Latest News

Posted on

New York City Ballet Opening Night

 

 

Eee, I’m totally not packed and have very little time to write!

Last night was opening night of NYCB. They had a pretty extensive program — nine dances altogether; a couple by Balanchine, one by Jerome Robbins, one by Susan Stroman (who choreographs a lot of Broadway shows), and the rest by NYCB artistic director Peter Martins.

My favorite overall was “The Unanswered Question” by Balanchine, danced by the bewitching Janie Taylor (pretty much my favorite female dancer in the company, with Kathryn Morgan running an extremely close second) and Daniel Ulbricht, who I liked better than I’ve ever liked before last night. In kind of typical Balanchinian lady-worship fashion, Janie was carried around by a group of men, hoisting her high above their collective heads, and far over Daniel’s. She was this ghostlike, very ethereal creature, representing his dream, his ideal, that toward which he strove and all that. The men dipped and dove and manipulated her body into different shapes, all the while Daniel reaching, reaching upward toward her, never able to make real contact. His internal struggle was apparent in every movement, and the strain on his face was heartbreaking. It was beautifully done.

 

My other favorites were Martins’ “A Fool For You” danced to a jazzy Ray Charles score performed by the Juilliard Jazz Orchestra. As ALWAYS Amar Ramasar stole the show for me (probably my favorite male dancer in the company) with his dramatics, his acting, his sweeping, hip swaying, jazzy moves. He has a very broad range of movement and can combine dance forms probably better than anyone in the company — at least anyone I’ve seen. And Andrew Veyette had a thrilling solo full of bravura ballet theatrics (around the stage barrel turns, grand leaps, multiple turns) and tumbling gymnastics. When I first saw him dance a couple of years ago, I didn’t think of him really as a virtuosic dancer, but he’s turning out to share that role well with Ulbricht and Joaquin de Luz.

 

And then Stroman’s “Blossom Got Kissed” was sweet, Charleston-y, adorable fun. Set to Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn and also performed by the Juilliard Jazz Orchestra, it’s a bit Tharpian in its contrast of ballet with American social / jazz era dance. Story is: quiet ballet girl tries to fit in with glitzy club girls dressed in sassy red minis but can’t dance her way out of a paper bag — not in their style anyway. Eventually, a cute but nerdy boy (dance-acted perfectly by Robert Fairchild) recognizes her potential, and sweeps her off into a lovely classical ballet pas de deux. Savannah Lowery was the ballet girl but stealing the piece to me was Kathryn Morgan. She had only a corps part but I don’t care, whatever she does, whenever she’s onstage I just can’t move my eyes from her. I don’t even know what it is about her. She dances perfectly, but so do many. There’s just something a bit more compelling with her that I can’t think of how to describe right now because I’m too tired…

 

Anyway, sorry for this very general, hastily-written review. If I have time I’ll probably write something more for Explore Dance. But in the meantime, I must pack!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Oh one other highlight: Sen. Chuck Schumer (he’s a great speaker, but I guess, duh…) was there introducing the State Theater’s new name: the David Koch Theater (named after the man who’s funding all the renovations).

One other thing: I tweeted a little about this too. I tweet more frequently than I blog these days. So feel free to follow me there. (I recently started and don’t have a lot of followers, or followees 🙂 — but there aren’t many dance people using Twitter either…)

Posted on

Annoyingly Unoriginal DWTS Finale

I hate to say it but I was bored. Again. Even for the finale.

Did they honestly waste a half an hour of my time by showing repeats of two earlier-in-the-season dances per couple? Please tell me I was just imagining it, that they really did find something more interesting on which to spend the first third of the show.

And didn’t they rip off Dirty Dancing with that footage of Brooke and Derek learning lifts in water?

And Lance & Lacey’s hip hop was fine I guess if you’re judging it from a ballroom-show perspective, but if you’ve seen America’s Best Dance Crew even once you know how hackneyed and unoriginal most of those moves were.

And how many times have I seen Proud Mary used for a jive?

And those kids’ competitions are getting really yawn-inducing too. The dancers are just so much better in America’s Ballroom Challenge.

