Tag: Ballet

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More on Nina Ananiashvili and The State Ballet of Georgia

My crazy life of late has made me late in posting this, but last weekend I went to BAM to see Nina Ananiashvili, a principal ballerina with both the Bolshoi and American Ballet Theater, dance with her newish company, The State Ballet of Georgia, whose artistic directorship she took over in 2004.

The program I saw consisted of four ballets: Balanchine’s “Duo Concertante,” Yuri Possokhov’s “Sagalobeli,” and two by talk-of-the-town Russian choreographer Alexei Ratmansky — “Bizet Variations” and “Dreams About Japan.”

I loved the company’s rendition of “Duo Concertante.” The dancers (in above photo by Jack Vartoogian), were Nino Ogua and Lasha Khozashvili and they danced it with more clarity of intent than I think I’ve seen before. Though it’s a non-story ballet, as are many of Balanchine’s, that doesn’t mean there was no room for interpretation, emotion, drama, and conflict. The dancers interacted with each other — by turns playful, romantic, aggressive, even somewhat violent, and loving, as Ogua would glide Khozashvili across the stage, she’d smile at him flirtatiously, she’d turn and run from him and he’d catch her and sweep her up, she’d place her head sweetly on his shoulder. After they finished a section, they would walk to the musicians — an onstage pianist and violinist, look at them quizzically, and as soon as the music gave them the cue, they would walk back to centerstage, regard each other, and begin dancing again. It was very “dramatic,” in the sense that the dancers were not merely performing steps without expression, like I’ve seen Balachine choreography performed, but they interacted with one another, with the musicians, and with the audience, drawing you in and making you a part of it.

Next was Ratmansky’s “Bizet Variations.” I wasn’t really in love with this one. It was sweet, with the women fluttering around in beautiful blue dresses, Nina as the lead in a purplish hue, and the men romancing them. I thought it was pretty but nothing really substantial.

My favorites were Possokhov’s “Sagalobeli” a beautiful combination of ballet with Georgian folk dance set to bewitching Georgian folk music, and Ratmansky’s “Dreams About Japan,” a stunning melding of classical ballet with Japanese dance, set to mesmerizing, at times frightening, Japanese percussion. Bands in both were, splendidly, live.

In “Sagalobeli,” the women all wore lovely, flowing beige dresses with snaky patterns on the bodice, and the men kind of Gladiator-style vests with tights and boots. Possokhov, a Russian choreographer who works mainly with San Francisco Ballet, brilliantly combined classical ballet with intriguing folk movement that at times resembled Flamenco, with couples energetically tapping the floor in a kind of conversation with each other, and at times, when women danced alone, a kind of belly dancing. The men-only parts consisted of Russian-looking deep-knee-bent folk dance kicks combined with the male bravura elements of classical ballet — whipping foette turns and giant soaring leaps. It was lovely and the music, a Tbilisi urban folklore performed by the Sagalobeli Ensemble, was just a dream. I didn’t want it to end.

 

And the Ratmansky — ah, this is the best thing I’ve ever seen by him. I actually liked it. I actually see what critics are going on about now! Though I have a feeling just from what I overheard in the theater that this is the critics’ least favorite of his… Anyway, structured like traditional Kabuki Theater (in which only the most popular dance fragments from various classical plays are presented), Ratmansky used percussion music performed by the Tbilisi Theater of Opera and Ballet and a combination of Japanese traditional dance with ballet to tell four short stories: “Sagi Musume,” in which a young girl mourns her lost love; “Futa Omote,” where the souls of lovers who’ve committed suicide reunite in one evil spirit; “Musume Dojoji,” in which a young monk fails to return the love of a maiden, who tranforms herself into a Fire Snake and avenges him; and “Kagami Jishi,” where a lion’s mask forces anyone who comes into contact with it to dance to exhaustion. Not only are classical ballet steps performed with a Japanese flair — turned out palms, flexed feet, expressive wrists, etc., but somehow because of the beating of the drums, because of the props, but also because of the way in which they are performed — with speed, with sharpness and a rhythm corresponding to the drums rather than the fluidity and mellifluousness of Western classical music — barrel turns, fouettes, pirouettes — traditional ballet language somehow became brilliantly transformed. It was neither ballet nor traditional Japanese dance, but somehow both; and both were enriched by the combination, rather than being oversimplified and belittled, like Asian dance often is when interpreted by a Westerner. It was really stunning, and I hope this is not the last we’ll see of this ballet.

