Category: Film / DVD / YouTube / Livestreams

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I’m on the Lit Chick Show!

I’m very psyched to be this week’s guest on the Lit Chick Show, a wonderful Australian-based literary website, which stands for literary chicks, not chick lit :), and which has hosted interviews with people like Smashwords founder Mark Coker and bestselling indie author Vicki Tyley. A huge thank you to author and host Sylvia Massara for having me!

Check out the show’s archives for other author interviews – they have several months’ worth. And, if you’re one of this blog’s readers who happens to be an author, you can get involved in Authors Helping Authors.

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British Ballet Stars on “Black Swan”

 

“You can tell they did some research. Some of the smaller details, like the broken toenails and the way Nina works on her ballet shoes [scoring the soles, breaking down the blocked toes], were accurate. And I’ve seen dancers get paranoid, just like Nina, when they miss a rehearsal and find someone else has been standing in for them – although obviously not to the point where they smash the rival dancer in the mirror and drag her into the toilet by the ankles.”

Haha!

Black Swan hasn’t yet opened in the U.K. (it will in about two weeks, according to this post) but The Guardian’s Judith Mackrell invited several top dancers from the Royal Ballet and the English National Ballet to accompany her to a press preview.

They’re all, like Gillian Murphy, pretty critical of the film, calling it exaggerated and cliched. I wonder how the British public will react.

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Guggenheim to Live-Stream “Giselle Revisited” January 9th

Super cool! The Guggenheim has just announced it is going to live-stream its upcoming January 9th Works & Process program, Giselle Revisited, a discussion with Pacific Northwest Ballet artistic director Peter Boal and others from PNB about the company’s new production of Giselle. Of course excerpts will be performed, by principal dancers Carla Korbes, Carrie Imler, SLSG fave Seth Orza, and soloist James Moore (who I also remember liking the last time PNB performed here).

The discussion / performance will be live-streamed direct from the Guggenheim beginning at 7:30 p.m. on Sunday, January 9th, at this web channel: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/worksandprocess. The Winger‘s Candice Thompson will lead an online discussion, so people watching via the live-stream will be able to chat with each other in real time.

Click on the link below to see the full press release.

Continue reading “Guggenheim to Live-Stream “Giselle Revisited” January 9th”

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SLSG’s Dance Highlights of 2010

Instead of trying to remember which were my favorite performances of the year, I’m just going back through my blog archives from January of this year and linking to the most memorable posts. More fun that way! A lot happened in a year…

January

Pacific Northwest Ballet made their debut at the Joyce; it was my first time seeing them live.

The Post‘s Page 6 announced that you know who and you know who are dating, and the ridiculous homewrecker attacks began.

Baryshnikov and Annie Liebovitz starred in a very cool Louis Vuitton ad.

February

I totally fell for New York City Ballet’s Sleeping Beauty.

…and Mark Sanchez 🙂

I found myself quoted in Colin Jarman’s book, Dancing With the Quotes.

I also fell for Sara Mearns’s Odette in Peter Martins’s Swan Lake.

On a personal note, my former judge, the esteemed Honorable Sylvia Pressler, passed away.

The Kings of Dance came to town.

Morphoses shocked the ballet world by announcing that Christopher Wheeldon was leaving the company.

March

My friend’s organization, Art for Change, held a benefit for Haiti after the earthquake.

Rasta Thomas’s Bad Boys of Dance announced that Danny Tidwell and SYTYCD’s Jacob Karr were joining the company.

Corella Ballet Castilla y Leon finally made their NYC debut!

I found myself actually getting press for liking Kate Gosselin – or for not hating Kate Gosselin rather – on Dancing With the Stars.

I fell for Keigwin + Company’s Runaway.

I was delighted to receive an email from NYCB ballerina Yvonne Borree’s aunt regarding of all things, my novel.

April

I had my first experience as a dance writer panelist! Thank you, Marc, from TenduTV!

Tiler Peck appeared on Dancing With the Stars in a Travis Wall routine, which everyone was so excited about. But it ended up amounting to not a whole lot…

Roberto Bolle danced a naked Giselle, in Italy of course.

May

New York City Ballet opened their spring season with premieres of Millepied’s Why Am I Not Where You Are and Ratmansky’s Namouna, both of which I liked, though Ratmansky’s had to grow a bit on me.

Baryshnikov returned to the stage.

I greatly enjoyed ABT’s new production, Lady of the Camellias, though most critics panned it.

June

ABT celebrated Alicia Alonso’s 90th birthday with three all-star Latin American casts (plus Natalia Osipova) dancing in Don Quixote.

Yvonne Borree gave her farewell performance at NYCB.

Bill T. Jones won a Tony for best choreographer for Fela!

Philip Neal gave his farewell performance at NYCB.

