I have been called a “bad Marcelo fan” for continuously chatting about Roberto Bolle, as I did, for ex., in the last post (I don’t think any current dancer promotes himself quite as much as Roberto, and he promotes ballet with himself, so you can’t help but love him for that reason alone).

Anyway, when I first started blogging there were practically no YouTubes of any of my favorite dancers, but that’s thankfully now changed. So, here are several of Marcelo, still SLSG’s favorite ballerino!, dancing with some of SLSG’s favorite ballerinas.

Here, with Alessandra Ferri in Lar Lubovitch’s gripping Othello pas de deux:

Here with Veronika Part in Swan Lake (video quality is not the best, but oooh, the music!)

Here, his Albrecht variation from Giselle, which is timely since ABT is currently in Ocean County, CA, performing that ballet:

Here, as the wickedly sexy Von Rothbart in Swan Lake:

Here, with Gillian Murphy at the beginning of SL (again as Von Rothbart):

The guy who’s dancing the swamp-creature persona of Von Roth, above, is Isaac Stappas, whose new headshot, coincidentally, I was just sent by the amazing Jade Young, who is practically becoming ABT’s portraitist in residence!

I’ve posted it previously, but here is Marcelo’s which he did a while back:

And one more, with Gillian Murphy again in Coppelia:

I know, the videos are nothing compared the live versions, but the first, of Othello, comes kind of close, no? And the last you can see pretty well, especially around the 4 minute mark when the great one begins his solo.

Photo of Veronika Part in The Dying Swan, taken from Vogue; photos of the three premieres coming as soon as I receive them.

After ABT’s fall season opening night gala performance last night, the really wonderful James Wolcott and Laura Jacobs took friend Siobhan and me out for dinner at Shun Lee (I’d never been there — but wow, excellent excellent food!) and when Laura asked me if I was going to write about the performance, I kind of rolled my eyes and said, “I’ll try!” We all agreed that dance is absolutely the hardest art form to review, especially on seeing a dance for the first time. Let alone THREE dances seen for the first time. With visual art you can stand there all day and examine at it, with music you have recordings and scores, film critics generally see a movie several times before writing a review. With dance you have one chance — often one split mili-second — to remember a half an hour or so of movement, images, patterns, structure, costumes, music, lighting — everything. It’s impossible. Since starting this blog I have so much more respect for dance critics.

Anyway, there were three premieres last night: Seven Sonatas by Alexei Ratmansky, One of Three by Aszure Barton, and Everything Doesn’t Happen at Once by Benjamin Millepied. Also on the bill was a performance by Veronika Part of Fokine’s The Dying Swan. ABT performed, for the first time, in Lincoln Center’s Avery Fisher Hall, a concert hall not accustomed to housing dance performances. (ABT usually holds its fall season in City Center, but changed venues because of City Center’s renovation plans.)

I’m going to be seeing each premiere a couple more times this season and prefer to write after I’ve seen each more than once. But since the season is so short (it ends October 10, this Saturday), I’ll write something up front. These are only first impressions though, and I’ve found I see so many more things with repeated viewings.

Honestly, everything kind of blended together for me. Part of this was because of the sparseness of the Avery Fisher stage — there were no sets, no wings, no curtains — so dancers warmed up onstage before us, giving each piece a kind of Cabaret-like feel; and part of it was because costumes for each piece were all black and white. I remember lots of black, lots of white and the hardwood of that stage.

1) Ratmansky’s Seven Sonatas was performed to Domenico Scarlatti music by three male-female couples: David Hallberg and Julie Kent, Herman Cornejo and Xiomara Reyes, and Gennadi Saveliev and Stella Abrera. Costumes were all white — flowing dresses for the women, classical tights and 18th-Century tops for the men. The movement was a combination of classical and modern and, though the ballet was generally story-less, each couple seemed to have a little narrative: Cornejo and Reyes were the young, playful couple, Herman full of high jumps with many beats of the feet that really wowed the crowd and Xiomara dizzying rapid multiple turns. At one point Herman did this crazy turn in the air, landed on his back, and caught her. Crowd went wild.

