On Monday, I attended a public Hearing held in lower Manhattan convened in the wake of the Sean Bell verdict, to address ways to increase police accountability. I wrote about what went on at the hearing for the Huffington Post
There was a pretty good turnout.
My favorite witness was Kamau Karl Franklin, a race justice fellow at the prestigious Center For Constitutional Rights here in NY. He had some very intriguing ideas for new legislation, which I wrote about here.
Before I left for the Caribbean, I saw several films at the Tribeca Film Festival, which I still have to blog about. The first was the documentary “Gotta Dance” about the NetSationals, the first ever senior citizen cheerleading dance team, which entertained at halftime during New Jersey Nets’ home games. It was a sweet film. I wrote about it for Explore Dance here. Above are some blurry pics I took in the theater, where, after the film, some of the dancers came up and did a little hip hop performance, then spoke briefly about the movie.
Soon to come on Explore Dance will be my review of the other dance movie I saw, “Whatever Lola Wants,” a narrative that I didn’t like as well.
I can’t believe it’s already the next to last week.
Jason’s Foxtrot was lovely. He was perfectly dashing and his lines are really much nicer than before. Although this routine wasn’t the most thrilling I’ve seen, there was some nice choreography from Edyta — her dip with the kicks and the arabesque with the leg landing on his shoulder into the lunge was pretty. And he put some good character to it. Good performance but underwhelming choreo.
Ooh, I missed last week but got a glimpse of Marissa’s fish — very pretty! Why did they take the lifts out again this week? They were just a one-week thing? Hehe “I can make passionate love to Len before you” — poor Tony; she’s embarassing the hell out of him 🙂 Eh, now that I just saw the routine, I have to repeat, why did they take the lifts out — I found her Quickstep cutely acted on her part, but very bland choreography-wise. The big controversy among the judges was her missed footwork on the runs. But to me that wasn’t that big of a deal; it was the bland boring choreo that made it blah. Len may be right that the footwork was fast and difficult and complicated, but I think a straight ballroom dance with few flourishes only appeals to people like Len himself.
Aw, Cristian is so cute; he’s just so excited when he does everything right, with no mishaps. I thought the Viennese Waltz was lovely, but I’m having the same bland blah ballroom experience with all these routines tonight. What’s up?
I LOVED Kristi and Mark’s tango. I loved the different elements — the fast furious almost flamenco-y taps into the soft slow dips and toe-swirling rondes and just the sensuality of it all. Tango’s usually not very sensual — it’s usually so “I love you, I hate you, I love you again, no I hate you again,” etc. And there was some of that. But when she arched back toward the end and he lowered his head toward her waist and kind of took her scent in, then extended his arm out to hers and traced her line, it was just so beautiful. Something new from him! There was a real stylistic and even a kind of narrative development to their dance; it went somewhere. Best dance so far of the night, IMO!
I think Len might have fixed Marissa’s hips, if the practice session is any indication. We’ll soon see…
I liked Jason’s Paso much better than his Foxtrot. It was very passionate and fiery, and the footwork was excellent. His jumps at the beginning were a little too bent-kneed and awkward-looking but that was my only problem. He really got into it and had fun and it showed.
Len did fix Marissa’s hips! They weren’t perfect, but they were much better, especially in the cucharachas! I totally disagree with Carrie Ann — this was one of the most interesting dances of the night, I thought. Tony peppered her Rhumba with that lovely supported lunge, her one leg wrapping around his back. And she had perfect form in her passe (right leg lifted, crossing the left at the knee, as she leaned into him). I like what Tony did with her arms — having her brush the back of her hair and trace her shoulder before returning her hand to his, after the hip twist. Her arms had been somewhat awkward before so I thought this was a big improvement, along with the hips.
