Category: Previews

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Misty Copeland and FIREBIRD Excerpts Live-Streamed from the Guggenheim

 

For Californians (like me) who missed Misty Copeland’s Firebird at Segerstrom last month, or for New Yorkers and others hoping to catch a pre-Met season glimpse, she’ll be performing excerpts of it at the Guggenheim as part of the museum’s Works and Process event next Sunday and Monday nights, April 29th and 30th. The event is sold out but will be live-streamed on the Guggenheim’s ustream channel, so everyone everywhere can watch. It begins at 7:30 pm ET, so 4:30 PST, and they usually last an hour and a half. The Guggenheim usually does a good job with these live-streams and if you sign up for a ustream account, you can participate in the live chat. Otherwise, they usually keep the videos posted for a while so you can watch at your leisure.

It’s not just Misty performing though; it’s a celebration of ABT’s upcoming Met season. So you’ll see others perform excerpts of the upcoming ballets as well, such as Cory Stearns and Hee Seo in Onegin, Sascha Radetsky in Swan Lake, Craig Salstein and Kristi Boone and others in The Dream, and ABT Studio Company members will perform the Swan Lake Czardas. Also, according to the press release, Roman Zhurbin will perform a special character medley. Hmmm, sounds very intriguing!

Panelists include Copeland, Zhurbin, Salstein, and Reid Anderson, director of the Stuttgart Ballet, and the moderator will be John Meehan, professor of dance at Vassar.

You can also follow on Twitter @WorksandProcess and by hashtag #WPLive. But I highly recommend the live-streaming if you can!

Above photo of Misty Copeland with Herman Cornejo by Gene Schiavone, taken from LA Times Culture Monster.

 

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REMEMBER ME, MORPHOSES, URBAN BUSH WOMEN, ET. AL.

 

If you’re in New York, don’t forget that David Parsons-choreographed rock opera, Remember Me, airs tonight at 7:30 on channel 21

 

Also upcoming in NYC, Morphoses takes Central Park’s SummerStage (photo above from that site) this Friday and Saturday nights at 8pm. Wheeldon’s company is performing a world premiere set to Martha Wainwright music (which I understand is to be performed by the songstress live) so this is a definite not-miss. The company also performs on Sunday at 4 pm at East River Park, where Wheeldon, according to New York magazine, is to give dance instruction to the audience.

Next Tuesday (8/18) begins the Broadway debuts of my friends (and So You Think You Can Dancers) Pasha Kovalev and Anya Garnis in Burn the Floor (!&*%^&@#$%!!!) — sorry for outburst, just a little excited for that one…

 

Next Thursday (8/20) Urban Bush Women  perform at Damrosch Park as part of the Lincoln Center Out of Doors Festival.

And all of next week (8/17-23) is the Downtown Dance Festival in the Financial District, which showcases a variety of  small companies from both the U.S. and abroad every weekday during lunchtime in front of Chase Manhattan Plaza and all day Saturday and Sunday in Battery Park.

All events except for Burn the Floor are free.

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ART FOR CHANGE ACCEPTING ENTRIES FOR HACIA AFUERA

My friend Alyssa is an independent art curator and she’s working with Art For Change on an upcoming festival in East Harlem, called Hacia Afuera. The festival will take place August 22-23 in the streets and parks of Spanish Harlem.

The festival organizers have issued a call for submissions or project proposals in installation, visual, and performance art, which includes music and dance — that speaks to that community and has a social justice bent. I know some choreographers and dance artists read my blog, so I thought I’d put the word out here. If you’re interested in submitting (and please consider doing so if you have work that fits), go here for more information. The deadline is July 17th.

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MISSING BLACKPOOL

The Blackpool Dance Festival has begun and for the first time in four years I’m missing it. So sad. I felt like I needed to save on expenses this year with the recession and all, and I was disappointed that my favorite, Slavik Kryklyvyy, likely wouldn’t be competing again, and I was aggravated with the predictability of last year’s results and figured I’m going to get frustrated all over again. So, I decided to take a year off.

But, thankfully, two wonderful young ladies from England, Eleanor and Becca, who I met from this blog, are going to do some little write-ups on the goings on later this week. They are fans of Sergey Surkov and Melia, so they’re rather perfect for this blog 🙂 In fact, today, they are modeling in the Chrisanne ballgown show in the pavilion, along with Melia!

(Here’s a picture I took in the past of the runway)

Chrisanne boutique in the pavilion.

I’ll also be keeping up via Dance Beat.