Natalia Osipova was mugged right outside of Lincoln Center.

Two of the greatest ballerinas in Europe – Osipova, and Alina Cojocaru – gave back to back Sleeping Beauty performances at ABT.

Albert Evans gave his farewell performance at NYCB.

Tap great Savion Glover made headlines by voicing his annoyance with Alastair Macaulay’s NY Times criticism of him – onstage, during a show.

Conductor Maurice Kaplow gave his farewell performance with NYCB.

Darci Kistler officially ended the era of the Balanchine-trained dancer with her farewell performance with NYCB.

July

Carlos Acosta announced his retirement from ballet and his foray into modern dance.

Alex Wong, probably the second greatest contestant ever on SYTYCD was injured and unable to finish the show.

My friend, Taylor Gordon, was profiled as a freelance ballet dancer in a New York Times article 🙂

Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater’s beloved Denise Jefferson passed away.

Nilas Martins retired from NYCB oddly sans fanfare, sans criticism, sans a performance.

August

I interviewed tWitch about his role in the movie Step It Up. Fun fun interview!

I had a blast covering Ailey Camp.

I nearly fell over when Wendy Perron, esteemed E-I-C of Dance Magazine recommended Swallow on Twitter!

September

NYCB began their excellent “See the Music” series.

October

I loved Ashley Bouder’s Serenade.

Emerging Pictures’s awesomely exciting Ballet in Cinema series began with the Bolshoi’s Flames of Paris.

This cool new Lincoln Center-area street art sprouted up.

One of my favorite posts of the year, though it received no comments, was about Anne Fortier’s novel, Juliet. I jokingly daydreamed about it being made into a film, and which of my favorite ballet stars might take the lead.

November

ABT made an historic visit to Cuba and oh how I wished I could have gone with them.

I think I was the only person in the entire dance world to sympathize with Bristol Palin on Dancing With the Stars.

I had a blast covering New York So You Think You Can Dance auditions.

All of a sudden Black Swan was everywhere.

Nearly fell over again upon hearing Riccardo Cocchi and Yulia Zagoruychenko took the world Latin ballroom title – making them the first U.S. couple ever to do so.

December

My take on SugarPlumpGate.

Black Swan finally premiered which I didn’t love but was happy to have ballet brought back into the spotlight.

I was in awe of Alvin Ailey’s 50-dancer Revelations, staged in honor of the 50th anniversary of that dance. I also loved several other dances in their City Center season – Ailey’s Cry, Ronald K. Brown’s Dancing Spirit, and Geoffrey Holder’s The Prodigal Prince – just to name a few.

Robert Wilson / Roberto Bolle’s Perchance to Dream exhibit in Chelsea was a lot o’ frightening fun.

ABT’s new Nutcracker premiered, which I really enjoyed, almost as much as the Bolshoi’s.

Portman and Millepied revealed they are now engaged and expecting.

I had great fun, despite the crazy snowstorm, going down to Wall Street and covering Judith Jamison’s ringing of the closing bell at the NYSE.

Pretty busy year.

Happy New Year, everyone!

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The Bolshoi’s Nutcracker

So of course I went yesterday to see the Bolshoi’s Nutcracker, live-streamed into movie theaters all over the world, though, judging by the opening remarks made by announcers and intermission interviews, I think most of the audience was in France. Anyway, there was a pretty good turn-out at the Big Cinema in Manhattan – bigger than turn-outs for the two recorded Emerging Pictures ballet films I saw earlier (the Royal Ballet’s Nutcracker and the Bolshoi’s Flames of Paris). Still, the theater wasn’t packed, as it should have been.

Anyway, this was the best Nutcracker I’ve seen so far. I really loved it. I don’t think anyone puts on a show, makes ballet into theater, quite like the Bolshoi. And their dancers have got to be among the most talented in the world. The things they can do… I think every single woman had a point like Veronika Part and every man like David Hallberg.

This production, by Yuri Grigorovich, had no Sugar Plum Fairy, but instead the grand pas de deux was danced by Marie (so-called here instead of Clara), and her nutcracker, turned into a prince in her dream. I like it so much better this way than having a Sugar Plum Fairy. It just makes more sense in the story to have the young girl imagining herself as a grown-up princess. It makes that final pas de deux so much sweeter. And here, they actually get married, Marie and her prince.

 

The same ballerina – the exquisite Nina Kaptsova (who I remembered immediately from her role in Flames of Paris as the delicate and sympathetic Marquis’s daughter; photo above from dance.net) – danced both the young and grown-up princess versions of Marie and she was surprisingly believable as both. You’d have to have a small dancer with a very youthful physique to be able to dance both parts. (San Francisco Ballet has grown-up Clara dancing the final pdd too, but two different dancers dance the young and older Clara). Kaptsova’s prince was Artem Ovcharenko, who was also very good though he didn’t stand out quite as much as she. For ABT fans, he reminded me a lot of Maxim Beloserkovsky.

