Photo of Sara Mearns in Swan Lake, by Paul Kolnik, taken from NY Times.

Last week was the first time I’d seen Peter Martins’ version of Swan Lake. Overall, I wasn’t in love with the production, but I was in love with the dancing, particularly Sara Mearns’ interpretation of Odette, which nearly moved me to tears, which just hardly ever happens with Swan Lake. She is the Veronika Part of New York City Ballet to me and I just love her. She inhabits whatever character she’s dancing with her entire being and she takes you to that place with her; she really creates another universe and she puts you right there and won’t let you leave it! I think here what I loved was that she humanized her Odette. So many ballerinas will focus on getting the fluttering foot just right, waving their arms about with just the proper fluidity that they look like actual wings, and of course totally nailing the chaines and fouettes in the second act. They make the White Swan all about the styling and the Black Swan all about the athletics. And they forget about the story.

But with Mearns — just the way she would wrap Prince Siegfried’s arms around her body, the way she’d nearly dive into an arabesque letting him catch her before turning her, or fall nearly to the floor and arch her back, wrapping herself around his kneeling knee — everything was about the tragic story, about Odette’s loving the prince and longing for him and her need for him, and then his inability to fulfill that need. I’ve honestly never been so moved before, and when she bourreed away from him at the end (there are no suicide swan dives into the lake here), leaving him, it just left me with such a emptiness. I couldn’t stop thinking about that — about her wrapping his arms around her in the pas de deux and then her sorrowful bourrees away from him at the end — for days; I still can’t get over it. I think those images will always be in my mind when I think of this ballet.

And she just had so much stage presence. Sometimes when all the swans are onstage together, I’ll lose Odette, but not with Mearns. I think that may partly be because she has a broad face, allowing her expressions to be more noticeable to the entire house. But of course she makes those expressions that not everyone does — her face, her body, she is always fully immersed in the role.

And Jared Angle was the absolute perfect partner. You can tell he’s a very strong guy and a very solid partner who’s easy to get along with. Because she’d really really throw herself into those arabesques and he’d catch her and she was so off her center of balance — she had to be in order to show the passion and emotion, and the full, expressive line – and he’d promenade her like that, and it was so incredible because you could tell he spent the better part of the ballet supporting a lot of her body weight.

And he acted it well too, and did perfectly on his solos. Very impressive performance by him!

The other cast I saw was on opening night with Maria Kowroski in the lead and Stephen Hanna making his debut as Siegfried. Hanna was very good — he’s a strong guy too, and that night, he performed a major save! Toward the beginning Kowroski went to jump into his arms, on her way into a shoulder-high lift, and she slipped before she ever got to him. He somehow reached out and caught her anyway, and took her up into that lift beautifully. The whole audience went “ahhhhhh”! I think it threw Kowroski a bit though because she seemed nervous and a bit shaky throughout the rest of the ballet. She might also have been a bit anxious because Hanna was debuting in the role, so they obviously hadn’t performed it together yet. At intermission, someone mentioned she might have been less nervous dancing with her usual Charles Askegard. Maybe that’s true. I thought Hanna did a very good job overall.

But I’m not in love with the production. Like Martins’ Romeo + Juliet, the sets are very modern, and the costumes for Siegfried and Benno and his friends are bright, color-coded, and basic with minimal embellishments. But the sets are the worst. In the beginning, you can’t even tell they’re in a palace. In the second act, the sets are not only minimal, but what’s there is so incredibly modern, just a few brown and beige slashes on some backboards. And yet, the people are dressed in Elizabethan costumes. Either set it in modern times completely or go with the historical thing, but don’t do half and half?…

And the production just moves way too fast, in my opinion. This worked for Sleeping Beauty (the paring down of all the miming and the boring court dances, in favor of getting right to the point and to those gorgeous variations), but it didn’t work here because there’s too much story up front missing. We see all these people dancing — we don’t know they’re in a palace, so we just see them all dance, and next thing we know, Siegfried’s all bouncing around with a bow and arrow. Then he runs offstage and a moment later, on comes Odette. Then Siegfried runs back out and they do a pas de deux, and after that’s over, Odette runs one way, Siegfried runs the other, and on come the swan ensemble. And — and maybe this is conductor Karoui’s doing — but you don’t even realize Odette’s run away from Siegfried because she’s afraid of Von Rothbart, and that now Siegfried is running around madly trying to find her. Instead, it just looks like a bunch of running. There should be pauses so that you know exactly what’s happening and why– the pacing is way way too fast. I never really did see Siegfried fall for her. I first realized there was something between them when Mearns’ Odette wrapped Siegfried’s arms around her in the White Swan pdd.

The other thing is the ending, which I both like and don’t like. In this ending, there is no suicide with the two lovers  ending up together in eternity. Instead, since Siegfried has betrayed Odette with Odile, they can’t be together. The problem is that Martins still has Von Rothbart die — he melts into a puddle and dies once he realizes their love is undying and real. But then, if he dies, the spell should be broken and Odette can resume human form. So, the ending then loses its mysticism and becomes a human ending — Odette leaves him because he’s betrayed her, and even though he’s horribly sorry, the damage is done and can’t be undone. So, basically she just can’t forgive him. But why not? It doesn’t really have the resonance to me that it should. I think Martins should just not have Von Rothbart die. That way the lovers can’t be together because of Siegfried’s betrayal. But she still loves him, so that when she bourrees away from him, letting go of him little by little, her arms still reaching out toward him as she disappears into the wings, it just makes you want to bawl your eyes out the same way as the Giselle ending.

One other thing: Martins has some children dance in the beginning courtly scene, which I love. It’s very Balanchine to put the children in, and they were very sweet. And I could tell the people around me thought the same.

Oh and one final other thing: there’s no real dancing for Von Rothbart — it’s really just a character part. But I missed the seductive Marcelo making all the women swoon with his sexy jumps, and then tossing his Odile all about!

Anyway — sorry, I’m behind on blogging and have to blog about these things all together — but earlier in the week, I attended a daytime tribute to retiring Balanchine ballerina Darci Kistler (above photo from the front of the program). She danced the Preghiera passage from Mozartiana beautifully, with some children from School of American Ballet, then the White Swan pas de deux with Jared Angle. And then Kathryn Morgan danced the Sleeping Beauty wedding pas de deux with Tyler Angle, which was sheer perfection. They also showed some excerpts of interviews with Kistler from a 1989 documentary, Dancing For Mr. B, and there was a short panel discussion where Bob Craft from the NYCB Board interviewed her. Later, the two were joined by Peter Martins, Philip Neal (who seems very polite and well-mannered), and the hilarious Albert Evans, who you can tell is the type of guy who puts everyone at ease. He got up there and immediately started reminiscing about a blue sweater Darci’d wear to rehearsals all the time and how much he wanted it (she ended up saying he could have it!) and some rather amusing (in retrospect) goof-ups they had together, and she just really burst into genuine laughter.

Oh and at the beginning, Kathryn Morgan presented Kaitlyn Gilliland with the 2010 Janice Levin Award (Morgan was the 2009 recipient). Both gave little speeches, and Gilliland (who seems like a natural speaker) prefaced hers by pronouncing Kathryn’s recent Sleeping Beauty debut “historical,” which nearly brought tears to my eyes. Can’t think of a more apt description!

And finally, earlier last week, I saw the debut of a new ballet by corps member Adam Hendrickson. It was presented in a small downstairs auditorium at Carnegie Hall and was part of a program featuring newly discovered Prokofiev music performed by students and faculty of Yale’s School of Music. Hendrickson’s ballet was set to his Music For Athletic Exercises, and it was fast, flirty, and fun. It was performed by three dancers — Matthew Renko (who is really a stand-out dancer — I kept wondering why he wasn’t with a major ballet company, and then realized later in the week he’s a corps member at NYCB), Elysia Dawn, and Colby Damon and one pianist — Boris Berman — and Hendrickson’s original, clever choreography had elements of Ratmansky’s Concerto DSCH as well as Jerome Robbins. At one point, Dawn’s feet are moving so fast and furiously, and the pianist just keeps at it and won’t let up, and she kind of stops and shoots him a look. It reminded me of Robbins’ Suite of Dances — it was cute and the crowd loved the joke. This is the second work I’ve seen of Hendrickson’s and I found both to be engaging and memorable. I think he may have a real future as a choreographer. Anyway, here is Philip’s account of the evening, and here is an article on the music.

Yesterday morning at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, ABT announced their plan to hold an annual Nutcracker season at BAM. Above is SLSG favorite, soloist Craig Salstein, enthusiastically speaking to the crowd. He was the only dancer to address the crowd; David Hallberg was there too but stood in the back the whole time. A group of young dancers from the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis School of Ballet (associated with ABT) was there as well — they’ll be dancing in the party scenes when the production opens next year, on December 23, 2010. For the first year, the season will be two weeks, but after that the company hopes to have a longer run.

ABT resident choreographer Alexei Ratmansky will be choreographing.

Here’s a slightly better picture of him, by Fabrizio Ferri. Someday I will get a pro camera, I swear!

This was the first time I’d heard Ratmansky speak. He is very soft-spoken and has a heavy Russian accent and seemed to know what he wanted to say but struggled a bit to get the words out in English. And he makes the same grammatical mistakes as Pasha and Baryshnikov (mainly leaving out articles — there are no definite or indefinite articles in Russian — a, an, the — so they tend to leave those out: “…is great score,” etc.) I think English must be the hardest language to learn, especially for Russians. I know Russian is the hardest language I ever tried to learn…

Anyway, Ratmansky seemed shy and soft-spoken but genuinely excited, especially when talking about Tchaikovsky’s score, which he called the greatest ballet music ever written. I felt vindicated

But Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz really kind of stole the show with his little speech. He was so out of place in this crowd of rather gentle artists with that booming Brooklyn-accented voice! He of course praised ABT’s decision to hold the season in Brooklyn, then told Ratmansky he should move to the borough since it boasts the greatest Russian population in the U.S. He also called Brooklyn the dance capital of New York (in terms of studio space — which leads to the great number of companies rehearsing there), which is in turn the creative capital of the U.S. These politicians do kind of know how to make their constituencies proud. After bemoaning the fact that the last time ABT was in Brooklyn was before Baryshnikov defected, he called the ABT / BAM plan “a grand jete into the future for Brooklyn.”

The project is expected to cost $5 million and is being partly funded by David A. Koch (yes, of the Koch Theater — he’s matching dollar for dollar donations up to $2.5). ABT also plans to perform community outreach, particularly in Brooklyn schools, including pre-performance workshops for the children, attendance at dress rehearsals, and dance classes.

The rest of the production team includes Jennifer Tipton, lighting designer extraordinaire, and Richard Hudson, an award-winning theater designer, who will design costumes and scenes. Below are some of his sketches:

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.

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.

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!

Performance photos coming soon; in the meantime please enjoy another BRILLIANT photo by Kyle Froman.

Christopher Wheeldon’s Morphoses opened its NY season last night at City Center and I felt it was the best program they’ve done in their three years of existence. (At least Program A was; tonight I’ll see Program B). It’s a varied program with work by four different choreographers: Wheeldon himself; Bolshoi A.D.-turned ABT resident choreographer Alexei Ratmansky, whom all the critics downright worship; Australian Tim Harbour; and the Dutch husband and wife team Lightfoot Leon.

