Tag: American Ballet Theater

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New York in the Summer Continued: Free August Outdoor Dance Events

I went to Dance Brazil and RumbaTap at Central Park’s Summer Stage last night and damn was it crowded. The most crowded I’ve ever seen Summer Stage. I ended up only staying for RumbaTap; left before Dance Brazil because I was just too claustrophobic (in my mind they let way too many people in; I was near the top in the bleachers, my knees jutting into the guy’s back in front of me, my own back being probed by the knees of the guy behind me, serried between the man next to me and the woman on my other side illegally sitting on a bleacher step because there was nowhere to stand. They really need to turn people away next time for safety purposes). I’d already seen Dance Brazil anyway (which I wrote about here) and they were performing the same program — Ritmo — so I figured I’d let someone else get squeezed all to bits.

(sorry so blurry; I’m one of the few who actually obeyed the “no flash photography” rule)

Anyway, Max Pollack’s RumbaTap was good (and I recognized one of the dancers, Matt‘s sister, Carson Murphy, right off the bat because of the big hair!). They danced to a variety of Latin rhythms — Salsa, Merengue, traditional Afro-Cuban, and even some Bulgarian (which is Mr. Pollack’s heritage). It was a bit hard, though, to see from so far away (one thing that annoys me greatly about Summer Stage is that no matter how early you get there, it’s hard to get a seat up front because they reserve practically all of them), and it was very hard not to be distracted by the hordes of people trying to find a seat, buying food, talking to each other and paying no attention to the dancing, etc. etc. etc. I think tap, like ballet, is probably too small, the movement too subtle and soft, to work well on a big, open-air stage like this where you don’t have crowd control. I’m thinking Dance Brazil’s Capoeira, with all the big, flashy acrobatics, probably captivated the crowd, especially in the back, much more successfully.

The crowd waiting for Dance Brazil…

Anyway, there’s one more Summer Stage dance event, next Friday, when Jennifer Muller and Erica Essners perform. Go here for info on Muller and Essners, and go here for the rest of the Summer Stage schedule (most of which consists of music events).

One of the great things about New York in August is the abundance of free outdoor events, most of which include dance: Lincoln Center Out of Doors, held in Damrosch Park, just behind the State Theater and facing Fordham Law School, is showcasing Armitage Gone! and Noche Flamenca, among other dance companies; the Lower Manhattan Culture Council’s Sitelines is a series of site-specific dance performances all taking place in lower Manhattan which are usually pretty good; the Downtown Dance Festival, sponsored by Battery Dance Company, takes place August 16-24 also at various Financial District-area locations; and, finally, my beloved Alvin Ailey continues celebrations of their 50th anniversary with several free performances and dance workshops throughout all five boroughs, including an all-day outdoor street festival on Saturday, August 9th in front of City Center in midtown Manhattan, with free performances inside that theater throughout the day.

Speaking of City Center, don’t forget Fall For Dance coming up September 17-27. Tickets for these $10 multi-company performances go on sale at 11:00 a.m. on September 7th and sell out in days if not hours. It doesn’t appear this year’s schedule is up yet (it’s on my mind because they were passing out flyers for it last night), but I’ll post it when it is. For those who don’t yet know about FFD, I don’t think there’s any greater value– you see a variety of top-notch dance companies for only $10 a ticket ($15 if you buy online, but STILL!)

Finally, as my art historian friend alerted me to, if you’re lucky enough to be in Paris in the near future, Sotheby’s is presenting what appears to be a magnificent collection of Ballet Russes material in celebration of that dance company’s 100th birthday. Looks fabulous.

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Battleworks a Must See!

Again, I plan to have a full review coming soon, but just want to tell everyone to try to make it to Battleworks at the Joyce in Chelsea this week, if you can. They’re on Thursday night and Saturday (Keigwin + Co. is Friday night). I find Robert Battle’s work so engagingly complex. The meaning is complicated, but you get the definite sense there is something there, that you want to spend time thinking about, dissecting. And there’s so much emotion is his dances — dancers spin in a whirlwind toward each other, hurl themselves to the floor repeatedly, pick themselves up again, fall backward in exhaustion, do violent flips, at times seem to walk on a tightrope… emotions range from elation to anger to searching thought, to humor, to sad world weariness, and movements from African, tribal, Hip Hop, to Martha-Graham-esque modern… it’ll leave you stunned long after the show is over. Do try to go!

Go here for Philip’s review.

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Will in the Bottom Two? And Ballet?!

No way!

How cute was Mark when he found out he was safe 😀 Yay, my little one-man Pilobolus is in the semis! Or is next week the semi-semifinals?

Ballet?!?! Balanchine?!?! Los Angeles Ballet?! Am I dreaming? What did you guys think? This is the first I’ve seen Ballet on any of these shows. Was “Who Cares” wondrous enough? I love how people scream whenever there’s a lift or hyper-extended arabesque penchee 🙂

No frigging way! No way! You guys, no way! Ugh.