Anyway, for more on Ananiashvili and the company, go here.

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Nina Ballerina

 

I haven’t had the chance to blog about this yet since I’ve been so busy with other writing projects, but I went to see ballet legend Nina Ananiashvili and her State Ballet of Georgia (as in the Republic) last weekend at Brooklyn Academy of Music. I loved it — especially a lovely piece combining ballet with traditional Georgian folk dance by Yuri Possokhov and Alexei Ratmansky’s “Dreams About Japan,” brilliantly combining traditional Japanese dance and Kabuki theater with classical ballet. This is the best Ratmansky I’ve ever seen.

I’m super busy, but plan to write more about it this weekend — and post more pictures!

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Movmnt Magazine Dance Blogger Party

 

Sorry I’m so late in getting this up! Last Monday evening, David Benaym, Editor-In-Chief and co-founder (with Danny Tidwell) of Movmnt Magazine hosted a dance blogger party at his office’s downtown NY headquarters. From left to right in picture above: Tony Schultz from The Winger, Doug Fox from Great Dance, Dea Soares Berrios, a friend of mine and The Winger’s, from Brazil who writes the personal blog Dea Nos Eua about her experiences moving to the U.S., her husband Al Berrios behind her, Taylor Gordon from The Winger and Off Center, me, Evan from Dancing Perfectly Free, David Benaym, and Brian Gibbs from The Winger.

It was a great time! David (pronounced Du-VEED) is extremely animated, and being from France, has a serious accent. People were having all kinds of funny mis-understandings 😀 We had some good discussions about dance and the internet, which companies are the best at using it (NYCBallet and Alvin Ailey, both of whom have YouTube channels), which are the worst (unfortunately my favorite American Ballet Theater was the sad winner in that category), which issues people are afraid to discuss in the blogosphere (dancer eating disorders being a big one), how most bloggers’ personas are so different from the writer’s actual personality (as well as pictures; we all agreed Schultz’s Winger headshot looks nothing like him!), and how we keep in touch with each other on a daily basis through our blogs though we’ve rarely met in person: at one point, David remarked how worried he was about Jolene. We asked why and he said, “Did you see? She said she would not come because she was very very sick and would soon go to hospital.” “Nooooo,” we all — and I mean all — sang out in unison, “that’s Ariel!” (who’s better now, by the way). Then he said, “Ohhh, well then who is Jolene?” Again, we all said in unison, “she’s the one who lives in San Francisco…” — I find it sweet that we all keep up with each other so well via our blogs; we really are a tight community. And finally, we talked about whether bloggers (particularly the snarky ones 🙂 ) should be anonymous (we’re all dying, for example, to know who Danciti is, though some thought anonymity was fine). I know I’m forgetting tons of stuff; we decided through Al’s suggestion, that the next time, we would take minutes or record.

 

At the end, David gave us little gift bags containing issues of the latest magazine as well as a few back copies, a pair of Movmnt socks (hehe, like they give you on VirginAtlantic for overseas flights), and a copy of his and Danny’s book, “Moving Still.” Since I helped to organize the event, I received a special copy, containing all of the featured dancers’ — including Tidwell’s — autographs 🙂 Even though I don’t agree with David about everything (for example, he thought about 10 posts a week on The Winger was good, otherwise it’s too overwhelming; I think, seriously, the more posts per day the better — my ideal number would be a Gawker-sized 30+ per weekday, although I realize this is never going to happen without a salaried, full-time blogger staff; there needs to be a Nick Denton of dance…) but I have a great deal of admiration for someone who has such an entrepreneurial spirit, who’s such a risk-taker and doesn’t think twice about creating his own path. He not only started his own magazine and wrote two books — his own novel (only available in French) as well as “Moving Still,” but he founded his own publishing companies to produce all of these things.

If you’re near a Barnes & Noble that carries it (one thing I learned from David is that you have to pay a bookstore shitloads of money just to carry your mag, even though they get a big profit from sales anyway?..), the latest issue is available. It includes an article by Taylor about dancer injuries, and two profiles from dancer Matt Murphy on composer Nico Muhly and “Center Stage 2” star Kenny Wormald, amongst other good things of course! Or you can visit their website.

Also, if you’re a dance blogger and near NYC and you want to be included on our email list, send me an email (found on my contact page). I don’t always organize these things but I seem to be the current “maintainer of email addresses.”

