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PORTRAITS IN DRAMATIC TIME on Lincoln Center Plaza

Here are some photos I took of David Michalek’s current installation, Portraits in Dramatic Time, shown nightly on the facade of the Koch Theater at Lincoln Center Plaza. Above is (SLSG favorite) ballerina Alessandra Ferri, apparently in the ending scene from Romeo and Juliet. Commissioned for the Lincoln Center Festival, Portraits is similar to Michalek’s earlier installation from a few summers ago, Slow Dancing, which I wrote about here.

Unlike Slow Dancing, the only two dancers (at least that I’ve seen) in Portraits are Ferri and classical Indian dancer, Savitry Nair, above. To me, Nair was the most mesmerizing, I think because of the intricate (and to me exotic) movements she was making with her hands, but also because of the intensity of her eyes. Patti Lupone (below) was a close second.

Besides the two dancers and one diva, the others seemed to be all theater actors. Like, Slow Dancing, Michalek filmed the actors in a short scene, then slowed the movement way way down for greater dramatic effect. At least that was the intent. I’ve only watched a couple times, and plan to go more, but, as with Slow Dancing, I have mixed feelings. I think Portraits may be able to attract a larger audience than Slow Dancing due to the greater fame of the stars filmed, and Michalek did for the most part choose dramatic scenes, such as the one below of Alan Rickman throwing a glass of water in anger.

Not all of the scenes are quite as action-packed. You’re often looking more at the intricate changes in facial muscles as the actors go from one emotion to the next. I felt like watching Marianne Jean-Baptiste read a letter and Lili Taylor converse with her daughter provided real lessons in acting.

But in other scenes, even if there was some kind of drama, I didn’t always understand what it was about, or the characters’ relation to one another, and consequently I failed to be as captivated by the mini narrative as I would have liked.

Watching and listening to others on the Plaza, I felt like I wasn’t alone in that thought. The big screen captures your attention but oftentimes fails to keep it. Of course I really wanted to shout at people who were only glancing at Alessandra before passing!

I said this with Slow Dancing, and I’m pretty sure these films are moving faster than the original Dancing films, but I still think they’re going just a bit too slowly. It would also provide variety to rotate more between performer-types – like dancer, actor, diva, dancer, actor diva, etc. But as I said, I saw mostly actors here. I also noticed, though, that there are many performers listed on the show’s website that I didn’t see, and I’ve gone on two different nights so far and have seen many repeats, so I don’t know if all of the listed performers are appearing right now…

Anyway, imperfections aside, it’s always wonderful to have something to go to Lincoln Center for and now that ballet season is over, it can be depressing around there. So I’m very thankful for this installation. Perfect for summertime, sitting near the fountain or at the little cafe in front of Avery Fisher Hall, sipping wine or eating Gelato. This is the best part of living in NYC, imo.

Portraits shows nightly through the end of July. For more info, go here and here.

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Yulia Zagoruychenko Auctions Championship Dress to Help Fellow Dancer With Lung Cancer

 

World Latin champ Yulia Zagoruychenko (whom this blogger adores, as everyone here knows) is auctioning off one of her championship dresses to help friend and fellow dancer Julia Ivleva with her cancer treatments. Ivleva is a pro standard dancer who was recently diagnosed with lung cancer in both lungs, though she’s never smoked and, like all dancers, maintains a healthy lifestyle. It really can happen to anyone… Also like many (probably most) dancers, Ivleva has no health insurance. What a nightmare. There’s lots of money in the world of pro / am ballroom dance (I mean possessed by the students), so I’m hoping people help her out. Here’s the link to Zagoruychenko’s auction. If you can’t afford the dress but wish to donate go here. If all students donated the cost of a private lesson or two, that would be a pretty big sum.