Update: here’s my HuffPo post on this week’s shows.

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SYTYCD, Desmond Richardson, Claudia LaRocco & Dance Criticism, and Blasted TAC Headaches!

Obviously this is a lot for one post 🙂

First, my HuffPost on this week’s SYTYCD episode is now up. I’m still so excited Richardson was on this week’s show (I hope that picture I posted wasn’t too corny! — it’s the only one I have of him and I just felt like it was ‘real’ you know…) Anyway, I love Nigel Lythgoe for doing this, for working so hard to expand that show, bringing on all these renowned performers and choreographers, showcasing world dance. The group Bollywood number was fabulous. It’s so cool that TV audiences are getting to see the things people who live in the large cities take for granted and huge kudos to Nigel for that.

Second, I’ve had a head pain episode (I refuse to call them ‘headaches’ because those are the things people get that are alleviated with one Advil and a glass of water) since last Saturday, which is the longest one of these has ever lasted. My biggest problem, besides the pain, is that I was diagnosed with both common migraines and Trigeminal Autonomic Cephalgia, which is a rare neurological condition (although, judging by my blog stats, is becoming less rare) which I don’t entirely understand, but which causes severe, knife-stabbing-like pains to one side of the head, combined with numbness and sinus-like symptoms (loss of hearing, swollen, watery eye which I enjoy calling ‘golf ball eye’ because that’s how wonderful it looks, clogged nostril, and sinus-like pressure) to the same side of the face with the stabs. With a migraine it’s more like there’s a pounding or a throbbing or a pulsing than a stabbing, they don’t last as long, and there’s some sinus-like pressure but without the intense symptoms (no golf-ball eye or excessive tearing, no real hearing loss). Sometimes the migraine ‘just’ remains a migraine — I say ‘just’ because it’s obviously still painful in itself but at least it usually responds, for the most part, to my migraine medication. But sometimes the pounding is not really a migraine but the beginning of the TAC stabbing. Maybe a migraine can even turn into a TAC… I never know what medication to take (since I have different meds for each type, it’s dangerous to take more than one within a certain period and taking the proper one can make all the difference). I have a neurologist but there is so little known about this condition, he doesn’t have a lot of answers. And there’s nothing on the internet written for a lay audience, which is beyond frustrating. I’d start an internet support group if I had the time… Anyway, all that is by way of explaining why I haven’t been writing much lately…

Third, I was very excited to receive a comment on an earlier post from none other than Claudia LaRocco, poet and dance critic for The New York Times! Apropos of her recent post about dance criticism on her newish blog, The Culturist, and a conversation she’d had with another writer, she had asked what I thought the role of judgment was in criticism, whether it was inherent to the form. I’m still thinking about it, but thought I’d put the question up in case others have thoughts too. I think there has to be some judgment in the analysis. I think criticism that is poetically written is a joy to read on its own (Laura Jacobs writes like that as well as Claudia), and I do think criticism is an art form in and of itself. But I’m finding by reading Edwin Denby and some earlier dance writers that I still think there has to be some judgment about the dance, that speaks in way to where the dance and dancers stand in the canon of Dance and of performers past and present. You feel a sense of history and continuity of an art form when you read about it that way. And the critic can’t do that unless s/he says this is not that good because of such and such, this was really worthwhile because of this and that, etc. I know a lot of dance enthusiasts think negative reviews are responsible for decreasing audiences (someone posed that question to chief NYTimes critic Alastair Macaulay when he spoke at Barnard a while ago) but I disagree with that unless the critic really sarcastically blasts all of dance or something. And I still think every critic everywhere would have to be doing that all the time in order for it to have an effect. Arlene Croce said it’s the critic’s job in a democracy to be critical. People get upset when their favorite dancer or choreographer is criticized, but hopefully then there are enough voices around for a real debate — although with arts criticism this is unfortunately not often the case. I’m probably getting way off the point (my headache is still lingering!), but just wondered if others had any thoughts. You should also definitely read her post on the Culturist here where she talks about a workshop she recently led where she asked for different kinds of responses to a dance performance, and received some very interesting ones, like a poem written by a Colombian critic in response to a Maguy Marin piece (the video of which she embedded). I definitely think there is a place for some criticism like this — I agree with the commenter that the poem did make me see things I hadn’t before, but I think there needs to be more of what I mentioned above as well — with some judgment and analysis. Any thoughts?

