Category: Uncategorized

Posted on

Am I Too Hard on Contemporary Choreographers?

I the weekend largely looking at art. On Friday night, my friend Dee and I went to the Whitney’s Kara Walker exhibit, “My Complement, My Enemy, My Oppressor, My Love,” about slavery and the Ante-Bellum South, which was excellent, and something everyone who has a chance should see. And the night before, my friend Alyssa invited me an opening of Shinique Smith’s show, “All Purpose,” at the Moti Hasson gallery in Chelsea.

This piece is titled “Thank You, Come Again.” I turned off my flash, because I’m always afraid it’s going to hurt the artwork, so the pics are a bit blurry, but this one’s comprised of several articles of clothing, all clumped together and affixed to the wall, a few scraggly threads trailing from the bottom looking to me almost like blood or tears, and a pile of socks with a sole red rose in the center beneath the wall hanging, on the floor.

Smith basically assembles her artwork from used / found objects, which reminded me of John Jasperse. Alyssa, who’s an Art history grad student specializing in African, told me using found objects rather than buying new is big among African artists right now because it symbolizes a rebellion against colonialism, globalization and the cultural imperialism of the West. (Smith is from Baltimore, but apparently is associated with African artists.)

I thought this one was charming. (Unfortunately, the gallery didn’t have the names of the artwork in its press release or on its website, so I don’t know all the names of the pieces). To me this looks like an animal, like a donkey, and I found the “head” and “ears” sweet because they’re made of a satiny fabric and tulle respectively, making me think of dance of course. Alyssa thought it looked “flamenco.” But the animal, who is carrying several adorable stuffed animals on its shoulders, appears to be carrying heavy bags on its side as well, so it looks a bit overburdened though not downtrodden.I liked this one because it made me think of Ian McEwan‘s novel “Enduring Love.” There was a rope attaching the crate to a pole in the ceiling, so it resembled a hot air balloon, and that book opens with a horrifying hot air balloon ride gone heinously wrong. The doe at the bottom is nostalgic to me, maybe because it looks like something my grandparents would always keep in a glass cabinet in their living room.

This one, the ‘star’ piece, is called “Glutton.” It was made of gilded cushions, with a red velvet blanket spilling out underneath. Alyssa and her friends thought it looked like a Buddha, which I guess it does, but is Buddha associated with gluttony? I found it beautiful but somewhat hideous at the same time; like incredible wealth and how it can be so striking but can also pervert or uglify.

Alyssa in foreground with friends Alison and Kim (who is an artist in Connecticut) in back. We joked about how Alyssa is becoming the “Where’s Waldo” of my blog 🙂 It was a very well-attended opening.

Anyway, I really enjoyed it, just walking around sipping Vodka (compliments of the exhibit’s sponsor), chatting with friends, and observing, investigating the art, trying to figure out how it was assembled, what materials it was made of, what all of the component objects were, what the work as a whole meant, symbolized, or evoked for me. The whole exhibit had kind of an air of nostalgia to me and made me a bit sad, sweet as the sculptures or wall figures were.

But it made me think about Jasperse too. I liked a lot of Smith’s pieces, but nothing really blew me away the way Jasperse’s clothes hanger sculpture / set did, the same way that none of his choreographic uses of found objects knocked me out like the hangers. And yet overall I still really enjoyed the Smith exhibit. But I was hard on Jasperse, coming away from the performance generally more disappointed. And I wonder why that is… if it’s that I expect more from dance (or something different anyway), if it’s that I spend more time with a dance performance, or more money on it (assuming I’m not buying the artwork anyway). Maybe it’s that I was physically closer to the art, could investigate it more thoroughly and take my time with it, or maybe it’s just that the drink and friendly chatter added to my enjoyment? … Anyway, after this exhibit, I felt like I shouldn’t have been as hard on Jasperse.

Another interesting discussion ensued amongst us ladies: whether you need to know something about the artwork in order to appreciate it or whether a work of art should stand entirely on its own. Funny to me because Jolene and I had just had a similar discussion on her blog (see comments here) regarding the two new abstract ballets ABT just put on. Alison said she didn’t necessarily need to know very much about a work, but titles and little notes did help. Sometimes. For example, the title in the top piece, “Thank You, Come Again,” which the artist’s note says is made from “ex-boyfriend’s clothes,” made her realize the pile of socks wasn’t just a mound of dirty underwear sitting on the floor for no purpose, they were remnants of the subject’s ex and they illustrated her sorrow and emptiness, a feeling made all the more powerful by the rose in the middle.