I must talk first about the third piece on the program, that by Lightfoot Leon, Softly As I Leave You. This is one of the most riveting pas de deux I’ve ever seen and it’s performed by the absolutely mesmerizing Drew Jacoby and Rubinald Pronk. Every single person who is not a professional critic was absolutely spellbound by it, could not stop talking about it. This happened at both the Fall For Dance Festival, where the work premiered (which I wrote about here), and last night. It’s simply about a couple, one partner’s decision to leave the other, and it’s a harrowing decision. After the lights went out on the final poignant image, the elderly woman on my left, whom I didn’t know, grabbed me and said, “Oh my God, that was so good!” And from my friend, who thinks the Arvo Part music used (Spiegel im Spiegel) is completely over-used and was expecting not to like it for that reason: “Oh my God, that music actually worked here!” she exclaimed, open-mouthed. She agreed it was one of the best duets she’d ever seen. And people were going on and on about it during intermission, both here and at FFD.

So why in the world do the critics hate it so much??? They ALL do. ALL OF THEM. It’s like in order to be a professional critic there are certain things you’re required to hate and this is one of them. And yet audiences are so overwhelmed by its power. Clement Crisp rants, “I can find not one iota of merit in its vulgar posturings.” Guardian critic Luke Jennings calls it “slick surfaced” and replete with “glib insincerity.” I can’t remember Alastair Macaulay’s exact words after its FFD premiere, but he hated it too. And a Ballet.co critic whom I spoke with at an ABT Guggenheim event (and who was the only non-Brit of the lot) complained how awful he thought it was as well.

This happened — I’m sorry, I’m getting off on a tangent — but this happened with practically every Fall For Dance piece, and with ABT’s recent season: EVERY SINGLE CRITIC hated every single one of the pieces the public adored (Barton, Millepied, Mark Dendy’s BRILLIANT Afternoon of the Fauns) and loved those they found least compelling (Ratmansky). I mean, more on this later, but what do you do if you’re an artistic director or choreographer? Do you cater to the critics — the “important people” or do you trust us, the commoners?

Anyway, mine and my friend’s second favorite piece of the night was Tim Harbour’s Leaving Songs. Guess what: all the critics hated it. I need to move to Europe… This dance had such emotional depth. It was about the cycle of life, death and rebirth — though I’m not sure you’d know that if the choreographer hadn’t said so in a little film clip shown before the program. But that doesn’t matter; you can come up with your own meaning anyway. The movement was kind of a combination of modern, classical and what looked to me to be African, and the music, by Australian composer Ross Edwards, is equally varied, at points sounding classical European, at points more percussive and African-sounding.

There were several striking moments, such as the point during a pas de deux where a man puts his hands around a woman’s neck and she falls before him. It kind of seems as if he’s strangling her out of anger, but then her arms flutter about beautifully, almost-bird like. It’s a combination of violence and grace. And there’s a moment where the group is dancing in ensemble and the movement is very wavy and undulating, very African, and everyone’s moving in unison and the music slows and the dancers slow, almost like they’re approaching death. Then the drums start pulsating and the dancers come to life and begin sidling cautiously but with intention toward the front of the stage. There are also several very sexually suggestive scenes with women’s legs splayed in the air. No tights are worn, and my friend and I couldn’t stop wondering how in the world they keep those leotards from shifting…

Anyway, I found the Harbour very compelling. And Rubinald Pronk really stood out here as well. He has so much fluidity and expansiveness in his body, and I don’t think anyone has more intense eyes.

(photo from Vail website)

Alexei Ratmansky’s Bolero was enjoyable too, largely because of the familiar Ravel music. For me, Ratmansky is one of those artists whose work doesn’t jump out at you and hit you over the head with its brilliance. Rather, I’ll need to see a dance of his several times before I get a sense of what it’s about, before I can fully appreciate it. Wheeldon’s work is the same. The critics seem to think this is the mark of a good choreographer — that it grows on you and you notice new things with each viewing, and I suppose it is. But for the average consumer, going to the ballet so often to see pieces over and over again to understand and appreciate them more fully can get prohibitively expensive. Dance art is not like a museum or art gallery where you can stand there for as long as you like.

Anyway, in Bolero, there are four pairs of women and men, each person wearing a number on his or her top. The women wear white tops and little skirts, almost like cheerleaders and the men wear black. If the women were cheerleaders, the men didn’t seem to be any kind of sports players though. They danced in groups divided between male and female, almost as if they were competing with each other, or as if their movement was some kind of back and forth dialog. And then toward the end, they began to partner each other more, the crescendo of the music complemented by various lifts that I found at points to be a little humorous, though it may have just been me. For example, when those trombones (I think that’s what they are anyway; maybe they’re tubas), are blaring kind of off-key at the end, the men lift the women over their heads, upside-down and the women do these upside-down developes, their legs splaying along with the warped trombones. I thought it was funny but I might be the only one.

And then the first piece on the program was Wheeldon’s Commedia (photo above by Erin Baiano), which was made in homage to Ballets Russes and was premiered last year. I wrote a bit about it here and here.

Here’s an excerpt from the company performing Commedia at the Vail International Dance Festival:

Also, this season marks the company’s collaboration with the young orchestra (most players are under 30, Wheeldon said), Philharmonic Orchestra of the Americas, founded and directed by the very entertaining, energetic Alondra de la Parra — yes, a female conductor OMG! The evening opened with Wheeldon giving a little address and then the orchestra playing on Overture to Estancia: Malambo by Alberto Ginastera. At the same time the orchestra played the Overture (this was their first time playing in a pit for dance, and not centerstage, by the way), a screen was dropped over the stage and a delightfully humorous film was shown of the dramatic conductor directing her crew, the violinists all swaying dramatically in unison at points. It was a lot of fun. Whole night was very good.

Daniil Simkin and cast in Benjamin Millepied’s Everything Doesn’t Happen at Once in Gene Schiavone photo, courtesy of ABT; all photos by Gene Schiavone (except for Arron Scott headshot below and bottom picture).

Just to let people know, as the photos shows above, the guy who was flinging himself into the group lifts in the first cast of the Millepied was Daniil Simkin; in the second cast it was Arron Scott (below). The program notes only gave a special mention to the two dancers doing the pas de deux and a lot of people were asking who the main soloist was.

Anyway, here are a few more reviews:

Here is James Wolcott on opening night gala (and our fab Shun Lee dinner afterward ), here is Apollinaire Scherr’s FT review; and here are more of Apollinaire’s thoughts on her blog, Foot in Mouth. I’m surprised there aren’t more reviews — this was a pretty big season, with three world premieres — but that’s all I can find at the moment. (Update: Robert Greskovic’s WSJ review just went up; thanks to Meg for letting me know.)

Re the Wolcott write-up: I forgot to mention the models — Iman and Veronica Webb, who, instead of A.D. Kevin McKenzie, thanked the gala sponsors and introduced the program — screwing up Benjamin Millepied’s name. It wouldn’t have been such a big deal if they wouldn’t have been so giggly over it. It seemed like they were reading their notes for the first time and were really unprepared. I really don’t know how to pronounce his name either — I’ve always said the last two syllables to rhyme with plie (without the “l”) but have been told that’s wrong. But damn did ABT get a lot of press for signing them on. Just Google “ABT Fall 2009 Season” and it’s all about Iman.

(Gillian Murphy, Cory Stearns and Eric Tamm in Aszure Barton’s One of Three)

Anyway, I saw four of the six programs, saw the Ratmansky and the Millepied ballets four times and the Barton three, and they each grew on me the more I saw them. The Saturday matinee was my last performance and I found it by far the best. I felt like the dancers were finally comfortable with the new dances, knew what they were all about, and really made them meaningful. I described the ballets here.

Oh and regarding SanderO’s comment on that earlier post: yes, I do need to see the story in the dance. The dancer and choreographer won’t pull me in at all if they don’t each tell me some sort of story. That doesn’t mean the ballet has to be a traditional full-length dramatic novel or something with a clearly defined beginning, middle, and end, inciting incident, rising action with crises 1,2, and 3, climax and resolution, etc etc. but there needs to be some kind of story; there needs to be some intention in the abstraction. A lot of critics use the word “evocative” — a dance needs to be evocative of something, and I just mean the same thing. If there isn’t something meaningful going on, there’s no reason for me to see it. I can appreciate the neat geometric patterns and pretty images, but that’s not enough to make me go.

Anyway, I saw more in Millepied’s Everything Doesn’t Happen at Once on further viewings. At first I thought it was kind of everything but the kitchen sink the way Apollinaire kind of describes, but after several viewings I saw more of an evolutionary, battle of the sexes theme throughout, which becomes a more literal battle by the end. The piece starts with the stage looking swimming-pool like with the dancers making broad strokes with their arms. The stage gets over-crowded and eventually someone in charge — looking rather conductor-like, kind of throws his arms up and dismisses everyone.

Then, there’s a pas de trois (two men one woman), which becomes a double pas de trois (same), which turns into the central pas de deux (man-woman). Throughout there seems to be struggle going on — in the pas de trois the men kind of manipulate the woman around, until she’s practically on her side. In the central pas de deux is in places tender, in places more angsty as if the girl is trying to get away from the guy or fight him in some way, and he is struggling to hang onto her.

By the end, the scene has evolved into a kind of battlefield with marching music and the ballerinas doing those Balanchinian marches en pointe. Except they’re more unsettling than cutesy, like in Balanchine. This is the part where Daniil / Arron gets tossed into the crowd, throws himself with wild abandon at the groups of men, who catch him mid-split, then gets caught up with a bunch of grabbing girls.

Interestingly, the audience laughed when this role was danced by Simkin — I think because he is small and a bit long-haired and it kind of looked like he was afraid he’d be taken for one of them and was trying like hell to assert his masculinity. (I think it would have worked better had the girls been chasing him and then he flings himself into the groups of guys rather than the other way around, but not a big deal).

But no one laughed when it was Arron. It looked far more serious with him in the role — it looked like he was practically getting raped by that rabid group of girls.

Also I noticed with Arron that after the rabid group of girls leaves him alone, he kind of internalized the tauning; there was now an invisible fist punching him all about. It really looked like he was getting beaten up by that thing. But the fist was invisible so it was like he’d been driven mad. It was very unsettling, and I think, with the music and the rest of the action, this feeling is more of what Millepied was going for — not all the high air flips, crazy long spins, and windmill jumps that Simkin is known for and did here. Simkin’s character made the end of the ballet more playful than battle-like.

There’s also a short section where there’s all this marching music and there’s more centerstage chaos with all 24 dancers out there at once and suddenly a group of dancers standing at one corner break into partners and go waltzing through the crowd. But it’s really short-lived, like even courtship is a battle.

I don’t know — that’s what I saw on further inspection. But I could be making it all up. It’s kind of fun with abstract ballets (the ones that have a lot going on in them anyway) to make up your own story. I mean, the way dances get made anyway, as I learned at a Guggenheim event last night featuring ABT’s efforts to adapt ballets to different stages (including this small one in AF Hall, meant for concerts), is that things get changed depending on space, depending on the logistics of the stage, depending on dancers. Whoever knows if the end product is what the choreographer originally had in mind anyway.

