I’m not sure what exactly is wrong with my blog lately, but it seems to be doing some rather odd things. For one, it’s inexplicably placed the sidebar at the bottom of the main page (though on all other pages it’s normal). So, if you’re on the main page and need to find something on the blogroll or do a search, please scroll all the way down. It’s also doing other crazed things like not allowing me to properly categorize new links (so, all links that I’ve added in the past few weeks are under “Other” all the way down at the bottom, even if they should be under “Dance: ballet,” etc.) It’s also inexplicably publishing posts before I hit the “publish” button, so sorry if something looks half done (it probably is). And, finally, comments are weird — some are going to spam without me sending them there and some are just not posting. Hopefully everything will work out. I apologize for the inconvenience which is hopefully only momentary! Methinks WordPress 2.7 is great in theory but has some real kinks…
JAMES SAMSON IS ALSO VERY CUTE
This is my profund thought of the day. Sorry, it’s Saturday morning and it’s been a long week.
Anyway, I do think Samson has an expansive quality to his dancing that makes him very compelling to watch, and the quintessential Paul Taylor dancer. I remember noticing him in TAKE (his headshot is at the bottom of that linked-to post, by the way). The way he makes broad, sweeping movements, the way he makes use of the stage, the fullness and breadth.
Last night was ...Byzantium, Changes, and Arden Court, the latter two of which I loved, particularly the last, which was really lovely and made me realize what it is about Paul Taylor that people love. More coming soon!
In the meantime, I’m off to my last Paul Taylor performance of the season. Sadly.
HARASSMENT
I am continuing to get emails from members of the FDNY over this, accusing me of making the whole thing up. Why would I do that? I was obviously really upset about it, which is why I wrote about it. Why are they so threatened and unable to take criticism? And why not limit comments to the post?
Well, the wonderful James Wolcott, whose writerly support I’m always so immensely thankful for, found the story compelling and quoted from it, so it’s not like they can harass me into taking it down.
GUEST BLOGGER CHRIS ATAMIAN REVIEWS GROUNDWORKS
My first guest blogger!
Christopher Atamian, who I met recently while watching Complexions at the Joyce, is a very accomplished arts writer. He writes regularly for Dance Magazine, and for the Daily Candy-esque (but far better!) arts e-letter eCognoscente (which he co-founded). He’s also the former dance critic for the New York Press and has written for the New York Times, among other leading publications. Chris has been kind enough to write a full review of the GroundWorks performance I posted about very briefly.
(I don’t know what kind of “dance publication” this is, by the way. Can’t figure it out.) Anyway, here’s the review:
Contemporary Dance Theater…Created from the Ground Up…in Cleveland, no less…Who knew? (Or: The Little Dance Company That Could)
Or if this were a “mainstream dance publication”: GroundWorks DanceTheater brought its unique mixture of subtle humor, intelligent choreography, and vigorous movement to the West End Theater, March 5-9, 2009.
By Christopher Atamian
Less is sometimes more, indeed. In the wonderfully intimate and strangely proportioned West End Theater (i.e. thirty-foot domed ceilings and decorative arches overlooking a mere 84 seats and a semi-circular dance floor the size of my back pocket), the Cleveland-based company presented a charming and sometimes clever New York début—think classically-influenced movement set to contemporary and new music. It’s hard to judge five dancers on a shoestring budget making what was by all accounts remarkable use of their tiny dance area. The company members are obviously quite talented—one wonders what their performances would look like with more elaborate sets and costumes and a few more dancers? Could GroundWorks evolve into a more important presence in the dance world?
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PAUL TAYLOR’S BELOVED RENEGADE
Saturday night I saw Paul Taylor’s 2008 dance, Beloved Renegade, which is having its New York premiere this season, receiving rave reviews from the critics and bloggers (some of which I linked to here).
I liked but didn’t love it and it could have been because my expectations were high, or because part of it reminded me of his earlier Company B, which I loved (and which I believe is his masterpiece). It’s set to Gloria (choral music) by Francis Poulenc and I found it to be an expressionistic piece based on poet Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass. At the top of the program notes on the dance, are Whitman’s words from Leaves: “I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world.” And each section is titled after a section of that long poem: “I am the poet of the body and I am the poet of the soul,” “I sing the body electric,” “I bend to the dying lad, his eyes open, a half-smile gives he me,” etc.