But, Alison added, Mark Rothko (whose art at least in his later years was extremely abstract, usually consisting of a sole geometric shape or different colored horizontal lines on a canvas) could give detailed names to all of his paintings until he was blue in the face and she would still see only abstract shapes.

I remember from the Kara Walker exhibit a drawing of an old white man, shirtless and with saggy male breasts, who was kind of breast-feeding a black baby. But he didn’t look so happy about it; rather, he tried to shield his rather disgusted expression from the baby’s mother. The image was striking and I kind of understood the racial aspect, but it meant so much more when I read in the curator’s explanation that the white man was famous abolitionist John Brown. So Walker is commenting upon the futility of white-led abolitionism and questioning the patriarchal reverence with which this man is held.

Another silhouette appeared to me, on first look, like a woman was jumping up excitedly, kicking her heels in the air, doing a little happy dance. But it also looked like her wrist was falling off and there was a spill on the ground below her that looked like a big mess. After reading the curator’s words I realized it was a pool of blood; she’d slit her wrist, and was dancing in excitement because by committing suicide, she’d freed herself and performed her own small role in abolishing slavery by depriving it of property.

Even just the silhouettes themselves: I hadn’t realized this little decorative art form was a fixture of, first aristocratic, then haute-bourgeois households, the poser usually being a delicate white woman; in fact, portraiture technique in the 1800s became a way of training “good ladies.” So, by painting most of her subjects in this way, Walker was turning an upper-class white art form on its head. The curator’s notes also say that the silhouette mimics the reductiveness of stereotypes, which I thought of as I was viewing the exhibit. But not knowing the history of silhouettes, I would have missed out on the class issue.

Anyway, sorry this post is all over the place. I’m starting to blab so am going to go to bed now. I also just wanted to point out that there’s a great conversation taking place on Apollinaire’s blog regarding dance-makers’ obligations to their audiences. Go here to take part. The dance blogosphere is becoming fun!

Posted on

Oh Roberto!

Hehehe, thanks to Jen & Jolene, I noticed this Gap ad right off when I opened my New York magazine tonight. The man is Italian ballet star Roberto Bolle, whom I saw dance with Alessandra Ferri in her farewell performance with ABT and couldn’t stop going on about. The ballerina is Greta Hodgkinson, whom I don’t know, but is, according to the J girls, with the National Ballet of Canada.

Great “Dancing With the Stars” tonight! I honestly liked all of them. I think the routines are so creative, ironically so much more so than those on “So You Think You Can Dance” (the Latin / ballroom routines I mean). So big huge kudos to those pro DWTS dancers. Helio can do no wrong in my world 🙂 And Jenny has improved so much; that alone makes me want to root for her. And I thought the band was fantastic — that rendition of “Satisfaction” was really surprisingly good. You don’t think about the band since they’re in the background, but songs like that are so very easy to screw up, and they didn’t.

Posted on

A Beautiful Balanchine, A Fashionista Ballet, and the Astounding Jermel Johnson!

My work week was a bit rough, so I’m trying to catch up on my blogging this weekend. Sorry for the delay!

Wednesday night, Apollinaire invited me to see Pennsylvania Ballet at City Center. According to the reviews, this company used to perform in NY frequently, but as of late has not. So, this was my first time seeing them. Unfortunately, I was only able to view one program — which included Balanchine’s “Serenade” and a contemporary ballet “Carmina Burana” by young choreographer-in-residence there, Matthew Neenan. This company strikes me as being very courageous in taking on Balanchine’s masterpieces (in addition to “Serenade,” they performed “Concerto Barocco” in another program), and in presenting inventive new works. And, two of the most important words I have to say about this company are: Jermel Johnson (pictured above)! Fabulous fabulous extremely versatile dancer, whom I’ll get to in a minute!

So, as I said, first on the program was “Serenade.” This was only my second time seeing it — first was watching Kyra Nichols’s final performance with the New York City Ballet last spring in the huge State Theater, from all the way up in the Fourth Ring. Funny but sitting in orchestra so close to the stage this time took a little of the magic away. This is a ballet you need some distance from the stage really to see properly, to take in the beauty and majesty of it all. It’s a glorious ballet, though, regardless.