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Diana Vishneva's "Beauty in Motion" at City Center

I’m writing a review of this for Explore Dance, so will make this short; I wanted to post something quickly since it’s only showing tonight and tomorrow (Sunday) matinee.

It’s funny to me that dance-makers and fans always complain that critics are destroying dance with their negative reviews. I think they often do the opposite, creating loads of hype, sometimes deserved, sometimes not. And you don’t know which it is until you’ve seen the program. In this case, I’d say the program is worth seeing, but not for the reasons the critics say. The highlight to me was the brilliant brilliant Desmond Richardson of Complexions Contemporary Ballet, in the third ballet of the night, “Three Point Turn,” Dwight Rhoden’s exciting piece about the turbulence of male / female relationships. Richardson had two breathtaking solos that brought the crowd, rightly, to its feet. For a ballet-trained dancer he excels at the sharp, angular, staccato movements that are the hallmark of modern. He’s really a marvel.

I also enjoyed in that last piece Kirov danseur Mikhail Lobukhin. He’s a muscular man with a longish blonde mane and highly arched feet that, when he points, enable him to make beautiful lines. He has kind of an androgynous appeal, which works well for this piece in which masculine violent passion and feminine romantic love are often evoked simultaneously.

In the first ballet of the evening, Alexei Ratmansky’s “Pierrot Lunaire,” which aims to put to dance a set of Fifteenth-Century European poems about a clown’s descent into madness and back again, and in which the clown is depicted alternately by four dancers (all from the Kirov), Alexander Sergeev was my favorite. He interpreted his clown’s changing happiness, sadness, sexual fervor, and madness with the most pathos, and I couldn’t take my eyes off of him.

The show is meant to celebrate Diana Vishneva, the Russian ballerina who is currently a principal with American Ballet Theater as well as the Kirov Ballet, or Mariinsky Theater, in St. Petersburg. The middle piece, by Moses Pendleton, the modern, not ballet, choreographer who founded theatrical dance companies, Pilobolus and MOMIX, is the one that most celebrates Vishneva, because it allows her to have the stage entirely to herself. I don’t think she works tremendously well with others (which I’ve noted before), and I have yet to see what all the critics are so orgasmic about with her, but Pendleton gave her some brilliant props to work with — particularly a large mirror upon which she lay in various positions, she and her reflection together evoking a series of imaginative shapes, and a beaded headdress which she wore and spun around repeatedly in, making interesting forms with the material — and the result seemed to be the crowd-pleaser of the night (other than Richardson).

At the end of the last piece, the curtain went down, then rose again. All dancers besides Vishneva were onstage. The dancers linked hands and came forward for a group bow. Then, each came forward one at a time — five in all — then another group bow. The dancers began looking at each other, a bit concerned. The conductor — shaggy-haired and good-looking I might add! — came onstage and took a bow. The dancers took another group bow. The singer came onstage and took a bow. The audience applauded on and on, for a good ten minutes. The dancers looked at each other, more worried. Audience members began to shrug their shoulders. “Is she coming out?” someone whispered. A few began to leave. One dancer, I think it was innocent-faced Sergeev, gave a nod and the dancers walked forward, arms linked, for yet another bow. Vishneva has refused to take bows before: at ABT’s opening night Met gala last year, she wouldn’t come out for her Sleeping Beauty curtain call. Ballet Talk talkers surmised she was upset about her performance. I didn’t see anything lacking in her performance and wondered whether it was just that she had to share the stage with two other dancers who played Sleeping Beauty (at the gala, they had three women dance the part for variety). I turned around to peek at Kevin McKenzie (ABT’s artistic director, who happened to be sitting behind me); he didn’t seem to have a clue as to what might be up either. I turned around and put on my coat. Some other orchestra members came out for some bows. Then another dancer group bow. The lady beside me excused herself and walked past me. I was just about to grab my bag and go when, finally, in what must have been a good fifteen minutes after the end of the last ballet, she emerged from the wings, bedecked in a velvety black, floor length gown with a several-foot-long train. But she didn’t just walk out onstage to the middle of the lined-up dancers; she walked around clear to the back of the stage, proceeded all the way around the row of dancers, went nearly into the opposite wings, and came around in front, prancing to the front of the stage and taking several very long, drawn-out bows. I think by that time all of our standing ovations and applause had long been spent on Richardson, and I heard several harrumphs of annoyance. I know it may be a Russian thing for the prima ballerinas to act like drama queens in taking their bows, and some may see it as a point of amusement for American audiences, but I think people were more confused and annoyed than entertained.