Here’s a video of Ivleva dancing with her partner Igor Litvinov:

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Codfish “Caviar” in Koreatown

Despite the heatwave, last night my friend and I went to Koreatown for some Korean barbecue. I ordered a dish that looked interesting, which was translated as “Codfish caviar and clams.” Hehe, my friend surmised that perhaps caviar meant the entire reproductive organs of the fish. I looked again. It was rather veiny, did kind of look like a uterus and ovaries. It certainly wasn’t what I was expecting – which was roe about the size of salmon! I tweeted a picture and a Twitter friend told me they actually are eggs, along with the egg sac. His father has them all the time, he said. Funny, I thought I’d tried practically everything, but apparently not! Anyway, they didn’t really have much of a flavor to me, but their consistency was similar to English pudding.

Also ordered a glass of plum wine, not realizing I’d get the entire bottle. Even I couldn’t polish off the whole thing 🙂 Best thing we had, imo, were the spicy little sausages, right at the front of the bottom picture. Delic!

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Film of the Bolshoi’s DON QUIXOTE Starring Natalia Osipova and Ivan Vasiliev Showing at BAM This Thursday

 

For New Yorkers: this Thursday, July 21st, Emerging Pictures’ “Ballet in Cinema” series will be showing a repeat of the Bolshoi’s Don Quixote starring Natalia Osipova and Ivan Vasiliev – the very same production I’d raved about here. This time, though, they’ll be showing it in BAM’s cinema, beginning at 7 p.m. I highly recommend it if you missed it the first time around. It’s the most spectacular Don Quixote I’ve ever seen and can ever imagine seeing. It’s also exciting because this is the first time a “Ballet in Cinema” production will be screened at BAM instead of the Big Manhattan Theater. Tickets are $24. If you can, go go go!

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Vladimir Shklyarov: the Marcelo Gomes of the Mariinsky?

I’m usually not a stage door person, but Friday night, after the Mariinsky Ballet’s second-to-last night performing in New York, I decided to follow some friends down into the bowels of the Met. Actually, now that construction has finished down there, it’s not a maze like before; you just take the elevator in front of the gift shop down and you exit onto an open street; mid-way down is the stage door.

I didn’t actually go to the Friday night performance. I watched the David Michalek slow motion films out on Lincoln Center Plaza (more about that later). But I’d planned to meet ballet-goer friends anyway for late dinner. At the stage door, several of the dancers came out – including our Diana Vishneva, who danced Carmen that night – but everyone (a mix of women, men and teenagers of both sexes) seemed to be waiting for someone in particular. Finally, at the tail end of the string of exiting dancers, he arrived. Vladimir Shklyarov. I knew he was the one everyone was waiting for by the outburst of giggles was followed by a mob-like rushing of the poor guy. Since I hadn’t gone to the performance, I wondered what was so great about him. He seemed like an ordinary guy. He seemed very American. He was wearing his hair in that kind of mussed-up style that is trendy here right now. And he was wearing American style jeans with the low-pockets, suede loafers, and a button-up shirt with the collar up at the top, preppy-like. And when he spoke (at least as much as I heard him),  he seemed to have only a trace of a Russian accent. Seemed like a very nice guy.

The next night I saw him in Balanchine’s Symphony in C, and immediately understood why everyone was going to gaga over him the night before. He only had a small part in the third movement but he stood out so much, he really made that ballet. His jumps are enormous and, more, his personality – that endearing combination of cocky and charming- really shone through, even in the mere ten minutes I saw him dance. How much did I wish I’d seen more of his while the Mariinsky was here??? Well, I’ll know for next time…

Anyway, I found a couple YouTube videos of him:

Other reflections on the Mariinsky’s NY tour: also fell in love with Alina Somova, who danced the Saturday matinee lead in The Little Humpbacked Horse, a fantastical Ratmansky ballet based on a Pyotr Yershov tale. I’ve heard people express dislike of her, but I don’t know what they’re talking about. I absolutely loved her. She’s very flexible and very fast and fluid, so perhaps she can sometimes look a bit like a rubberband. But I loved her lines, and her speed, and her playfulness, and her sweet personality. She made that ballet for me. During lunch after the performance, my friend Art said it depends on what she’s cast in – and this, he thought, was her best. Everyone agreed it suited her. (So fun hanging out between performances with Art, critic Marina Harss, and Emilia from The Ballet Bag! Emilia is originally from Brazil, which I didn’t know 😀 ) Anyway, I’ll have to see Somova in other things, because from what I saw, I can’t imagine not liking her.