I don’t think Millepied’s was a perfect ballet — I found a lot of the bird-like patterns from his recent NYCB ballet, Quasi Una Fantasia, to be out of place here – he didn’t need all that; he should have focused more on the battle — but I found his the darkest, the most thematically clear and the most absorbing.

Stella Abrera and Gennadi Saveliev in Alexei Ratmansky’s Seven Sonatas.

The Ratmansky grew on me, as did the Barton. On the last day, Michele Wiles danced the main female character (in the long white ballgown) in the Barton and I loved her. She gave the character a real story. When she comes out onstage she is all bitchy and glamorous, but Michele it’s really an act; she is seeking attention from the main man (in that cast Blaine Hoven) while trying to maintain her haughty demeanor so as not to be shown up by him if he dismisses her. At one point, she extends her arm out to him, as if he’s supposed to kiss it but he turns and runs offstage. She crumbles. It’s heartbreaking.

I also really loved Craig Salstein, Jared Matthews and Daniil Simkin in Barton’s second cast (Matthews and Simkin alternated parts opposite Salstein). They danced a section in the second part and all three made it clear (Salstein most so) that they were in a little competition for the girl’s attention. The girl (Luciana Paris), meanwhile, was just dancing on her own, in her own world, paying them no mind at all. It was hilarious.

But back to Michele Wiles for a minute: a wonderful ABT patron gave me her ticket for a company class, which she couldn’t attend, and Michele seemed so sweet — smiling out and waving at people during the class and even during warm-up.

Also, can some choreographer please please please create a little solo or some kind of dance just for Gillian Murphy! Please! During that company class, during the center floor work when the dancers divided into groups and did turns in a diagonal down the center, Gillian blew everyone completely away. She was like a tornado. But a technically perfect tornado! Everyone in my section literally began to laugh and shake their heads in amazement. She needs something to showcase her technical brilliance and athletic prowess. C’mon ABT!

Each of the dancers brought their own special thing to the Ratmansky. Christine Shevchenko (an up and coming corps member) was gorgeous with the role created by Julie Kent (danced opposite David Hallberg). She was more lyrical than Julie, with flowing, expressive arms that resembled Natalia Makarova in Other Dances. Julie’s arms were more staccato. Hee Seo, who completely blew me away as well, did a combination of the two — by turns feathery and lyrical, and modern and staccato. Alexandre Hammoudi and Jared Matthews both danced David’s original part and they were very different than David. Both connected with their ballerinas much more — when they were left alone onstage they clearly looked about for her, wondering where she was, then accepting they were alone and falling into their solo.

David Hallberg. I can never get enough David Hallberg. He didn’t look around for his ballerina when she left him, but when she returned to the stage, he danced well with her. But when she was offstage, she was out of sight, out of mind with him — he was too busy making Ratmansky’s movement wholly his own. He seems to be a rapidly maturing artist, playing with the music, playing with rhythm, giving some things more emphasis than others. When I first saw him dance this role I thought his “character’s” movement was more modern than classical, but I think that was just because of the way he did one section where he keeps pushing out with his hands, like he’s stopping the air, or stopping something from getting too close. He slowed down that movement a lot, really emphasizing the arms, and then did some ensuing footwork at the speed of light, whereas the others did everything in equal measures -so it didn’t have the same look.

Jared Matthews and Maria Riccetto in Some Assembly Required, photo by Rosalie O’Connor.

ABT also put on Clark Tippet’s Some Assembly Required from 1989, a male-female pas de deux evoking a lovers’ quarral replete with difficult-looking angst-filled lifts, struggling pushes and pulls, then more tender making up. It went on a bit too long; some middle parts that were repetitive could have been taken out, but the cast I saw — Jared Matthews and Maria Riccetto did very well with it. Jared is dancing and dramatizing better than ever before, imo.

And the company also did Robbins’ Other Dances, another male-female pas de deux (this one pretty famous) that was choreographed on Baryshnikov and Makarova. I saw both casts — Marcelo Gomes and Veronika Part, and David Hallberg and Gillian Murphy. I liked both — although I think I honestly prefer Tiler Peck and Gonzalo Garcia’s at NYCB. Gonzalo has a smaller body, more like Baryshnikov’s, and I think some of the gestures — like the placing the hand behind the head, kind of primping, looked sweetest on him. Ditto for Tiler. David is dancing very aggressively these days. He’s making the absolute most of every movement — it can be stunning at times, and at times it seems a bit overdone, which it seemed to me a tad here.

I also think that joke on the Kirov dancers getting dizzy and losing their footing because they don’t spot-turn doesn’t come across as such to new audiences. When Marcelo and Gonzalo did it, many in the audience honestly thought the dancers screwed up for real, not on purpose. David really didn’t do the joke because he’s a cheat I’m kidding — he did, but he spun, stopped, got dizzy, shook himself out of it, and started the next phrase all in the blink of an eye, so you didn’t even notice he “got lost.”

Gillian was good but it didn’t seem to be a dance that showcased her talents to their fullest. I’ll say it again — I really think she is the most athletic and technically one of the best female dancers in the world and she desperately needs more roles that prove that!

Above photo by Rosalie O’Connor of Everything Doesn’t Happen at Once by Benjamin Millepied; photos below by Andrea Mohin from the NY Times, of Millepied’s Everything (dancers: Marcelo Gomes and Isabella Boylston), and Alexei Ratmansky’s Seven Sonatas (dancers l-r: Stella Abrera, Xiomara Reyes, and Julie Kent).

Here is Gia Kourlas’s review in the Times.

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.

Finally, ABT’s Contemporary season is here; it opens tonight at Avery Fisher Hall, at Lincoln Center, with premieres by choreographers Azsure Barton, Alexei Ratmansky and Benjamin Millepied (pictured above, left to right). Plus, there’s a special addition — a performance of Michel Fokine’s Ballets Russes classic, The Dying Swan, by SLSG favorite Veronika Park! (top photo, by Jade Young)

Another important dance event that opens tonight is William Forsythe’s company performing the U.S. premiere of his Decreation, at Brooklyn Academy of Music. Unfortunately, their performances are the exact same nights as ABT’s shortened season so most big dance fans are probably going to be at Lincoln Center for the next few days. But Forsythe is a very important choreographer and I strongly encourage all New Yorkers to try to make it out to BAM for at least one of the perfs between tonight and October 10th.

There’s a post-performance talk with Forsythe tomorrow night at BAM (October 8), and another talk between Forsythe and philosopher Alva Noe about consciousness as a kind of dance at the New York Public Library the following day. I find Forsythe to be brilliant and it’s always fascinating to hear him talk.

I think this is pretty funny. Fall For Dance tickets go on sale this Sunday, September 13th, at 11:00 a.m. In the past crowds have been known to line up beginning at 4 a.m. (this festival is popular), and the line’s been known to wend its way practically all around midtown. Well, this year, festival participant Monica Bill Barnes (above, on the left), a modern / experimental dancer and choreographer, is going to entertain the queued-up crowd from 10-11 Sunday morn. She and her dancers can be rather amusing.

These pics are from a site-specific performance of hers I saw last summer downtown and wrote about here.

Also, during the festival there will be three free, open-to-the-public talks in City Center’s Studio 5 (which is upstairs, I think on the 5th floor). All three talks will be about the legacy of the Ballets Russes (in honor of their centenary this year).

The first, on September 23rd at 6:30 p.m. will be a discussion with three original members of the legendary troupe: Frederic Franklin, Raven Wilkinson and Eleanor D’Antuono and will be moderated by Robert Greskovic, author and dance critic for the Wall Street Journal.

The second, on Sept. 25th, same time, will be about how BR’s collaborations with clothes designers, painters, and musicians of the day created lasting change for the dance world. Panelists include Christopher Wheeldon, Alexei Ratmansky, Juliet Bellow and Simon Morrison and the moderator is Lynn Garafola, a dance historian at Barnard.

The third, on October 3rd, same time, will be about BR’s influence on today’s choreography. Panelists are choreographers Nicholas Leichter, Robert Johnson, Mark Dendy, and Virginia Johnson and the moderator is Wendy Perron, the editor-in-chief of Dance Magazine.

Speaking of Ballets Russes, one final reminder: if you haven’t yet seen the fantastic exhibit at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, at Lincoln Center, you only have until September 12th to do so. They’ve got videos of Baryshnikov dancing Balanchine’s Prodigal Son, of Anna Pavlova, of Fokine’s Les Sylphides, of Branislava Nijinska’s Les Noces, of original BR choreographer Leonid Massine instructing Joffrey dancers on reconstructing his Parade, they’ve got original costumes and poster designs by Picasso, letters and diary entries by Diaghlev, etc. etc. etc. Definitely worth seeing.

Mikhail Baryshnikov and Ana Laguna are in Santa Monica where they’re beginning a U.S. tour. Program includes choreography by Mats Ek (Laguna’s husband), Alexei Ratmansky, and Benjamin Millepied’s Years Later, which consists of a solo for Barysh juxtaposed with movie clips of his younger self dancing. Critics say it “should bring a new respect to middle-age dance performances.”

I’m excited to see the Millepied as well as the Ek piece. Here are some clips from another of Ek’s dances for the pair. Baryshnikov still looks like Baryshnikov — the way he moved in White Nights, the way he danced Tharp’s Push Comes to Shove…

(top photo from Hawaiitheater.com)

Here’s a photo, by Rosalie O’Conner, to go along with my two earlier posts. This was the couple I was going on about so in James Kudelka’s Desir; a photo wasn’t available earlier. I found it in Tobi Tobias’s just-posted blog entry, summing up ABT’s eventful season, which is definitely read-worthy. She talks about the two above (like me, she loved Boylston); Alexei Ratmansky’s On the Dneiper; Natalia Osipova guesting (she felt just about the same as I about the Bolshoi ballerina); and Nina Ananiashvili’s farewell performance. I am working on my review of that; in the meantime, see my album. And do read Tobias!

(Desir, photo by Cylla von Tiedemann, from ABT website)

On the Dnieper grew on me after seeing it the second time on Tuesday night, with the new cast, although I still generally preferred the first cast. If you missed my earlier post on Ratmansky’s new ballet, it’s here. Second cast was: Jose Carreno as Sergei the returning soldier; Hee Seo as Natalia, his betrothed; Diana Vishneva as Olga, the flirt who steals his heart; and Alexandre Hammoudi as Olga’s volatile fiance.

I absolutely loved Diana as Olga. She and Hee Seo, who was excellent as well, really drove home the ballet’s pathos and heartbreak. A BalletTalk poster said that with Diana, Olga became the central character and I think they’re right. Diana’s Olga was the most dynamic character in the whole thing; she really underwent a change in those mere 40 minutes. And it was believable. She starts out this carefree and careless flirtatious girl, frolicking around, teasing Sergei, teasing her boyfriend. And when her flirtatiousness with Sergei sets the whole disastrous string of events in motion — Sergei falls for her and she for him, her fiance has an emotional breakdown and beats Sergei, her parents are distraught, and she realizes what she and Sergei have done to poor Natalia — she really grows up, overnight, becomes a totally different person, takes responsibility for her actions. When she and Sergei bow to Natalia at the end in a prayer for forgiveness, before running off to their new life together, you feel equal heartbreak for both women.