There’s kind of a poetic figure, dressed in all white and danced by the very compelling Michael Trusnovec, who mainly, for the first part, watches others dance — a young, playful couple, an older couple, — and it’s like he’s reflecting on his own life, or keenly observing the lives of others to record, reflect on, analyze (which is what writers do, after all). It doesn’t seem as if he knows what will happen beforehand, and he seems devastated when the boy of the young couple dies — perhaps in the war. There’s a sad scene where several soldier-types crawl on the ground toward Trusnovec’s poet. He helps one halfway up, cradles him in his arms, before he dies. Whitman was a medic in the Civil War so this section is likely an expression of that.
And that’s where I couldn’t get Company B out of my mind.
BARYSHNIKOV TALK GOOD BUT I AM PISSED AT BARNES & NOBLE
Last night at Barnes & Noble, Lincoln Square, Mikhail Baryshnikov talked briefly with New Yorker dance critic Joan Acocella about his new book of photos of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company, Merce My Way. (I love the title, by the way).
The talk was brief (about half an hour) but pretty good. But, honestly, I had a very hard time getting over my anger at Barnes & Noble. I arrived early in order to get a good seat up front, knowing (hoping at least) it would be crowded. But on my way in, I was stopped by a B&N employee. She said they were giving “preference” to people who purchased his book, which cost $36. She pointed me to the cash register, set up, conveniently, right next to the entrance.
I was so mad. There was such a crowd already, it was pretty clear “preference” meant that unless you were buying a book, you weren’t getting in. And in this economy, $40 is a lot to spend when you’re not expecting it. Honestly, I found it a really sleazy, unfair corporate practice to take advantage of his fame like that to sell books. A lot of people must have come from a ways away to see him, and you’re not really going to walk away if you’ve traveled. People were standing around looking like they didn’t know what to do, hesitantly withdrawing their wallets and picking up a book. “We’re a couple, can we get in on one book?” I heard someone ask the people at the door.
I mean, this was advertised as a regular talk / author reading event, which are always free. Nothing in the adverts (at least the ones I saw) said anything about having to purchase a book. As Ron Hogan (of the pub / book blogs Galley Cat and Beatrice) tweeted me (and damn, was I a mad tweeter last night), “seriously. if bookstores want to pull that crap, let them charge $40 IN ADVANCE and include the book w/admission.”
Just as I was getting mad about missing Bill T. Jones (who was giving a talk downtown) for this b.s., I saw my friend Monica Wellington (who I met through Philip). They’d agreed to let her buy the Joan Acocella book instead, which was less expensive. She told them at the door we were together, so they let me in. Thank you thank you, Monica!!
Anyway, the talk was pretty good, albeit short (about half an hour). I’d never heard him speak before, other than giving a brief sound byte on a pre-recorded interview. He is, as expected, charming and smart, though he talks very slowly, thinks hard about his words as if he’s always too far ahead of himself, struggles with English, and digresses frequently. None of which were a big deal, and his digressions often led to entertaining little tidbits.
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EMAIL IN RESPONSE TO My "ONE-SIDED" POST
I just received this email in response to my One-Sided post (which is nonfiction and is most definitely true in its entirety), which was also posted on Huffington Post.
I read your story One-Sided: EMTs Should Not Make Assumptions in the Huffington Post. As a 17 year vet of FDNY EMS I must say I was shocked by your story and your allegations. You have made a lot of disturbing claims against what you call “City EMT’s” and I must say simply based on what you have written I have my doubts about your story.