Abrera and Saveliev seemed to be a more mature couple, perhaps in mourning. It seemed Abrera was a woman, possibly a mother, who’d lost a child or something — Saveliev seemed to be trying to console her and keep her from self-destructing. It seemed like she kept trying to break free of him and reach out to some invisible thing.

I’m not sure what Hallberg and Kent were meant to represent except maybe a modern couple — they seemed to have the most modern movement. David appeared to be trapped in a box and he kept pushing out; he had a lot of quick movement with fast stops in different directions and a lot of it in parallel — not turned-out — position. Julie had a lot of sharp, staccato movement. They could’ve also been a courting couple: at one point, David was on one knee and he invited Julie to run at him and jump on him. When she did, he took her into this lovely lift. It’s sweet and many in the audience lightly laughed.

The ballet was broken into duets and solos and bookended by two ensemble movements, the first pretty and lyrical, the latter more chaotic as they all perform their very different movement motifs at once, some trying on others’ movement styles — everyone does the staccato arm patterns for a while, etc. At the end, the women lay on the floor and the men wrapped their bodies over them.

One other thing: our David Hallberg is sporting longish hair these days I think it looks good, and fun for a change! Funny thing is, he’s so beautiful and glamorous, I tend to get jealous if him, even though he’s a man… which I guess should be kind of odd…

2) Barton’s One of Three was set to Maurice Ravel’s Violin Sonata in G and danced by a whole slew of tuxedoed men, and three women — Gillian Murphy, Misty Copeland, and Paloma Herrera. Why is it that women choreographers tend to use men so much more! (And female dance-writers tend to focus on male dancers — is this feminist?)

Anyway, the piece begins with Cory Stearns walking out dressed in a tux and black jazz shoes. He does a little solo and his movements are all modern, angular, which contrasted in an intriguing way with the tux. I don’t know if it was his being a bit weirded out by the curtainless stage (which forced him to walk out in the dark with all of us watching) or whether it was part of the character, but he seemed to have this loopy smile in the beginning, that was really rather endearing. I chatted with a friend during intermission and she felt just the same.

Anyway, soon Cory was joined by more tuxedoed men, and then by Gillian, who came prancing out in a long white cocktail gown with her radiant red hair tied back into a sleek twist. The men would kind of veer toward her, sideways, their bodies leading their heads in, to me, a rather amusing way. Gillian’s character was very haughty, very glam and posh and she acted like she was ordering the men around with her little finger. The men often seemed led by their bodies, moving first with the back, or at times one leg would take a step, the rest of the body reluctant to follow (I noticed that most with Jared Matthews, who I thought was dancing at his best last night). I found this a very interesting movement motif.

Misty Copeland was the lead character in the second movement. She wore a short black and white dress, her costume and character more flirty and wild. But same thing — she seemed to kind of taunt her tuxedoed men.

And third movement was led by Paloma, wearing a black lacey top and black pants. She smiled a lot more than Misty and Gillian, but she seemed to move in a slinky, sexually-empowered way, like a tanguera.

Now that I think about it, though there were many more men here, the women seemed to have all the power. Fun!

3) Next on was Part’s Dying Swan, which was really poignant, as I knew it would be. It’s a very short piece, but it’s funny how the ballerina can really do it however she wants to; I just saw Diana Vishneva perform this in the Fall For Dance Festival and her Dying Swan was very different. Whereas Diana spent most of the time on her toes, bourreeing, Veronika spent more time on the floor, one leg stretched out before her (like in above picture), then rising again to her toes for one more breath. Diana’s swan seemed to flutter about more, like she was fighting death, she lay down only at the very end. Veronika kept holding her arms up in front of her, her wrists bent and her hands cupped over, as if to foreshadow what would happen to her body. In general, Veronika’s swan accepted and approached death more gracefully or willingly, but Diana’s, with that broad wingspan, at times really looked strikingly birdlike. I don’t know if I can say I liked one interpretation better than the other — both were breathtaking and both very poignant.

