Former Royal Ballet ballerina and current American Ballet Theater mistress Georgina Parkinson has died of cancer. She was 71. In addition to her work with ABT, she was apparently coaching Natalie Portman and Mila Kunis for their dance roles in the upcoming film, Black Swan.
Photo above, by Ruby Washington, of Parkinson rehearsing, it appears, Gillian Murphy and Ethan Stiefel, taken from the NY Times.
And I can’t wait to see it.
My novel is finally up on Amazon. Eeek, am kind of freaking out a bit…
Yes! I knew it would come down to Russell Ferguson and Jakob Karr. I loved Jakob, but how absolutely fabulous that a krumper — the first to appear on the show — has won. I’m so happy for Russell! I was so worried, though, that he was going hurt himself worse (he hurt his leg during an encore performance on the show) with all that jumping around when he was announced the champ! And how sweet that he not only thanked God, but pointed his finger up to the sky like that 🙂 What did he say, “God!” and pointed. Like a kind of high-five! Oh, I love him.
I still think Jakob is one of the best contemporary dancers ever to be on the show and he has a huge future in modern ballet, perhaps with a company like Complexions. I’ll definitely be looking for him out in the concert dance world after the SYTYCD tour is over.
I’m so ludicrously weird though. I’d honestly started to worry at the end that if Jakob won last night, well then two male contemporary dancers likely wouldn’t win in a row, and so Billy Bell’s chances for next season might be jeopardized. I know I know: Billy’s only made the top 100 at this point and I need to not get so far ahead of myself 🙂
Anyway, here’s Russell’s solo that first made me fall for him:
Danny Tidwell and some other SLSG male faves — like Marcelo Gomes, and Jamar Roberts of Alvin Ailey — are going to be performing in Dancers Responding to AIDS’ winter 2010 benefit, “Dance From the Heart / Men,” on January 11th at Cedar Lake’s performance space.
So, my favorite dance of the night, not surprisingly, was the Dwight Rhoden / Desmond Richardson-choreographed contemporary routine for Jakob and Kathryn. It was very Dwight Rhoden — with the passionate intensity, the movements that are so real-life: her jumping on his back and clawing at him; him falling to the ground and pounding the floor in desperation. But the choreography was very athletic and required a lot of intense concentration, particularly for Jakob who had all those jumps — and he really wanted to nail each with perfect lines — which could have taken away from the drama required to fully pull the piece off, but really didn’t.
Photo taken from rickey.org, who already has the vids posted.
Love the audience’s standing ovation, and how all the judges were so overwhelmed they could hardly speak. And love how Adam went on and on about the importance of live dance and how it needs to be supported, and Nigel telling Jakob that he absolutely must go to work for a company, perhaps one like Complexions. And so we didn’t get to see Desmond perform; we still saw him and Dwight stand up and cheer the dancers from the aud 🙂
Anyway, I really really really hope the show encourages more people to attend live dance performances.
My second favorite of the night was the very last piece, the Tabitha and Napoleon hip hop / krump for Russell and Kathryn.
I thought they nailed it, and that was one of the best hip hops I think I’ve seen on the show — a lot of bravado posturing and hard, driving, pounding footwork, yet still sweet and humorous in places. And they had such chemistry together, I thought. She looked at him like she had so much respect and admiration for him when she started kind of touching his feet in the air as he made his way around on those flips. She really looked like she was dancing with him, whereas I thought when she and Jakob danced together it seemed they were each trying to do their own athletic feats as well as possible, like they weren’t really emotionally connecting with each other as strongly.
Yeah, Nigel and Adam are right about Kathryn — she’s really excelled at everything, particularly toward the end of this season. I can see her winning.
Again, see Rickey for their hip hop video.
I have to say, regarding Jakob, I don’t remember seeing him dance much, if any at all, hip hop or Latin ballroom throughout the season? Did he? He’s a miraculous contemporary dancer, and it’s a given he’ll excel at contemporary-like dances, like jazz, theater, and standard ballroom. But he didn’t seem to be given much of a chance to demonstrate range, the same as Kathryn.