You are on a train when a person falls “unconscious”. They get the conductor he calls for help and the train waits at the station. Now you write:
“Seconds later, two women saying they were nurses appeared. They carefully turned the man over, felt a pulse, and ensured he was breathing. Sighs of relief spread throughout the car and the West Indian woman squeezed my hand hopefully. One nurse asked for some kind of stick to hold the man’s tongue down. A woman fumbled in her purse and produced a nail file, which the nurses took. They told a burly man sitting nearby to hold the collapsed man’s heavy, boot-clad legs up in the air and asked a woman to search his pockets for identification to give paramedics when they arrived. When the nurses pulled the file from the man’s mouth, it was covered with blood. “Oh no, oh God!” voices echoed. “He probably just bit his tongue,” someone said. Several people had now come from other cars and were looking in, concerned. “Is he drunk?” a man asked. “Don’t think so. I was near him and didn’t smell anything,” said another.”
I wonder why anyone would stick anything into someone’s mouth?
LIVE BLOGGING DANCING WITH THE STARS SEASON EIGHT PREMIERE
Yay, tonight is here! I’m ridiculously excited, even though I wasn’t in love with last season. So, have decided to live blog. Upstairs Godzilla unfortunately just came home and is whacking her tail all about, crashing into walls, thundering down on my ceiling / her floor. She must be excited about the show too.
Oh well; I’ve turned on the closed-captioning.
Shawn Johnson trips on her way down the stairs during introductions. Doesn’t fall or anything. Kind of funny.
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SEASON CRUSH: PAUL TAYLOR’S MICHAEL APUZZO
Now that Sebastien and Roberto and cohorts have, evilly, fled New York City for Washington DC, poor SLSG has had no choice but to look elsewhere for worthy crush objects. Quite happily, she has found one in this new Paul Taylor guy!
Seriously, I noticed this one right away in the first piece on Saturday’s program, Mercuric Tidings, a fun, flighty, pure movement / music-made-visual dance set to Franz Schubert. Apuzzo was sprightly and precise and had great form, but was also very animated and theatrical.
I nearly burst out laughing when I looked at his bio in the program because I always go for the dramatic types!
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BARYSHNIKOV, JOAN ACOCELLA, BILL T. JONES
Please excuse the blurry photo; I took it on the escalator last night at Barnes and Noble, where I went after Paul Taylor (review soon!) Thankfully I decided to visit the bookstore; I hadn’t known about this, even though I’m on B&N’s events mailing list…
So, this Tuesday, March 10th, Joan Acocella (New Yorker dance critic) will be in conversation with Mikhail Baryshnikov at Barnes & Noble, Lincoln Square (66th and Broadway) to discuss Baryshnikov’s new book of photos of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company, Merce My Way.
But same night same time, Bill T. Jones is giving a talk at Skirball. Now what?
BALLROOM DANCE CHANNEL’S ONLINE DANCE LESSONS
For people who are interested in learning ballroom dance and don’t have access to a studio (or do have access but would rather learn in the privacy of your home), the Ballroom Dance Channel (a website begun by several Dancing Wtih the Stars pro dancers) is offering downloadable lessons that you can watch via computer, or, apparently now via an iphone as well. I was given a little preview of two of the basic lessons: the samba and the salsa.
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PAUL TAYLOR: DREAMS AND FUNNIES
So, Paul Taylor season is currently underway at New York City Center. I’ll be going several times next week and will be writing more then, but last week I saw three dances: Funny Papers, De Suenos (Of Dreams), and De Suenos Que Se Repiten (Of Dreams That Keep Recurring) — the third a continuation of the second. The first is a humorous piece from 1994 based on newspaper comics, with sections entitled I’m Popeye the Sailor Man and I Like Bananas Because They Have No Bones. The two Dreams pieces, from 2007, like real dreams, ranged from funny to nonsensical to ominous, then back to funny again and were populated by characters like a faun (above), a “golden girl” / angelic character tiptoeing around with a golden crown / halo atop her head, righting all the wrongs created by a devil, peasant women selling flowers and the women or men who buy them, and some underworld urchins who go to battle. I didn’t find any of these pieces tremendously profound, but they were funny and entertaining and often contained surprises both in movement and character-type — not at all cliched.
Paul Taylor is of course one of the masters of American modern dance, loved by most critics and dance fans. My experience with his work thus far has been limited mainly to American Ballet Theater’s production last season of his Company B, which I loved. So I greatly look forward to seeing more next week. The company performs through March 15th. Go here for more info and tickets.