Tag: American Ballet Theater

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Alvin Ailey Season Wrap-Up

 

“One of the promises of my company is that its repertoire will include pieces that ordinary people can understand. I still dream that my folks down on the farm in Texas can come to an Ailey concert and know and appreciate what’s happening onstage. That’s my perception of what dance should be — a popular form, wrenched from the hands of the elite.” From REVELATIONS, The Autobiography of Alvin Ailey, pg. 101.

That must be why I love this company so. Everything they do is sublime, humanistic, evocative, easily relatable, and immensely meaningful; it speaks to your soul, and it speaks to everyone. It’s the antithesis of elitist. I was so upset their New York season is over (well, not competely; they still have a big shindig tomorrow night in celebration of New Year’s Eve), that I spent all weekend reading Ailey’s Autobiography, which I picked up at a rare bookstore I’m fond of in Durham, while visiting Mom. I highly recommend it.

Anyway, highlights for me of the past several weeks were:

1) “Revelations” (top picture, by Paul Kolnick, from AAADT website). But, I mean, duh, that it’s a season highlight. You’d be inhuman if you didn’t respond to this one 😀 I wrote about it previously, here.

Oh, another thing I discovered whilst confined to my apartment by my recent (ridiculously debilitating) sinus infection + migraine episode / end-of-AA-season depression: the Alvin Ailey organization has a bunch of videos posted on YouTube!!! The quality’s not tremendously high (hopefully they’ll improve on that soon :)), but for those unfortunate souls who have never experienced this brilliant company, I can link to just about everything so you can get a taste!

2) This season I fell in love with “Love Stories,” a dance in three parts and three styles, all of them set to Stevie Wonder music. I love how the three parts are so fundamentally different from each other while somehow still managing to sequeway well into one another: the first one is beautiful modern / balletic (above top pic, danced by Clifton Brown), composed of a solo followed by a group of duets that include some very acrobatic partnering; the second part is raucous mad fun hip hop that makes you want to get up and dance yourself; and the third is what I’d call African / modern blend. That third part has honestly never done much for me until this season when it somehow become my favorite. For one thing, in one of my viewings this season, Kirven Boyd, a favorite whom I blogged about before, danced the beginning of that section, and watching him made me all the more intrigued. Weird how that happens: you have a favorite dancer and you end up liking anything they’re in — they make something totally beguiling when you’d never really even noticed it before.

So, the crazy fast hip hop number of the previous section ends, a voice calls out, “I want to hold a mirror up to society so that everyone can see how beautiful they are.” And, at that point a man emerges from the right wing wearing this earthy-toned, roomy outfit resembling to me a kind of religious, Hare Krishna-ish garb. He’s bent over and he takes a few slow hesitant steps forward, then several runs back. He gains the courage to inch forward again, then more steps back. The movement is African. Eventually, an ensemble of dancers emerges and they all dance together, making various formations, resembling possibly a kind of chain gang, or perhaps a multitude overtaken by a kind of religious spirit. At one humorous point, they bounce around in a circle, stick their arms out awkwardly at their sides, and look up to the ceiling making huge ‘Stevie Wonder’ smiles. When I saw the piece at one point with Apollinaire, she said she thought the first man out looked like a prisoner. I guess he could have been, although, I hadn’t thought of it that way. Maybe he’s a man who’s imprisoned by blindness or some other kind of handicap … racial prejudice even… At the end, the group happily bounces together going toward the back of the stage, when the back curtain lifts to reveal a multitude of bright lights. It’s really a sight. I’m really not sure what to make of it, but I’m intrigued. Robert Battle choreographed this section, and I was so taken with a small enchanting piece of his the company premiered, “Unfold,” which I wrote about here. This season was my first experience with this choreographer and I’m very interested to see more.

