This is a most interesting pairing, and one I hadn’t thought of before. One of my NYCB favorites, Sebastien Marcovici, and ABT’s Michele Wiles will dance the Black Swan pdd this weekend in Miami at the International Ballet Festival. It’ll be their first time as a partnership. Apparently, they both take class with David Howard here in NY and he thunk it up. Wish I could be there… There’s a lot going on this weekend.

Headshots taken from ABT and NYCB websites respectively.

Wow, there are a lot of video clips up of the many many companies and dancers that performed at this year’s Vail International Dance Festival. Here are some of my faves:

Dance Brazil in a modern / capoeira combo, Luna:

Daniel Ulbricht and Misa Kuranaga doing a Corsaire pdd:

Sofiane Sylve and Simon Ball in Forsythe’s In the Middle Somewhat Elevated:

Wendy Whelan and Edwaard Liang (dancing with Morphoses) in Forsythe’s Slingerland pdd:

Matthew Rushing in Ailey’s beautifully bluesy Reflections in D:

Linda Celeste Sims rehearsing Ailey’s classic Cry:

Gillian Murphy and Ethan Stiefel’s Black Swan pdd:

Tyler Angle and Tiler Peck in the pdd from Wheeldon’s Mercurial Manoeuvers:

Some Lindy Hop with Naomi Uyama and Todd Yannacone:

And some Argentine Tango by Natalia Hills and Gabriel Misse:

There are many more vids and photos though, so visit the festival’s blog. I don’t see any up yet of the Ballroom evening — Hanna Karttunen and Victor DaSilva and J.T. Thomas and Tomas Mielnicki, et al. Hoping to see some of those soon. Excellent blog though, letting peeps who couldn’t be there in on what all went on. And splendidly diverse festival!

Okay, regarding the earlier controversy as to whether Ms. Bouder was dancing all out during the rehearsal, here she is with David dancing for real at Vail, albeit from a different section of the pdd. Personally, I think she looks beautiful — gorgeous arms. And surprisingly, you don’t even really notice the height difference, which has to be pronounced (she regularly dances with Joaquin De Luz at NYCBallet and David is well over 6′).

Our David Hallberg (with flying blonde mane and miraculous feet!) rehearses the Black Swan pas de deux with Ashley Bouder, which they’re currently performing at the Vail International Dance Festival. Great Paloma Herrera-esque fouettes, Ms. Bouder (with the multiple pirouettes thrown in; I haven’t really seen the NYCBallet ballerina in a dramatic part yet; she and David look good together!)

Bouder’s also performing Balanchine’s Who Cares with SLSG favorite Robert Fairchild, and David’s dancing Apollo with Pacific Northwest’s Carla Korbes. So wish I could be there…

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

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

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

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

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

Photo of Veronika Part by Marc Haegeman, from here.

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

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

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

Ethan Stiefel, Rosalie O’Connor photo, from TONY.

Too much fun at American Ballet Theater’s Swan Lake last night. I was so happy Ethan performed. He was injured early in the season and has been replaced in about everything he’s been scheduled for, so I was half expecting there to be an announcement someone else would be filling in, but happily not!

Designbyhumans graphic, taken from here.

First, I just have to relate the most obnoxious thing I think I’ve ever seen an audience member do, which happened last night. After the fast, fun bravura-heavy Black Swan pas de deux, this man from, it sounded like a box at the top, shouted, and I mean SHOUTED, obviously for everyone to hear, that we should all be quiet and hold our applause until the dancers are done. Most people were astounded, some gave a bemused little laugh, some started clapping but I wasn’t sure whether they were applauding his suggestion or mocking him. Wow, that poor hyper-sensitive person should definitely not go to Russia or Cuba or places where people show their enthusiasm for dance more overtly. In any event, I’m pretty sure there are no formal rules of conduct on audience applause here. NOR FRIGGING SHOULD THERE BE FOR CRYING OUT LOUD! I remember ABT used to have a little page at the beginning of the Playbill asking audience members to please be aware of their neighbors: if they have kids to make sure the kids aren’t kicking the seats in front of them or screaming or what not; no eating in the auditorium; silence all cell phones; etc. — things like that. I haven’t seen that page this season but I don’t remember any rules about when an audience is supposed to applaud.