It begins with an ensemble of ballerinas, all dressed in cloud-blue long tulle, making various almost ritualistic movements, such as looking up to the skies and holding their palms up, then swooping the same arm back over the head and looking the other direction — that to me evoke attempts to shield themselves from fate, from the wrath of the gods. Eventually a man enters the stage and a lead ballerina dances a series of increasingly romantic waltzy pas de deux with him, he sweeping her off her feet, her falling head over heels for him. At the end of the first part, the man walks offstage, the ballerinas all rush after him, and the ballerina who had waltzed with him collapses to the floor, nearly getting trampled.

To me, this is where it gets going, the collapsing is such an upsetting event. Another man enters from the opposite wing, slowly walks toward the fallen woman, but there is another ballerina behind him, and she’s holding her hand over his eyes, blinding him. Perhaps he is fate, justice, which is blind, or blinded perhaps by an angel of death. The “angel” allows the man to interact with the fallen ballerina, bringing her to life, the three do a beatific pas de trois together, the angel at one point lifting her arms behind the man who is behind the fallen ballerina as if they’re wings, as if the three can fly away together into another realm.

The corps of ballerinas return, several of whom partner off with various young boy dancers, and eventually the man portraying the kind of spirit of fate and the ‘angel of death’ disappear, and four men pick up the fallen ballerina, raise her sky high, and carry her off, through the corps, toward a light, she arching back as if leaving her body behind her, her soul being taken into the spirit world. It’s an abstract, but emotionally evocative ballet: “For all its emotional specificity, Serenade is ultimately as abstract as a symphony, rooted in recognizable human interaction yet inexplicable save on its own terms” says Terry Teachout in his book, “All In the Dances.” It’s so sadly beautiful; you almost want to cry at the end.

The second ballet of the evening was “Carmina Burana,” set to dramatic choral music by Carl Orff and performed by the New York Choral Society. You’ve heard parts of this music before if you’ve seen “Mission Impossible” or that kind of big-action Hollywood blockbuster; it’s often used during those huge climactic scenes where everything is getting blown to bits. Anyway, I saw a post on Ariel’s blog today and nearly cracked up at a picture she took of a production of a ballet by the same name by Mobile Ballet. Clearly, it was not Matthew Neenan’s version.

Hehe, if ever “So You Think You Can Dance” showcased a longish ballet, I think it may look something like this. In this production, the set consisted of a kind of futuristic, diaphonous tent, through which dancers sometimes entered and exited the stage. The ballet began with a group of dancers emerging from the tent dressed in nude-colored unitards but with a long, thick snake-skin-looking stripe winding diagonally down the back. They moved in very reptilian-looking ways: flexed hands and feet, splayed limbs, arched backs at times bent over, at times hands to the floor. They looked like iguanas, lizards, snakes — definitely creatures from either another species or another planet.

After they left, a group of women emerged wearing new-age-style, very sexy strapless white wedding-looking gowns, with ruffles cascading down to the floor in back, but slit wide open in front all the way up to the crotch. Underneath the gowns they wore clear unitards with an almost porcelain sheen bearing splotches of intricate black patterns throughout. Apollinaire thought they resembled tattoos; I thought lace. To be honest, I don’t remember their movement all that well because my attention was so focused on the costumes.

Coexistent with this group of “erotic brides” were several male / female couples performing duets. These dancers wore beige unitards that had long pieces of material emanating from the back that at times resembled wings, and could also be used for the dancers to wend themselves to each other (as in photo above). Some time later, two men dressed in black silk costumes that to me resembled Asian emperor-esque uniforms, with high collared-shirts that billowed at the shoulders, and wide-thighed pants, performed a breathtaking pas de deux, climbing atop, thrashing against, and bouncing off each other in a competition that was nevertheless underscored by respect. Their dance to me was slightly reminiscent of Mia Michaels’s ‘Princes’ pas de deux for Danny and Neil on So You Think You Can Dance. This, and the end, were my favorite parts.

That was followed by the emergence of several female dancers donning twisty beehive hairdoes and dressed in tight, red, corset-style tops with black skirts, the butt of which bore a bustle underneath, so that their back sides stuck up and out. They looked like cute little bees, or perhaps lady bugs waddling about stage. Actually, now that I think of it, I guess they kind of resembled characters from the cartoon The Jetsons as well, particularly if that white tent-looking thing could double for a space ship. I also recall a pair of dancing girls in red fringe, doing a theater-style can can-esque number at one point.

Finally, dancers wearing only nude-colored unitards with no reptilian patches emerged from the tent / cocoon / spaceship and performed the closest thing to traditional ballet I saw in that piece, involving beautiful balletic partnering sequences, the men performing virtuostic leaps and corkscrew jumps. As the music crescendos to a climax at the end, so does the dance, ending with a series of glorious group lifts.