Hee Seo and Veronika Part were equally compelling, although Seo seemed a little younger and more naive up front and I didn’t notice the holding out of the arms and the resting of the head on the shoulder like I did with Veronika. Jose, who’s generally ABT’s best actor I think (he never overdoes it; everything is authentic), was good as Sergei, but different from Marcelo. Jose seemed to be searching for something at the beginning, trying to rediscover his hometown with those short, staccato steps in each direction. His movements at the beginning were more modern than ballet, sharp and staccato at points, like he was unnerved that he didn’t recognize things or that things were different. (That kind of movement is more visible on a smaller body though.) Marcelo didn’t seem as sad or desperate up front. But then when torn between the two women, with Jose I  didn’t notice the back and forth of the jumps, this way and that, as I did with Marcelo. The jumps first to one woman, then the other, are my favorite Sergei movement trait, along with the throwing himself to the ground in anguish, almost like a half push-up.

Alexandre Hammoudi was a very different fiance from David Hallberg. Alexandre was quieter, especially up front, not seeming to realize the potential dangers of Olga’s flirtatiousness. He underwent a character change, like Diana’s Olga, then, becoming aggrieved and angry when he realized what had happened. David was more volatile up front, as if that was fundamentally part of the fiance’s character. Those extremely fast-paced steps during his anger scene were not as pronounced with Alexandre as with David. It looked more like he was kicking up leaves (which they had strewn on the ground); with David he was using those feet like daggers. David made such an impression with that character, and specifically that going nuts scene — I’m never going to forget it; I’m never going to forget that insane, almost terrifying, tap dance.

Okay, can I stop talking about this ballet now and focus on the other Prokofiev pieces?!

I generally wasn’t in love with Desir (photo at top of post) by James Kudelka, at least not as it was danced here. The movement is lovely and much of it original and the dancers are excellent but something was just lacking and I can’t figure out exactly what. It’s a ballet about several different couples, and I think my problem is that all the couples are basically the same, at least the way it’s being danced by ABT. With someone like Tharp or Robbins, different couples have different issues — there’s a romantic couple, a sexed-up couple, a fighting couple, etc. Here, the first two couples on first, dressed in fiery red — the women in long, flowing dresses that really whirl when they turn, the men in brown pants and long-sleeved colored tops –  both seem passionate and in love, all but Gillian Murphy from the first night’s cast, wearing bright smiles. But I don’t know if the happy smiles are supposed to be there. Some of the movement is rather chaotic. The woman seems to want to go one way and the man keeps turning her the other, mid-air. Gillian was the only one who made this dramatic, as if there was something not quite right going on between the characters. Apollinaire Scherr noticed that as well; read her very insightful comments on the whole program here (scroll down).

Then we move to a set of four couples, all dancing at once. My favorite part of the whole ballet is the men of these couples. At one point, men and women split and the men all dance together, followed by the women doing a group dance. When the men group dance in this way, each is doing his own thing — one jumping arms up toward the sky as if in ecstasy, another jeteing back and forth as if confused, another spinning himself into a whirlwind, etc. Then the women dance and they all do exactly the same thing — hold up their skirts and tip toe around, jump waving the skirts all about, all in unison, in sync. They’re all the same character — what does this say about men and women? Then, the couples pair up again, each man to a woman, and there’s one really funny part where the women stand still and the men do a bunch of high, twisty turning jumps,their limbs flying — as if to protest, “what’s up with that?,” “how can you say that to me?” It’s very funny, very evocative of real life relationships. The audience seemed to laugh louder on the first night though.

Still, in all, the couple who stood out to me the most is the more adagio one with all the beautiful lifts. The second night it was danced by Jared Matthews and Maria Riccetto, who were very good, but there was just something extra special about Cory Stearns and Isabella Boylston that really took my breath away the first night. Another performance I’m not going to forget.

And then Prodigal Son. This isn’t really my favorite ballet and I don’t honestly see how critics can trash Boris Eifman so and love this. What’s with all that fist-pounding on the thighs, the wide-mouthed screams at what, being asked to get water from the well with his sisters? How melodramatic is that? I know it’s a classic now, but I feel if it premiered today people would laugh and roll their eyes. Unless Balanchine meant for parts of it to be funny, like that up front melodrama, and the “sex” scenes. Anyway, read Apollinaire’s comments about Prodigal too, though; she made me appreciate it more, and talked about how certain dancers can play up the immaturity in those early thigh-pounding scenes so that it doesn’t look so full of melodrama.

Herman Cornejo as the son and Michele Wiles as the Siren danced the leads on opening night; Angel Corella and Kristi Boone the second night. Unfortunately I have to miss the third cast — the magnificent Daniil Simkin and the tantalizingly beautiful Irina Dvorovenko. If anyone sees them, please report! I’m dying to know how they do together!

Herman was excellent dance-wise. As expected, he nailed all those high-flying, angst-ridden jumps at the beginning. He danced a little more carefully than Angel, who had a minor slip at the beginning, then looked like he might fall on his way down that slide in the middle section. But I felt Angel delivered on the drama better; he took me through the emotions with him. The way he watched his Siren, he was like a little boy mesmerized. It made you mesmerized by her too. And then the way he danced with her — it was like an awkward, boy losing his virginity, sex scene. I’ve never seen it quite look like that before, though it’s probably supposed to! Then when he was robbed and left to die (Herman was really shockingly stunning  in this part too — he was a horrid sight, his body up there, leaning almost lifeless against the cross-like slide), and came crawling back home body all dirt-encrusted, then into his father’s arms, like a baby. It does end up being very emotionally compelling, silly as it is at the top. I’d like to see Herman in this later, after he’s had a few goes at it. I think if he could up the drama more, he’d be perfect.

Kristi so far has been my favorite Siren! This role I find a bit inherently awkward too — all that wrapping the long train of her costume around her legs, crouching to get it between her thighs. It almost always looks more weird than sexy, but somehow Kristi whipped the fabric around so fast, it was spellbinding, practically had a dominatrix feel. And then when she does those — what I call upside-down crab walks — where she’s on her hands and toe pointes, belly up and she walks past him develope-ing her legs up with each step, spider-like — most dancers kick straight up, but Kristi’s developes went all the way back, practically to her chest. It looked so much more tantalizing than I’ve seen that before. Kristi’s pointed toes are so pronounced, her feet practically look like ensnaring sickles — she probably has a better Siren body than anyone (except for maybe Veronika Part — I wonder if she’ll ever be cast?)

Okay, I’m done. Sorry I keep writing so much! If anyone sees the Daniil / Irina Prodigal cast, please let me know!

Marcelo Gomes and Veronika Part in Ratmansky’s latest. Love this photo By Rosalie O’Connor, courtesy of ABT.

I had a crazy day. This afternoon I went to the Guggenheim to see this new ScentOpera – an opera told entirely through music and smell (each seat had a little microphone that blew the scents into your face) — which I’ll write about soon. Suffice it to say it was very interesting and I think Nico Muhly has found his niche: composing for smell — because, unlike with dance, his music most definitely did not overpower these whiffs at all, at least not as created by perfumier Christophe Laudamiel. I nearly passed out from “Funky Green Impostor.”

Anyway, more about that soon.

Tonight was the premiere of ABT’s new resident artist Alexei Ratmansky’s first ballet for the company — a night for which many have been waiting ever so eagerly. For those not up on the ballet-world gossip: Mr. Ratmansky (from the Ukraine, and former artistic director of the Bolshoi) initially was rumored to be contemplating taking the resident choreographer position at NYCB. Then he didn’t and everyone was depressed because Christopher Wheeldon was leaving to start his own company and everyone really liked Ratmansky and wanted to see more of his work stateside. Then, next thing everyone hears is that he’s accepted the same from ABT, making everyone happy but confused — NYCB is known for being more daring and contemporary in its repertoire; ABT sticks more to the traditional classical story ballets. Ratmansky,who was leaving the Bolshoi because he wanted more of a challenge (the Bolshoi’s rep is akin to ABT’s), seemed a better fit for NYCB.

Anyway, I was expecting tonight something along the lines of Concerto DSCH or something he’s done for NYCB (which is all that I’ve seen by him): a contemporary Balanchine-esque ballet without a linear narrative but with a discernible theme and with original, clever, thought-provoking choreography. Instead, On the Dnieper (the Dnieper is a river in the Ukraine), set to Prokofiev’s music of the same name, is a story ballet that I found to be about three parts Tudor, one part Robbins (with some of the fight scenes).

It’s the story of Sergei (danced by Marcelo Gomes), a young soldier who returns home, after war, to his fiance Natalia (Veronika Part), only to realize he no longer loves her but is attracted to Olga (Paloma Herrera), a flighty, flirtatious local girl who is betrothed to another man (David Hallberg). After a brief encounter, Olga falls for Sergei and begins to doubt her love for her fiance. One evening at a party, Olga dances with her fiance and Sergei becomes jealous and challenges the fiance to a fight. Sergei is felled, and Natalia rescues him — picks him up, cleans him off. But soon Olga is back. Natalia, after trying desperately and unsuccessfully to win Sergei back, heartbroken, does what she knows she must for the man she loves — helps him escape with Olga.

It reminded me of Antony Tudor because there’s a lot of drama — albeit without all the heavy psychology — a lot of hurt, wounded tragic characters with broken dreams, unrequited love, painful sadness that just reverberates through the whole auditorium. And the characters each seem to have a way of moving unique to them: Marcelo’s Sergei jumps back and forth a lot with lots of beats of the feet — as if he can’t decide whom to choose, what to do, as if he’s torn.

David Hallberg’s fiance is rather borderline psychopathic, highly impassioned (to make an understatement) but almost frighteningly controlling of Paloma’s Olga. After the way David had described his character on the Winger, I was expecting a reprisal of his “friend” in Tudor’s Pillar of Fire or his R&J Paris – -vulnerable and hurt but proud and trying to bear his pain noblely in a way that made me want Juliet to leave Romeo for him. That’s not what we got at all! Our first viewing of him is slicing madly through the air at Paloma and her friends as if to say, stop everything, I’m here. Besides the jumps and aggressive arms, he has a lot of crazy fast footwork throughout. At one point, when his jealousy is getting the better of him, he starts shuffling his feet so fast, he actually looks down at them, stunned, like he really can’t control them. A way out-of-control Fred Astaire.

Paloma is all about the fickle, flirtatious girlish jumps. And Veronika is more adagio, and she keeps extending her arms both to one side, then laying her head on that shoulder as if an expression of her loyalty and devotion to Sergei. Later, when she realizes he’s drawn to another woman, this movement looks more like a prayer that he’ll return to her. Veronika is heartbreaking and she’s the emotional centerpiece to the ballet. You really want to cry for her at the end.

I think it’s a good ballet — a little slow in places, but generally compelling and with meaningful movement that echos the characters’ desires and actions. It just surprised me that it wasn’t what I’m used to from him. I think after seeing so much NYCB, I’m becoming so enamored of Balanchine and non-narrative contemporary rep of the kind he’s done on that company. I hope that not all of the work he’ll do for ABT will be story ballets. I hope he will do some Concerto  DSCH and Russian Seasons and Dreams of Japan-like ballets for ABT as well. ABT’s dancers are so brilliant; it’s fascinating watching what they can do with those kinds of movement-heavy, dramatically open-ended kinds of dances.