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What Was Count Albrecht Thinking? and Other Thoughts On ABT’s GISELLE

 

Sorry about the lateness of this post. Again. I think in the future I may limit myself to one dance review per week, because, as much as I love ballet and as much as I love being in the theater every night, I just get so tired when the pressure’s on to write so much — especially when ballet season is segmented by two big ballroom competitions and there are weekly dance shows on TV… it just starts to cut back a bit on the enjoyment for me. Plus, I’m supposed to be spending the summer revising my novel and other fiction / creative nonfiction pursuits… We’ll see how I feel in six weeks when I’ll likely be bored out of my mind and starved for dance…

Anyway, I liked Giselle but can’t say I fell completely in love with it. For people new to this ballet, it’s the oldest classical ballet that is still being performed (was first performed in Paris in 1841), and the story is basically: Hilarion, village gameskeeper is in love with Giselle, a peasant girl; Count Albrecht, a nobleman, decides to pretend he is a peasant so that Giselle will fall for him; he passes; she falls; Hilarion, figuring out Albrecht’s disguise, reveals his true identity; and Giselle goes mad and dies of a broken heart. That’s the first Act; second Act is: Albrecht and Hilarion go to visit Giselle’s grave where each man in turn encounters the Wilis, a group of spirits who in life were maidens whose lovers failed to marry them before they died. They now roam the earth from dusk till dawn, their spirits restless with unrequited love. Any male who enters their kingdom risks being forced by them in their vengeance to dance to his death. Hilarion suffers this unfortunate fate, but Giselle protects Albrecht from her sister Wilis, and he lives.

 

 

 

I saw the cast with Julie Kent in the lead, the illustrious Ethan Stiefel (who I haven’t really seen dance since his double knee operations a couple of years ago now) as Count Albrecht, and Michele Wiles as the Wilis’ queen. I love Julie in this role and can’t really imagine anyone dancing it better except Veronika Part who wasn’t ever cast in the lead role (why, does anyone know?) Julie’s such a wonderful actress; she does the fullest mad scene I’ve seen, as she slowly realizes Hilarion is right about Albrecht’s identity, runs around stage nearly ripping her hair out, then falls to her knees holding her head in her hands trying to will it not so, then running around stage again, having a moment of seeming normalcy, then reverting to anger, then to tears, finally collapsing. You really believe she’s gone mad. And she plays the character with so much fragility throughout; you can see her delicacy and her constant emotional wavering between extremes even at the beginning when she’s counting the flowers of her daisy. When she ends with a “he loves me not” she throws down the bouquet and runs from him, looking terrified, but when he tricks her by surreptitiously discarding a petal behind her back, her mood instantaneously changes to extreme bliss. Julie hints at what is to come for this poor emotionally fraught girl.

At intermission I overheard in the bathroom line a young woman — must have been in her late teens or very early twenties — say to her friend, “I just don’t get it? What do you mean she dies of a broken heart???” The girl laughed and rolled her eyes. “Yeah,” the friend responded with a giggle and a shrug, indicating she liked the ballet but didn’t know how to defend it.

My biggest problem isn’t that it’s unbelievable that in this time period an emotionally unstable young woman may have gone mad — although I think it might make more sense to contemporary audiences to just have Giselle kill herself rather than literally die of her madness — but that I don’t understand Albrecht’s motives. The way Ethan played him, he didn’t seem to either. And the ballet starts in the middle of his story, where he’s already asking his friend if his disguise works, so he’s not really a fully developed character. So it’s not really entirely the dancer’s fault the character doesn’t make complete sense; but I still think he must figure it all out for himself beforehand and decide how he’s going to interpret it so it’s as clear to us as possible. Albrecht’s a nobleman and he’ll always be a nobleman, so did he just see this beautiful peasant girl one day while he was out and about and was so taken with her he wants to seduce her, or did he really fall in love with her and does he think there’s actually a future for them, class issues aside? Is he just a playboy who’s not thinking? Does he plan to marry her and somehow think he’s going to be able lead this double life forever? Is he a bit off, himself? Does he know how fragile she is and how serious is his deceit? I don’t know, but it’s important to me to have those answers or the ballet’s story doesn’t resonate. The way Ethan played the character, he seemed first intent on passing in his disguise, intent on flirting and getting her to like him, then annoyed at Hilarion for exposing him, then suddenly upset that she’s dead (which he doesn’t seem to have expected), then finally showing up at her grave in sorrow and dancing with her spirit. Because his character made more sense to me in the second Act — he now sees the error of his ways and is horribly sorry — I liked that part better than the first.

The other thing about this ballet that keeps it from being a favorite for me is that the story seems to be told primarily through the acting or miming rather than through specific choreography. Certain scenes, like where she goes mad for example, aren’t very movement-specific; her insanity and ensuing death aren’t depicted through actual twisted, tortuous steps, etc., but just by however the ballerina chooses to act it (falling to the floor and covering her face with her hands, etc.) Maybe the repeated one-footed bouncing bourrees would have been better suited for this scene than for the Wilis scene. Such a repetitive movement seems a little maddening… Anyway, a ballet should be told primarily through movement; otherwise it’s more like a play.