Here’s a video:

And here’s a video of her in Humpbacked, for which, apparently she won an award.

I also found myself smitten with Yevgenia Obraztsova, who seemed really sweet at the stage door as well, and who danced with Shklyarov in Symphony in C. She’s a tiny powerhouse who I imagine would dance well with our Daniil Simkin. She’s very lyrical as well.

I didn’t care much for Ratmansky’s Anna Karenina. (A big thank you to Marie Mockett for giving me her ticket to that by the way!) I have to agree with Sir Alastair on this one. There were some impressive stage theatrics – particularly a rotating train that you see from both outside and in, and some moving images on a background screen that were used to interesting effect – but overall the production didn’t really convey the story. It was more like a series of tableaux than a narrative, which has worked in other productions (a San Francisco Ballet production of an Ibsen play comes to mind) but didn’t work here – maybe because thematically and mood-wise, it was all so one-note: suicide, encroaching death, the aftermath of death, actions leading up to death, etc. But also, I really didn’t find the choreography interesting at all. It was really basic. I mean, many of the lifts were lifts I learned in the ballroom studio for my cabaret routines. You learn all the very basic lifts: the t-lift, the shoulder-sit, the fish, etc. etc. I’d get so annoyed with my teachers for not being more artistic, for not being able to come up with creative partnering that was more evocative of the story or mood we were trying to convey. That’s one reason I left ballroom – I got bored. So I feel like when I see those same basic lifts in ballets created by supposed choreographic greats and produced all over the world, I feel like I’m in the Twilight Zone. This is why I love MacMillan so. None of his partnering is something you’d learn in a studio lesson – it’s specific to the story and characters.

I also wasn’t too enthralled with the Mariinsky’s Carmen Suite, choreographed by Alberto Alonso. There was a big round mat in the middle of the stage where the dancing – most of it by Carmen alone, some of her dancing duets with men – took place. There were chairs setting on a raised platform that encircled the mat, and the men sat on the chairs and watched her. My Carmen was Ulyana Lopatkina (who was also my Anna Karenina), and her dancing to me looked, in Carmen, very gymnastic. But I think it was the way the stage was set up – it looked like a gymnastic mat – and she kept doing these standing poses that reminded me of a gymnast about to take off in a tumbling pass during a floor routine. It was another ballet that didn’t focus so much on recounting a narrative than creating a feeling, a tone, through vignettes. It worked a little better here than in Karenina, maybe because it was a shorter piece, but I think the gymnastic thing, and the overall creepiness of the men sitting in their chairs just watching her, didn’t really work for me.

Favorites were definitely Little Humpbacked Horse and Symphony in C.

Here are a few more stage door photos:

Yevgenia Obraztsova.

Yuri Smekalov.

Danila Korsuntsev.

And princess Diana, who is even more beautiful up close than she appears onstage.

Wish now I’d have gone every night. Trip to St. Petersburg… 🙂

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Literary Aperitif

Hi guys – I’ve just begun a new Tumblr blog, called Literary Aperitif, pairing two of my loves (other than dance of course): books and booze. I wanted to call the blog something along those lines but didn’t realize there were about 100,000 websites, meetups, blogs, books, book clubs, webzines, and what have you, all with variations of that name… Anyway, I plan for that one to be photo-heavy, minimalist on words (unlike this blog :S)

Sorry once again that I’m so behind here. Part of the reason for that is that I write so many review-style posts, and it really takes a long time (as opposed to posting pics and doing mini photo-based essays, which takes virtually no time at all). And I haven’t had a lot of time since I began working full time plus again. Nevertheless, I maintain fantasies of spending this weekend blogging about: the Mariinsky at the Lincoln Center Festival, the Royal Danish Ballet’s recent visit to NY, the Paris Opera Ballet’s Children of Paradise (streamed live via Emerging Pictures’ Ballet in Cinema series), the Bolshoi’s Swan Lake (ditto), a wrap-up of American Ballet Theater’s Met season, a wrap-up of So You Think You Can Dance thus far (including what’s been said during some of the Friday afternoon over-the-phone press conferences I’ve participated in each week with the eliminated contestants), and the Manhattan Dancesport Championship held in Brooklyn last weekend. Okay, I’m obviously not going to get to it all this weekend – especially when I have more Mariinsky to see tomorrow and Saturday – but I’ll have material for the rest of the summer, if you can bear with me that long 🙂