Also on the program — which I’ll write more about after seeing the other casts — were Balanchine’s Prodigal Son (danced tonight by Herman Cornejo, replacing Ethan Stiefel, who’s still out with an injury), and James Kudelka’s Desir. Desir is about several different relationships — mostly couples — about sexual angst, romance, fighting, etc. I liked parts of it but not all (I’ll write more about it after more viewings), but what really floored me was a beautifully romantic pas de deux with sweeping lift after sweeping lift performed by Cory Stearns and Isabella Boylston. I’ve never really seen Isabella before and Cory I have but not much, and he’s definitely never stood out as much as he did tonight. Those lifts looked hard and he didn’t tire one bit. He was the ideal strong male partner, showing her off, making her look beautiful, giving her such gorgeous height, sweeping her up through the air, without being the least bit show-off-y himself. He was all about her and they both shone. They were breathtaking. And I’m definitely not the only one who thought so. The audience went wild with applause when they took their bows. They got even more applause than Gillian Murphy and Blaine Hoven! (who were excellent as the angst-ridden couple who eventually gets it together in the end). I’m glad Kevin McKenzie gives young dancers these kinds of chances to stand out.

More soon on the rest of the ballets, and hopefully some pictures as well.

(Above images, Concerto DSCH by Paul Kolnik, courtesy of NYCB; top dancers: Janie Taylor and Tyler Angle, botton: Wendy Whelan and Benjamin Millepied)

I can see how ballet is so addictive, especially to those with dance training who’ve either danced the roles they see onstage or pick up choreography on sight. It’s so interesting to see different dancers perform the same roles, to see what they can each do with something, where they can take it. A ballet can look completely different depending on cast.

Janie Taylor recently debuted as the female lead in Ratmansky’s Concerto DSCH and I absolutely loved her. I thought she brought a certain vulnerability, delicateness, and romantic touch (both big and small “r”)to the role and as such created a poignant centerpiece to this ballet that is mainly full of fast, frolicking fun. She was perfect partnered with Tyler Angle, who gives everything an emotional, Romantic quality. There’s one point where the girl bourrees (tip toes) backward from the guy and he steps toward her in a series of lunges, arms outstretched. It was rather heart-grabbing when Janie and Tyler did that. It was like Tyler was reaching for her with all his might, but she just kept falling away from him, telling him no, it couldn’t be.

The original cast for the romantic couple was Wendy Whelan and Benjamin Millepied, and when I saw them perform it again a few days ago, I looked for that part. I almost didn’t see it until Wendy had bourreed practically into the wings. Benjamin, instead of reaching toward her with all his power, bent his knees and performed those walking lunges close to the ground, kind of bouncing up with every step forward. His arms were still outreached but the deep kneed, close to the ground walks gave it overall a more playful feel, or perhaps like he was looking up to Wendy, his supreme ballerina. Wendy’s of course such an icon in the ballet world and she’s stronger and less vulnerable and delicate than Janie and so it just had a kind of man worshiping woman instead of a boy trying desperately to hang on to his love feel.

Ashley Bouder has been out with an injury so Ana Sophia Scheller is filling in for her in the main allegro ballerina part, still dancing alongside Joaquin de Luz and Gonzalo Garcia.

(photos of Garcia and Scheller by Paul Kolnik, taken from NYCB website)

There seemed to be a slight bit of drama going on between Scheller and Garcia at first — I don’t know what it was — he was his usual sexily mischievous, charismatic self and she seemed nervous and holding back a bit (albeit not with Joaquin), but hey, drama is always fun I think that has been all worked out though. The last time I saw them dance this together they were right on. She appears to be a lovely dancer and I’d like to see more of her.

I’ve also seen two very different casts in Scotch Symphony: the first Benjamin with Jenifer Ringer, the second Robert Fairchild and Kathryn Morgan. This is a sweet Balanchine ballet, telling the story of a young kilt-clad Scotsman lost in the Highlands who becomes completely smitten with an ethereal goddess dressed in Romantic tutu. He keeps trying to reach her but is thwarted right and left by a group of Scottish guards. Finally, they meet and dance a lovely pas de deux.

My friend, Alyssa, now has a huge crush on Benjamin. I don’t know how it happened; we were standing in line at the box office to pick up tickets one night and he was talking on the overhead screen, likely about his new ballet (I’m not sure because the sound was off) and Alyssa became mesmerized by his face. “That’s the guy who recently premiered a new ballet,” I said. “Oh, he’s a choreographer? He’s cute!!” Then when we got inside and were looking at the Playbills she screamed, “look, the cute guy is dancing!”

(Millepied headshot by Paul Kolnik; all headshots by Paul Kolnik, taken from NYCB website)

Afterward at dinner all she could talk about was how other dancers (like Daniel Ulbricht, who we saw in Tarantella that evening) were great jumpers and technically perfect and all, but Benjamin just brought so much more to the dance. “He was just so … so… he was perfect in everything he did, but he wasn’t just perfect, he was… ” she waxed unable to come up with the right word. It was Ethan all over again (whom she fell for after seeing at Martha’s Vineyard merely introducing his Stiefel and Stars and saying he was unable to dance because of the knee operations).

I nodded. He does have a certain beneath-the-surface charm (Benjamin that is), and he is a very good dancer, always coming through with those ever so challenging fast-paced Balanchine roles.

But of course I was dying to see Robert Fairchild in the same role, with Kathryn Morgan as his ethereal love object. They were so beautiful together. She’s just so angelic, and he always dances with such passion and boundless amounts of energy, and of course he’s always got that boyish charm that he’s had since debuting in Romeo two years ago at age 19 but that I don’t think is every going to go away. He’s such a hard-working young guy, you can tell — he puts everything he has into his dancing. He had a tiny fumble coming out of a jump and had to check himself with a couple extra steps to secure his footing (but he didn’t fall), and at one point he was a bit too far from Kathryn during a supported arabesque penchee and she couldn’t get her leg all the way up in the air. But, to me, honestly, when a dancer makes a blunder it only makes him or her all the more endearing, more human.

(Robert Fairchild, Kathryn Morgan)

I loved Tiler Peck in Tarantella — another role that usually belongs to Ashley Bouder, but Tiler brought a certain freshness and wit to this cutesy extreme high-speed dance. Ashley usually brings a sexy, flirtiness to it; Tiler was more sweet and smart. I like both, and, again, it shows dancers often make the dance.

Daniel Ulbricht (photo above by Paul Kolnik), as always, delivered on the technical and difficult athletic aspects of the dance — the high jumps the turns and all. Audiences always go absolutely wild over him. I personally like Joaquin de Luz a bit better (in this and the other roles he dances — he and Daniel usually alternate) because he delivers on the virtuosity as well but he makes it more about the character. At the end, the boy here steals a kiss from the girl. With Daniel, the high jumps and theatrics are the dance, the kiss is just a little reward at the end; with Joaquin the whole thing is about that kiss, the mad leaps and spins and turns with the tamborine are simply leading up to it. But audience do go completely wild over Daniel.

(Tiler Peck)

I saw the new ballets once again — Benjamin Millepied’s Quasi Una Fantasia and Jiri Bubenicek’s Toccata, and both grew on me. Funny, but I sat in orchestra this time for both — first time I was looking down from the first ring side, and it’s really interesting how different the ballets look from different vantage points — especially the Millepied. Looking down from above, this ballet really seemed to evoke a flock of birds, at times sinister and foreboding. Looking at it straight on, it was still unsettling — with that haunting Gorecki score — but at times the dancers resembled insects reminiscent of Robbins’s The Cage, and later, just figures — one weak and somewhat broken, the other strong — moving in various groupings. My friend Michael and I both noticed how he’d make various groupings or formations with the dancers — phalanxes, Michael called them. Sir Alastair had noted the same, saying he likely got the ability to work a large ensemble like that from Balanchine. I don’t always notice such things until someone points it out — I’m usually more focused on the theme, what the choreographer is trying to evoke, or make me think and feel.

I wish I had a picture of what the dance looked like from above. Overall, I think I still see Hitchkockian birds

I still don’t know exactly what Toccata is about but I love how there is a great deal of really intense partnering, sometimes several duets happening at once, the dancers by turns pushing and pulling, sliding, strugging with and embracing each other, and I love how at points the bodies just kind of mesh into one another, just melt into each other. It’s really kind of sexy in its own way. I love Robert Fairchild in these kinds of abstract roles. As I think I’ve said before, he always makes a little character out of a role no matter how abstract, and he dances with such expansiveness. With that and his immense charisma he devours the whole stage.

(Robert Fairchild and Georgina Pazcoguin in Toccata, by Paul Kolnik, from Oberon’s Grove)

I’m also liking Maria Kowroski much better. I heard she is taking acting lessons and it shows. Every little step is meaning something, saying something, a little quip perhaps, a little retort, to her partner (who has often been Sebastian Marcovici these days) and to the audience. I particularly liked her in Balanchine’s modernist Movements for Piano and Orchestra and his sweet, more classical Chaconne. Huge kudos to Sebastien in the latter for doing some really intensely fast footwork and really nailing it all. He is a large guy and that’s not easy. A friend told me afterward he thought Sebastien looked a bit “heavy” in the role, and I can definitely see that — a smaller dancer would have looked much lighter and more frolicking and playful — where Sebastien brings more virility and power and intensity — but, again, what makes ballet so addictive is the different bodies, different strengths, different personalities, different interpretations.

Yay, the season has offically begun! This picture was taken during intermission; that’s why it doesn’t look that crowded. I was sprinting in, nearly late, as usual, so didn’t have time to snap some pics before the performance but fortunately it was still light outside during intermission.

Anyway, Michelle Obama (who served as one of the gala’s honorary chairs) looked smashing in a sleek dark grey sleeveless, knee-length dress with tiny black ruffles lining the bottom. I’m sure there will be beaucoup des pictures seeing as how many blasted camera people there were; I’ll be sure to steal some when they’re posted on all the society websites (Oh, look, here it is in the NYTimes already)

(photo Timothy A. Clary)

It was just about the craziest thing I’ve seen on the Met Opera stage: after Veronika Part’s mouthwatering Mozartiana opened the show, artistic director Kevin McKenzie came out and thanked everyone who needed thanked — all the donors, designer Caroline Herrera who funds the gala, etc., and Senator Chuck Schumer came out and gave a little talk about the importance of funding for the arts, etc. Then, Schumer disappeared behind the curtain and moments went by. Everyone kind of looked around at each other like “what’s going to happen next?!”

Soon, the curtain was pulled back to allow some people to carry out a podium with a banner “American Ballet Theater” draped over its front. The doors to the lobby opened and a flock of people bearing weapon-sized cameras blasted in. Several men dressed in black promptly rose from their aisle seats and followed the flock of weapon-camera-bearers to the front of the aisle, near the stage. Caroline Kennedy was announced. She came out, everyone applauded, and she mentioned that the school of ballet associated with ABT, the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis School, would be performing on the Met Opera stage for the first time ever tonight. Everyone ooohed and aaahed. Then, she announced First Lady Michelle Obama.

The curtain pulled back again and out she came. Of course everyone gave a standing ovation. She smiled radiantly, then, after a moment, directed us to be seated. Then she gave a short speech. It was a little hard to focus on what she was saying with everyone — both professional photographers and audience members with cell phone and digital cameras alike — flashing away as they were, but she talked about the necessity of the Arts for a culture to flourish, the importance of arts education, etc. Then she introduced the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis School students.