Anyway, the show’s worth seeing for the interesting choreography, the excellent guest dancers from the Kirov, and for Richardson. Go here for tix. Here are a couple of other write-ups from my fellow bloggers, Jolene and Art in California, who have different points of view regarding Vishneva, from me.

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American Song & Dance and Russian Treasures

I had a most excellent ballet weekend. Friday night at NYCBallet was one of the best nights I’ve had at a ballet of mixed bills. The program was titled “American Songs and Dances,” and included three ballets — two by my favorite American choreographer Jerome Robbins and one by NYCB artistic director Peter Martins. The first “Thou Swell,” by Martins was one of the best things I’ve seen by him. It was a ballroomy ballet heavy on pas de deux (my favorite) in which four couples dance the night away to American classics like “Getting to Know You”, “Isn’t it Romantic”, “Blue Moon”, “The Most Beautiful Girl in the World”, “Bewitched, Bothered, and Bewildered”, and “The Lady is a Tramp” etc. etc. etc. The style is jazzy, Art Deco-y 1930s and a large, interestingly-shaped mirror hangs down over the back of the stage. I thought the mirror ever so cool both in its cut and how it allowed you to see the dancing from several different angles, but the guys next to me complained that it created distracting shadows.

 

 

Well, all I can say is there is no one sexier than a male ballet dancer in ballroom attire 😀 Perhaps that is to say there is nothing sexier than dance that looks like ballroom and IS a form of ballroom, but takes on a different cast and is all the more brilliant when combined with the poetry of ballet.

 

After Nikolaj’s farewell, I now can’t take my eyes off of Yvonne Borree. (all headshots by Paul Kolnick). She’s so sweet and so lovely. She danced here with Nilas Martins, my “Nikolaj replacement” and he did a fantastic mad sexy job both partnering her and with his own brilliant expressiveness. Whoever told me he was like Nikolaj in that department, that that ability to express and evoke and emote, bringing you to the edge of your seat, is a Danish thing, was so right! They were charming together and they are the new couple.

 

My other favorite couple was Amar Ramasar (duh!), dancing with Sara Mearns. He was so gorgeously dapper and, tall, dark and handsome, he stands far out from the crowd whether in a pas de deux or ensemble. And there is something so polished about his dancing. With his long legs, his kicks attain greater height than everyone else’s, and, overall he’s just always so suave.

Second on was “Ives, Songs” by Robbins, danced to the music of Charles Ives, the lyrics of which were, nicely, reprinted in the Playbill. A man, here the legendary (now retired) Robert LaFosse wanders around the stage watching dancers of various ages, perhaps his family, act out various dramas. It has a kind of “Norman Rockwell” evocation and makes you a bit sad as he relives scenes from his family life. Here Kathryn Morgan stood out to me — she kind of reminds me Margot Fonteyn. She just steals the scene without trying. I’m starting to notice Justin Peck a lot too. At one point his character goes off to war and he crashes to the ground with the perfect degree of pathos, a fallen soldier. But the person who really blew me away here was the singer, Philip Cutlip. His voice was a miracle and he enunciated every word so smoothly and with such emotion. Yet he didn’t take over; he was a perfect accompaniment to the dancers.

 

And third was Robbins’s magnificient, thrilling “West Side Story Suite.” Andrew Veyette completely blew me away. He danced the part Nikolaj did in his farewell — the leader of the Jets, with the singing role during “Cool It.” He belted out those lyrics far better than Nikolaj — I couldn’t believe a dancer could sing like that! Wow! And he and Amar, as leader of the Sharks, did the fight scene brilliantly. I don’t know how people don’t hurt themselves. Georgina Pazcoquin — oh my, that one can do anything! Anything! She played Amar’s girlfriend, Anita. She sang and danced “In America” like I’ve never seen it done before. She easily got a standing ovation. She must be seen more! This season she has easily become one of my favorite women. Robert Fairchild reprised his Romeo role, playing Tony here with all the youthful angst of the teenager he, unbelievably, still is! I think I stood behind his mother in the press ticket line — I’m not sure because she seemed very young (but then I have to keep reminding myself how young he is) when she happily announced her last name to the ticket guy.