Did anyone else see both swans?

4) And the program ended with Millepied’s Everything Doesn’t Happen at Once, set to David Lang music that was at times mellifluous and at times cacophonous or eerie. He used a large group of dancers but Marcelo Gomes, Isabella Boylston and Daniil Simkin had the main parts and so stood out the most (and Kristi Boone shone in a smaller role).

There was a lot going on here — both in the music and in the dance, and I felt that, unlike with Millepied’s earlier piece for ABT — From Here on Out — composed to music by Nico Muhly (who was in the audience) — in this one the movement kept up, didn’t let the music outshine it. The stage is set up to resemble — at least to me — a pool. Dancers would gather around it and watch the people dancing in the lit-up center. At the beginning there seemed to be a swimming motif, with large, rounded arm movements resembling breaststrokes. Movement is also evocative of birds as well though, and some of the same lifts were present as in Millepied’s recent work for NYCB, where the women are perched on the men’s shoulders, their arms outstretched sideways.

In the middle part, Marcelo and Isabella have a rather haunting solo. The ballet is generally story-less but as far as I could make out any narrative, it appeared she was sort of struggling against him. He seemed very careful and gentle with her (in sharp contrast to a later, more hostile duet he has with the super-strong Kristi Boone, who seemed to be either Isabella’s competitor or her double), but she — Isabella — nevertheless kept trying to push away from Marcelo as he held her. The duet ends with them walking toward the back of the stage holding hands, connected, but her body is lunging as far as possible away from his. A rather warped relationship.

Then there’s a rather amusing section where bravura dancer Daniil Simkin is struggling with a bunch of women. He tries to break free of them but then he keeps throwing himself into their arms, making them catch him in these rather breathtaking group lifts — one of them ending in a perfect split in the air. And he has a bunch of crazy multiple pirouettes that had the audience audibly gasping. It all went with his character though, who seemed rather crazed, like he may have just escaped from an asylum or something. I kept wondering who else was ever going to be able to perform that role…

I didn’t go to the gala party but in addition to Muhly, I saw Alessandra Ferri in the audience, one of the Billy Elliots, and apparently Natalie Portman was there.

Anyway, I’ll write more at the end of the season, when I’ve seen these new dances a few more times. Here is Haglund’s review.

Photo by Gene Schiavone, taken from his website.

Hee Seo and Cory Stearns made their Met debuts in the R & J leads last Thursday night and if it isn’t clear from what I’ve blogged and tweeted before, and by this post’s title, I was completely blown away, particularly by Seo. It’s so hard to describe what you really love about a dancer, but I think with her it’s that she combines what I love about Diana Vishneva with what I love about Veronika Part. She dances the steps — particularly the bourrees, as Marie noted, in her own particular way that shows why the choreographer put them there in the first place (I’m thinking mainly of the tip toe steps first away from Paris, shunning him, then, in the following scene, toward him but ever so cautiously and completely without desire, then in a criss-cross pattern toward the bottle of fake poison). And she’s also a powerhouse of an actress, really taking you there with her, always in the moment, never being the least bit melodramatic, never “acting,” but always completely real. She’s somehow able to say so much just with her eyes, without even widening the lids without even making any kind of frown — just by having definite, intense thought that is somehow readable to the audience. And even though she’s so subtle, she somehow projects out to everyone. It’s really amazing — I really don’t know how an actress or a dancer does something like that.

There were places where I loved Irina Dvorovenko (at the very end — she doesn’t run around that crypt like a drama queen with her head cut off; instead she approaches the corpses, covers her mouth in fear, trips over Romeo, crumples into a ball and bawls — what anyone would do), and places where I loved Diana Vishneva (at the beginning, when playing the lute for Romeo, falling in love with him, especially the balcony scene). But I loved Hee Seo in every scene. There wasn’t a place where she wasn’t so completely in the moment and where she wasn’t able to make you feel exactly what she was feeling.

Photo by Samuel Zakuto, from TONY.