As soon as she disappeared behind the curtain, the auditorium remained still pending the exit of the flock of pro camera wielders. It’s funny because there were all these non-dance writers in the press section. You could hear the sighs of relief, the sinking down into the chairs, and the putting away of pens and paper — and cell phones, which they’d used to light their writing paper during Mrs. Obama’s speech, which would have been extremely annoying had it not been for all the flashing bulbs anyway. But it made me wonder how they’d ever survive as performing arts critics! I mean, who needs light to see to write!

Anyway, the students were excellent. They performed Le Defile (The Procession) by Raymond Lukens. There were three large groups of them, in three levels — the very little ones, a medium-age / level group, and the older, very advanced ones. The choreography was basically a showcase of classical ballet steps, much like a very advanced ballet class — jumps, jumps with changing feet, jumps with changing feet that went on forever performed by a set of advanced boys (which drove the audience to wild applause), jetes, chaine turns, multiple pirouettes, fouttes, etc., and then a bit of partnering. It gave the students a chance to show what they could do — and the advanced ones could do a great deal! Extremely impressive, and great fun.

Then on were Xiomara Reyes and Herman Cornejo doing an excerpt from August Bournonville’s La Sylphide. This was the most dramatic I think I’ve ever seen Xiomara. I was sitting in the back of the orchestra and she really projected. She was really sweet. And Herman as always amazed with his virtuosity, his jumps, his razer-sharp precision, his astounding clarity of line.

The corps in both this, La Sylphide, and Swan Lake, later in the evening, were absolutely amazing, by the way. Not a head arched back more than the others, not a leg raised higher. They were all so on. When they work together like that, in perfect unity; it’s really visually breathtaking.

Then was Balanchine’s Tchaikovsky Pas de Deux danced by Ethan Stiefel and Gillian Murphy. Ethan and his strutting around stage, taking his own good time after their duet and before beginning his solo, making the conductor wait for him! And his high jumps with all miraculously many beats of the feet. I wished my friend Alyssa could have come so she could see he’s not just Mr. Sexy; he’s a superb dancer. And Gillian was radiant, and a perfect foil with her speed-of-light chaine turns. They enjoyed a long, slow kiss during the curtain call. The audience went mad!

Then was the hunt scene from Sylvia danced by Michele Wiles followed by a piece d’occasion (the first of two of the night), by Alexei Ratmansky, for Nina Ananiashvili, called Waltz Masquerade. It was set to the Waltz from Aram Khachaturian’s Masquerade Suite and it was cute and comical. She was dressed in this long, red dramatic, Carmen-like dress with a sexy black lace overlay on the top. There were four tuxedoed men, each bearing a gold candlelabra, one at each corner of the stage. These men turned out to be: Jose Carreno at the front left corner; Marcelo Gomes, at back left; Angel Corella back right; and a blonde on the front right who I initially thought was David Hallberg (I was sitting FAR back from the stage!) until the fun began and he shook his head about like a sassy mop and I realized DH just does not have enough goofball in him to do such a thing, even if he tried. So, I decided it was either Ethan or Maxim Beloserkovky. Anyway, Nina’s character was supposed to be dancing about the stage in a melodramatic solo — but it was purposefully melodramatic, and so comical. Like a silly, cartoon version of an upcoming swan song, really, which, is of course, what’s coming up for her later in the season (and will be much more sobering when it does). At one point, she just passionately crashes to the ground and remains there, in a heap. Nothing happens. The men, obviously her servants, start looking at each other like, what now? They shrug, slowly walk over to her. Then, Marcelo starts imitating her melodramatic dance, but far more cartoonishly, and of course it’s hilarious. The others join in. Max (I think it was Max, not Ethan) does his thrashing hair thing. I couldn’t see facial expressions but I assume they were making fun of their master. Then she wakes up, catches them, and they’re sent back to their posts.

After intermission was the balcony pas de deux from MacMillan’s Romeo and Juliet, danced by Marcelo and Diana Vishneva. At first, Diana approaches her balcony with all the drama of a ballerina playing Juliet, rather than Juliet herself. I rolled my eyes. This is what I don’t like about her. She’s an excellent dancer but she’s all about the pomp and circumstance and not about the character. Maybe it’s a Russian thing, but I don’t see that in Veronika Part or Irina Dvorovenko. Anyway, she eventually lightened up, thankfully, and I felt like I was watching not a prima ballerina being a prima ballerina but Juliet herself, falling hopelessly in love. When she runs around him one foot solid on the ground, the other on pointe, it’s so girlish, so real yet so poetic. Those are the best — I don’t know what to call them — runs around kneeling Romeo — that I’ve ever seen — not even Alessandra Ferri’s were that sweet. Still, I felt some of the lifts lacked the beauty and magic of  those Marcelo and Julie Kent do together when they dance this scene. I don’t feel she dances that well with a partner; she’s more into herself. Marcelo’s leaps around the stage and big high passionate jumps were thrilling. He got some good bravos for those.

Then were Paloma Herrera and Max Beloserkovsky in the Act II pas de deux from Swan Lake. I was hoping it’d be the Black Swan pdd, but no. I guess the program was pretty bravura-heavy already. I don’t see him dance much, but Max is really quite good. He’s really a character and he’s the perfect Prince Siegfried, regal yet vulnerable and tragically in love. And he’s a good partner.

Then was the mad fun of Le Corsaire, with Irina Dvorovenko, David Hallberg as Conrad, and Angel Corella as Ali. Except something happened at the beginning and I hope David’s okay. The tallest guy in the entire opera house had to sit in front of me and I was trying to navigate my way around his enormous head just as a bunch of people up front went “Oooooooh!” When I was finally able to see the stage, Irina was standing in front of David, face toward the audience. She didn’t seem to have any particular expression on her face, but, then, I was light years away from her. Then David did an assisted pirouette with her and everyone applauded, so it must have been a lift that didn’t quite happen or something. Anyway, I hope he’s okay; I know his shoulder sometimes comes out of socket. Anyway, all seemed to be fine after that: all three were brilliant. Of course. Angel astounded, as always, and I started giggling during his first solo and couldn’t stop all the way through the second. I love Irina. She was radiant. She did those continuous turning kicks on pointe like they were nothing. She has the drama and the virtuosity when needed and the always beautiful, graceful lines. And David’s leaps all over the stage were magnificent. I could see this goofy ballet over and over and over again, as long as no one gets hurt Angel did not leap out from behind the curtain during curtain call, sadly.

Then there was another piece d’occasion. Herbie Hancock played piano, onstage, while first Jose Carreno, then Stella Abrera, danced to his music. This was cute and comical as well, and kind of reminiscent of Jerome Robbins’s Other Dances or Suite of Dances, where the dancer(s) connect mainly with the musician. At one point, Hancock went nuts with the keys, obviously way too fast to be danceable, and Jose stopped in his tracks, looked over at him, and lifted his hands, like what gives, dude? He sat down near the base of the piano and just rested. The same happened with Stella. She danced, then stopped and gave Hancock a look when he began another little virtuoso section. She finally sat down beside him on the piano bench, and eventually, he ended on a romantic note, she snuggling next to him softly, sweetly.

The evening ended with the finale of Balanchine’s Theme and Variations. The leads were danced by Sarah Lane and Daniil Simkin. It was a nice way to end the program, but with the likes of Simkin, I wondered why they only did that group finale, where he and Sarah are basically leading a processional, instead of some of the earlier bravura parts with all the corkscrew turns for the man. An opening night gala performance is meant at least in part to showcase the dancers doing what they do best, and he is best at the bravura stuff, not leading processionals.

Anyway, the whole night, as usual, was magic. Saw Sigourney Weaver and Kelly Ripa in the audience.

Oh, for my Dancing With the Stars readers, I taped the show, but for lord knows what reason it was somehow muted. I have no idea how on earth I managed to do such a thing, but it was pretty amusing watching the show in pure silence — no words, no music. Needless to say, I’ll have to watch online tomorrow.

But now, dead tired, must sleep. Goodnight.

There’s currently a debate raging in London over Sadler’s Wells (the most important venue there for contemporary dance) and its new season lineup showcasing the work almost entirely of male choreographers. Thanks to Pinballpeople for pointing me to it!

See Guardian posts by dance and culture writers Judith Mackrell and Charlotte Higgins here, here, and here (and read the comments section in that last link; some are by choreographers and are very astute.)

Alistair Spalding, the artistic director of Sadler’s Wells, has apparently responded that he realizes there’s an imbalance but can’t do anything about it; he has to choose the works he thinks best. Spalding posits one reason for the lack of female choreographers as being that women are perhaps not as “assertive” as men, but it’s unclear to me what exactly he means.

Continue reading ‘ARE THE ‘BUZZIEST’ CHOREOGRAPHERS MALE IN THE US AS WELL AS UK? AND DO CRITICS IN THE UK HAVE MORE POWER?’

(photo of Nina Ananiashvili by Nancy Ellison, taken from ABT website)

Also news that is now a few days old (and thanks to my new Pointe friend from last night for pointing me to it): President and Mrs. Obama will be the honorary chairpersons at ABT’s opening night spring gala on May 18th, along with Caroline Kennedy, Carolina Herrera, Blaine Trump, and Renee Zellweger.

Highlights of the pre-dinner performance that evening: in honor of Nina Ananiashvili’s approaching retirement, Alexei Ratmansky has created a piece d’occasion for her set to the waltz from Aram Khachaturian’s Masquerade Suite; and a performance by Herbie Hancock.

Ooh, how I wish I could afford the dinner. Do hope to be at the performance though.

(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’

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;

Continue reading ‘Favorites of 2008′

“When, in today’s ballet, you see a man express his feelings for his lady by hurling her into the air, catching her upside down, and wrapping her around his neck like a pashmina, you are seeing the legacy of the Bolshoi.”

– this from Joan Acocella in her latest New Yorker article, analyzing Morphoses (whose NY season just wrapped up) and trying to place Christopher Wheeldon in the pantheon of choreographers.

I burst out laughing when I read this quote because that’s a perfect (albeit hyperbolized) description of my favorite partnering moves in my favorite of all dance scenes, the balcony pas de deux from Kenneth MacMillan’s Romeo and Juliet — the scene that made me fall in love with ballet. (See Julio Bocca and Alessandra Ferri go at it here.) Acocella says MacMillan is a disciple of the Bolshoi style with its sweeping expressivity, its Romanticism, its high-theater dramatics.

But:

When, on the other hand, you see a woman in a leotard merely hold the man’s hand as she flashes her legs out in eighty-two fabulous, clean ballet steps, and then, in a change of heart, fall into his arms and do something hair-raisingly sexy, like a front-facing split, you are seeing a child of “Agon.”

“Agon” being one of George Balanchine’s masterpieces, Balanchine style being the antithesis of Bolshoi / MacMillan (aka “the pashmina”).

Acocella goes on to say Wheeldon’s choreography contains a bit of both styles. I hadn’t really seen that though. I saw him as more a follower of Balanchine with everything abstract, subtle, understated, and focused on steps, on movement rather than on creating character or bringing about an emotional response in the audience. Which is probably why I’m not an enormous fan of Wheeldon, though I do value seeing his work from time to time. On the other hand, I can’t imagine ever tiring of a pashmina.