At first when I saw Ryan and Kathryn open the show with Jason Gilkison’s samba I mistook Ryan for Jakob and thought, whoa, he can really do those body rolls, he has such movement in his torso (unusual for someone trained intensively in ballet). Then when I realized it was Ryan I was pretty disappointed. We already know Ryan can do Latin — why didn’t they give Jakob the samba? Then, I thought how interesting it would be to have each couple perform the same exact routines. Then you could really compare. Hey, seriously, why don’t they do that? Because at a certain point, it seems like you can’t help but judge the choreography more than the dancing.
None of the other routines really blew me away tonight. The Travis Wall contemporary for Ashleigh and Ryan was lovely, but it lacked a certain power, as did her Foxtrot with Jakob. Oh I did like the Sonya Tayeh lyrical jazz for Ashleigh and Russell.
I just love Russell. He has such charisma, such an endearing dancer persona that peeks through with everything he does. Such a sweet guy. And he introduced me to a new style of dance for me, made me aware of the power and brilliance of krumping. I’m rooting for him or Jakob. Or, now, Kathryn.
Rasta Thomas’ new Bad Boys of Dance show, “Rock the Ballet,” opens tonight at the Joyce Theater. I’ll be there later in the week. Here’s what I wrote last time I saw Bad Boys; below is a video of some footage of the current show, in Barcelona, interspersed with audience interviews (in Spanish).
And here’s one from the group’s performance on a Spanish TV show:
It looks like they’re including women this time (at least one, at least one human 🙂 ). I can never tell if he’s being ironic or not with the choreography… In any event, the reason to see this show is the man himself, Rasta Thomas, brilliant brilliant dancer.
Above image taken from here.
Oh cool — Dwight Rhoden and Desmond Richardson, founders of Complexions Contemporary Ballet, are returning to So You Think You Can Dance for this Tuesday’s finale. They’re to choreograph a piece for one set of finalists (press release doesn’t say who). Exciting! Press release doesn’t say Desmond will dance, like last time, but who knows!?
Well, if not, here’s a vid of him in Episodes (which, coincidentally, Alvin Ailey is also performing this season at City Center, and which members of that company performed earlier this season on this show).
Photo above by Heidi Schumann, from NY Times.
This week, playwright and actor Anna Deavere Smith will perform with Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, who are currently in the middle of their winter season at NY City Center. Deavere Smith (remember Twilight: Los Angeles 1992, about Rodney King, and Fires in the Mirror, about Crown Heights) will join the cast for a performance of Judith Jamison’s Hymn, Jamison’s 1993 Emmy award-winning homage to Alvin Ailey. Deavere Smith wrote the libretto and acts in the piece, which I haven’t yet seen live, but saw in a film. The excerpt I saw was excellent. A definite must-see (photo below by Andrew Eccles).
She’ll be performing December 16, 18, 19, and in the matinee on the 20th. She’s taking a break from her latest one-woman show, Let Me Down Easy, to perform with Ailey.
In addition to Hymn, Ailey’s also putting on several premieres this season: Jamison’s breathtaking Divining and Ronald K. Brown’s equally wondrous, African-based Dancing Spirit (which received loads of applause the other night, well deserved!), dancer Matthew Rushing’s sweet Uptown (a tribute to the Harlem Renaissance), Jamison’s Among Us (which I haven’t yet seen but will soon), and Robert Battle’s In-Side (ditto). In addition they’ve spiced up last year’s Festa Barocca, they’ve got a Best of 20 Years program — a compilation of the best work Jamison has commissioned during her time with the company, and company classics like Night Creature, Love Stories, Suite Otis, and of course the always uplifting, quintessentially American (probably the best American dance ever made, imo) — Revelations.
If you’re in NY (or anywhere else in the world where they tour), definitely don’t miss them. Go here for more info on the City Center season.