Today and tomorrow are the increasingly popular daytime Congress lectures on things like technique, performance quality dancing, and ballroom dance history by the top pros of today and yesterday, and tonight is the ridiculously exciting but somewhat goofy country team competition. The two most important nights of the week will be Wednesday and Friday, Wednesday being the Pro Latin and Friday the Pro Standard. I’ll be rooting for Sergey and Melia of course, along with the top U.S. couples Riccardo Cocchi and Yulia Zagoruychenko in Latin, Katusha Demidova and Arunas Bizokas in Standard.

Standard champion Mirko Gozzoli from Italy giving a Congress lecture,

after giving a demo of mouthwatering splended perfection with partner Alessia Betti.

Former champs the charmingly funny Luca Baricchi, with his partner Lorraine, doing the same.

American team’s elegant team comp intro from two years ago.

And last year’s. Still not sure where we were going with that what goes on in the teepee theme…

I’m excited though to be in NY for all of ballet season, for the first time in a long time this year. Between ABT and NYCB I don’t think I’ve missed a day of ballet in the past week.

But, still, it’s always nice to go away. Some of my favorite pics from the past:

(an unusually warm May day in the northern sea-side town)

Riccardo Cocchi rocking it out with his former partner, Joanne.

Karina Smirnoff when she last competed.

Sergey and Melia the first time I saw them dance and the first time they placed in the finals. Kind of funny, it looks a bit like he’s spanking her here 🙂

On the train ride from Manchester to  Blackpool. Sheep! I know, why do Americans always take such pictures? It’s like we don’t have any such animals here…

Curry dinner from Taka Dance’s Japanese restaurant, which they set up in the base of the Winter Garden for the duration of the festival.

Slavik with Elena Khvorova, last time I saw Slavik compete.

Max and Yulia’s advert page in the program the year they made the top six.

The nearby beach. Pretty but cold.

Cheesy, Vegas-y “Eiffel Tower” that houses a lot of casinos and pinball machines, along with pseudo-Vegas-type shows.

Day trip to Liverpool, in between Latin and Standard finals.

The always happening Ruskin Hotel where people like Maks Chmerkovskiy can often be found.

Arunas and Katusha in last year’s finals.

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REMINDER: DANCE TIMES SQUARE SHOWCASE COMING UP

Next Monday evening, May 11th.

 

See my earlier post for more info.

Ridiculously, I won’t be able to make it; I’m going out of town and won’t be back yet. But I met a very nice guy, DJ McDonald, in the Facebook Dance Bloggers group and he’s going to cover it for me!

I’m really interested to hear — of course what Pasha and Anya do, and Travis, and Twitch, and Sabra, and Eugene and Maria — but also how audiences like David Parsons’s Caught. I’m sure they’ll go absolutely wild over it. This may be a way to bring modern dance and ballet to a wider audience, integrating it with forms of dance that are more popular and accessible right now, like ballroom! So I’m really glad Tony and Melanie are exposing fans of ballroom and SYTYCD to something like this. Big huge kudos to them! And with Sabra now a part of Cedar Lake, who knows what future collaborations could happen…

Anyway, if anyone else is able to go (Shim?! — or any other fans of ballroom, SYTYCD, or Parsons — or modern dance — expose yourself to ballroom!, and it’s on a Monday night, so is not going to interfere with most other dance performances in the city), please please let me know what you think and I will post your thoughts!

Go here for tickets.

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GREAT GATSBY BALLET

 

BalletMet Columbus, based in Columbus Ohio, is currently putting on a ballet version of the F. Scott Fitzgerald classic.

Says 35-year-old choreographer Jimmy Orrante: ” The story has parallels with today, with the cycle repeating of people going to parties, being careless with overspending and going into debt. The parties were big and the spending was big — without any question of how much things cost.”

Says artistic director Gerard Charles: “The era is a good one to portray in dance but there are certainly challenges to it because of the literary style of the writing.”

I’ll say! I love modern story ballets; should be interesting. It appears it’s showing this weekend and next. Anyone in Ohio?

 

Via Mr. Elegant.

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PRESIDENT AND MRS. OBAMA HONORARY CHAIRS OF ABT’S GALA

 

 

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.