The other day, the same thing happened, but on a less obnoxious level. I think it was during Sylphide and people clapped before Daniil Simkin had finished his variation and this guy next to me loudly and angrily whispered to all people within earshot of him to wait until Simkin finished.

I think people really need to calm down and let others be and not be so blasted controlling. I know some serious New York City Ballet fans are angry about all the “new audience” conduct and I am as well when that conduct includes checking cell phone messages and texts right during the performance (as a worrying number of young people do these days), freely talking to their neighbors throughout, bringing their own little picnic dinner to the Koch Theater and munching all through the performance, or worst of all taking flash pictures during the performance. They should be reprimanded by the ushers for doing such things, in my opinion. But when someone has an emergency coughing problem (like I sometimes do thanks to season-long allergies that come and go) and they need to take out a lozenge or take a sip of water, and they’re trying to be as quiet as possible while doing so, you just can’t get mad at that. And there was a discussion last year on The Winger where some commenters were outraged at what people were wearing to the ballet — pants, jeans, t-shirts, etc.

I think we all need to be considerate of one another, but I think we must be tolerant of one another as well and let everyone be human. Ballet companies are trying to grow their audiences — I don’t think they want to set rules on what people can wear and when they can applaud and warn them not to have an emergency allergy or else. If they do, then let them put the ground rules up front. They might want to seriously consider saying something about message checking though because a good number of people seem to think that’s okay — I don’t think they realize how brightly that little screen lights up and what a distraction it is to those around them. But in the meantime, until the dance companies figure out how to let audiences know what’s okay and what’s not, let’s just all respect each other.

I mean, absolutely no one has any place making up rules himself and then screaming them out at the whole audience during the performance. That was beyond ridiculous.

Okay diatribe finished!

Ethan with girlfriend Gillian Murphy, as Siegfried, she as Odette. I think the photo’s by Fabrizio Ferri. In any event, it’s taken from here.

So Ethan seemed pretty much, though maybe not completely, back in his usual excellent form. Maybe it was just me but I was a bit worried every time he jumped, especially when he landed on one leg, because I know he’s had the continuing problem with his knees. He seemed perfectly fine though. And his turns were excellent — he used them to show confusion and anguish up front when his Siegfried wasn’t so enamored with the ladies he was being presented with or his mother’s insistence he choose a bride now. He acted the part well. One thing I really love about him is how, after he became enamored of Paloma’s Odette, he’d run after her as fast as he possibly could, a speed demon, like if he didn’t catch her his life would crumble. I think Ethan’s the fastest Swan-chaser of a Siegfried I’ve seen

Photo of Paloma Herrera from ABT website.

I really liked Paloma Herrera as Odette/Odile. She was one of the most dramatic Odettes I’ve seen and she used mime to excellent effect — her gestures really related what had happened to her and were very accessible, even to someone not schooled in ballet mime. I think she told Odette’s story to Siegfried better than any other ballerina I’ve seen. She was also very athletic — during the Black Swan pas she was just a blur when she did those turns around the perimeter of the stage. And during the fouette sequence, she threw in triple pirouettes between practically every fouette. She didn’t do the arms like Gillian Murphy, but her multiple pirouettes were stunning.