3) Several of the male dancers, including Clifton Brown (really the star of the company, to the extent this company has such things), Kirven, and Antonio Douthit (pictured above as the Firebird in a photo by Eduardo Patino). Like ABT, this is a company strong in men. Antonio is a tall, slim man with long, sinewy ballet muscles and he makes these gorgeous leg extensions. At one point in “Flowers,” Ailey’s fun but ultimately heart-rending ballet in tribute to Janis Joplin, there are several men dressed as her ‘boy toys’ in these hilarious shiny booty shorts (just what went on in the 70s?!) carrying her all over the stage in worship. At one point, they’re all simultaneously doing these rotating arabesques (turning on one foot with one leg lifted up to the back), and I suddenly noticed Antonio’s foot was practically to the ceiling! It was stunning! He makes beautiful shapes, and he’s very expressive with both his face and body. If anything, he probably needs to work a little more on his jumps, as well as on that intangible something that makes one a real artist. I say this only because he took over the role Clifton had in “The Road of the Phoebe Snow” — that of the young, innocent dreamy boy who falls in love with the girl who is killed, and he just didn’t make me want to cry for him the way Clifton did. Plus, I remember these crazy scissor split leaps that just completely blew me away when Clifton did them. They were impressive when Antonio did as well, but not quite as much — which isn’t bad and it’s probably completely unfair to compare anyone to Clifton The Miraculous (by the way, I wrote more about Clifton here). Basically, I think Antonio is a Clifton in the making but he’s not there yet; he just needs to work on it a bit more — he’s young, so he has time! Here’s an excerpt from “Flowers.”

 

I also liked Glenn Allen Sims, a favorite of mine from other seasons as well. He was just beautiful in this small little five minute jazz ballet of Ailey’s that the company just revived, “Reflections in D.” And the night I saw him dance that piece, he followed it by dancing the similarly sweet balletic solo in the opening of “Love Stories.” I was in love 🙂 In contrast, he also perfectly performed the bad-ass scary band manager / boyfriend in “Flowers,” tormenting poor Janis and signaling her downfall, as well as the hardened lover in “Phoebe Snow.”

Of the women, I LOVED Linda Celeste Sims (above in “Flowers”). She absolutely shined in everything she did. She brought me completely into her world: I wanted to cry for her raped, beaten innocent girl in “Phoebe Snow,” I felt angry at the men who mistreated her in Ulysses Dove’s darkly sexual “Episodes” (pictured below), and her beautiful ethereal creature with that impossible-looking back arch in Battle’s “Unfold” took my breath away. She is like my Veronika Part!

 

I also liked Briana Reed, for giving everything she did such sass and conviction and major attitude!

 

Alicia Graf is another one with a very beautiful balletic body.

 

I know a lot of people love her for that reason — with her balletic form and training, they think she brings something new and special to Ailey. I agree, but only somewhat. I didn’t love her in everything I saw her in, and while I certainly don’t think she’s superior to anyone else because of that background, I do think she really excels in the more balletic parts. I thought she was beautiful in the “Fix Me Jesus” section of “Revelations” (pictured here, but with Linda dancing the female part). She has gorgeous pointed toes, reminiscient to me of (again) Veronika Part. I also loved her in the balletic parts of “The River,” which was originally a ballet on pointe created for ABT. I’m not sure why the company doesn’t put that on pointe; it’s not like Alicia (or the other women — “Flowers” is partly on pointe) couldn’t do it. It seems like it would be so much more magical… Anyway, it was other roles where I felt like she didn’t bring as much as some of the other dancers. For example, she danced the jilted lover in “Phoebe Snow” very differently from Briana; Alicia’s character seemed more fragile, more innocent and more hurt by her jerky boyfriend, making her, in my opinion, too similar to the other female character in that ballet, the fragile innocent who ends up killing herself. And, I was underwhelmed by her jazz divas in “Night Creature” and “Pas De Duke” (the latter created by Ailey for the legendary Judith Jamison)

But really, one thing I love about this company, and why it’s rather ‘star-less’ I think, is that I think every one of the dancers brings something unique. I only talked about some, but I really like them all. I’m only leaving out the others because I’m dead tired and I need to go to sleep! I’m one of those unfortunate souls who has to work tomorrow….

Oh but quickly, I also really liked Camille A. Brown’s Groove to Nobody’s Business. I thought it was cute and completely relatable and fun and I hope that she does more for the company in the future, but really takes it up a notch in terms of depth. I saw a smaller piece by her earlier this year at the Fall For Dance Festival called “The Evolution of a Secured Feminine.” It was a smart, witty solo, by turns funny, by turns more reflective, which she performed herself. I hope in the future she will create more, fuller-length work like that for a larger group, on a larger scale.