Hahahah, Cristian is so CUTE! That’s probably not what a man wants to hear about his dancing, particularly his Samba — and his Samba was nothing near a professional man’s — but who cares! It was so full of energy and attitude and just … cuteness! His voltas (where the one foot crosses in front of the other as the dancer travels sideways) were adorable! He just really shook his hips and rounded his pelvis and it all just looked so good on him. And same think with the forward-traveling lock steps. The cute classic retro song was perfect for him in a way that a really sexy, percussive contemporary Brazilian song would have showed up his weaknesses. So good choice for Cheryl. I love him! I think he’s this season’s Helio Castroneves. Whether that means he’ll win I don’t know, but I think he has the same kind of charm as Helio.
I was a bit disappointed in Kristi and Mark’s jive. It was cute, and a damn hard routine, and she did very well with it and kept up. But the level of difficulty was so high, it sunk her a bit. It looked like she was struggling and they were out of sync at some points, and it seemed like he out-danced her. His jumps were higher, he had double her energy, his form was better and his lines and footwork more clean, and I felt like for once it showed that he was the pro and she the student. It was uneven and they didn’t look like a real partnership. But then again, with every other single couple it’s always been apparent who the pro is, so is it even fair to make that complaint about them?
I’m getting ready to go on a much needed vacation (yay!) but will unfortunately have to miss the following big exciting things:
David Hallberg performing with American Ballet Theater at the Guggenheim’s Works and Process program on May 4th and 5th;
Alvin Ailey II at the Joyce. This is Alvin Ailey’s studio company. I’ve never seen them before but am dying to;
Marcelo (my favorite) guesting with New York City Ballet in Robbins’ “Fancy Free” on May 4th;
The 100th episode of Dancing With the Stars.
If anyone sees any of these, please do let me know how it went so I can experience vicariously… 🙂
Overheard in the ladies’ room at the New York City Ballet tonight, followed by laughter, and “you said it!” and “just a little self-indulgent, wouldn’t you say?!” and “full of every pretentious cliche there is,” and “well, the next one’s a lot better, it’s REAL BALLET, I PROMISE!” The last quote was followed by a chorus of “oh yes”s. I’ve never heard the ladies room that animated. Ever. This was all in response to Jerome Robbins‘ “Watermill.” Poor Mr. Robbins; no wonder the first performance of this ballet in 1972 was greeted with boos.
I initially agreed with the “pretentious” woman, although I felt a bit differently about it after reading eminent dance scholar Deborah Jowitt‘s write-up on the piece in the program notes. Which is one of the functions of great critics and writers — to make the public understand and appreciate a work that seems undecipherable and hence aggravating.
Speaking of dance critics, I sat next to Alastair Macaulay tonight! (For those who don’t know, he is the newish chief dance critic of the NYTimes) It made me unbelievably nervous actually. But I don’t know why. He was very pleasant; he hardly wrote anything at all, and when he did he was very quiet about it and I only knew he was writing because I was trying to pay close attention to what he noticed … although his pen usually seemed to be going when nothing was really happening onstage. Anyway, he was reading a copy of the New York Review of Books and he had a Haruki Murakami book in his bag, which was more overstuffed even than mine.