Her Romeo was Cory Stearns, who I liked but thought was very very nervous and let it influence his dancing. I know from David Hallberg via the Winger message board that this is the hardest role for a male lead, and it’s clear just from watching all those pas de deux how true that is. All those crazy high lifts, particularly the very last scene, where she’s limp as a rag doll. I can imagine having your Met debut must be terribly nerve-wracking for any man dancing Romeo, particularly a young one. I could tell he was shaky up front on the jumps — some of the landings were not so steady. He did seem to calm down, though, and kind of let himself get into the role, and he seemed to be doing much better by the second act (I think getting through the balcony pdd without any mishaps must always be a big relief!) But he also just seemed generally shy throughout, not wanting to take up space, not wanting to be seen, kind of relegating his Romeo to the corners of the stage. And that’s not good. Romeo needs to be aggressive to get his love, to avenge his friend’s death; Romeo needs to stand out.

And then during the curtain calls, same thing. They only took one. But people were going nuts with applause and were tossing bouquet after bouquet up there. They (Cory mainly, since he was leading her) just kind of walked away from the flowers and went back behind the curtain, as if hiding, and didn’t come back out again. I’m sure it was just nerves and awkwardness and not really knowing how to take all the applause, but I felt sorry for him because he didn’t really seem to understand how much people loved their performance. The company was also having a celebration for Frederic Franklin (who still plays Friar Laurence and who turned 95 in June), and I’m sure he was conscious of them wanting to start those festivities as well. But still, they could have taken one more curtain call!

Franklin was so cute! My pictures didn’t turn out too well because of the dark stage but here he is amid the balloons and surrounded by the cast. Seo and Stearns are to the far left, and ABT artistic director Kevin McKenzie is patting him on the shoulder. When he first came out onstage as Friar Laurence, everyone gave him so much applause that he had to come out of character, and walk out to the front of the stage to take a bow. He wore the sweetest little smile! We should all be like this at 95. And beyond.

One other mention: Daniil Simkin danced Benvolio, my first time seeing him in this ballet. I loved him, of course. In her post, Marie reminded me of that extra jab of the sword he took when dancing the mock-sparring scene with Romeo and Mercutio before the three crash the Capulet ball. If I remember correctly the jab was at Romeo and when Cory turned around, Simkin made clear he was just joking. It was a moment of playful camaraderie and I remember thinking these three — Simkin, Stearns and Craig Salstein as Mercutio — made, of any of the casts, the most believable trio of young friends. I also thought though it was a bit of foreshadowing of what was to come. So, I loved that he made that choice. I think Daniil is such a character, such a good actor as well as obviously a good dancer, I wasn’t sure why McKenzie didn’t cast him as Mercutio at all this run. He seems like the quintessential Mercutio and I saw every performance but one and am pretty sure he never danced it.

So, in the future, I would love to see Simkin dance Mercutio, and I would also love to see Hee Seo dance with Marcelo Gomes or Roberto Bolle as her Romeo.

I wish they would have discussed this picture

Did you guys see it? If you missed it, basically, it was short but sweet. IMO they had Daniel Radcliffe on for far too long and her not enough, but … Anyway, he introduced her, called American Ballet Theater one of the most prestigious ballet companies, and remarked that they’d never had a ballet dancer on the show … except for Richard Simmons… — which garnered lots of laughs.

She came out in this gorgeous blue strapless satin-y-looking tea-length dress. She seemed a bit nervous, but who wouldn’t be?! David Letterman was sweet though and I think his silly questions and funny demeanor kind of calmed her, made her laugh. He asked her where she was from in Russia and she said yes, I am from St. Petersburg, in Russia. She has a beautiful thick Russian accent and her understanding of English is probably not perfect but so what — I think she was endearing to his audience because of her Russianness. I think it’s very hard to learn English if you’re Russian and vice versa for us.

He asked her what their schools were like in Russia, she said they were good. He asked if she always knew she wanted to be a ballerina and she said someone had told her family that she had pretty, long legs and so must become a ballet dancer. But then she kind of laughed at herself, shook her head and said no one in her family knows anything about ballet. “Well, except you,” he said, and everyone laughed.