 

Sorry for going a bit headshot-happy here. I just noticed Robert has a new one up, and I thought it was really good. 🙂

 

 

The only thing here: Amar. Surprisingly, he wasn’t all that hard-assed as an intimidating gang leader. He is just more the dapper ballroom gent, I guess. But I think it was partly his costume. I was sitting in the fifth row and I could have sworn they had him in corduroy pants, while everyone else was in jeans. The cords, with their flaring, preppy, schoolboy front pockets made his black tennis shoes look like top-siders. He just looked like a young college professor. Maybe it’s just that I’d just read a Jhumpa Lahiri short story in the New Yorker and the way he was dressed I kept thinking of the male model they had in the accompanying picture, but I just didn’t see him as a Tybalt-esque thug here.

Saturday night was Russian night 🙂 Entitled “Russian Treasures,” it celebrated Balanchine’s creations — some of his greatest — to Tschaikovsky’s music. First on was “Serenade”, one of my favorites, which I’ve written about here and here. Again, Yvonne Borree stood out here in her sweetness and charm. Second was “Mozartiana” — my first time seeing this one, as well as the one that followed, “Tschaikovsky Piano Concerto No. 2” also titled “Ballet Imperial.” Since hearing Terry Teachout rave on about that latter one, I have been dying to see it and it was definitely my favorite of the two. “Mozartiana” (an early Balanchine) had a lot of the very typical back and forth of classical Petipa: pas de deux, male solo with bravura leaps galore, female solo with bravura fouettes galore, male solo ditto, female solo ditto, back to pas de deux again ending in faux happy togetherness. I’m not so into that; it bores me. I did like Daniel Ulbricht in this though — he was the perfect young Mozart as he jumped about youthfully illustrating his solid technique and perfect lines. He didn’t overdo it this time with sky-high leaps, and I liked him for that.

 

Balanchine created “Ballet Imperial” in 1941 for a traveling American Ballet Caravan, which, under the sponsorship of the Roosevelt administration, toured South America. He wanted to create a ballet that celebrated classical dance, while remaining uniquely his own. And that he did: it reminded me a lot of the “Diamonds” portion of “Jewels”, the last third of that ballet in which Balanchine pays loving homage to his native land with majestic ensemble dancing to a familiar, much- cherished Tschiakovksy score. (I wrote about that ballet here.) Originally, the program notes state, it was performed with a scenic backdrop illustrating the Neva River running through St. Petersberg, and Peter and Paul Fortress and gorgeous Winter Palace upon it. But, typical for Balanchine, he took out the background in 1973, feeling the ballet and music could stand on their own, which they can, but I still would have loved to have seen that backdrop! Jonathan Stafford stood out to me here, for the first time. He was magnificient in some high-flying assembles and with his height, he’s the perfect nobleman. Oh, and I just have to say, the pianist, Susan Walters, was breathtaking here! This company sure knows how to find the most excellent musical artists.

So sad though — this is the last week of NYCBallet’s Winter season…

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Bravo's STEP IT UP & DANCE Cast Revealed

Go here to see the cast of Bravo TV’s new dance show, “Step It Up & Dance.” This show, which is set to premiere April 3rd, is similar to “So You Think You Can Dance” in that dancers compete in several different dance styles, here for a cash prize of $100,000. I like this cast: there’s a diversity of training and dance style — from Tae Kwan Do to Ballet, with many trained in several styles — and a good age range.

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Hooray For Katusha and Arunas

The only thing I didn’t like about their showdance was that ending pose. Kind of a fish dive but not a real one or her arm wouldn’t be wrapped around his neck like that, and her bottom foot should be touching her top knee and it’s nowhere near it. Lifts actually always look a little weird in Standard because the shoes aren’t flexible and you can’t point your toes, so the line is off. Anyway, aside from the ending pose, I loved them — both their showdance and their group dancing. In particular I love him — better than her old partner Jonathan Wilkins even. He’s faster, swifter, and sharper — especially his Tango. That really blew me away. I’m happy for her that she ended up with someone like him. I had thought Jonathan retired from competition and that’s why they broke up, but I was wrong; he’s just moved back to his native England and is now competing for the UK with Hazel Newberry, a former British champion. It’ll be very interesting to see how they place respective to Katusha and Arunas in the world championships this year!

 

And I liked Urs Geisenhainer and Agnes Kazmierczak for almost the opposite reason.