It was just a night where I found myself thinking over and over again, how unimaginative, how overused, how boring…

The only thing I can really say I liked (and I know some people — Katrina, my mom 🙂 — are going to kill me) but I really enjoyed watching Lacey in the group Samba. That girl can move. And I like that she’s not an emaciated waif. And I like that she has a strong personality. She’s been out of line a few times (ie: making references to Cloris in a retirement home), but I think she’s realized the words were distasteful as soon as they came out of her mouth. I think it’s more a case of not thinking before you speak and doing it on national TV than really being an unfeeling person.

Anyway, I hope tomorrow night is better.

Posted on

Great Holiday Gifts For White People!

I love it! And just in time for Christmas. (Via Luxlotus)

For dance fans, I recommend Carlos Acosta. It’s actually more about Cuba, his family back home, some of the racial politics there and how they affected his parents, and what it’s like for someone who’s grown up in such poverty to encounter wealthy western societies than it is about ballet gossip or specifics about the dance world. Which is why I loved it.

Posted on

New Chamber Ballet

 

(iVery short on time, but just want to say I had a lovely little time last night at City Center’s studio 4.Philip invited me to see the New Chamber Ballet, which is choreographer and composer Miro Magloire’s small company (comprised of, besides the choreographer himself, four dancers, all women). There were four pieces on the program, one a solo, the others danced by all, two to Baroque music (I think — Karlheinz Stockhausen and Giacinto Scelsi-??), one to no music at all (or rather, the sounds made by the dancers — tongue clicking at times, at times whispering and chattering amongst each other), and the final ballet, having its world premiere, was “Romantic Pieces,” to the sweeping, expressive Romantic music of Anton Dvorak.

The space is small and intimate (so you can see the pointe work up and close, always a bit of a thrill for me!), the production pretty minimalist — no sets or elaborate costumes, and the dancing very abstract / movement-for-movement’s-sake, very music-made-visual. And that music — violin and piano — was played live! — thank you thank you, Mr. Magloire — and splendidly by Erik Carlson on violin and Victoria Tzotzkova on piano.

What was interesting to me was the at the beginning of each piece, Magloire would come out and introduce the work to the audience, but instead of talking about the dance, he’d talk all about the composer. I don’t have a huge background on classical music and I found this really interesting. For example, he’d told us that Giacinto Scelsi (who lived in the latter half of the 20th century) had a nervous breakdown in his thirties, and forever after that made rather monochrome music, concentrating an entire piece on a single note (interestingly, he also after that breakdown wouldn’t allow his picture to be taken). Anyway, though the Romantics are more melodious and aesthetically pleasing to my ear (and of course we’re all more used to seeing ballet performed to them — Tchaikovsky, Chopin, Dvorak), I found the Scelsi to be so intense, so mesmerizing, so insistent in its sharp staccato, repetitive strikes of the violin strings. And that fascination with the music turned into a fascination with the dancing, the equally sharp, staccato, repetitive steps performed by the lovely Madeline Deavenport, Emery LeCrone, and Emily SoRelle Adams (who, throughout the night, danced with beautiful fluidity and fullness and had gorgeous form).

Anyway, the piece of Scelsi’s that Magloire used was “Xnoybis for violin solo,” which unfortunately, I can’t find a video of on YouTube, but here’s something somewhat similar (at least in the beginning) performed with a guitar. Or this one as well. Try to imagine dance to that! — and the dance actually worked quite well.

Explore more of his music, if you like. And, here’s a longish piece on the composer by Alex Ross.

I thank Mr. Magloire for introducing me to such delectable music! (and the dancing is definitely nice too 🙂 )

This program shows for only one more day — tonight, 8 pm.; go here for info.

Posted on

Promising New Didy Veldman at Cedar Lake Ballet

Last night, Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet invited bloggers for a little sneak preview of their Winter season. I absolutely loved the new piece by Dutch choreographer Didy Veldman. I don’t want to say too much about it because the season’s still over a month away and who knows what they might change between now and then, but I haven’t seen a new modern ballet in a while that I felt was so promising!

But really, the photos don’t do the dance justice. See rehearsal footage here.

Seriously psyched now for the upcoming season!