Back to “Watermill.” Well, here’s what happens: a man (here, the wonderful Nikolaj Hubbe, formerly with NYCB but now directing the Royal Danish Ballet and returning for a guest turn) is onstage wearing a robe. Also onstage are three big wheat stacks and a waterfall and quarter moon in the background. We go through an entire day, the moon slowly filling in to signify approaching night, then disappearing to show daylight, then returning to quarter moon – twilight. And this symbolizes the stages of the man’s life. I think. As the piece begins, Nikolaj looks very slowly at his surroundings, and as a Japanese bamboo flute sounds in the background, he looks around, mesmerized by that sound and longing to find its source, to follow it. He disrobes, now wearing only white underwear. Soon, a group of men bearing colorful lanterns atop long bamboo poles cross the stage; the man doesn’t seem to notice. They are followed by another group of men carrying colorful paper kites cut in the shape of birds and a dancer emerges and performs a very feathery, birdlike, solo. He was actually my favorite part of the whole thing — the “bird / man.” I think he was my favorite because he was the only one who had much movement, or at least non-extreme slow-motion movement. Soon he disappears and a group of warrior-like men bearing what look like spears emerge and taunt Nikolaj, who for the most part resists them. After a while they leave and a woman appears wearing a robe. Nikolaj is very taken with her. She disrobes, wearing a modern black bathing-suit, unwraps her hair which is up in a towel, and brushes her hair. As I said, the entire thing unfolds as if in extreme slow-motion. It must take a full 10-15 minutes for the woman to disrobe, shake her hair out and begin to brush it. Eventually Nikolaj resists her and lies down and falls asleep, while another man emerges and performs a duet with her evocative of copulation. He leaves, she leaves, and a person wearing a lion’s mask comes out and does a frightening dance. Nikolaj sleeps the whole time. Later women come out to harvest the wheat, waking Nikolaj. They give him two long stalks of wheat and he holds them above his head, like spears, like a god, then waving them around, making various shapes with them, symbolizing what I’m not exactly sure. He does this for maybe ten minutes, staring up at the stalks like they hold the key to the meaning of the universe. It keeps going like this, slowly slowly SLOWLY. Even Sir Alastair got shifty in his seat. More people come out, some moving in ways that some in the audience, judging by the sounds around me, thought laughable. And finally the moon goes back to the way it was at the beginning of the piece and we know it’s over. I’d say it got polite applause, along with lots of rolling eyes and angry bathroom talk.
Anyway, according to Jowitt, during the 60s Robbins had become fascinated with Japanese Noh drama, characterized as “ceremonious, slow-moving, poetic plays in which every spare action imprints itself on the viewer’s mind as indelibly as a brushstroke in a master’s calligraphy.” Her explanation made me better appreciate what he was aiming for but something tells me I would have liked a good Noh play better. Robbins’ drama just didn’t make sense to me — I couldn’t even figure out what country or era we were in: Lion man, bird-like man, warrior men, a woman wearing a bathrobe and swimsuit and hair toweled up like something out of the American 50s, people harvesting wheat… I’d love to see a Noh play now but I feel like for the extreme slow-moving actions to leave an indelible imprint, they have to be recognizable. I have to know why he’s waving those wheat stalks around above his head for me not to forget its image.
I mean, let me just contrast this ballet to a short film I recently saw at the Tribeca Film Festival. It was a Spanish-language film called “So Beautiful” and in it a woman in her late sixties / early seventies, overweight, skin sagging, age spots, is at the beach. She brings a picture of herself and a beau in her youth, sets it up on a little table next to her umbrella, pulls a champange glass and a small bottle of champagne out of an ice box along with crackers topped with smoked salmon and cream cheese, pours the champagne, drinks, eats, etc. A young woman approaches her and asks her to watch her bag, which the older woman agrees to do. But time passes, the young woman never returns and the older woman is ready to leave. Eventually, the older woman begins to leaf through the bag, finding typical young woman things — makeup, inexpensive costume jewlery, a condom, some loose change. As the older woman goes through the bag her facial expressions reflect her reminiscing on her own youth. The film is about 15 minutes long, and it has virtually no real “action” except for the two or three seconds it takes the young woman to ask the older woman to watch the bag. But it was unbelievably mesmerizing to watch the older woman’s face register happy memories, even just watching her look out at a fisherman as she eats her salmon crackers and sips her champagne made you think about what she might have been thinking watching that man. It made you think about the aging process, cycles of life, youth and beauty… it nearly made me cry and I have to say it had more impact than I think any of the full-length films I saw.
Maybe it’s silly to compare a movie with a ballet, but I know I wasn’t the only one not enthralled with Robbins here! Plus, Tribeca’s on my mind since today was the last of my films … 🙁 (more about the movies later).