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Alina Cojocaru and Johan Kobborg Guest Star in ABT’s SLEEPING BEAUTY

Curtain calls photos taken by my new balletomane friend, Andrea.

I have to confess, Sleeping Beauty is probably my least favorite ballet. I like the Aurora / Prince Desire wedding pas de deux, with all the gorgeous fish dives, in the last act but I could do without the rest. I just don’t have a big appreciation for sustained balances on pointe and all of the fairy variations and all that.

BUT, I have to say, Alina Cojocaru and Johan Kobborg, guest starring from the Royal Ballet in American Ballet Theater’s Met production showed me this ballet in a new light. As I said on Twitter, I feel like I now know how Sleeping Beauty is really supposed to look!

I did see Cojocaru last year (without Kobborg), but I think because I was sitting in orchestra and because it was my first time seeing her and was just getting used to her, I couldn’t stop focusing on piddly things like her feet / shoes.  Now that I’m used to them, and because I was farther up, in dress circle (my friend, Marie, gave me her tix because she had to fly last minute to Japan and couldn’t use them – thank you Marie!) I just focused on her brilliant dancing. She’s somehow so precise and does such stunning things and makes such stunning lines while making it not about doing these stunning things but about the character and about bringing her sweet story to life. That’s a crazy run-on sentence but you know what I mean? In the “Rose Adagio,” while circling around in those repeated turns while being passed from cavalier to cavalier, she’d just flick her leg up so high and so fast whenever a cavalier took her hand. I was so awed. And she has the most stunning arabesque in attitude while she’s being promenaded about by those cavaliers. To me, those fast, high, perfectly done lifts of the leg and her gorgeous arabesque were more magical than the sustained balances on pointe (which is what most hardcore ballet fans seem to adore in this ballet).

And during the wedding pas de deux, when Kobborg dipped and dropped her into a fish dive, her legs went up so high in the back. And they were perfectly crossed. And the dip was so fast. It was stunning! Sorry I keep using that word; it’s just the word that best expresses how I felt the whole night. The other dancers – the American trained ones – don’t do those fish dives that way. They take their time raising the ballerina and then fluidly taking her down into the dive. I think that’s the influence of Balanchine, where every movement’s supposed to seamlessly melt into the next and nothing is supposed to look “posey.” But I like it so much better the way Kobborg and Cojocaru did it. So much more … stunning! Okay, I’ll stop…

But my friend Natalie and I weren’t the only ones wowed. This is what I love about sitting up higher. I feel like the orchestra is filled with people who fall asleep and with critics. Higher up is where the real fans sit, and Natalie and I were sandwiched in between these giggly twenty-something girls who nearly blasted out of their seats every time a lightning speed develope or fish dive happened, and this tattooed construction-worker looking guy who was there on his own and who followed Cojocaru’s every movement with his binoculars and nearly burst my left eardrum with his applause at the end. I so love these people 🙂

Kobborg totally reminded me of NYCB’s Gonzalo Garcia, who, everyone who reads this blog regularly knows is one of my favorites. His expressiveness, his devotion to his partner, his immense charm and the way his personality really shines through from far away – I really loved his Prince Desire. On the way out one of my friends said he loved Cojocaru but found Kobborg to be not as stellar as some of the ABT men like Marcelo Gomes. That’s totally true, but what I loved about Kobborg was how he let her have her night, how everything he did was to showcase her. I love Marcelo and David Hallberg and all the ABT men of course (of course!) but sometimes it’s nice when the guy doesn’t steal the show and just lets the ballerina shine. But it wasn’t like he wasn’t as good as she was, just that he was letting it be all about her. Of course they’re now engaged so a little romantic sentiment could be at play 🙂

Anyway, a few more pictures:

Martine Van Hamel was perfect as the wicked fairy Carabosse. And, I think I’m the only one who feels this way, but damn do I love that costume! It’s very Helena Bonham-Carter / Tim Burton… Actually it’s very Helena Bonham-Carter at the Oscars…

The whole cast. Thank you again to Andrea for the first-row pics!