Anyway, happy New Year’s everyone! And please look at some of Ailey’s YouTube videos, especially if you’ve never seen this company before. And please do go see them live if they come to your neck of the woods! They combine everything — modern ballet, African, jazz, hip hop, Latin — everything! They are the future I do believe. I can practically promise that you won’t be disappointed 🙂

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Dance Times Square In-House Competition

A couple of weeks ago I went to Dance Times Square‘s in-house competition, an event the studio holds every once in a while to give their students who are thinking of entering an actual pro-am competition with their teachers a little taste of just what that would be like.

It’s judged by actual judges who arbitrate at the local and national competitions. Above are John Nyemchek and Edward Simon, a former American Smooth champion who now runs the New York Dance Festival and Empire State Dance Sport Championships.

Melanie LaPatin (studio co-owner) emceed.


(Sorry pics are blurry; I didn’t want to scare anyone with my flash!) I haven’t danced in so long, and it was exciting (albeit somewhat sobering) to see some of my old friends dancing so well at a much higher level than they were. Here’s long-time student Elaine (one of Pasha’s former students) dancing with her new teacher, Jacob Jason. She used to be at my level; now she’s far surpassed me! I MUST go back to dancing!

Anyway, here’s my full write-up of the event.

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Voguish, Mysterious and Visually Enthralling: Shen Wei Dance Arts at the Guggenheim

Early last week I saw Shen Wei Dance Arts give a Works & Process presentation at the Guggenheim. This was my first time seeing this company, although I briefly saw Mr. Shen in David Michalek’s Slow Dancing Films. (I think “Mr. Shen” is right, by the way: first name follows the last in Chinese?…) I know this company has performed at many festivals around the world, and is a favorite of the Lincoln Center Festival, and after seeing their New York premiere of “Behind Resonance,” I know why.

The piece began with a group of dancers wearing unadorned but gorgeous floor-length, gray velvet garments (strapless dresses for the women, skirts for the men) walking majestically across the stage, finding a spot then standing perfectly still, and making a pose. After a few seconds, they would move, walk to another place on the stage, or sometimes in the audience, and do the same, stop in pose. In a sense it was like a fashion show, but I don’t mean that in a bad way. They weren’t making runway poses; rather they were making various shapes with the beautiful fabric. One female dancer leaned up against a side wall, her hands pressed hard against it, and her legs about two foot-lengths apart so that the fabric made a kind of triangular shape, like a large cone. Another would lean over a rail aligning the ramp leading from audience to stage and wrap one leg around it, the fabric stretching over and creating a kind of fan shape.

After several minutes, the dancers began taking various upside-down positions when they stopped. One man sat in the middle of the stage, then rolled back on his elbows and lifted his entire body up, where he held it, his legs spread apart so that the fabric now made an upside down triangle. A woman did a hand-stand against a back wall. It was interesting because, as the dancers walked the material trailed flowingly behind them, like a bridegown. I would have thought as they lifted their legs into the air, the gowns would have fallen straight down, but they didn’t; they stayed put at the dancers’ outspread ankles. The lights were dimmed into a kind of bluish haze and it was so visually mesmerizing.

After a few minutes of this, the dancers now began to pair, men lifting women, both making the triangular shapes now — the men upright with their legs spread about two foot-lengths apart, the women in the air. Not all lifts were the same of course, or that would be monotonous; one man would be holding a dancer in a horizontal overhead position, another would be held upside down, another upright in a back T position behind the man, etc. And not all dancers stopped in pose at once; they each had their own timing. So, as one was posed, another would be in the midst of a lift or finding a position.

Finally, after a few minutes of this, the lights dimmed more, and, as some dancers were still performing the lifts, the curtain widened to reveal two women, now wearing only flesh-toned shorts, rolling together very very slowly on the floor. As they rolled toward the audience, their bodies would become entangled with the other so much so that they began to resemble one, two-torsoed, contorted body. It began to look like a two-headed mermaid crawling on the ocean floor. Then the opposite curtain widened to reveal another female dancer on the other side of the stage, this one alone, rolling very slowly as well, but going backward instead of forward. Her body would slowly bend back, first from the hips, then the waist, then the collarbone, then the chin. When she rolled back at the collarbone, she looked completely headless for a time. Both the ‘two-torsoed creature’ on the opposite side of the stage and this woman looked simultaneously grotesque and beatific. The whole thing was simply enchanting. The music, which I hardly remember since I was so stunned by the visuals, was by David Lang, and was simple with an air of mystery, consisting of a bland background hum spiked with some bells every now and then. And these were only some excerpts from the piece; I’d so love to see the whole.