Anyway, the other ballet tonight was Robbins’ “The Four Seasons” which I wrote about here. It’s a cute enough ballet, based on opera with caricatures that symbolize the four seasons, but it’s not my favorite. I just have to say, the nano-second Kathryn Morgan appeared onstage I saw her and couldn’t take my eyes off her, and she didn’t have a lead role here. I wish they’d give her more big roles. This entire NYCB season, which began this week, is devoted to Robbins, so all programs will be Robbins-heavy, which I’m looking forward to, since, tonight’s program aside, I’m a big fan of his.
Here’s another earlier post I wrote for Huffington. It’s longer than the other, as I went into more detail. But, if you’re interested but didn’t have time to read all of my long-winded posts during the trial ( sorry!) I gave a summary of the case.
Here’s a brief OpEd piece I wrote on the trial. Please feel free to comment on Huffington too if you wish 🙂 — if you can figure out how to log in… I can’t stop thinking about the case; there’s so much to say, so many different aspects from the legal issues at trial, to all of the individual people involved, to the larger social issues…
Here’s another perspective that focuses on the legal history of officer acquittals. On a not unrelated note, here’s an interesting article about race and the death penalty. Thanks to Capital Defense Weekly for both links.
My review of the Kirov’s Forsythe program is up on Explore Dance. Since I’m new to Forsythe’s ballets, I mainly focused on his choreography, rather than the Kirov’s specific interpretation of it. I’m interested to know if people have different thoughts.
Last night Ariel and I went to see “Bahok” choreographed by Akram Khan and performed by his company along with the National Ballet of China, at City Center. I’d never seen any of Khan’s work before and was intrigued by Apollinaire’s post reviewing his other program “Zero Degrees,” which I think might have been more to my liking. I felt “Bahok,” his newer piece was conceptually contrived, but the movement was stunning. Ariel liked it, but I kind of wished he’d have told the whole story through movement, leaving out all the rather cliched spoken word.
“Bahok,” the program notes state, is a Bengali word for “carrier,” and the dance is meant to “explore the ways in which the body carries national identity and a sense of ‘belonging.'” All from different cultures and dance traditions, the eight dancers spend the hour and fifteen minute dance interacting with, misunderstanding, and trying, at times desperately, to connect with one another.
The characters are all caught in what appears to be a train station, their trains all delayed indefinitely. Throughout, various words flash over the arrivals / departures screen, including “earth,” “air,” “fire,” “water,” “phone home,” “rescheduled,” “delayed,” etc. Oftentimes the letter and number combinations are just gibberish (at least to me). At the beginning a Chinese woman sweetly tries to befriend her neighbor, a white woman, who soon scares her away by telling a story, her voice escalating in desperation, about how she awoke from a rainstorm unable to figure out where in the world she was. She spends much of the rest of the dance crying out that she doesn’t know where home is for her, her desperate shrieks alienating just about everyone.
At another point a woman and man appear to be having a conversation with a customs agent who seems to want to confiscate one or both of their bags — it’s not clear whose, nor is the reason why.
At another point a woman falls asleep onto the man sitting next to her. He can’t seem to wake her up and shake her off, so he gets up carries her around the stage, she like a rag doll hanging onto him, not letting him go. It’s funny — and a physically amazing feat — but grows silly after a while… until they start to dance. He stands with his back to the audience. Her legs are wrapped around his head, only her feet visible to us. Suddenly, they both begin making movements with their arms, holding them out, waving them, palms flat and upward, then palms down. The way she is attached to him, her arms are down by his ankles, making him look like a many-tentacled creature.
I found the movement far more brilliant than the speaking. The dancer playing the woman desperate to find her home, the brilliant Eulalia Ayguade Farro, expresses her inner turmoil through movement more compellingly than I think I’ve ever seen such emotion expressed. She took my breath away as she threw herself to the floor, propped herself up into a handstand, spun on her head, jumped, crouched, ran, all the time contorting her body in various novel ways to express her pain.