David Hallberg as von Rothbart stole every scene he was in. At the very beginning, when Paloma first came out onstage, waltzing about girlishly, naively, he was so wickedly devious as he lured her into his arms, then picked her up romantically, and then, as he dramatically tightened his fists around her his evil intentions became clear. I wish he would have done the Black Swan pas the same way. He’s such a miraculous dancer that you can’t take your eyes off him throughout that whole scene, and many in the audience were giggling as the court ladies bowed down to him, almost melting into the floor at the sight of him. He was all wicked sexy seductor. But what makes von Rothbart so villainous is that he’s a trickster. He draws the ladies like Odette into his web by being all romantic and charming, though virilely so, and then when they’re least suspecting, he bites. He’s a classic predator. I think David was a little too evil from the get-go, but only in that scene. And someone, I think Demicontremps, said every time he wants to show an emotion, he widens his eyes. I agree. I’ve seen him do that a lot and I think subtlety can work a lot better. I’ll see Marcelo in this role tomorrow night though (my first time seeing him as von Rothbart!) and I’ll probably have better-formed opinions after that. I haven’t seen a lot of really mesmerizing dancers do this role before, so I really haven’t paid it much attention. Watching David was the first time I thought how powerful — and how entertaining — that role can really be.

Photo of D. Hallberg from NY Social Diary.

To wrap up, I also liked Blaine Hoven, Hee Seo and Melanie Hamrick in the Benno and ladies pas de trois. Blaine is really developing into an artist — he not only executed all of those hard jumps with great precision and articulation, but he also played with the musicality a bit, slowing things down here and holding a line there — it made for more captivating, intriguing dancing. I think he might have picked it up from Ethan because I saw Ethan doing the same. Hee Seo is so beautifully light on her feet. The woman behind me went “Ahhhhh,” when she did those hops on pointe and everytime she began a variation. I also liked Arron Scott and Mikhail Ilyin in the “Neapolitan” ballroom section, as the two high-jumping court jester-types.

Over the weekend I saw the French film, Un Baiser S’il Vous Plait, or Shall We Kiss (I don’t much like the English title translation, sounds too much like Shall We Dance and “A Kiss Please” is just cuter). I guess I’d call the movie a sweet romantic comedy albeit not without a bit of tragedy. Problem for me was, soundtrack is comprised mainly of Tchaikovsky ballet music — largely The Nutcracker and Swan Lake, and I learned something about myself: I can’t watch a movie with subtitles and focus on the subtitles when my favorite ballet music is playing in the background — I keep seeing the dancers instead of the little words at the bottom of the screen. I do wonder if I were fluent in French how the music would have affected me — whether I’d likewise have been unable to listen to the words over the notes– but I do know for sure I can’t concentrate simultaneously on three visuals (actors on screen, words on screen, and dancer-visions in my head).

It also made me think how enduring music is. There’s one little scene where a woman is cutely and “innocently” flirting with a man — although the whole film is about how destructive one supposedly simple little kiss can be, what it can lead to — and in the background is playing the Dance of the Four Cygnets from SL. And it’s actually very dulcet, although if you listen carefully, you can see how the music could be interpreted as somewhat threatening in its seductive charm. It ends up being perfect for this story where flirtatious behavior can destroy a relationship. And yet, that’s not what’s really going through your mind during that dance in the ballet. At least I don’t think it’s what’s supposed to be going through your mind? As I’m watching, anyway, I’m not thinking how dangerously seductive are those cute little swans; it’s just a difficult part for four dancers doing challenging steps perfectly in sync. But it made me think how Tchaikovsky’s ingenious music can be used to add insight and emotion to other stories besides that for which it was created. Maybe music has a longer-lasting life than dance, sadly… Although I love that filmmakers are using it — perhaps it will make watchers curious about the music’s origins…

(Wendy Whelan in Balanchine’s Swan Lake, photo by Paul Kolnik, courtesy of New York City Ballet)

Anyway, I never wrote about Balanchine’s Swan Lake, which I saw at NYCB last season, so now seems like as good a time as any… if I can remember it all.

Balanchine, I guess predictably, makes it all about the ballerinas — his “butterflies”. Prince Siegfried hardly figures – -there’s no ball at which he’s to pick a wife, no mental reflection in the forest, no “bird hunting,” no Odile, no Black Swan pas de deux where Odette’s human imposter seduces him leading to tragedy… Just Siegfried meeting Odette at the lake, falling for her, having her taken away from him by the evil von Rothbart and his flock of black swans.