Though Shen Wei is from China, his troupe is multicultural, as it seems is their repertoire. At times in the beginning of this piece, the dancers would look almost like Tibetan monks, the way they walked in such a determined, straight-forward manner to their chosen destination for a pose, where, even when leaning their bodies in a pained-looking manner against a wall, their faces remained impassive, ascetic. At other times, they kind of resembled elegant Western models.

Mr. Shen recently traveled back to China and throughout Asia, to Tibet and Cambodia. He’s currently making a larger work called simply “Re” as in re-birth, re-newal, re-envision, re-visit, re-work — fill in the blank basically, about these travels. He showed us some slides of pictures he took there. I was most mesmerized by photos of trees in Western China. These enormous trees would somehow grow not from the ground, but atop a building. So, he had these pictures of a gigantic tree centered right on top of a mosque or a house, its roots snaking down the sides of the building. They were eerily breathtaking, just like “Behind Resonance.” I’ll be very interested to see what all Shen Wei does with these images, how he translates them into dance. The project is set to premiere in 2009. In the meantime, according to Danciti, the company will be performing Monday night at Cedar Lake, with many others, as part of the Dancers Responding to Aids benefit, if anyone is going to that. (I can’t afford to!)

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More Work From "Blood Memory" Please!

I love this dance company so much. And I love Alvin Ailey’s work in particular. AAADT artistic director Judith Jamison quotes Ailey as having said that his choreography is the result of his “blood memory” of his southern boyhood. He said the greatest works of art are the most personal, come from the deepest-rooted place. Nothing could be more true.

So, my own Alvin Ailey season began last Saturday afternoon with Mr. Ailey’s “Night Creature,” one of my favorites and a dance that I would call a combination of ballet, jazz and Afro-Latin / Samba centered on a sweetly spotlight-demanding jazz diva and her man servant, backed by a large ensemble of dancers, and set to Duke Ellington music. The movement was a combination of beautiful ballet — soft, slow, fully extended developped legs, arabesques and partnered lifts; cool jazz hands and rhythmic hip swaying side-together steps; and, yes, Samba! It is so very cool for me as someone who has only very basic ballet training but much more extensive ballroom experience to be able to recognize so many steps!

Near the beginning of the piece, the ensemble circles around the central dancers by doing what are basically Samba voltas (back foot takes a side step, front crosses over and pelvis rotates fully), or even a kind of Salsa Suzie-Q if you know what that is, later, dancers slither forward in sexy, snaky pelvis-undulating cruzado walks, then there are stationary samba walks (feet together, then one foot slides back while the corresponding hip cooly juts upward and outward), side sambas, whisks, everything. It’s so exciting; I just want to scream out, “I can do that!” But of course I can’t — at least I can’t do it anything like those miraculous dancers. If I could, if I could be a real “night creature,” how my dance dreams would be complete! Anyway, I love how this work splendidly blends European Ballet, Afro-Latin Samba, and American Jazz — it’s everything; it’s brilliant.

 

Second was “Solo,” a shortish piece by choreographer Hans van Manen from 1997, danced to classical Bach. In this piece three men each take turns performing a series of solos, charmingly vying with each other in a kind of ‘who can be the most fast-footed, nimble dancer’ contest, each performing his own staccato interpretation of the very quick-tempo-ed violins. Some solos used a more classical vocabulary and were more poetic, others more of a comical riff on the classical. At times, it would seem that at the beginning of his solo, a man would be playfully taunting the previous dancer by making fun of his routine. This reminded me of a B-Boy showdown, like that I saw in a Tribeca Film Festival film earlier this year. Very fun! At the end, all three men take the stage at the same time and try to outwit / outdance each other. It’s a charming piece, and the classical music and balletic vocabulary is a nice contrast to the jazzy sexiness of “Night Creature.”