The rest of the cast was very good as well. In particular I loved Yuriko Kajiya as the Lilac Fairy (she was a last-minute replacement for Maria Riccetto). She stood out to me more than she ever has before; for once I realized that she has a real stage presence. Maybe it was being up higher?… All the fairies were very good – Misty Copeland, Simone Messmer, Luciana Paris, Renata Pavam, and Hee Seo (who should be promoted to principal soon!), and Daniil Simkin and Sarah Lane were, as expected, a lot of fun as Bluebird and Princess Florine. I think they tried to give Kobborg and Cojocaru the best supporting cast possible.

Anyway, that’s it for New York. ABT season is now over. The company is on to L.A. and Japan. And here in N.Y., we’re on the Mariinsky next week at the Lincoln Center Festival. And then ballet season is over for the summer.

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Jose Manuel Carreno’s ABT Farewell

 

Thursday night at the Met, Jose Manuel Carreno, a longtime favorite of mine, gave his farewell performance with American Ballet Theater. (He will dance a few more performances with the company as they tour Los Angeles and Japan later this month, and he ended up filling in unexpectedly for an injured dancer in Saturday’s matinee, but Thursday was the night ABT celebrated his illustrious career).

He danced Swan Lake with Julie Kent as Odette and Gillian Murphy as Odile. Of course Odette and Odile are danced by the same ballerina but this was a special performance and so he chose to have not one but two ballerinas he’s often partnered throughout his career as alternating white and black swans.

Above photo is of the white swan pas de deux with Julie Kent. Below is of the black swan pdd with Gillian Murphy. All photos are by Rosalie O’Connor.

 

And below, of his curtain calls.

 

 

The performance was spectacular but not flawless. Jose danced wonderfully. I’ve personally been more moved by his performances in Romeo and Juliet and Manon, but then I’m more a fan of modern ballet choreographers like MacMillan, than classical ballet. I wish he would have danced one of those as his farewell but I totally understand why he chose Swan Lake – it’s only the quintessential ballet after all 🙂

The best part was Act III, with Gillian as the black swan. It was just amazing feat after amazing feat. I swear I’m pretty sure I saw Gillian put a quintuple pirouette in between her fouettes; there were definitely quadruples in there. I wonder sometimes if Natalia Osipova has not substantially raised the bar for this kind of thing. I feel like everyone’s trying so hard to do as many athletically stunning things as they can. I honestly almost screamed when she threw in the quintuple. Can you imagine someone actually screaming in the audience in the middle of the performance? Glad I managed to hold it in 🙂 Suffice it to say Gillian was definitely a thrill, and Odile is her forte. She did have a tiny stumble toward the end, coming out of the fouette sequence, but I’m not one to care about things like that. I personally care more that a dancer takes chances than plays it so safe she fails to move or wow the audience (as I think I’ve said a few hundred times by now on this blog). Then Jose followed her crazy fouettes with a turn sequence of his own, with more multiple pirouettes thrown in. It also seemed that some of their assisted pirouettes went on for, like, five minutes! At the end of the pdd, the applause went on for quite some time.

I should say, every time Jose did any kind of solo, no matter how small – a few turns, a few jumps, anything – the audience went crazy with applause. As they did when his Siegfried first entered the stage. I thought for a minute the orchestra was going to have to stop the story for him to take a bow, but he kept on going with the action, in character.