Definitely very weird, and visually striking. The costumes and the odd, awkward movements, that varied depending on which garb the dancers donned, kept you wondering what was going on, which group of creatures / characters were being portrayed now, who they were and what would happen to them, which new group would emerge, and what was their relation to each other? It was here that Mr. Johnson blew me away. That man is a miracle: he could dance everything — he did the reptilian creature to a tee, with gangly limbs, loose hips and pelvis, and a hyper-flexible, near vertebra-less back that could curve into a concave hump then easily and immediately flex back into an African pose with shoulders and hips pointing to the ceiling, back arched like a cat ready to pounce. Then, when he performed the “emperor” scenes, his partnered lifts looked effortless — both his lifting the other man and his being lifted himself. And in the last scene, with the “human creatures” his classical ballet technique was as flawless as I could see — his grand jetes, his pirouettes, everything. He was amazing. Very very odd for someone to be able to dance starkly different styles so well.

Unfortunately, the company is only here in NY through tomorrow, Sunday. If you’re in the area, go here for tickets. Definitely worth seeing, here or wherever else they may tour, for Johnson alone.

Posted on

Junot Diaz is a Chatty Character, Who Knew?!

Look what Maud Newton found. Apparently, Google has a whole series of authors reading from their books and giving little lectures available for viewing on YouTube. The video embedded in Maud’s post is of Junot Diaz, whose collection of short stories, Drown, I loved, and whose new novel, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, I’m dying to read. Funny how chatty he is; often authors are so shy and introverted. He reads very slowly too, so you can get all the details. Many authors read fast, probably because of the shyness… There are other authors too: Jonathan Lethem, Jeffrey Toobin, Alex Ross… The series makes me very happy because I used to go to a lot of readings, but since I’ve taken to spending my evenings for the past couple of years at either dance performances or dancing myself, I’ve really missed them.

A couple of other things on the net recently: Laura Jacobs has an article about ABT dancer Veronika Part’s “Sleeping Beauty” out in The New Criterion, which isn’t available online for free, but James Wolcott has substantial quotes from it on his Vanity Fair blog. I’m currently reading Jacobs’s Landscape With Moving Figures, a collection of her dance writing in New Criterion covering about a 10-year period, and the first thing I noticed is how poetic she is when speaking about individual dancers. She talks about them so beautifully; it’s like they’re her muses. She has a chapter called “Assoluta,” which is about then current (2004) ballerina assolutas, or prima ballerinas, and she has a lengthy section on Part there. She describes Part as “a snow princess… (with) white white skin, black hair, a young Ava Gardner, a big white rose … (with) lotus-blossom aplomb, … (an) ivory-sceptor extension … pacific delicacy in the wrists and hands” and she calls Part’s developpe (slow lift of the leg, first by the thigh, then extending up and out as the knee straightens) as “not a step … but a glory,” that “comes up like a law of nature, almost animal, and stays like light.” Anyway, go here to read her writing on Part’s Sleeping Beauty.

Also, Ariel has posted several interviews she conducted with four New York City Ballet dancers when they guested recently with her hometown company, Mobile Ballet. The interviews are here and here and here and here.

Finally, there’s an interesting discussion going on between writers, bloggers, and readers about what the internet means for the future of dance journalism. See the comments section here.

And speaking of such, Doug has begun a new blog within his Great Dance blog devoted to dance reviews for each region. He’s started with New York. Anyone who’s written a review may submit.

Posted on

Just What I Need…

Thanks to my wonderful friend, Kathy, who knows what a horrendous sucker I am for anything containing substantial amounts of sugar, for alerting me to the fact that a new piggery, Crumbs, is opening tomorrow in the Financial District. They will be giving a complimentary cupcake of choice to the first 1000 patrons. Woo hoo! Because I didn’t just learn yesterday at the doctor’s office that I have now gained 9 pounds during my dance hiatus or anything…

Posted on

New York Lawyers Rallying in Support of Our Pakistani Brethren

Today I was invited via an email from the New York City Bar Association to a rally on the steps of the Supreme Courthouse in support of Pakistani judges and lawyers who have been dismissed from their positions, placed under arrest and some even tortured by President Musharraf’s military dictatorship that took hold on November 6th. To be honest, I’ve been so insanely busy lately, I’m embarrassed to say, I didn’t really know what was going on in Pakistan. One important benefit to being a member of the Bar!