 

The company also premiered “Saddle Up!,” a new comical story-dance by Frederick Earl Mosley, about several ranchhands and their romantic pursuits. The piece begins with a rather innocent-looking new sheriff riding into town on his stick horse, having no idea what awaits him. He “parks” his “horse” and the scene shifts to a wedding he officiates between two doe-eyed young lovers, attended by two sisters — one flirtatious and sultry and donning a bright orange feather boa, which she tries to lasso around various men, the other silently sad but the object of affection of the wedding photographer, who continuously snaps her picture, she smiling, but only briefly and only for his camera. There’s a suggestion of scandal to come when the tossed bouquet is caught by sultry feather boa woman.

After the wedding, the scene shifts to an innocent young woman who is apparently about to be corrupted by a flirtatious womanizing outlaw. New sheriff, however, saves the day after he is victorious in a hilariously acrobatic, laugh-out-loud showdown with said outlaw, which promptly causes the young innocent woman to fall madly in love with her knight in shining armor. She does a beautiful little lyrical dance with the sheriff’s hat, which he has accidentally left behind. When he returns to retrieve it, they skip off together into the sunset, holding hands. Aww 🙂

The rest of the scenes consist of a lyrical, tenderly-danced first lovers’ quarrel between the newlyweds, and an equally tender courting scene between the photographer and the sad woman. This is followed by a fast-paced, fun, light-hearted scene in which feather boa woman is pursued by a whole bevy of cowhands who try to wow her with their partnering abilities. Lovely lifts and swingy, waltzy dances ensue. It ends with a big square-dance hoedown. It’s a fun, lively piece and the dancers are marvelous comical actors.

Still, cute as “Saddle Up!” was, it didn’t hold a candle to the last dance on Saturday’s program, “Revelations.” But I guess it’s unfair to compare anything to Mr. Ailey’s masterpiece. If you haven’t ever seen this dance, if you haven’t ever seen Ailey, if you’ve seen “So You Think You Can Dance” and the other TV shows and are now thinking of going to see a concert dance performance, please please please start with this one! Seriously, it’s everything. It’s about spirituality, redemption, grace, freedom from oppression through religion, it’s a celebration of faith and of life itself. It speaks to everyone because everyone — at least in this country (and now Sir Alastair too 😀 ) is familiar with the black church, with its celebration of life and freedom, with its history and pride and roots in the civil rights movement. Not to sound cheesy and Oprah-ish, but it’s so uplifting. The first time I ever saw it was not long after 9/11 and I was bawling when it ended. For a work created over forty years earlier, to me that’s the definition of timelessness.

It’s funny but my favorite parts of this dance change every few times I see it. The first few times, my favorite was the very end, “Rocka My Soul in the Bosom of Abraham,” a swingy, very upbeat number involving the whole ensemble dancing in a church setting to a hymnal. Makes you want to get up out of your chair and dance with them, and sometimes, when they do an encore, the audience does! Then my favorite became “Sinner Man” another quick-tempo-ed, but more sober number in which three men run about the stage, frightened, attempting vainly to escape the wrath of God, and in doing so, perform breathtaking jumps, leaps and turns. Then I began to love “Wade in the Water,” the Baptism scene (pictured at the top of this post) in which ladies in glorious white carrying sun umbrellas, men waving two long blue sheets across the stage, and one man flickering small flags about with his arms and rolling his torso as if it was fluid water, all make you feel like you’re at the beach being baptized along with the two young souls onstage. This time, I was blown away by “Fix Me, Jesus,” a slow, beautiful prayer of a pas de deux danced by a man and woman to a slavery spiritual.

The company dances “Revelations” with a great many of their performances; please do try to see it if you never have!

 

On Sunday, I saw the company premiere of “Firebird,” the version from 1970 by French choreographer Maurice Bejart. Bejart, who recently passed away, was known for taking classical ballets and re-working them using modern dance and just amazing athleticism. His ballets were often male-centered.