The article is very interesting, as all of Acocella’s writings are. She always makes me see something I hadn’t before, makes me reconsider, want to see a piece again. Here, she finds in some of Wheeldon’s original, intricate partnering (which people have, aptly I think, referred to as pretzel pas de deux) something actually rather unsettling, even sinister in a way. I hadn’t thought of those twisty, undefined shapes that his dancers make with each other that way before. I always spent my time at a Wheeldon dance playing the inkblot test, trying desperately to figure out what exactly the odd, contorted shapes evoke. But maybe they’re not meant to evoke a specific image at all, yet still charge you with feeling, the same as a pashmina but in a less over-the-top way, without the drama. I will look at the partnering in his ballets anew now. (I couldn’t find a video of such a pdd, but here’s a Wheeldon sampling for comparison to the MacMillan.)

In any event, I dearly hope Mr. Ratmansky brings some of the Bolshoi with him to ABT. And I hope Mr. Wheeldon can let loose some more of his inner pashmina What is life without passion?…

Seriously, here is the full Acocella.

And, while on the subject of the New Yorker, for people interested in books and art and the artistic life and all, here is an interesting article by Malcolm Gladwell, on the different types of artistic genius and how each is cultivated, which I think could just as easily be titled, “Why This Country Will Never Produce a Cezanne”… Interestingly, Gladwell seems to locate young novelist Jonathan Safran Foer’s genius in the fact that he was a “best-seller” in his twenties rather than the critical acclaim he received. We’re so accustomed to equating success with money in this country, which is part of Gladwell’s point about the Cezanne issue.

Oh, one last thing: I’d written earlier about Acocella interviewing Ratmansky as part of the New Yorker festival. I was extremely sick that weekend and unable to attend, but Evan was there; here is her report. And here is reportage from Lori Ortiz on Explore Dance.

For some reason, The New Yorker didn’t much publicize this year’s festival, but thankfully I sat next to Brian Siebert, who writes about dance for that magazine, last night at Morphoses (more on that soon!) and he alerted me that the festival is this weekend, and that as part of it, Joan Acocella (the NYer’s main dance critic) is to interview the man of the moment, Alexei Ratmansky, tomorrow, Saturday, at 1 p.m. at Cedar Lake studios. It appears they are no longer selling tickets on their website, but you can apparently go to the headquarters at 18th Street between 6th and 7th Avenues or else purchase tix at the event venue itself one hour before.

It appears that some of their writers are also live blogging and /or videotaping at least some of the events, so if you can’t be there, you can perhaps see / read about them online.

Go here to see other festival events.
(above cartoon taken from the New Yorker Festival website)

(photo by Nicole Bengiveno, from NYTimes)

Hmmm, this is turning out to be a bit of a drama. NYTimes chief Sir Alastair weighs in on Alexei Ratmansky’s joining ABT, as does Apollinaire Scherr, who points to this piece of commentary, one of the most interesting in my opinion, by Robert Johnson in the New Jersey Star Ledger.

Johnson is the first critic I’ve read who’s not head over heels in love with the choreographer, but one of his reasons for so being is that he seems to think Ratmansky has somewhat of a Communist streak. He says that during his directorship of the Bolshoi, Ratmansky tried to revive the company, suffering in the wake of Perestroika, by re-staging some successful Soviet-era ballets. Johnson asks what “red eminence” this programming might have. Ratmansky’s own work “Bright Stream,” set to music by Soviet composer Dmitri Shostakovitch, and praised by many dance critics here (the ballet, that is, was praised, not Shostakovitch), Johnson calls “a disingenuous frolic on a Soviet collective farm,” then interprets Ratmansky’s latest “Concerto DSCH” which recently premiered at the New York City Ballet as a mockery of Imperial Russia, with Soviet revival style triumphing.

I unfortunately haven’t seen “Bright Stream” or any of these other Soviet era ballets, but of course am now dying to. I did see “Concerto DSCH” and didn’t interpret it at all the way Johnson does.

But, even if you can attribute these underlying, subconscious politicized ideas to the choreographer, which is a huge if, so what? Can’t someone critique the Imperial period without being considered pro-Stalinist? (Johnson reminds of the bloody atrocities committed by the Soviet regime) Has anyone ever seen Peterhof? It looks just like Versailles. Your first thought is, whoa, look at all this opulence, no wonder there was a rebellion. But in any event, can an aesthetic critique be interpreted as a political critique? I personally think not, but even if so, is this reason for threat? Aren’t we post-Cold War now?

I don’t know, maybe it’s just me, but I found that part of the article a bit shocking in a McCarthyist kind of way. But I do have to say, I applaud Johnson for resisting herd mentality and offering the first real Ratmansky criticism. (He does have more bases for criticism; this is just the one that seemed most prominent to me. And, by reading James Wolcott, Laura Jacobs seems critical as well — I’ve got to get a subscription to the New Criterion!) In the end, I do have to say, with all I’ve read on Ratmansky this past week, Johnson most makes me want to run out and see everything I can by the man…

(photo by Jennifer Taylor, of “Bright Stream” from NYTimes)

Oh and, somewhat apropos of the critics jumping on the bandwagon thing, I just want to point people to an interesting discussion, begun by Claudia La Rocco (who is so awesome to comment here ) on fans versus critics down in the comments section of this post.

(photo by Gueorgui Pinkassov from New York Times Magazine)

So, the big news in New York for the past couple of days is that Alexei Ratmansky, currently artistic director of the Bolshoi, and beloved choreographer of many a dance critic here, will be the new resident choreographer for American Ballet Theater. Story is a bit of a soap opera as well since he was recently asked to fill that position with the New York City Ballet and declined. It appears to have been a timing issue.

Anyway, this is a most exciting move for ABT, who desperately need to electrify their contemporary repertoire. Ratmansky’s an almost absurdly prolific creator, churning out new ballets practically monthly it seems, and from what everyone seems to think, never sacrificing quality. I personally have seen four of his works: one I really liked (actually, there are two in that post, one I liked, one I didn’t, so I’ve seen five of his altogether), another I really liked and wanted to see more of, one about which I could only say hmmmm, and one I couldn’t figure out what all the critics were going hog wild over but am willing to give it a few more viewings to see.

Honestly, I’m really excited, really excited, to see what ABT’s magnificent dancers will do with his work. It appears his post won’t officially begin until next spring. We have a lot to look forward to.

Only thing is, he’s recently said Swan Lake is dead (thanks to Evan for finding that article), which, before Labor Day weekend, wouldn’t have made me all that upset. But thanks to a writer from Ballet.co who told me at the end of ABT’s production of that ballet to make sure I saw …blahblahblah… ’s for comparison (I couldn’t hear the name because this was during curtain call applause), I went to the library and ended up checking out every single copy of Swan Lake they had. This is a post for another day, but I really fell in love with it, and with Tchaikovsky. It can’t be dead, Mr. Ratmansky…

Also, check out ABT’s principal dancer page. There appears to be a new face… (thanks to Philip for the heads up).

(photo by Paul Kolnick, from NYCB website)

I’m in the midst of another crazy busy dance weekend (well, dance and books), but wanted to say two things. First, here’s my latest HuffPost piece, on SYTYCD’s first round of eliminations.

Second, I went to NYCB’s “Here and Now” program again I’d loved it so much the first time, and, between OLTREMARE and Ratmansky’s new CONCERTO DSCH, have completely fallen for Tyler Angle. I’ve definitely noticed him before, of course (and have to laugh now at my shock on seeing him cast as Tybalt in Martins’ Romeo + Juliet last year; how he’s grown in that time — I can’t imagine him having any problem dancing that character now). But for some reason just Thursday I realized how much he really brings to a ballet. I’d always been in such sugar shock after Andrew Veyette’s incredible bravura solos in OLTREMARE that I don’t think I paid much attention to what followed shortly thereafter (Maria Kowroski’s and Tyler’s softer, slower duet, where husband tries desperately to have an intimate moment with his wife who’s still too shocked and beleagered for such things) but the way he lifts his hands in the air and pulls in his rib cage just as her foot meets his chest in an effort to keep him off of her, and his expression of utter dismay, shows how it feels to be so shunned by her, and it’s heartbreaking. You feel such sorrow for this poor, gentle pilgrim man who’s trying so hard in vain to bring peace to his wife.

Then, he took over for Benjamin Millepied (who appears to be injured) in the new Ratmansky, dancing the part of Wendy Whelan’s lover. For me, he became, with Wendy, the centerpiece of that ballet, whereas before it was the rollicking threesome in blue and their playful bravura-heavy pas de trois. The way he loved her, the way he just floated with her around stage in elation when they were together, the way he turned back longingly toward her as his friends pulled him away — it was like Romeo and Juliet and you didn’t know what was coming next; you just wanted to know what was going to happen with the lovers while Joaquin and Ashley and Gonzalo were jesting about. I thought he brought out more emotion in Wendy as well.

Also, quickly, because I have to get going (back to NYCB!) but there was a new cast for Martins’s RIVER OF LIGHT, and they were brilliant. In particular tiny Erica Pereira and the much larger Jonathan Stafford were stunning. He’d pick her up and raise her above his head and off to the side, alternating sides, a few times in each direction, and every time, he’d let go with the farthest arm, only holding her up in the air by the waist with one palm. There were audible gasps in the audience and they got huge applause at the end. Amar Ramasar was a man in black this time and he looked just like a panther the way he’d slide sideways, eating up the stage. This ballet in general really grew on me. I love the music — all that percussion that at times is so sharp and a bit foreboding but it kind of goes along with the off-kilter, geometrics of the piece, and, striking as it is, the music never overpowers the dancing.

Also, I finally saw Cedar Lake last night. Review to come…

I know I will be bored out of my mind come August, but right now with ABT and NYCB in season, the Judson Movement Research Festival underway, Alvin Ailey’s decision to have a week at Brooklyn Academy of Music in celebration of their 50th anniversary year, and the start of So You Think You Can Dance, I’m throughly exhausted! Why does everything have to happen at once?

After the fiasco of Tuesday afternoon, I spent a wonderful night at NYCBallet — one of the best I’ve had. The program was “Here and Now” and centered on the newest works on the company’s rep, a kind of celebration of the 21st Century in ballet thus far. My main reason for going was the premier of a new ballet by Alexei Ratmansky, but the whole evening was magical, likely in part because I sat up front, very close to the stage, my favorite little perch

(photo by Paul Kolnick, from NYTimes)

I really liked the new Ratmansky, titled “Concerto DSCH,” and set to music by Russian composer Dmitri Shostakovich, whose scores Ratmansky often uses. To be honest, I wish I could see a new work, especially an abstract one, a few times before writing about it, because, as I realized upon re-viewing “Oltremare” here and “Unfold” at Alvin Ailey, you miss so much the first time around just trying to take it all in. You need repeated viewings to get things right and to get a fuller sense of the work. That’s why film critics see the films they review three, four, and five times. But that’s not possible with dance because each performance is so expensive to produce. Anyway, as I feel like I should always say upon seeing a new piece, these are my first impressions but they may well change completely or become more nuanced on repeated viewings.