So, earlier this month, Musharraf used his power as Army Chief of Staff to declare a state of emergency and suspend the nation’s Constitution. Non-government TV stations were shut down, as were all cell phone lines. Paramilitary troops surrounded the Supreme Court and all judges were dismissed, replaced by judges who pledged loyalty to the military regime. The President of the Bar Association and civil rights attorneys who protested the crackdown, among others, were arrested. Thousands others have been beaten in the streets, rounded up and arrested.

It was a good rally, organized by the New York County, City, and State Bar Associations, the Muslim Bar, Women’s Bar, and Amnesty International. There were several speakers, including the presidents of all organizing Bar associations and a man whose name I didn’t get but whose father is one of the currently detained judges.

To read more about what is going on in Pakistan, go here and here and here.

Posted on

A Weekend of Latin Dance With Two Ballet Legends

Julio!!! Today I trekked all the way out to the end of the 2 line, to Brooklyn College’s Performing Arts Auditorium, to see Julio Bocca’s very final performance in the United States. Julio, Argentinian ballet legend who spent most of his career with American Ballet Theater and who just retired from ABT last year (see my bizillion photos of that splendid event here), danced one final year with the ballet / tango company he founded in Argentina, Ballet Argentino, and is now permanently retiring from dance. His final performance is to be in Argentina next month. He’s 40 years old.

He’s so great. Watching him today made me sad again, remembering last year’s farewell. He looked really good, more in his element today actually than toward the end of his ABT days. He looked really happy and at ease. And he’s let his hair grow out, which to me looks a lot better than short:

At the end, in the final curtain call, he came out in a white bathrobe. At ABT’s final bow, he came out in tights only and had a beer, at one point pouring it all over himself. This curtain call was about 1/100th the length of last year’s, and I’m thinking it’s in large part because the theater was filled with regular Brooklyn College-ites and not Bocca fans. Several people around me exclaimed that they’d never seen the auditorium so packed. They didn’t seem to know…

Anyway, the performance, “Bocca Tango” was a series of balletic tangos, most very beautiful, some cute and humorous.

Julio shined in his solos, in which he danced gorgeous contemporary balletic pieces, one with a table as prop / set, and the other with a ladder. The ladder was my overall favorite, as, judging from the applause, was the audience’s.

The way he worked that ladder, snaking his body through the rungs, hurling himself onto a step and acrobatically throwing his legs up and over his body where they landed on a top bar. It was incredible, and looked very risky.

He also did a few duets with a female partner, and a couple with a male, in which he danced the female part. All pas de deux involved a combination of tango and ballet, so among all of the partnerships, including the male / male, there was both straight tango dancing and beautiful lifts. Julio makes a really lovely follower / ballerina 🙂 There was also a group number involving several couples, two male / female, one male / male (involving Julio again as ‘the feminine’). The male / male duets weren’t really homoerotic or romantic though; they were more cute and playful.

My favorite duet overall was one he danced with a woman to a swift allegro, a kind of milonga-style tango combined with swingy balletic lifts. They were both dressed in light blue — he shirtless and in pastel pants, she in a flowing knee-length baby blue dress. Both barefoot. Much of the partner dancing was barefoot, which I prefer to the typical high tango heels. It’s more natural, you can see the shape of the leg better when the dancer goes on releve (ball of foot), and of course the beauty of the foot itself. Plus, I think it’s easier to dance in bare feet, even if you’re on releve the whole time. He had another seductive number with another woman, both of them dressed only in underwear. The lights were very dimmed so you couldn’t really make out much besides the outlines of their bodies, making it all the more sensuous, in my opinion.

It was of course an irreplaceable experience to see Julio perform, but as far as the choreography went, after about the first hour, everything began to look the same: same overhead lifts, same tango steps, same combinations. I think the choreographer (Ana Maria Stekelman) could work to vary the choreography more, come up with some more original, more poetic lifts at least. And I haven’t taken much tango, but this seemed pretty basic. Luis Brava’s “Forever Tango” had a lot more variety. In Brava’s show, which I saw three or four years ago, I remember seeing a man lift his partner overhead, then, continuing to carry her, do chaine turns (continuous two-footed turns) diagonally across the room. It was breathtaking. I’ve never seen anything like it since.

I still can’t believe this was Julio’s final performance…

Saturday night, Apollinaire and I went to the Baryshnikov Arts Center in Hell’s Kitchen to see one of the best flamenco performances I’ve ever seen, Maria Pages‘s “Self Portrait.” Brilliant! Those bewitching hands! Those boneless wrists! How does she do it? She made me want to take flamenco again so badly.