Here, the curtains rose to reveal an ensemble of dancers dressed in splotchy gray baggy pants and tops. The coloring of the costumes to me resembled Army fatigues, so, that along with the way the dancers would huddle together in fear, then fall to the ground crouching, crawling toward something they saw far in the distance — safety from an encroaching enemy perhaps — made me think this was a war scene. I later learned that Bejart had intended his “Firebird” to be a kind of salutation to Mao Tse Tung’s Red Army, so perhaps these corps dancers were supposed to be workers. The outfits almost resembled a painter’s garb, now that I think of it. Regardless, the ensemble dancers were downtrodden, the fearful, those in danger. Suddenly, one of them, a man, threw off his drab earthly costume to reveal a bright red body suit; he was their savior. This firebird was danced brilliantly by Clifton Brown (in the picture above), who soared around stage in a series of gorgeous leaps, taking time out here and there to perform more adagio poetic developpes and turns.

The choreography was really interesting to me. The firebird is traditionally female, and here, Bejart’s is male. But his bird is not only powerful, leading the corps to freedom, but is beautiful and delicate and lyrical as well. So the dancer must excel at both the more masculine feats — the grand jetes, the high jumps — and the more lyrical feminine adagio parts, the developpes and arabesques. Brown is such a tall, large-boned man, and it amazes me how soft and delicate and graceful he can be.

Soon, the firebird exhausts his power, dancing his heart out as he does, for the people, and he slowly and tragically dies. The corps is shattered but only momentarily, as, through the aid of another firebird, this one played by equally larger-than-life Jamar Roberts, in an enchanting two-male pas de deux filled with beautiful lifts, the original firebird rises again like a Phoenix.

It’s set to the original Stravinsky music. This was my first time seeing something by Bejart and overall I found it spectacular. There have been all of a bizillion and a half write-ups in NY about this company and, in particular, this piece. Go here for a pretty comprehensive list.

Last on for Sunday was Twyla Tharp’s fast, fun, glittering “Golden Section” from 1983 danced to pulsating David Byrne music, the dancers bedazzling in gold costumes. The movement varies from lyrical ballet to sexy 80s-style body rolls, pelvic-gyrations, partnered “death spirals” the likes of which I’ve seen in Disco / Hustle competitions, and absolute death-defying lifts (a man tossing a woman from afar into the arms of a group of men, a woman running and throwing herself at an unsuspecting man, hoping he’ll catch her). I would be so scared to perform this piece! Jamar Roberts took my breath away with a series of whipping fouette turns with multiple pirouettes thrown in. He blew everyone away actually; he received some major applause for that.

This is Tharp’s Modus Operendi: the combination of classical ballet with other kinds of contemporary dance – social, ballroom, jazz, swing, Latin, disco, whatever the popular dance of the day is. It allows her always to stay fresh, exciting, contemporary and accessible to new audiences.

What I love about this company in general is that they choose to perform choreography like this: pieces that combine different forms of dance that can speak to different generations, but also works that, like Ailey’s, are timeless because they touch your soul, speak fundamentally to the human condition. And the great thing about this company is that they TOUR, so you don’t have to live in NY to see them!!! Go here for their upcoming schedule.

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Jennifer Alexander

 

This is so horribly sad. I had heard about this several-vehicle collision in New Jersey the other night on the news, and I had heard Jennifer‘s name mentioned and that she was a dancer with ABT, but for some reason I didn’t know she had actually died; I thought she was only injured. Her husband, Julio Bragado-Young, also with ABT was injured and is still, it appears, in critical condition at Hackensack University Medical Center. A man in another car was killed as well.

Jennifer, her husband, and two other dancers were returning home from guest-performing in a Nutcracker in Pennsylvania. In addition to dancing with ABT, when she came to NY in 1993 she danced in Broadway productions of The Red Shoes and Carousel. Speaking of “Center Stage,” she was featured in that movie as well.

 

You see someone onstage many times and you think you know them, but of course you don’t. I particularly remember her from The Green Table. She is in the yellow dress. So sad.

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David Does Guggenheim and Justin Does Nutcracker in Drag

A little birdie at the Guggenheim last night told me that none other than David Hallberg is scheduled to perform ABT‘s upcoming Works & Process event there in January!!! Julie Kent is slated to dance as well 🙂

I am behind on my reviewing, but am working hard on my Alvin Ailey post (it’s really difficult to write about something you love; you keep feeling like you’re not doing it justice…) and, after that, Shen Wei Dance Arts at Guggenheim, which I saw last night. In the meantime, here’s a funny, but informative Winger post about NYCB’s Justin Peck getting made up to dance the role of Mother Ginger in their Nutcracker. Growing up, “the fat lady with all the kids under her skirt” was always my favorite part of that ballet, so I really enjoyed this.