So, Julie Kent’s white swan: well, I think she is an absolutely beautiful dancer, and she does things that Sara Mearns and Veronika Part and other ballerinas I love as Odette either can’t or don’t do – like the fast tiny fluttering of the feet that really make her look swan-like, or the super quick changes of the feet between her traveling passees that make it look like she is really a swan about to take off in flight. Her legs and feet are super strong and she can attain really surprising speed and precision at certain points. And I was sitting in the back of the orchestra and I could still see that incredible footwork. And yet somehow I’m not nearly as moved by her as by Sara and Veronika. She doesn’t make me feel her pain or take me into her world the way they do. Maybe she’s just not as powerful an actress, although I thought she was very good in Lady of the Camellias. I thought Jose generally partnered Gillian better, which is interesting because she’s a larger ballerina. He lifted Julie high above his head just beautifully, but then there were some moments that the assisted pirouettes that went on forever and a day with Gillian were more problematic with Julie. At one point, Julie veered sharply to one side and I worried she’d fall. But she didn’t.

Still, it was a beautiful performance all in all.

This was my first time seeing David Hallberg as von Rothbart. (You can see him in one of the curtain call photos above, in the purple). He’s a beautiful, beautiful dancer. Seriously, I don’t think any man can dance as beautifully as David Hallberg, and I’ll go to any ballet with him in (with good choreography for him of course), just to see that. But. I like Marcelo Gomes better. I know that’s controversial, and I’ve been thinking a lot about how I’m not really a fan of classical ballet partly because of this (judging by the difference of opinion between myself and my classical ballet-fan friends), but I just don’t like black and white. I prefer sexy, charmingly dangerous von Rothbarts, not pure evil von Rothbarts. And David was evil. The way he masterfully whipped around that purple cape, the way he worked his facial muscles into a hard hard look, the way he approached the queen and each woman at the ball with intention, the way he pointed straight at poor Siegfried when he first arrived with Gillian. He scared the hell out of me. And I guess if you think von Rothbart is pure evil and should be portrayed as such, then there’s no one more perfect than David to dance him. The evil is tempered a bit by David’s beautiful dancing, which made him the second best von Rothbart in my opinion, just because it added a nuance that otherwise wouldn’t have been there. But Marcelo’s v.R.’s sexiness, his irresistible charm, his deviousness, make him so much more deliciously dangerous.

I was a slight bit disappointed in the curtain calls. I think I was spoiled by Julio Bocca’s farewell being my first at ABT. That man was such a prima, his curtain calls went on forever, ending with him in underwear (well, tights), taking his time drinking a beer, then dousing himself with it. Or was it champagne he poured all over himself? (Will have to look back at my old blog post.) Anyway, it was all as if to say, I’ve had a blast here, I’ve worked my arse off, and now I’m so so ready to let loose. This all would have been inappropriate for Jose though, especially since his two daughters came out onstage with him at the end, sharing his bows. So sweet. But yeah, no getting plastered and prancing around in underwear for him. Marcelo, David, and Cory did hoist Jose over their heads, as David and Marcelo did Julio.

A couple ballerinas from the past – Alessandra Ferri, Susan Jaffe – presented him with bouquets. And Julio himself was there as well. He walked out onstage toward Jose doing a hip-shaking little rumba. Almost all the principals were onstage at the end – Paloma Herrera in particular was dressed to the nines, which was sweet since she was one of his main partners. I didn’t see Diana Vishneva or Natalia Osipova or Michele Wiles. I was hoping Carlos Acosta might show, but no such luck.

Jose’s daughters are really beautiful. Afterward some friends and I went to Ed’s Chowder House for drinks and snacks and we were debating whether the older one was his stepdaughter with Lourdes Novoa or biological daughter. Does he have one stepdaughter and two biological daughters or one of each? Anyway, the littlest daughter looks to be a teenager now. She’s really beautiful. But she was just a baby not so long ago. I guess time does go by when you’re not paying attention. The audience didn’t seem to want to say goodbye. Finally, the curtains went down and the lights went on, management making clear it’s over, folks, go home. But people kept standing there kind of dumbfounded.