Then he put some pictures of her up to the camera and had her explain what they were. The first was of her doing an arabesque in — I’m not sure which ballet it was. She named the step, and he asked her if it hurt! She laughed (as did the audience). The other picture was of her as Odette at the end of Swan Lake, preparing to commit suicide by jumping off the cliff and into the lake. She called it “the final pose” of the ballet and explained that she jumps onto a mat under the stage. He asked if it hurt and she laughed again and said no. My question of course is — but does David Hallberg’s flamboyant swan dive hurt? He’s got to land on his belly. That mat must be thick!

Photo by Rosalie O’Connor, taken from The Winger.

And that was all of the pictures unfortunately. I really wish they would have shown one like the one up top, of the no hands fish dive. (photo by Gene Schiavone, by the way). She could have explained how hard it is (and, in Dave’s lingo, how much it hurts ) and of course she could have talked all about her wonderful partner, that Marcelo Gomes

Or this picture too

Anything with a fancy lift, basically. Photo also by Gene Schiavone.

Then he whipped out some toe shoes and gave them to her. They must have discussed beforehand what she’d do with them because she seemed to grab them and begin putting them on right away. The camera homed in on her feet, so we all watched her tie the ribbons. Then she got up and he led her out to the non-carpeted area and she went on pointe. She took him by the hands and lifted her leg up in back of her, in arabesque, and kind of motioned for him to walk her around like in a promenade. But he didn’t really get it and instead emulated her, lifting his leg up in back too, in a very funky-looking attitude. It was all very cute.

And then it was over, too soon.

Anyway, I was out at ABT tonight being completely floored by Hee Seo’s absolutely stunning, tear-jerking portrayal of Juliet (best I’ve seen since Alessandra Ferri, honestly), and then having a little after-performance bite to eat at Ollie’s with a couple of fun new ballet / writer / publishing friends (the best kind!), who I met in the blogosphere (the best place to meet!) Write-up soon of Seo and Cory Stearns (who was very good too, albeit a bit nervous — but excellent chemistry those two!) But, because I still live in the dark ages home entertainment-system-wise and still use a VCR to record, I could only record one show — and had to choose Veronika over SYTYCD results. If anyone could fill me in on the latter, would be much appreciated!

Part arriving at Letterman earlier today. Image taken from here.

I know now why I fell so for Roberto Bolle when he danced here with Alessandra Ferri two years ago: Romeo is his role. This is the best I’ve seen him this season. He thoroughly inhabited the character — from flirting with the prostitutes, to dreaming of Rosaline, falling for Juliet, raging uncontrollably at Tybalt after he kills his friend, immediately and horribly regretting what he does to Tybalt, and to his heart-clenching grief on finding Juliet seemingly dead.

Both he and Irina acted perfectly — no melodrama, no underacting, nothing the least bit overwrought — they were just two young people in love whose situation tornadoed suddenly and tragically out of their control. I preferred Irina’s death scene to Diana Vishneva’s the night before. Irina didn’t do any of the throwing the arms up and the head back; she just kind of contorted her body and cried while she realized what she had to do. Which, to me, was more real — less spectacle, but more real. And they danced superbly. I’ve never seen him dance so well — he nailed every twisted jump, his turns were faster and more precise than I’ve ever seen them, and the lifts were gorgeous. Very perfectly pashmina!

Craig Salstein was an excellent Mercutio, acting the part probably better than anyone (as I’d expect him to). Something rather funny happened at the beginning of the mandolin dance, though. Craig tossed aside his mandolin with a bit too much gusto and whoever was supposed to catch it didn’t and the thing went flying through the air like a saucer, sailing right over Roberto’s head, nearly missing it, and continuing on straight into the wings, where it made a very loud crash. Everyone onstage laughed as did the audience, and Craig shrugged his shoulders, smiled cutely, and continued on with his dance. I couldn’t stop laughing throughout that whole dance. It was okay, though — it’s a rather frivolous scene, pre-double homicides. Would be pretty wild though if the lead was knocked out by an out of control prop.