I feel like the focus on the pretty ballerinas eviscerated the story. Prince Siegfried is the protagonist. It’s his story, his inner conflict, his unmet needs, his all too human weakness of character that you identify with, and that leads to tragedy. The story opens with Prince Siegfried at the first of a series of balls, at which he, having just turned 21, is to choose a wife. Beautiful princesses from all over Europe are being presented to him — what a choice! What more could a prince want! But he’s not at peace, for some reason. He’s just not into any of them. Why, he’s not sure, but something’s just not right. So, he decides to leave the first evening’s party early, go out into the woods, near the lake where he often reflects. His friends want to come with him, but no, he’d rather be alone. And then he’s lying by the lake, thinking, reflecting, perhaps having fallen asleep and dreaming, and he sees a beautiful swan. He takes aim with his bow and arrow when suddenly this magnificient creature turns into a woman before his very eyes. He of course becomes mesmerized with her. She — this fanstasy creature — he knows immediately, is his soul-mate.

She sees him, she’s afraid but he tosses the bow and arrow down, tells her not to worry, she tells him what happened to her — that von Rothbart cast a spell on her so that she’s a swan during the day, and can only be human — her true self — at night out by the lake. But the spell can be broken if someone — a sexual innocent, such as himself — pledges eternal love to her and then remains faithful. Of course Siegfried vows that he can do that, right before von Rothbart, who’s been listening in on their conversation, reclaims her for the evening, turning her back into a swan.

The next night at the ball, von Rothbart casts a spell on his daughter, Odile, so that she’ll look just like Odette. They show up at the ball and Sig is completely taken with Odile (in some versions he actually thinks she is Odette, the likeness is so close; in others he just falls for her, human frailty being what it is). A seduction ensues with all those ten thousand fouettes and gigantic, stage-traversing jetes as the climax, and then Odette appears, making it clear either Sig’s been deceived into cheating on her or making him remember his oath of faithfulness, which, either way, he’s now broken, therefore forcing her to live in eternity as a swan and making their love in this life impossible. They go back to the lake, do a tragically beautiful pas de deux and then — in most versions — she kills herself by throwing herself into the water, he follows suit, vR tears his hair out in agony and then we’re shown a vision of Siegfried and Odette together in the afterlife. (In some Kirov and Bolshoi versions Siegfried slays von Rothbart, and the story ends happily, which I find appalingly cheesy).

So, it’s a story of not being able to love who you truly love because of societal constraints — arranged marriage, familial circumstances, governmentally enforced heterosexuality — what have you, along with themes of deception, unfaithfulness, inconstancy, human fallibility, and deep abiding love eventually conquering all those worldly limitations. But Balanchine makes it about this man caught up in this world of ethereal beauties — which is really a ballet cliche.

There are some really beautiful scenes though. Apollinaire Scherr, who I sat next to the night I saw it (and who likes it much more than I), describes well how in the end, the flock of black swans overtakes Odette, tragically separating her from Siegfried. It’s really visually stunning, horrifying — almost like she’s drowning in the tidal wave they create — and you just want to hold your hand up to block it out. Balanchine does get to the action quickly, and he uses the Tchaikovsky score to its fullest — beginning and ending with the familiar competing von Rothbart and Siegfried / Odette themes, while toy swans slide by in a background lake, showing, at the beginning what Odette has been and in the end what she’s been returned to. I do like the sliding toy swans better than ABT’s version, where von Rothbart, in swamp creature form, is shown grabbing human Odette, taking her behind a curtain, then emerging with a swan stuffed animal. There are other commendable things about Balanchine’s version, but I still think truncating Siegfried’s story the way he does turns it into a ballet cliche and deprives it of its power to speak to the human condition. I know people will disagree with me, but those are my thoughts.