Another favorite part is shown in the picture above, when a Chinese woman, Meng Ning-Ning, decides to entertain herself and her companions while they await their never-ending delays, by ballet dancing. She dances beautifully and her newfound friends recognize this, as, tourist-like, they snap pictures of her. Another girl tries to join her, emulating her, following her patterns. Soon, an Indian man, Saju Hari, passes by and Meng throws herself into his arms, taking him on as a partner. He has no idea what he’s doing but he gamely tries to do as she wishes, catching her, spinning her, walking her around in a ballerina promenade. It’s hilarious watching this exquisite ballerina be partnered by a seemingly regular guy. Suddenly he wants to show her what he’s got, his dance style. The music changes, he stands in front of her and makes a shape, legs spread, in a deep lunge, very martial-arts-looking but with an Indian flair. In its sharp contrast with her delicate, feathery movement style, it’s jarringly beautiful, which to me is ultimately the point.
Last night Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet invited dance bloggers to a preview of their new installation, which means you, the patron, walk around the area watching the dancers. Cedar Lake’s large garage space in Chelsea is ideal for this kind of dance, which takes place in various parts of the around and choose what to focus on, although, for the most part, there’s only one dance taking place at once so the choreographer has already kind of led you to home in on a particular aspect of the performance. This is a contrast to the company’s last installation piece, in which there was a great deal going on at once, and you had to choose what to watch. The dancers make good, full use the space and will interact a bit with the patrons, weaving in and around you during the performance. It’s nice because you can get pretty close to the dancers, so, unlike sitting in the balcony or a high ring at a huge opera house, you have a more close, personal connection to the dance. Plus, the music is very percussive and rhythmic and makes you want to dance yourself! It’s a very interesting experience, and unlike typical concert dance.
Tickets are $10 and the 45-minute performance runs April 24-26 and May 1-3 with performances at 8 and 9 each night. Go here for more information, as well as some cool videos of the piece.
It’s nice of Cedar Lake to do this — host these little parties for bloggers. I wish other companies would do the same, or at least have a little social after the performance where you can stand around with a glass of wine chatting with your friends about what you just saw. A few of us went out afterward and we were talking about how dance is inherently social; the way most performances are structured, you have very little time to chat with your companions. Intermissions are short — just long enough to go to the bathroom — and then everything shuts down right after the last curtain call. But it prolongs and enriches your dance experience to be able to talk about the performance. Anyway, thank you to Cedar Lake for a nice show and a good time 🙂
By the way, here’s Tony Schultz from the Winger, sporting a great new hairstyle! I’m always ribbing him about how different he looks from his Winger headshot. Hehehe, people don’t even recognize him in public!
For more detailed write-ups of the evening, see Philip‘s and Evan‘s blogs.
Just a few random things:
Here’s an interview with Pasha Kovalev (thanks to Sharon for the link);
There’s a ballet just opening in London that is inspired by Dostoevsky’s many changing drafts of “The Idiot”, and stars Carlos Acosta, which sounds really interesting (via Maud);
And this looks fascinating!
Also, a friend of mine teaches autistic children and wants to know if there’s a dance school, preferably in Manhattan or Brooklyn that caters to special needs children. Does anyone know of one?
After Len said this of Cristian, Carrie Ann said of Mario and Karina, “that was better than good sex!” — this show is getting out of control… and the other judges are stealing Bruno’s one-liners!
My two thoughts up front: Whoa Cristian! And Kristi was born with clubbed feet???
I thought Jason was excellent at Hip Hop — excellent! I thought wow, he’s really improving. But then when it came to the Cha Cha, it was fine and cute but nowhere near as good as that Hip Hop. It just shows you how hard ballroom dancing is — especially Latin with all that hip action. It’s hard! Jason’s so cute with his self-deprecation. That face he made when Len told him he wanted to see him actually dance more. Then, the “I suck.” Aw!