One thing I really love about flamenco is how the band is part and parcel of the dance. Far from being stuck down in some orchestra pit, they sat adjacent to the stage, four band members on each side, their gaze concentrated on Maria. There was one male singer, one female, and instruments included drums, guitars (obviously) but even a cello! Apollinaire and I both remarked we’d never seen such an instrument at a flamenco performance before. The singing, especially the man (although Apollinaire loved the woman) was gorgeous. I don’t know that much about world music or dance (other than the little Latin I’ve taken) but the man’s singing sounded very Indian, not at all Spanish. Both song and dance seem filled with so much anguish and sorrow, but also celebration and immense beauty.

There were also two male dancers who accompanied Maria at points, and of course I went wild over their insanely fast footwork. Plus, one looked quite a bit like Herman, with long, black boyish curls. Irresistible!

The night was made all the more fun by the salon / cafe-style setting. Instead of a regular theater, they had set up little round tables surrounded by folding chairs, and they sold champagne (only $4 per cup!) and little nut mixes that you could bring into the “theater” with you. The relaxed atmosphere made you want to tap your feet to the infectious rhythm, clap your hands, snap your fingers, shout “Ole” and try to sing along with the band. I want more of these kinds of things! The last two numbers were danced to a remake of John Lennon’s “Imagine” (which is amazingly flamenco-friendly — who knew?!), and then the band members all began chanting and kind of cutely cajoling Maria into dancing some more. Their voices sounded like a kind of flamenco rap! So much fun.

Another highlight:

The man himself 🙂 Not onstage, but in the audience, front center. From where I was sitting, I had the perfect view of him and I couldn’t stop watching. I broke out into giggles at several points as well. He’s so cute. He wears his hair all mussed about and has a trendy goatee and he’s still very small and dancerly, so from afar he looks just like he always did; it’s only when you get up close you see all the lines on his face. When we were in the lobby and Apollinaire was taking care of the press tickets while I was placing my alcohol order, he walked in. The ticket collector called out to him. “Misha,” she called him! Not Mr. Baryshnikov!!! I know he probably told all of his employees to call him by his nickname, but still! Anyway, more cafe-style, participatory Latin dance events with Baryshnikov within reach please please 🙂

Finally, this has nothing to do with Latin dance or ballet legends or even dance in general, but while I’m on the subject of my crazy weekend, on Friday night my friend Alyssa, whose friend does PR for The Big Apple Circus, invited me to their gala. I haven’t been to the circus since high school, and I’ve never been to any gala event. Beforehand in the lobby they had very chi-chi hors d’oeuvres like mini duck tacos, along with open bar and cotton candy 😀 Then they gave us box dinners while we watched the show.

Mmmm

Alyssa enjoys a glass of wine with dinner.

Show was fun – -nothing big with elephants or tigers, but there were some good gymnasts and really cute dogs. I know I should probably be against any use of animals, but they were just so cute…

As long as they’re treated well… This lady had these adorable poodles walking on their hind legs carrying various objects. At one point a poodle came out dressed in an old lady’s moomoo and, walking on its hind legs holding a leash connected to a cat, walked the cat around the perimeter of the tent. Alyssa and I were laughing so hard we were crying.

Then, they had these amazing acrobats. This duo reminded me of David and Marcelo mainly I guess because of their hair color. Marcelo lay down on his back, raised his feet in the air, and kicked David all about, sending him into these continuous magnificient air sommersaults!

Sorry about the blur. I didn’t want to hurt anyone by turning on my flash.

Three was a great belly / hoola dancer.And these bronzed people who did these crazy lifts.

Christopher Meloni from Law & Order: SVU, and Meredith Viera, were the celebrity ringleaders.

Hehe, fun night! After the show, they brought out a mat and covered the show area with an array of desserts. It was like midnight buffet on a cruise ship. They had every kind of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream bar imaginable, an enormous cake with “Big Apple Circus” written all over it, cookies, chocolate-covered fruit, brownies, everything. I didn’t feel so well when I walked out of there to be honest. I do wonder how this compares to ABT’s galas…

Posted on

Norman Mailer

Norman Mailer died today of renal failure. He was 84 years old. Here’s a good write-up on his life and work from MSNBC, and here’s the NYTimes obit. He was an incredibly prolific author and won several Pulitzers. He is quoted as having despaired that today’s young writers aren’t even trying to write serious novels anymore; they’re not inspired by the great writing of, for example, Hemingway, the way he was and instead all just want to write screenplays, supposedly because writing movies pays well. I think the problem is not with the writers; it’s more that it’s near impossible to get a literary novel published these days. Agents and editors only want something that has the potential to sell very well. I wonder if that was so to the same extent in his younger days.