What I really, really loved about this Grigorovich production, though, was all of the dancing. It begins with the guests en route to the party, and they dance across the stage. There are really no non-dance moments as there are in most Nutcrackers I’ve seen, where you have the party with children scurrying about and the grown-ups chasing after them and chatting with each other, and Clara and her brother fighting over the little nutcracker, who is actually a doll. Here, the children aren’t really children but dancers in the company (one reason why there’s so much more dancing), and, magnificently, the “toys” are all dancers as well! I don’t think I’ve ever seen a real dancer play the little nutcracker doll. And s/he (not sure which gender, as unfortunately the name isn’t listed in the program) was brilliant  – one of the best parts of the first Act. A shame there’s no name – unless it’s Anna Proskurnina, who’s listed as Marie’s brother? I’ll have to look it up.

The other two toys in the first Act – Harlequin and Columbine – were danced brilliantly as well, by Vyacheslav Lopatin and Anna Tikhomirova. Those dancers were the most doll-like dolls – with their stunted, sharp staccato movements – that I’ve ever seen.

After the snow scene, Marie and her Nutcracker (now, in his human version, danced by Ovcharenko) didn’t really go to a Land of Sweets but more like a land of toys, as male / female pairs of dolls from various parts of the world entertain them. I went to the performance with my a Chinese friend and of course I was really embarrassed by the Chinese dolls. He thought they were funny though, and we both agreed they were danced very well, by Svetlana Pavlova and Denis Medvedev. I can really see Daniil Simkin dancing this role in ABT’s production, if Ratmansky does it the same way. ( I know Simkin will also have a turn as the Nutcracker Prince / Cavalier at ABT). I also hope Ratmansky doesn’t resort to stereotypes in creating these roles, as virtually every other choreographer has.

As the Indian dolls, Victoria Osipova (relation to Natalia?) and Andrei Bolotin had a bit of a slip and she fell, but I didn’t think it was that big of a deal. She got up immediately and there was no sign of injury. This is usually the dance most of us in the US know as “coffee” or the Arabian part, but here the costumes are very different – more classical, no bare midriff and tiny top – and the dancing more conservative.

I loved the grand pas de deux. It was both sweet and innocent (like you’d expect of a young girl’s dream of her older self being swept off her feet by a handsome prince), and stunning in its athleticism. Some of those lifts are the most breathtaking I’ve ever seen. At one point, he held her up by her calf and she’s upright, and he carried her all over the stage that way. There are many overhead lifts where he’s holding only her waist, with her legs in the air, feet delicately crossed, and she looks down at him, crossing her hands beatifically. And at the end of the wedding, he carries her off in a cradle lift. So sweet. The solo variations for each were equally breathtaking. Kaptsova had a series of super-fast chaine turns but with all kinds of additional footwork thrown in. Watching her dance, at points I couldn’t believe my eyes.

Oh and also Drosselmeyer was much more of a dance part than most other Drosselmeyers I’ve seen. He was danced very well by Denis Savin.

Overall brilliant production. I feel spoiled now, like I’m never going to be able to see another Nutcracker again. But I will this Thursday – when Ratmansky’s opens at BAM!

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BLACK SWAN = SHOWGIRLS!!!! HAHA!!!

HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA! All throughout watching this movie, I kept thinking, damn, this is really on the same level as Showgirls. Actually, more like Showgirls meets Valley of the Dolls meets Mommy Dearest. Apparently, others had the same thought. Thank you!!!! And thank you so much, dear friend, btroubles, for linking to it.

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Jenifer Ringer Talks About Her Weight on the Today Show

If you guys haven’t seen this yet, Jenifer Ringer was on the Today Show talking about Sir Alastair’s criticism of her weight, her past eating disorder, and the struggle to be thin for ballerinas in general. I hadn’t known, but Natalie Portman lost 20 pounds for Black Swan!

Poor Jared Angle! He hasn’t gotten anything out of this – and he supposedly sampled half the damn Sweet Realm!

Oh also, it’s interesting to look at the comments in the Huffington Post post; quite different from those on Jennifer Edwards’ earlier post in which many commenters supported Macaulay.

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Bolshoi’s NUTCRACKER Live-Streamed in Movie Theaters This Sunday

 

This Sunday, December 19th, the Bolshoi Ballet’s Nutcracker will be live-streamed direct from Moscow into theaters all over the world. In New York, the production will be shown at 11:00 a.m. at the Big Cinemas Manhattan located at 239 E. 59th Street. Check Emerging Pictures Ballet in Cinema website to find a location hopefully near you. If there is no location near you, I noticed there’s a little “request an Emerging Pictures cinema near you” button on the right side of the page. Maybe if there’s enough demand, they’ll get working on striking a deal with one of your local theaters!