The Shannon and Derek at the beach so she could ‘get in the mood’ was almost as corny as Cristian and Cheryl’s visit to the sea lion shrink. But I thought Shannon did much better this week. The hips were screwed up during the traditional Latin opening out steps, but she has a ballet body — tall and thin and few curves, and if he gives her more balletic moves — like that gorgeous slow ronde de jambe en l’air in the beginning and that beautiful stretch near the end– she’ll do much better and the lack of hip action won’t be so noticeable.
Poor Marlee! I actually didn’t think the whole thing looked forced, only parts. The worst was the pelvic rolls with him standing behind her. They may not have been connected at the start because she seemed off on the rolls at the beginning, and until she caught up with him, she looked uncomfortable. And that can be a really rather funny (in a bad way) move to look uncomfortable with! But I thought the shoulder shakes were much better — she really seemed at ease with those and really let loose. I thought the basic mambo steps were fine; the hip action wasn’t quite there, but I disagree with the judges that they looked stiff. It is really hard not to be able to connect with the music in this most rhythmic, musical of all ballroom dances. I was hoping she’d be able to connect through other means than simply her partner — maybe floor vibrations she could feel through her feet? Maybe she should have been barefoot? Sorry, I’m just remembering Helen Keller’s telling an audience she could hear their applause through the floor… Anyway, I feel for Marlee and I hope she can re-gain momentum for next week. The judges were too harsh. Fabian was most pleasing though, no?!
“You can just call me Frederico Astaire.” Cristian is so cute. He was wonderful this week. I couldn’t believe it. The water actually helped him this time — the swimming was a good idea on Cheryl’s part. The water slowed those crazy, out of control arms way down. He was, as Bruno said, the perfect dashing gentleman, the way he glided over that floor. His footwork was excellent, not a step out of place, even on those fast intricate grapevines in the beginning, his partnering was perfect, his posture and lines were even good. I do agree with Len — he’d better not be in the bottom tomorrow night!
Wow, I get ridiculously dizzy too; I wish my teacher would have sent me to an aerial spinning class like Tony did Marissa. It looks like they helped. Maybe I’ll look into one. Seriously. Marissa looked really good tonight. She did a couple of lovely arabesques and the ending floor sweep was beautiful.
Kristi was perfect, as always. She really is a pro out there — not even like a pro, but a real pro. Mark is so lucky because he can choreograph the exact same kind of routine he’d do for himself and a professional partner; he doesn’t really need to search for specific strengths to highlight and weaknesses to hide. That was I think the first Jive ever on this show to be danced at full speed, and he gave her some really intricate, complicated footwork. She’s really the best, by far, no competition. But a commenter on one of my Huffington Post pieces said the fact that she was so perfect up front, that she had dance background, ruins it for her. If someone you can connect to because they, like you, are not a star from the get-go, and they can, with practice, be made into a dancer, that makes it possible for you to as well. Kristi is already basically a pro, so it’s not fun to watch her try and struggle the same as the average person would. It’s an interesting perspective on the show.
Mario’s routine was near perfect, but I kind of agree with Len that it was a bit too much about the sex and not enough about the dancing. Before Len made that comment, I had thought, hmmm, very sexy rhumba, but he’s not really doing a whole lot of moving. I don’t think I would have used the same words as Len though — strumpet and gigolo? Eeeh.
The group routine: those were the funniest practice lifts I think I’ve ever seen. I’m surprised Derek didn’t get hurt on that rotating cartwheel. I actually took lessons with Christian Perry, the guy who’s teaching these group dances. He taught at my first studio DanceSport, so it’s always so funny to see him on TV. I think I actually preferred the practice sessions to the actual performance though. All the lifts were the same and it seemed there was more unstylized jumping about than actual dance steps; it was more fun watching them all try to learn.