Well, I’m really going to miss him. I’m going to miss him as Basilio in Don Quixote, I’m going to miss him as both the harem owner and Ali the slave in Le Corsaire (like Marcelo, he’s endearing in every single role he has – how can one be an endearing  harem-owner? I have no idea, but just watch him), I’m going to miss him as Des Grieux in Manon, I’m going to miss him as Albrecht in Giselle (I think he was the only one who still did the Baryshnikovian brisees in his near dance to death scene instead of the entrechats), I’m going to miss his sexy cocky Latin sailor in Robbins’ Fancy Free, I’m going to miss his sexy cocky leading man in Tharp’s Sinatra Suites, and most of all I’m going to miss his Romeo. In most recent years, he’s been the oldest dancer in that role, and somehow the most boyish, the most innocent, the one who’s made me cry the most times at the end in that crypt with his Juliet draped lifelessly over his arms.

Well, I still have memories. And YouTube videos 🙂

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Paloma Herrera Celebrates 20 Years with ABT

Photo by Rosalie O’Connor.

On Saturday night, Paloma Herrera celebrated twenty years with ABT. Her celebratory performance was Coppelia, which she danced with Angel Corella, in one of the only performances he’ll be seen in at ABT this season, sadly. I realized how much I missed him Saturday night. He’s got to be one of the most endearing, charming, downright lovable dancers ABT has ever had. I hope he dances more often next year. And he can still deliver, particularly on the turns – the fouettes, and particularly on partnering. He polished off a one-handed lift with Paloma no problem. And he’s not a big guy. “That’s pure technique,” said the critic sitting next to me.

Paloma danced really beautifully too, and I realized Saturday night what a remarkable dancer she is. She did some beautiful balances, seemingly without shaking one iota. And she did an amazing sequence of fouettes where she didn’t bring her non-standing leg all the way around but kept it barely bent and at her side, making those whipping turns so much harder. She got loads of applause. She’s particularly suited to a role like this, and like Kitri in Don Quixote. The pair could easily have danced that one too since they’re pretty much known for DQ. They used to be THE couple at ABT years ago, and now she’s celebrating 20 years with the company and he’s off in Spain starting his own. And all the young ones have taken over 🙂

And the night before I saw two of those young ones: Natalia Osipova and Daniil Simkin (pictures hopefully coming soon!) My friend (who’d seen the Bolshoi’s Nutcracker via Emerging Pictures with me) and I agreed that the Russians can just do those extremely sharp, staccato doll-like movements better than anyone. Of course they just seem to know how to put on a show in general better than anyone. Ballet to them isn’t just about technique and perfect dancing, it’s above all a show.

Anyway, Natalia is superhuman. She really is. No one can jete like her, and I think I’m going to have to include men here. Daniil was absolutely superb in his solos, and he’s known for being a jumper, but I swear when she jumped and he followed her with a jump, hers were higher. I almost fell out of my seat. And her “doll-come-to-life” in the second act – I’ve never seen anyone genuinely look so toy-like. Even the children in the audience were enthralled; you could hear a few actually laughing themselves silly throughout the entire second act. When do small children maintain interest throughout an entire act of a ballet? Maybe the parents were Russians and knew Osipova would pull it off 🙂

Osipova’s definitely not perfect and she was going so fast in a series of spins across stage she had a little stumble on one. But who cares? I’d so much rather someone put everything they have into a performance than play it so safe it just fades away. Seeing Herrera in the role after Osipova made me realize that Osipova’s just always going to do things more stunningly than others (at least for the most part). Not necessarily with better technique or more beautifully but more stunningly. That’s the kind of dancer she is. But that definitely doesn’t mean that no one else has anything to offer.

Anyway, back to Paloma. So, during the bows, each of the principals came up on stage and gave her a bouquet, which was followed by a confetti shower. She and Angel got several curtain calls, not surprisingly. I think all serious, longtime ABT fans miss Angel and their performance together was a bittersweet reminder of this kind of “changing of the guard” that’s going on at ABT. Afterward, I went with a group of friends to Fiorello’s, across from Lincoln Center, for drinks and dessert, and she came in with two people who I assume were her parents and sat down at the booth next to us. Our ballet gossip promptly ended but what a special end to a fabulous evening for us.