 

They performed only to one song, but put several dance styles to it, including some Latin, and at the end even some breaking isolations. At points, such as the beginning, they uniquely combined Tango, a Standard dance with Cha Cha, a Latin. I’ve seen Latin dances combined with each other and Latin and Ballroom in one routine but with transitions between them. But I haven’t often seen Standard and Latin steps actually combined into one like that — it was like a Tango promenade / cha cha chas. Very cooly unique. And all of the dances looked equally good on them. Talk about versatility!

For exhibitions, as I said earlier, I love Austin Joson and Elizabeth Lakovitsky.

 

He keeps growing and growing; he’s starting to look like a little man. And only two years ago Elizabeth was a little girl. I know they’ve worked hard on their Paso Doble and it shows. They have a really cute jive and a sweet rumba too, but I think Paso is their favorite. That routine, with that kind of foreboding music, was rather mature, as cohost Ron Montez said! They have some polishing to do (and he has some more growing to do so he’ll catch up with her 🙂 ) but I think they’re going to be really great someday.

I liked this couple too, Anton Belyayev and Karolina Paliwoda, who recently turned pro.

Sometimes the best dancers are just coming from the amateur ranks. I thought her form was fantastic, and I love the simplicity both of their routine and costumes. As Montez pointed out, she had no rhinestones on that dress and I love that somone has the courage to do something different. There’s too much glitter in some of these ballroom comps and sometimes it’s meant to compensate for lack of quality in the dancing. And they performed basic steps with such clarity, Montez was even able to use them as a model for pointing out to the audience the elements of a proper rumba. Montez is a good host: he notices small details and he’s interested in imparting the mysteries of technique to the audience.

The only thing, Standard in general is just kind of boring on TV; it doesn’t come across the same as in a live comp — somehow part of the magic is lost, kind of like with some of the filmed ballet (particularly ensemble work). I don’t know why that is exactly. I guess it’s the weightlessness factor: dances that are more grounded, like Latin and Tap have more weight and don’t lose much resonance when reduced to two dimensions. More light, feathery, weightless dances like ballet and Standard Ballroom just lose impact when not three-dimensional. That’s Paul Parish’s theory anyway. Hmmmm.

Also, extremely annoyingly, the ABC website no longer contains an email address where you can email questions, and ABC isn’t a part of the Great Performances series, so I don’t know how to get a hold of them. A couple of people asked me about songs they used in the group dances. I’ll try to find out how to contact them, but often, the event organizers don’t even remember which songs they used. They usually have a bunch of songs suitable for each dance style already downloaded into the computer, so that someone just hits “Cha Cha” for a cha cha heat, or “Rumba” for that dance. I was so disappointed when I’d hear a song I loved and would ask around and no one had a clue what I was talking about. If you ever go to competitions, though, visit the shopping pavilion (where they have all the costumes). There’s usually a music vendor there and they have TONS of ballroom CDs for both Latin and Standard. They have tables and tables of headphones and walkmans and you can sit there for hours and listen. If you’re in NY, Worldtone has a decent selection. If you’re neither in NY nor have any comps near you, you can visit DanceVision website. A lot of the songs are repeated on numerous tapes, but even if you don’t find the particular song you heard that way, you’ll definitely find a million others. I’ll let you know, though, if can find ABC people! Annoying that they took the email address down!

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Apollinaire and Diana!

My friend Apollinaire Scherr has an excellent article on the bewitching ballerina Diana Vishneva in this week’s New York Magazine! Apollinaire makes me so jealous the way the writes about dance 🙂 And check out the spellbinding photograph by Armen Danilian.

Vishneva will be performing next week at City Center with Desmond Richardson from Complexions Contemporary Ballet. The two will dance choreography by the man everyone in NY is talking about these days, Alexei Ratmansky. Go here for tix and info.

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Farewell To A True Artist

So sad! So, yesterday was Nikolaj Hubbe‘s final performance with the New York City Ballet. He will now return to Denmark to head the Royal Danish Ballet. I am really going to miss him. There are lots of great dancers, but he was a true artist, bringing every step he did to a higher level.

A wide range of dances were on yesterday’s bill, showing his extreme versatility. The afternoon began with Balanchine’s poetic 1928 “Apollo,” the story of a boy / god who matures into a man, with the help of course of three other-worldly muses, or as Tobi Tobias defines it, “the saga of a soul … finding its identity.”