Posted on

"Artless" Weblog Awards

The 2007 Weblog award winners were announced today here. Again, there is no category for Dance. Nor is there a category for Performing Arts. Nor is there a category for Art. If you look at the Culture blogs, they’re all pop. Thankfully, there’s at least a category for Literature. Will I ever not be saddened by the role the arts does not occupy in our society?

Posted on

Mesmerizing Traditional Thai Dance Versus Dumb White People Tricks

Last night I had my first Jerome Bel experience at Dance Theater Workshop in Chelsea. I went to see the latest work by the French experimental choreographer known for refusing to return the money of disgruntled customers, entitled “Pichet Klunchun and myself.” In the piece, which the program says is an exploration of “very problematic notions such as euro-centrism, inter-culturalism or cultural globalization,” Bel and Thai dancer Klunchun (who is brilliant, by the way) sit on chairs across from each other, Bel with a laptop on his knees. Bel first interviews Klunchun, asking him about his work, Thai culture, the type of dance he practices — “Khon” — a centuries-old Thai dance, and asks him to illustrate various moves. Klunchun then queries Bel about the same regarding himself. The first half of the program I found fascinating and I recommend that everyone in NYC go see it (showing through Saturday, the 10th) for that reason alone.

Khon, Klunchun reveals, began with a Thai king, who danced himself, and is a celebration of Buddha. The body is literally like a temple, the Buddha contained within both the center of the body and the center of the temple. So, arms legs, hands and feet, like Thai architecture, are shaped so that the energy flows out from the center, down through the limbs and rooftop structures, and is then re-directed back to the center, to the Buddha of the temple and soul. That’s why Thai dancers hold their hands and feet as such, which the fingers and toes splayed and flexed outward and upward. After he gives this explanation and begins dancing, you can really see the arcs of energy radiating out and back and out and back. Thai dancers practice flexing their fingers backward, and he shows us how. Ouch! Bel tried to flex his own, but to no avail. I tried as well, equally unsuccessful. It looks like it takes as much work as balletic turnout.

I found his this fascinating, along with Klunchun’s illustrations. At one point, he walks slowly slowly slowly across the room, showing how the spirit of a character who has died inhabits the stage (this after Bel asks him to feign dying onstage and Klunchun says he can’t; for a character to die onstage is for the king to die, for the country to die). Anyway, in his walks, the feet slowly lift from the floor, almost toe by toe, then the knee slowly bends, the leg rises, lifts, extends out, bends, the foot slowly drops to the floor, the step only ending when the last toe has touched ground. I can’t explain — you just have to see for yourself — but it was mesmerizing. His movements were so perfectly stylized down to the very last detail, so formalized, not a skin cell out of place. It really made me want to see the Thai dancer in David Michalek’s Slow Dancing films again, especially now that I understand the movement. He illustrated the four main characters of Khon: male, female, demon, and monkey — demon being his specialty; monkey he can’t do to save his life (my word choice of course; his language, like his dancing was very formal and ascetic). At first I couldn’t see the difference between the characters, but after Bel asked him to explain, I understood. Everything is so subtle. You have to watch really closely. And you will because it’s really so breathtaking in its simplicity. When Klunchun finally danced the role of a woman learning that her husband had died, I understood every movement, every discreet but articulated gesture to a tee. Beautiful! Bel thought so too.

Throughout Bel’s interrogatories, there were little culture clashes, most of which I felt were forced and contrived. Bel exclaims to Klunchun that Western dance (meaning ballet) also originated from a king — King Louis. But it’s a superficial similarity, of course, as, far from having the energy re-directed to one’s inward Buddha: the French king demanded that his court dancers have their bodies always turned not straight ahead, but toward him, thus the balletic turnout. “You direct your energy out,” Klunchun says at one point, demonstrating a very funny faux grand jete. “Out, out, out,” he said as he leaped through the air throwing his arms up. He was really quite an actor and could be very funny in his deadpan seriousness.