Check the Bolshoi’s website for further details on broadcast times in other countries, like France. And see Haglund’s Heel for casting.

I can’t wait – this is the first ballet I’ll see live-streamed!

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Gillian Murphy Critical of “Black Swan”

 

Apparently, Gillian Murphy gave an interview to the L.A. Times in which she called Black Swan unrepresentative of the ballet world and said she was a little disturbed by its intentionally overdone darkness. She says in her experience the lecherousness of the artistic director is fake (thankfully!) as is the competitiveness within the company, though she admits it’s competitive to get into a big company in the first place. I would have thought it would be competitive within a company as well, but from the time I’ve spent around ABT and NYCB dancers (and from reading their blogs) it does seem that the dancers are very supportive of each other. And the support doesn’t seem false, like it’s forced whenever outsiders are around, but genuine. Look at how everyone came to the support of Jenifer Ringer over Macaulay’s snarky comment about her weight.

But apparently Dancing on My Grave presents another story. Maybe things have really changed since then.

Interestingly the article mistakenly calls Murphy British (as if they’re trying to present her as uppity toward Hollywood). She’s American though, and has never seemed the least bit snobbish, imo.

Above, Gillian with Ethan Stiefel in Swan Lake (as the white swan! 🙂 ); photo by Fabrizio Ferri, from here.

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The Royal Ballet’s Nutcracker

 

Yesterday I was invited to a pre-screening of a filmed version of the Royal Ballet’s Nutcracker, which will be shown later this month at cinemas in New York and around the country by Emerging Pictures’ Ballet in Cinema series. Check their website for local schedules.

The Royal Ballet version was very good, albeit different from what I’m used to (which, as a New Yorker, is basically Balanchine’s). The Royal’s was directed and choreographed by Peter Wright (after Ivanov), the orchestra conducted by Koen Kessels, and was originally shown at the Royal Opera House in Convent Garden in December 2009.

The biggest difference between this and Balanchine’s is that Clara and the Nutcracker Prince dance all throughout the second half, the Land of the Sweets (here called the Sugar Garden). They participate in the Arabian dance, the Russian dance, the Chinese dance, and the flower dances. The dancer who dances Clara (unfortunately, I don’t have a full cast list and didn’t get her name from the quickly scrolling credits at the end of the film, so I don’t know her name) was older – not a child – and she was a really beautiful dancer. Very fluid, light, willowy, with an innocence in her movement. Very child-like (in a good way, because it was called for here). At first I didn’t like that they danced throughout because I thought at points it almost looked like they were making fun of the various styles of dance. But then I realized, no they weren’t doing that at all; they were playing and having fun, like children would, and like audiences composed heavily of children would want to see them do, and would want to do themselves. The Nutcracker Prince’s name I do have – Steven McRae, and he was very good.

The Sugar Plum Fairy and the Prince were danced brilliantly by Miyako Yoshida and McRae. The ending pas de deux was a traditional one and it was danced just about the best I’ve ever seen it. Yoshida in particular was really stunning. She’s a small dancer but has a lot of power – particularly in her developes –  her leg just seems to shoot up there! Her assisted pirouettes and her fouettes done in a diagonal line were also stunning. She’s a fast, spirited dancer with great clarity in her lines, which were never over-extended and which she always finished with zest. But even with all the demanding athletics of that pas, she didn’t turn into an Olympic performance; she remained sweet and princess-like. It was really magical. It’s a performance I could have watched over and over again.

Drosselmeyer, the magician, really blew me away too. He is a main character here – he doesn’t just appear at the beginning to present the toys and give Clara her nutcracker doll; he acts as a guide all throughout the second half, bringing Clara and her prince on a tour through the Sugar Garden, presenting the various national dances to them. He’s clearly in charge of Clara’s dream, although at the end, there’s a little twist on that. You’ll have to see the production to find out what it is 🙂 And Drosselmeyer was portrayed very well by Gary Avis. It’s not a dance role, but requires a big stage presence and Avis really came through on that. He received lots of applause at the end and took all the curtain calls with all the main dancers.

The only thing I have to say – and this is not at all bad – but did Macaulay ever review dance in the U.K.? He was a theater critic for most of his career there, right? Because if he ever reviewed the Royal, I’d think he would have had to remark on the weight of some of the dancers. Some of them made Jenifer Ringer look like a twig. Not that they danced badly because of it. I think for a while I’m always going to be thinking “hey, she’s bigger than Jenifer Ringer, she’s bigger, she’s way bigger”…

Anyway, if anyone reading this is in the U.K. and / or has seen this production, I’d love to hear your thoughts!

Photo taken from the Ballet in Cinema website.