I loved both Sascha Radetsky as Hilarion (I really felt his pain on Giselle’s death and I understood all of his actions — of course he’s going to reveal the imposter who’s going to lead to his love’s demise) and Michele Wiles as Myrta, queen of the Wilis. Michele was so controlling and regal, yet forgiving and willing to “listen” to others. As Giselle’s ghost danced with Albrecht, instead of simply standing aside, Michele’s Myrta stood regally in front of her flock of potentially murderous maidens, maintaining the power to unleash them at any time on the poor Count. Michele continued to look all powerful, then turned, crooking her head over her shoulder regarding the two, as if to make sure Albrecht wasn’t taking advantage yet again of her new charge. The pas de deux almost became Michele’s, though she stood shock still, as you could read the subtly changing expressions on her face –Â the hatred of Albrecht, the realization that Giselle loved him, the decision to let him live. I didn’t used to like Michele so much, but I feel like she’s finding the layers, the vulnerability, making each character her own.

Anyway, one thing I won’t be missing for the second half of the summer is all that obnoxious Lincoln Center construction. It wasn’t fun trying to navigate your way through the multiple mazes to find the State Theater, the Met, the library. And of course crowd control was near impossible because of limited entrances. I don’t think ABT started before 8:15-8:20 p.m. a single night this season because of the length of time it took to get the audience through those doors. And where did my fountain go 🙁 Let’s pray it’s done by next year.

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Alvin Ailey on PBS This Sunday, and Giselle at ABT Tomorrow

 

Beyond the Steps, a documentary about Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater focusing on their recent world tours and move to their new, beautiful home in NYC, is scheduled to air on New York’s local PBS station, Channel 13, this Sunday at noon. Hopefully, it’ll show in other areas too; check your local listings.

 

Also, I saw ABT‘s production of Giselle earlier this week, and just haven’t had time to write about it yet. I saw the Julie Kent / Ethan Stiefel / Michele Wiles cast, which was fine. I loved Julie, liked Ethan, and am becoming increasingly impressed with Michele. More about that very soon! But in the meantime, tomorrow (Saturday, the 12th) is the last day for this very emotional, very dramatic, and at times very beautiful ballet. It also happens to be the last day of ABT’s Met season, horribly. Matinee cast is Irina Dvorovenko in the lead, Maxim Beloserkovsky as her would-be suitor, and the always astonishing Veronika Part as the queen of the Wilis, and evening cast is the same one I saw. I hate this day each year…

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SYTYCD Week 4 Cuts

My post bemoaning Matt & Kourtni getting the boot, etc. is up on HuffPost, here. (Sorry about the holiday delay!)

Am still hoping my piece on NYCB Dancers’ Choice program will go up soon on Explore Dance. Will definitely link to it when it does…

I’m uploading all the pictures from the final day of Manhattan DS Championship and should have them up by the end of the day!

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Back For More Jose

I went back to ABT last night for another Merry Widow with Jose and Julie in the leads. Couldn’t resist! And I’m glad I did; I ended up meeting Roslyn Sulcas, writer from the New York Times, who is really nice and down to earth, and elegantly beautiful.

Anyway, I already wrote a bit about this ballet earlier, and have to get ready for a pre-competition dinner, but I quickly just want to mention a few other tidbits about Jose that make him so great, that I noticed last night. He keeps in character throughout, even when he’s not center stage. I mean, they all do, but Jose really keeps in character. As Julie’s rich widow was dancing with the Pontevedrian men, each man trying to curry her wealthy available favor, Jose was sitting off to the side flirting devilishly with Misty Copeland. And he was really flirting, not just chatting. At one point he raised his eyebrows at her in a way that made me nearly fall out of my seat.

And the way he struts around stage, like a cocky, spoiled, at times drunk, misbehaving boy … it’s not at all balletic, the way other dancers might do, but perfectly in character (and somehow on him, mischievous as it is, becomes so endearing).

I also noticed that when he spots as he’s doing a slow turn, carrying his ballerina in his arms, he looks at each spot on the floor with intent. During his pas de deux with Julie when he was remembering happy times with her in the past, he looked down at each point on the floor like he was lost, forlorn, wondering where they all went. With most dancers they look like they’re doing exactly what they’re doing — spotting so they don’t lose balance. He turns simple technique into art.

 

I also wanted to point out how fantastic Joseph Phillips was, as leader of the Pontevedrian men, with his spectacular bravura-embellished folk dancing, and Craig Salstein as he sweetly but sadly unsuccessfully vied for Julie’s hand. And Julie as the widow was sweetly flirtatious, her smiles and raised eyebrows infusing her prolonged flexes of the foot into quick, snappingly sharp points, with added sexual meaning.

 

Anyway, I’m very excited for Giselle next week!

 

Happy 4th of July, everyone!