Jared Matthews not only danced Benvolio very well but acted the role well too. I didn’t catch him doing any of his usual cliched gestures and he genuinely seemed like Romeo’s playful friend. I think everyone feels at home in this ballet. I really think it’s all-around ABT’s best production.

Anyway, I’ll write more later. But now I have to go to bed. So … I can get up and go back for more ABT

Photo of Bolle taken from here, where there are many many more!

It’s kind of hard for me to be my usual enthusiastic self after hearing about the death of Pina Bausch earlier today, but I’m getting too far behind on blog posts to take the rest of the day off, so I’ll try.

Of course, I should have written about this performance earlier, but I was too busy at the stage door that evening, and then I’ve had a ballet every night since then. Anyway, hope I can make sense of my notes!

Overall impression was that they both — Veronika and Roberto — gave a beautiful, stunning performance, that he did very well when dancing on his own, that she did very well both on her own and when being partnered by him, and that she out-acted him. By a long shot. I have been told that (despite posing for photos like this) he is actually rather shy, though, and it did kind of seem like that at the stage door, so I think maybe he needs to get used to a ballerina for a while, and will do much better the more comfortable he gets. The reason I say that is because I loved him so much in Romeo and Juliet two years ago, and he danced wonderfully and completely comfortably with Alessandra Ferri. I think it’s just a matter of getting used to our ballerinas and perhaps American audiences.

Whenever he was on his own, his dancing and acting were solid. I really felt like I saw Odette flying away after Siegfried’s encounter with her, as Bolle’s sad eyes traced her imaginary path along the ceiling. And his early solo, when Siegfried is at the party, pre-Odette, and he’s feeling alone and ill at ease with his mother’s demands that he choose a wife, Bolle really conveyed that mixed emotion, confusion, loneliness. Later, his jumps were stellar. It just seemed that whenever he partnered Veronika, he was concentrating so hard, he had no time for emotion. So, Angel, Ethan, and Marcelo (when I last saw him as Siegfried, a year ago, anyway), were more passionate. But others think differently. Read Haglund (an excellent newish ballet blog by the way!) for a different take on Bolle’s performance.

Photo of Veronika Part by Marc Haegeman, from here.

Veronika was just gorgeous, and so passionate. She did her usual thing of taking me on her character’s journey with her, of making me feel Odette’s plight and pain, and Odile’s desires as well. She has such sweep and breadth, when he’d take her down into an arabesque penchee on pointe, her arms brushed the floor. And her extensions are always so breathtaking, and the overhead lifts — they are both so tall they were just spectacular, she just touched the sky. In the Black Swan Pas de Deux, she did the straight fouettes, as did Nina Ananiashvili the following night (review coming soon!) She has such height she moves a bit slower than other ballerinas and she didn’t really make the 32 fouettes, but who cares. She really devoured the stage with those fouettes, and when she did her turns around its perimeter. What’s important in that scene is how you eat up all the space around you and command the attention of the audience and poor Siegfried, and you can do that in a variety of ways — a ridiculous number of turns is only one. She had a really wicked smile all throughout that scene! I really love her!

Hehe, one other thing: poor Roberto. No one told him that, thanks to a certain David Hallberg, New York audiences are accustomed to an all-out Olympic gold medal-level Swan Dive off the cliff and into the lake at the end Or perhaps he didn’t want to out swan dive his lady, because Veronika just kind of tossed herself off the cliff. Either way, Roberto followed her with a slight jump, not even really a jump — almost like he was falling into the water as well. Of course I’m partly joking about the need for an extravagant suicide jump, but I do have to say, in my quest to see casts other than my regulars this season, I did so miss that Hallberg dive!

A couple of other things: I have a bunch of stars next to Craig Salstein’s name in my Playbill so he must have done something I liked… Oh yes, he was one of the two Neapolitan high-bouncing jumping jack guys in the court scene. I also have written “violins ***” which reminds me that I thought the violinist was very good during von Rothbart’s seduction of the court ladies scene. I always forget about the hard-working orchestra!