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AFRICA AND CATALONIA IN NEW YORK

 

Today begins the New York African Film Festival, at the Walter Reade Theater at Lincoln Center. I love New York for things like this — particularly the Walter Reade, which most often hosts the foreign film festivals here. There are loads of intriguing-looking films showing as part of the NYAFF — comedies, tragedies, tragicomedies, political, historical, documentary — you name it. One, in particular, caught my dancing eye: Nora, about Nora Chipaumire of Urban Bush Women. I’d seen her dance at Jacob’s Pillow two years ago and she really blew me away. The film is about her return to her native Zimbabwe, where she remembers her youth. According to the description, the film “brings her history to life through performance, dance, sound, and image” and “includes a multitude of local performers and dancers of all ages.” Famed Zimbabwean musician Thomas Mapfumo composed the music. It’s showing together with another film, Coming of Age, about Kenya’s road to democracy as seen through the eyes of a young girl. There are so many films. The festival runs at the Walter Reade through the 14th, then travels to Columbia University and then Brooklyn Academy of Music. Visit their website for the full schedule.

Then, April 15th begins the Catalan Days Festival, a NYC-wide celebration of all things from Catalonia and the Balearic Islands. This festival includes free food samplings, plays, film, music, literature, and of course dance. The Baryshnikov Arts Center is the main host of the dance events. Visit BAC for a dance schedule, and the Catalan Days website for the full lineup. Happily, this festival runs all the way through mid-May.

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PASCAL RIOULT DANCE THEATER REHEARSAL

 

Today I, along with several other bloggers, was invited to a studio rehearsal of Pascal Rioult’s The Great Mass, which will premiere at the Joyce Chelsea in two weeks. Set to Mozart’s Mass in C Minor, it looks like it will be really glorious. Today all the dancers were in workout clothes, and Rioult (who is from France, and a former Martha Graham dancer) gave them instructions, but I can’t wait to see the fully costumed final product onstage.

I really like these rehearsals and am so glad dance companies are inviting us to view the process. First to begin inviting (that I know of anyway) was Cedar Lake Contemporary Dance, then TAKE Dance, Elisa Monte Dance Co., now Rioult, and perhaps Dances Patrelle, upcoming in two weeks as well. The process of dance-making is, I feel, unlike the creation of any other art because of its collaborative nature, and I feel like being allowed into the process a bit allows me to understand the art form better. I wish choreographers would let us to watch even earlier on, when they’re very first conceiving a work! As long as my schedule is flexible, I love coming to these things. I feel like Edwin Denby watching Balanchine! 🙂

Anyway, more to come on Rioult as soon as their season begins in two weeks. In the meantime, visit their website for info and a video of his dance set to Maurice Ravel music.

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WOW — DANCE TIMES SQUARE IS GOING ALL OUT

For their May11th “ballroom” showcase at the Danny Kaye Playhouse. I put ballroom in parenthesis because, though the studio specializes in Latin / Ballroom instruction (and is the studio where I took lessons with Pasha), it seems that they are really expanding, at least for their biannual showcases, which used to be student-oriented and are increasingly centering on pro performances — and pros of all kinds, not just ballroom.

The May 11th show will feature, in addition to Pasha and Anya (!); David Parsons Dance Company performing Caught (regular readers of this blog know how I feel about that dance 🙂 ); Sabra Johnson, Travis Wall and Twitch from So You Think You Can Dance; the Mark Stuart Eckstein Dance Company (which I don’t know of); choreographer Tricia Brouke’s OtherShore; opera star Aprile Millo; and for ballroom, the EXCELLENT Eugene Katsevman and Maria Manusova, top American Smooth contenders J.T. Thomas and Tomas Mielnicki, and (the very good, very sexy) former Latin junior champs Manuel Favilla and Karolina Paliwoda.

Expected guest attendees include Baryshnikov (!), Desmond Richardson (!), Edie Falco, Susan Sarandon, Cynthia Nixon, Mickey Rourke, Barbara Walters, Antonio Banderas, Harvey Keitel, John Turturro, and more — including judges and choreographers from SYTYCD (which DTS studio owners Tony Meredith and Melanie LaPatin choreograph for as well).

I’m happily stunned that my ballroom studio has become kind of this major outlet for popular concert dance in the city!

There’s also an after-party at the studio, as well as a pre-show reception at the Danny Kaye Playhouse for Angel on a Leash, which the program is benefitting. Angel on a Leash sponsors rehabilitative dogs (for people with seeing, hearing disabilities, etc.)  Go here for more info.

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DANCE BRAZIL WEBCASTING LIVE

Dance Brazil, who will be performing at the Skirball Performing Arts Center at NYU March 19-22, will be webcasting live part of their show on the 22nd. Ritmos, which I reviewed here, will be broadcast at 6:45 EST. You can watch either at Dance Tech or Dance Brazil’s website. This is a very popular dance troupe here in New York and I’m so glad they’re taking advantage of the internet in this way to reach new audiences. I hope more dance companies can follow suit. If you can watch, do let me know what you think!