Above photo of Deavere Smith from University of Chicago.
If you’re in NY and are free tonight, this looks pretty worthwhile.
Okay, here are the interviews I did with Sonya Tayeh and Billy Bell last week at the DeMa Dance Company rehearsal. (Bell and Tayeh are most known for their work on So You Think You Can Dance, if you don’t know – Bell was on the show briefly at the beginning of the season and had to withdraw due to illness, and Tayeh is a choreographer). I spoke with them very quickly, during their tiny lunch break, and I shared the interview with a writer from Dance Spirit magazine. It was hard to get everything down (especially with Billy, who is a fast talker!) and remember the other writer’s questions, etc. (I intend to get a flip camera for the future). Anyway, it’s hard to put this in a question / answer format, so I’m just going to summarize and paraphrase what they each said.
Billy was so sweetly enthusiastic and excited about his life. So much fun to talk to!
First things first – SYTYCD, since that’s how most people know him. He said he definitely plans to return to the show next season. The producers told him he’ll be automatically advanced to the top 100 – so he’ll start out at the Vegas auditions and go from there.
He had to leave the show at the beginning of this season after being diagnosed with Mononucleosis. The problem wasn’t that he was contagious any longer by the time he was diagnosed, but that the illness had significantly enlarged his spleen, and he even had to be hospitalized. Doctors told him if he moved too much with his spleen so enlarged, he could have ruptured it and died. It would likely take a few months for the spleen to return to normal size, they said, which is why he had to leave the show at that point. Now, it’s nearly back to normal though it’s still a slight bit enlarged. “That’s why I wasn’t really dancing full-out,” he said with a little laugh, referring to the rehearsal we’d just seen. Dance Spirit woman and I nearly fell off the couch at this. “If that wasn’t full out, I can’t imagine what you normally look like!” she said. And I agreed. He seemed completely healed to me, to make a massive understatement.
I asked him how he got started in dance. He said he started late, in high school, and he actually began with Hip Hop. His lack of early training didn’t matter for that dance because, unlike ballet for example, the movement isn’t codified. But he soon became interested in Jazz, for which he needed ballet training. He initially learned by mimicking movement, but he soon enrolled in the ballet academy at Ballet Florida and, in order to make up for lost time, really threw himself into it, moving very close to the studio and taking several hours of dance per day, along with his other studies. After a while of ballet, he became interested in tap, and so began training in that too. He’s interested in multiple dance forms but considers his main style to be contemporary ballet.
I asked him who his favorite dancers were or if he had any particular heroes or sources of inspiration. He immediately named Andrea Miller, choreographer and director of Gallim Dance, whom he called his “personal mentor.” He’s worked with her before – when he was 18, his first pro experience — and he performed her work at the Joyce SoHo. He loves her approach to movement and how she teaches: she wants you to experience the movement in your body, he said; it’s not just about the positions, but about how the movement makes you feel. He’s excited to be able to work with her again at Juilliard; she’s to set a piece there soon.
I asked him what other choreographers or companies he’d like to work with. In addition to Gallim, he named William Forsythe and Ohad Naharin’s Batsheva. He finds in this “dance theater” an outer simplicity and yet so much complexity behind it. “What’s going on inside you – (with Gallim and Naharin’s Gaga training) – is simple and yet so complex.” He would also love to do some Paul Taylor, Merce Cunningham, Jose Limon, Jerome Robbins, to name a few.
But his biggest passion: choreographing. He wants to dance while he’s young but eventually his goal is to create dances. He said with a laugh that he loves “destroying ballet” – kind of bending those rods ballet dancers seem to hold up their spines and freeing them up, allowing them to go back and forth between different kinds of movement. He loves being able to work with dancers and bring certain things out in them. He strives to move people emotionally, to move the audience, he loves having that power. He choreographed his first piece — 15 minutes long — at Dreyfoos, his high school back in Florida. It was performed there at a show in January.
