauren Toole in Moments.

If you’re in New York, try not to miss the newly restored version of The Red Shoes (from 1948) currently showing at Film Forum (but only for a couple more days). Based on the Hans Christian Andersen tale of the girl who dons red shoes then can’t stop dancing til death does her in, it’s the story of a ballerina who stars in the ballet of the same name, and suffers the same tragic fate. It’s a bit dated in its story-line (the protagonist has to choose between a husband and a ballet career) and in its melodramatic ending, but the cinematography is stunning, the costumes and sets are glorious (I so want the turquoise dress she wears in the scene where the owner of the ballet company — a Balanchine-type — tells her he’s casting her in the lead!), and Moira Shearer’s lightning-footed dancing is just about the best I think I’ve ever seen onscreen. There’s also a little cameo by Ballets Russes choreo Leonid Massine.

It’s been called by some critics the greatest ballet film ever made, and Martin Scorcese (who helped in the restoration) calls it one of his earliest cinematographic influences.

Above photos of Shearer taken from here and here.

Last week, my friend — the illustrious Taylor Gordon! — invited me to watch her dance in the Radio City Christmas Spectacular. (Taylor, trained in classical ballet, is not a Rockette but a seasonal dancer in the show.) As last year, the show is a lot of fun, very Christmassy, very geared toward the tourist crowd and to children, with a somewhat corny story-line (younger boy strives to and eventually convinces older, more skeptical boy of Santa’s existence). But the dancing and the costumes and the sets are tremendous and are the reason you really go (if you’re an adult, that is ).

The Rockettes in particular are wondrous. Talk about astoundingly perfect synchronicity…

The soldier scene is my favorite. They march, they step, they turn in formation in almost mind-boggling unison, and then they fall, one by one, s-l-o-w-l-y, ever so slowly, one after and onto the other, in, again, mind-bogglingly perfect timing.

And now a few pictures of Taylor! She’s in the middle, in the coolly colorful tights.

Pink scarf, green bag, cool tights. So proud of her … again!

As a Santa — I’ve no idea which one.

And as a tutu-clad bear.

And a few more of the Rockettes.

Kick line!

Finale.

Taylor’s also a writer. Visit her blog for her accounts of what it’s like to be in the show.

And here is our friend Michael’s write-up of the evening.

According to Dance Beat magazine, US and World Standard finalists Anna Mikhed and Victor Fung have broken up. Though not technically the best in the world, I’ve often found this couple just oozing with charm and charisma, as have others — they’re kind of America’s Sweethearts. They placed third in the world this year and they’ve long been second in the US Nationals. I don’t get it — first Mirko Gozzoli and Alessia Betti — well, and before them, Karina Smirnoff and Slavik Kryklyvyy– these couples break up when they’re on top.

Anna tells DB she’s “thoroughly enjoyed these last 6 years of dancing with Victor,” saying they’ve grown individually and as a partnership. “There was no incident that took place, just a recognition, perhaps mostly by myself, that our paths in partnership and in dancing were going in different directions.”

She tells fans to watch for each individually, and DB says Victor has begun looking for a new partner. Still, I’ll miss seeing them together.

Here they are Viennese Waltzing in Hong Kong earlier this year:

(photo from PBS.org)

How funny — I was just going on in my last post about how I fell in love with the Paris Opera Ballet through Frederick Wiseman’s currently-showing film La Danse, and now I receive news that two etoiles with that company — Aurelie Dupont (in photo above, taken from Bailarinas) and Mathias Heymann — will be performing with New York City Ballet in their opening night gala, on November 24th. In exchange, NYCB’s Ashley Bouder and Gonzalo Garcia (both SLSG faves) will perform with Paris Opera Ballet, on November 12th. Both couples will dance the “Rubies” section of Balanchine’s Jewels.

Additionally, NYCB’s opening night performance will include Alexei Ratmansky’s Concerto DSCH (my personal favorite of his) and a premiere by Peter Martins set to John Adams music and starring all of the company’s principal dancers.