Then Bel turned the tables and asked Klunchun what he would like to know. After the exchange of some personal details intended to reveal cultural differences (Klunchun doesn’t understand how Bel can be unmarried and have a child, for example), Bel gets up and illustrates his work. He plays music from his computer. The song is “Let’s Dance” by David Bowie. Bel walks to center stage and stands stationary, looking out at the audience, eyeing us left to right. After about a minute, he begins jumping around, breaking into an unsophisticated version of club dance. After another minute or two of doing that, he sits. Klunchun, playing the outsider / voice of reason asks him, basically, WTF?? (my words again). Bel explains that in France they had a Revolution during which commoners overthrew all of the royals, sparing no family members. Hence, long live the French principle of egalite. He is deconstructing the spectator / performer dichotomy, showing the audience that he is just like them, no better. “But why then would they pay?” asks the voice of reason. “Well, they sometimes want their money back, in fact,” says Bel. The audience erupts with laughter — clearly these are all Bel groupies in the know about his history. “And do you give it back?” asks Klunchun. “No.” You see, Bel explains, he is a “contemporary” artist — this means not ballet, not Swan Lake, not the Nutcracker. “Contemporary” means there can be no expectations, no preconceived notions. It’s in the present. The government pays him a lot of money to go out and do research on this present state of things, about which he then produces work. He walks back to center stage, throws a vase of pencils and other small object onto the floor, falls down, and pretends to fall asleep atop the objects. Not to sound like a philistine, but I really don’t understand what kind of research one needs to do in order to come up with this, Mr. Bel?

Later, Bel talks about the work I think he is most known for, “Jerome Bel,” in which a man and woman, both naked, come out onstage, stand, look down at their bodies, and begin scrunching together a role of fat from their waists, which they kneed up and down and all around, distributing the fat throughout their torsos. “The body is such a marvel in and of itself,” Bel exclaims orgiastically, “who needs movement!” With this piece, he says, he was trying to explore the bare essentials of theater. What better way to do that than by having a stage with no props, no costumes and hardly any light?

Okay, knowing me, this is the kind of thing I would have thought was brilliant — or maybe not brilliant but something I would have at least been into — when I was in college, so I do see where he has his followers. After last night, I have decided that I am not, however, one of them, if my tone hasn’t made that obvious. Having only seen this one piece of his, though, I could be missing something. Here is another perspective from someone I highly admire.

At the end, Bel has just finished sleeping onstage for several minutes to “Killing Me Softly,” when he gets up and begins to pull down his pants. “No, no,” Klunchun stops him. “I don’t, I don’t want to see you naked, Mr. Bel, it is not right.” “Why,” says Bel unzipping. “Because in Thailand, there are certain people you, you don’t share nakedness with,” Klunchun says visibly distraught. “But, Mr. Klunchun,” Bel snickers, “in Bangkok clubs, there’s lots of nudity.” “That’s different,” Klunchun says, averting his eyes, unable to hide a look of disgust, “they’re, they’re working.” “I’m working too,” Bel says with the tone of a high-schooler. “But in Bangkok, they’re working for tourists.” With this the Bel groupies moaned as if the skies had parted. The international trafficking of women as sex slaves has long been one of the most disturbing social issues to me, so this may well not be everyone’s reaction, but I found it completely insulting that Bel assumed that I didn’t already know the truth of Klunchun’s last line, that that was supposed to be a revelation to me as a white person.

Anyway, as I said, “Pichet Klunchun and myself” is totally worth seeing for Klunchun alone. Who knows, you may up enjoying the deconstructionist French guy as well. Go here for tix.

Posted on

Is the FAA Allowing Airlines to Jeopardize Our Lives?

Am I the only one who’s upset about this? I saw it on 7 News (NY’s ABC station) after Dancing With the Stars on Tuesday night, and I’m still all worked up over it. I still have post 9/11 stress and have only recently begun flying again, and just made a plane reservation to visit my mom in North Carolina over the holidays. And now this report about how in the past six months there’s been an insane number of emergency landings at Newark airport alone (guess which airport I’m flying into coming home…) because some airlines are cutting back on fuel, allowing each jet only the minimum amount necessary to get to its destination. Hence, any delay (because we all know those never happen) necessitating a detour, or circling around in the sky or sitting on a runway for any amount of time, equals very possible tragedy. The FAA seems not to even care. If costs of fuel are going up, increase the damn airplane prices???

And what’s up with 7 News not giving the names of the offending airlines? I would like to know if the airline I just bought my ticket for is one of those who has no value for human life so that I can demand a refund and take another. Which airline did the pilot who had to lie in order to protect his and his passengers’ lives work for? How can we protect ourselves?