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Dance Mag Spills Beans on Center Stage 2

This just in from Hanna Rubin at Dance Magazine. The filming of the movie Center Stage 2 is currently underway in Vancouver. The original Center Stage came out in 2000 and was kind of a cult hit among fans of American Ballet Theater and NYCity Ballet starring as it did several dancers from those companies, including ABT’s lovely Julie Kent and heartthrobs Ethan Stiefel and Sascha Radetsky. It was cute in an ABC After School Special kind of way and detailed the drama taking place at training school for pre-professional ballet dancers replete with eating disorders, body-type issues, harsh disciplinarian teachers, and back-stabbing hyper-competitiveness. And there was a little love triangle in which Ethan, as the cocky womanizing shit, and Sascha, as the nice guy, vie for the attentions of the main female character. Blast if I couldn’t find a YouTube of the little dance competition between these two guys, my favorite part. But here’s one giving a good musical overview of the whole.

Anyway, according to Dance Mag, Ethan will be reprising his role, this time playing cocky-shit dancer as well as cocky-shit teacher 😀 This time the main character is a small-town girl, played by newcomer to the big screen (? — I can’t find anything on the web on her), Rachele Smith, who enrolls at the academy with hopes of making it as a pro ballerina but who is also passionate about hip hop, and is hence an object of scorn by some of her ballet classmates. Ethan, it appears, will be dancing some hip hop. Fun fun! And he sounds very excited about it. According to the e-newsletter: “‘It was fantastic! I’m not sure I was necessarily successful, but what was beautiful was the collaboration with the other dancers. At this point in my career, when learning something brand-new like this falls into your lap, it’s challenging and exciting.”

I hope the sequel is more sophisticated than the original, but even if it’s not, watching Ethan dance hip hop should be worth the price of at least one admission.

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Dance Times Square Showcase Review Up

My review of the Dance Times Square student / professional showcase is now up on Explore Dance. The first without Pasha & Anya. Sad indeed, but, still, a fun-filled night with a lot of great dancing that succeeded in its aim: to propel spectators to want to get up and Mambo, Swing, and Foxtrot the night away themselves.

I’ve spent the weekend sprinting like a madwoman back and forth between 44th Street, where the Small Press Book Fair happened, and City Center, where Alvin Ailey season is currently underway. Yesterday I saw a wonderful program including one of my favorite dances of all-time, “Revelations,” which everyone should see at least once in their lives, along with a cute new western-y piece, “Saddle Up!” and the very jazzy, even samba-y (yes, Alvin Ailey knew Samba very well!), “Night Creature,” a tribute to Duke Ellington. And tonight will be more of the same. Ailey is simple the best. I love this company so! I plan to blog about both performances at some point tomorrow, after a sure to be grueling morning oral argument in court. Grueling because the case law is contradictory and perplexing, and because I have an extremely formidable adversary who is known for eviscerating his opponents alive. I know, all lawyers are scary (except me 😀 ) but no, this one is worse worse worse! Help!

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Ailey Season Begins Tonight

 

Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater‘s month-long New York season officially starts tonight. This is one of my favorite dance companies (second only to ABT :)) so I intend to be at City Center as often as I can throughout December.

Word is that this is Clifton Brown’s year to shine.  I’ve long admired this tall, strong, charismatic dancer so I’m thrilled he’s finally getting his due. (He also happens to hail from my neck of the woods; I love reading him talk about being exposed to Ailey in Phoenix :))

Also, the company has set up a little phone system, whereby you can dial this number: 212-514-0010, and press various keys to hear a dancer or choreographer speak about a work currently on the company’s rep. For example, press 3# to hear artistic director, the illustrious Judith Jamison talk about their new production of Maurice Bejart’s “Firebird;” press 5# to hear the sweet-voiced choreographer Camille A. Brown explain her intriguing new piece, “The Groove To Nobody’s Business”; and press 9# to hear dancer Matthew Rushing speak about learning Alvin Ailey’s “Reflections in D.” Go here to see all the prompts. I do so love this kind of audience-accessibility thing!

Go here for performance tix.