Photo of DSCH by Paul Kolnik, from NYTimes.

NYCB’s Nutcracker season begins the Friday following opening night, November 27th. Visit the website for tix and info.

Most exciting though about the dancer exchange. I’ve never seen Heymann perform live and I’ve only seen Dupont dance Trisha Brown, not full-out ballet.

Here are a couple videos of Heymann I found on YouTube: first as Bluebird in Sleeping Beauty and second in a contemporary solo:

And here is Dupont as Kitri in Don Q:

Sorry, you guys, I’m just so into videos these days!

(photo taken from here)

Since seeing Frederick Wiseman’s excellent film La Danse a couple days ago — a documentary about the Paris Opera Ballet — I have not been able to get the fascinating etoile (star, highest level of dancer over there), Laetitia Pujol, out of my mind. The film is basically a series of rehearsals with some actual performance footage thrown in, and, unbelievably, it’s absolutely mesmerizing. If anyone’d described it that way to me beforehand — a bunch of rehearsal footage — I would’ve thought I’d be bored out of my mind, but it’s so incredibly interesting watching these dancers rehearse with top choreographers like Wayne McGregor and Angelin Preljocaj and Mats Ek. And the performances — omg – -that company does everything from the aforementioned contemporary choreographers, to Pina Bausch’s Tanztheater, to Petipa to Balanchine. Parisians are so damn lucky! We get either Petipa or Balanchine over here… not at all fair…

Anyway, Pujol blew me completely away. I’d never seen her dance before and somewhere in the middle of the film she’s rehearsing and she does the most mind-blowing series of turns all over the damn room. I’ve spent the past couple hours searching YouTube and, yay, finally found what she was doing! It’s Etudes, here:

For some reason, the spins looked a slight bit faster in the film, but you get the idea.
Here are a couple of others of Pujol:
The first, Le Baiser, which I love,

And Giselle, with Nicolas Le Riche:

One odd thing about the movie is that it’s a documentary, but there are no captions, so you have to try to guess who all the choreographers and dancers are. There are credits at the end, but you can’t possibly figure out who is who at that point, when there are all these names filling up the screen. At first I thought this was kind of a discredit to the artists not to list their names and titles or bios when they are shown in the film, but then I thought, well, it would kind of interrupt the flow of the action; this made it seem more like a narrative film, like one of those narrative films that’s shot with a handheld camera or the like to make you think you’re eavesdropping on someone’s actual life — which, it turns out, you are! Interesting filming device…

The real-life rehearsals do have their moments of (probably unintentional) humor, such as when one of the choreographers is describing to a young dancer learning the role of Medea that she’s portraying a god, a person whose intense, other-worldly powers make loving fraught with danger, and she says “Oh, like Edward Scissorhands.” At times, though, people laughed at seemingly odd things, like when a young dancer new to the company tells the director she longs to dance like Pujol and the director tells her, “Well, she has her own personal intelligence.” People in the audience seemed to think that was funny, but clearly, Pujol does have “her own personal intelligence”; dancing isn’t just about excellence of technique, it’s about using your brain. And these dancers are so fascinating because they’re so clever, they’re such powerful performers.

Go see this movie if you at all can. In NY, it’s at Film Forum.

Tonight three dancers from Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater will be on SYTYCD! My favorite modern dance company   Linda Celeste Sims, Clifton Brown, and Constance Stamatiou (above, left to right, in photos by Andrew Eccles) will perform excerpts from Ulysses Dove’s Episodes, which, if I remember correctly, I found very intense and rather haunting.

(Linda Celeste Sims and Matthew Rushing in Episodes, photo by Paul Kolnik)

If you’re in New York, it’s almost time for Alvin Ailey season here. They open at City Center December 2nd. The season lasts for a month and this year they’re celebrating Judith Jamison’s 20th anniversary as artistic director (last year they celebrated the company’s 50th anniversary).

I so love it when great dancers are on TV!