The musical score Ratmansky used here was very upbeat and lively and, made in 1957 for Shostakovich’s young son, Maxim, “displays the composer’s optimist energy after the repressions of the Stalinist era,” as the program notes say. The optimism and lightness was very evident, as there didn’t seem to be a downbeat turn the whole way through — either in the dance or the music. The dancers are all dressed in what appear to be 19th Century-style bathing suits, and they kind of frolic with each other on what I imagine to be a beach. There’s a corps who kind of chooses a main dancer to follow, cutely mimicking his or her every move. One threesome — danced by the always brimming over with virtuosity Ashley Bouder, one of my NYCB favorites Joaquin De Luz (one of the few who manages to combine spectacular athleticism with artistry), and the charismatic Gonzalo Garcia — is particularly playful as the dancers literally bounce off of each other, each lifting and tossing one another — including Ashley who did quite well getting the much larger and muscly Garcia off the ground. Soon, a slightly softer, slower section ensues, including a sweet duet by the in-love Wendy Whelan and Benjamin Millepied. The threesome return, each trying to outdo the other in a competition-like series of bravura, jump- and turn-heavy solos. And, after another couple of duets by the lovers, the whole thing, all characters included, comes to a happy climax, ending with this crazy, hilarious, almost statue-like lift by the threesome at the front of the stage, Joaquin on top of the other two, holding a finger up in the air, as if to say either “wait a minute” or, as Philip interpreted, “I’m number one.” In all, the ballet’s not tremendously profound but it is great fun and brings home how exciting sheer kinetic energy and virtuosity can be. It kind of reminded me of Jorma Elo’s “Slice to Sharp” made on the company earlier, but with more of a story-line. I definitely want to see it again.

Also on the program was Peter Martins’s “River of Light,” 10 years old and the oldest of these ballets, which I’d never seen before. I found it fantastically weird, with three pairs of dancers, each pair comprised of one male one female, all in simple solid-colored unitards, one couple in red, one in white, and one in black. The dancers made various geometric-looking shapes with each other, performing very difficult-looking lifts (one of the dancers fell at one point, but didn’t seem to be hurt). The dancers put so much energy into the piece, regardless of the geometric focus, there was a kind of passionate abandon to it as well. The score was composed by Charles Wuorinen (who was the youngest composer to have won the Pulitzer), and Martins choreographed the ballet for him 10 years ago as a 60th birthday present. Wuorinen returned this year, now his 70th birthday, to conduct the piece, which was really cool. Sweet tribute.

(photo by Paul Kolnick, from NYCB website)

I realized throughout the night I am really beginning to like Sterling Hyltin. She was in the Martins as well as Wheeldon’s “Rococo Variations,” which I’d seen before and wrote about earlier, here. Sitting so up close you can really focus on the dancers, and I realized how perfect her form always is. Even if her back leg isn’t up as high in an arabesque as the other dancer who often shared the stage with her Tuesday night (Sara Mearns), her lines are perfectly clear, and she has so much energy combined with fluidity. Her arms are so graceful. It’s not always about who can lift their leg the highest. And her feet are really beautiful — I forgot what it’s called (but know it has a name; one of my teachers told me), but she has turned-out ankles that give her legs so much gorgeous shaping. What is that called?…

Anyway, I also appreciated this time around the intricate patterned footwork in “Rococo Variations,” which I think I’d overlooked the first time I saw it. It’s a sweet ballet for two couples but it has a lot of variation in the steps that is, as the woman sitting next to me remarked, dizzyingly engrossing.

Finally, Oltremare, which premiered last season and which I wrote about here grew on me. This modern-style ballet contains some of the most difficult lifts I think I’ve ever seen, and the dancers perform them brilliantly. And talk about raw emotion and angst. The dancers perfectly convey the experience of leaving one’s country and becoming an immigrant in another. It makes me think of the beginning of Middlesex, when all the main characters are boarding the ship to flee the burning of Smyrna and come to the new world, with all of the horror of what they’d just experienced, sadness and anger at being displaced, and fear and trepidation for what the future will bring. I still think Oltremare is a tiny bit too one-note, and the mid-section still stood out to me as awkward and somewhat cartoonish where they’re all folk dancing, but so fast and furiously that it looks like they’re on Speed. But I also realized on this viewing that Bigonzetti may have wanted it this way; that he was trying to convey that they’re all trying so very hard to keep their pasts, their culture, that they’re trying so hard to be happy about this new life, that they’re on overdrive. I liked Maria Kowroski much better this time. I love the way she used her legs like tentacles to keep her partner at bay. Those legs never end — she’s like a spider!

(Paul Kolnick picture taken from Oberon’s Grove)

(photo by Paul Kolnick, from Dance View Times. How perfect a modern ballet dancer is Andrew Veyette, in center?!)

And last night I went to see Alvin Ailey at BAM. They’re not normally in season — and it was really odd seeing them in the midst of all the ballets! — but they’re having a special week in Brooklyn in honor of their 50th Anniversary celebrations going on all throughout the year.

(photo of Golden Section by Paul Kolnick)

I’d seen all the works on the program before: Twyla Tharp’s very 80’s hugely energetic, crazy lift-heavy “Golden Section”; Robert Battle’s beautifully haunting, otherworldly “Unfold” which, as I said, really grew on me even more (here’s a short video excerpt); Camille A. Brown’s cute, humorous “The Groove to Nobody’s Business” which makes me giggle (and whose first part reminds me of Fat Albert) more each time I see it; and of course the classic “Revelations” which I can’t count how many times I’ve seen but seem to see something new every time.

(photo of Revelations, by Paul Kolnick)

I also love listening to the audience react, and, as I said in a comment on my previous post about audience interactions, the audience here was vocal throughout the entire thing. They clapped and shouted “yeah!” not only during moments when dancers performed an amazing feat — like the jetes in Sinner Man and Alicia Graf’s beautiful turning develope in Fix Me Jesus — but just at the start of a section with which they were familiar, when the dancers at times hadn’t even appeared on stage yet. They were just cheering because they knew what was coming and had seen it before and been moved. The audience overall seemed so into the dancing. They cheered and hooted wildly after every piece and gave a standing ovation at the end. The company is only in NY through the end of the week, so if you’re here and want to see this or the other program — which includes a revival of “Masekela Language,” Mr. Ailey’s work about apartheid, go here for tickets. Or, for more info about the dances, call 212-514-0010 and press the appropriate buttons.

My crazy life of late has made me late in posting this, but last weekend I went to BAM to see Nina Ananiashvili, a principal ballerina with both the Bolshoi and American Ballet Theater, dance with her newish company, The State Ballet of Georgia, whose artistic directorship she took over in 2004.

The program I saw consisted of four ballets: Balanchine’s “Duo Concertante,” Yuri Possokhov’s “Sagalobeli,” and two by talk-of-the-town Russian choreographer Alexei Ratmansky — “Bizet Variations” and “Dreams About Japan.”

I loved the company’s rendition of “Duo Concertante.” The dancers (in above photo by Jack Vartoogian), were Nino Ogua and Lasha Khozashvili and they danced it with more clarity of intent than I think I’ve seen before. Though it’s a non-story ballet, as are many of Balanchine’s, that doesn’t mean there was no room for interpretation, emotion, drama, and conflict. The dancers interacted with each other — by turns playful, romantic, aggressive, even somewhat violent, and loving, as Ogua would glide Khozashvili across the stage, she’d smile at him flirtatiously, she’d turn and run from him and he’d catch her and sweep her up, she’d place her head sweetly on his shoulder. After they finished a section, they would walk to the musicians — an onstage pianist and violinist, look at them quizzically, and as soon as the music gave them the cue, they would walk back to centerstage, regard each other, and begin dancing again. It was very “dramatic,” in the sense that the dancers were not merely performing steps without expression, like I’ve seen Balachine choreography performed, but they interacted with one another, with the musicians, and with the audience, drawing you in and making you a part of it.

Next was Ratmansky’s “Bizet Variations.” (photo of Ananiashvili and Vasil Akhmeteli by Jack Vartoogian). I wasn’t really in love with this one. It was sweet, with the women fluttering around in beautiful blue dresses, Nina as the lead in a purplish hue, and the men romancing them. I thought it was pretty but nothing really substantial.

My favorites were Possokhov’s “Sagalobeli” a beautiful combination of ballet with Georgian folk dance set to bewitching Georgian folk music, and Ratmansky’s “Dreams About Japan,” a stunning melding of classical ballet with Japanese dance, set to mesmerizing, at times frightening, Japanese percussion. Bands in both were, splendidly, live.

In “Sagalobeli,” the women all wore lovely, flowing beige dresses with snaky patterns on the bodice, and the men kind of Gladiator-style vests with tights and boots. Possokhov, a Russian choreographer who works mainly with San Francisco Ballet, brilliantly combined classical ballet with intriguing folk movement that at times resembled Flamenco, with couples energetically tapping the floor in a kind of conversation with each other, and at times, when women danced alone, a kind of belly dancing. The men-only parts consisted of Russian-looking deep-knee-bent folk dance kicks combined with the male bravura elements of classical ballet — whipping foette turns and giant soaring leaps. It was lovely and the music, a Tbilisi urban folklore performed by the Sagalobeli Ensemble, was just a dream. I didn’t want it to end.

(above, Julieta Cervantes photo of Nina A. in “Japan” from this short but good NYTimes article by Alastair Macaulay about Ratmansky’s work)

And the Ratmansky — ah, this is the best thing I’ve ever seen by him. I actually liked it. I actually see what critics are going on about now! Though I have a feeling just from what I overheard in the theater that this is the critics’ least favorite of his… Anyway, structured like traditional Kabuki Theater (in which only the most popular dance fragments from various classical plays are presented), Ratmansky used percussion music performed by the Tbilisi Theater of Opera and Ballet and a combination of Japanese traditional dance with ballet to tell four short stories: “Sagi Musume,” in which a young girl mourns her lost love; “Futa Omote,” where the souls of lovers who’ve committed suicide reunite in one evil spirit; “Musume Dojoji,” in which a young monk fails to return the love of a maiden, who tranforms herself into a Fire Snake and avenges him; and “Kagami Jishi,” where a lion’s mask forces anyone who comes into contact with it to dance to exhaustion. Not only are classical ballet steps performed with a Japanese flair — turned out palms, flexed feet, expressive wrists, etc., but somehow because of the beating of the drums, because of the props, but also because of the way in which they are performed — with speed, with sharpness and a rhythm corresponding to the drums rather than the fluidity and mellifluousness of Western classical music — barrel turns, fouettes, pirouettes — traditional ballet language somehow became brilliantly transformed. It was neither ballet nor traditional Japanese dance, but somehow both; and both were enriched by the combination, rather than being oversimplified and belittled, like Asian dance often is when interpreted by a Westerner. It was really stunning, and I hope this is not the last we’ll see of this ballet.

Anyway, for more on Ananiashvili and the company, go here.

I haven’t had the chance to blog about this yet since I’ve been so busy with other writing projects, but I went to see ballet legend Nina Ananiashvili and her State Ballet of Georgia (as in the Republic) last weekend at Brooklyn Academy of Music. I loved it — especially a lovely piece combining ballet with traditional Georgian folk dance by Yuri Possokhov and Alexei Ratmansky’s “Dreams About Japan,” brilliantly combining traditional Japanese dance and Kabuki theater with classical ballet. This is the best Ratmansky I’ve ever seen.

I’m super busy, but plan to write more about it this weekend — and post more pictures!