But that’s in the future. In the meantime, he’s finishing up at Juilliard (he’s about halfway through his BFA; has another couple years to go), he has the SYTYCD Vegas auditions coming up next season, he’s participating in a choreographic competition that travels throughout the States, and he just became a principal dancer at DeMa this month. Despina Simegiatos, one of the artistic directors of DeMa, says back when she was looking for strong male dancers for her fledgling company, she found him on YouTube, through some videos he’d posted, and really fell for him. He hadn’t yet gone on SYTYCD.
He’s excited about working with DeMa because it’s a company that seeks to fuse the creative with the commercial. Companies are where artists can focus on their creative work, but commercial work is what pays the bills. In an ideal world these would be fused, but in the U.S. they rarely are, he said. He seeks to be able to transition back and forth between the two. He’s excited about working with Sonya because he was just about to work with her before he had to leave the show. A couple of other Juilliard students are also dancing with DeMa, which makes the company feel homey to him.
He sweetly said he considers himself the luckiest person in the world that he gets to do what he loves and get paid for it.
Sonya Tayeh, like her work, was very intriguing and I wish I would have had more time with her but she was so busy creating this piece. This is her first time working with DeMa. As I mentioned earlier, her dance, titled When the Love Enters, the Light Shines, is six minutes long and is set to Bjork’s Unison.
When asked a bit about this piece, she said it’s about finding moments where you look at your life and you’re just in love with it. She actually found making this dance a bit challenging, she said. She’s really in love right now, very comfortable with herself and unafraid, and usually her choreography is about fighting. Lately she’s been so peaceful. But it’s nice to exhale, she said with a laugh.
When asked what she wants of her dancers, she said all she asks is that they listen to her instructions but that they try to find the emotion in themselves, to embody it in the movement, not just go through movements she’s creating. She has a very disciplined way of working and seeks to embellish movement as much as possible. She likes to have fast, abrupt stops and starts; she likes elements of surprise. She’s high-strung, she said with a little laugh – she has wild hair, wears crazy clothes, is really out there. Her choreography echoes that.
I asked her what inspires her, how she works, and what her goals are. She said it’s hard to talk about inspiration. She’ll have an idea in her head, but not the movement. She needs to get to the studio to see the dancers in order to create the movement. She begins with a mood in her head. She doesn’t watch much of others’ choreography because she’s afraid of duplicating them. Instead she watches a lot of documentaries of dancers and dance makers for inspiration. She watches cartoons, a lot of animation, and has a rather fantastical mind. Her focus is on making a mark in the world with movement, with her choreography.
Here are some more pictures, by Kim Max, of Tayeh rehearsing with the DeMa dancers (the picture at the top of the post is of Tayeh choreographing on Bell).
Alvin Ailey audiences are always so fun! Last night was their “Target night” (tickets were severely discounted, sponsored by Target), and these kinds of audiences are the best — people screaming and cheering throughout; yelling “yeah” and “go girl!”, unable to help themselves from taking pictures — with the flash (!), and this one guy kept yelling out “Praise the Lord” during Revelations.
I have no time to write — am off to Art Basel for the weekend — but it was an excellent night. In addition to the always moving Revelations (I will never tire of seeing that), they’ve done something to Bigonzetti’s Festa Barocca — it’s so much better now; they captured the humor this time, and they’ve really amped up the passion / sensuality / struggle in those pas de deux. The audience went wild for it, including myself.
And Judith Jamison’s Divining was so magnificent. It’s a beautiful combination of ballet and African and the music is fascinating. She made it in the 80s but they’ve restaged it. Don’t miss it!
ABT may have the world’s top ballet dancers, but this company has the best all-around dancers who can do just about anything and look like the best in the world at it. And does Antonio Douthit have a skeleton? That man’s body moves in ways I’ve just never seen a body move before!
Go see them — they’re at City Center through the very beginning of January.
More when I get back (and the interviews with Bell and Tayeh as well). Now off to Miami!
Photo above of cast in Jamison’s Divining, by Nan Melville.