We then saw “Flower Festival in Genzano,” a short piece choreographed by August Bournonville, fitting since he founded the Royal Danish and Nikolaj excelled in his ballets there early in his career. Here, Nikolaj did not perform himself but two young dancers whom he’s trained in the School of American Ballet — the marvelous and charismatic Kathryn Morgan, whom I’d seen as Juliet in Martins’ Romeo + Juliet, and a young corps member, David Prottas, whom I’ve noticed before but only in the corps, and who blew me away yesterday. He has lovely long legs that make a breathtaking line and, as I’ve noticed before, he does every little step with such clarity and precision. He stands out. I’m serious about noticing his curly headed, long-legged excellence in the corps before — in ballets like “Square Dance;” I just never said anything because I was once told by a critic friend that it’s bad luck for an up and coming dancer to laud them too much early on — like it jinxes them or something, and perhaps because I just didn’t have the confidence to say what I thought of someone no one else had mentioned. I’m so glad Nikolaj used him in this all-important piece on his farewell program. It makes me feel like I’m not a total idiot and can spot talent and artistry too 🙂

Then came “Zakouski,” a Peter Martins ballet. To be honest, I’ve never been all that in love with Martins’s choreography (apart from the recent “Grazioso”) but once Nikolaj stepped out on that stage I felt completely different. It’s a cute story of the different facets of one couple, actually performed by two different pairs. Nikolaj danced one of the pairs with his longtime partner, Yvonne Borree, and the other partnership was danced by one of my new favorites Andrew Veyette, and sweet Megan Fairchild. Nikolaj and Yvonne had the more mature roles, their dance infused with sexy tango-like movements, which he performed perfectly sharply, sexily, manly. I love him! He also brought out the magic in Yvonne — so, he brought out the magic in both Peter and Yvonne.

When they took their curtain call for this one, it was so sad. Yvonne was crying uncontrollably; his shirt was wet all down one side with her tears. It almost made me cry. Below is a Paul Kolnick picture of them together, not in this dance but another.

The last section was “Cool” from Jerome Robbins’s “West Side Story Suite,” in which Nikolaj actually sang a little! And the program ended with Balanchine’s cowboy and saloon-girl-inhabited tribute to the American West, “Western Symphony.” I guess it’s good that I got Nilas Martins confused with Nikolaj a couple of times in this final ballet. There will still be a Nikolaj-reminder for me in the company.

Here’s a nice little write-up on Nikolaj’s career in Playbill.

As always with hugely important performances like this, the whole day is just one big event, in which everyone in the ballet world, and often beyond, partakes. I no more than got seated when I heard a man and woman fighting behind me. Apparently, she had said too loudly, “Look, there’s Baryshnikov!” thereby embarrassing him. I looked and looked but could not find him. This is likely because I’d just seen my love, hairy-faced and sporting big black chunky glasses, make his besuited entrance. He sat in the first row right smack in the center and chatted with lady next to him. During each intermission I caught him with dancers in his usual hang-out place — on the right side of the theater either on the promenade or the ground floor. Anyway, after I got myself seated for the second intermission, I tucked my legs under me to let passersby get to their seats, and right as his leg brushed mine, I looked up and saw Misha’s face. He was just sitting a few seats down from me and I didn’t even notice him! In the row behind me was Alexei Ratmansky, the director of the Bolshoi who may take over as artistic director of NYCBallet. During second intermission, I saw Philip and Wei and Philip asked me to ask him what his decision was on that (apparently he had to decide by the day before or something). I said no way, I’m way too shy! I also ran into Sarah, and Monica. Others wrote accounts of the day by the way: here is Philip’s and here is Sarah’s.

Of course the final curtain call was horrendously sad. It went on for maybe twenty minutes. There was confetti, bizillions of flowers, everyone in the company past and present went up onstage to hug and kiss him.

Nikolaj will give his final dance performance in April with the Royal Danish. During intermission Monica said under her breath, “Hmmm, I wonder if I have any reason to go to Copenhagen in April?…” I was thinking exactly the same thing. Do we need more of a reason though?!

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It's Up!

Yipee, my Huffington Post blog is up! My first piece is a general rumination on the current dance craze on TV — kind of similar to my Explore Dance article, but more personal, from my own experiences as a ballroom dancer and balletomane, and more focused on the popularity in general than critiquing the individual shows. I’ll post there, soon hopefully, about the new dance show on MTV, “America’s Best Dance Crew.” Photo, meh, but at least no moustache, right 😀

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New Wheeldon Pretty But Not Profound

 

So last night was the premiere of the newest ballet by Christopher Wheeldon at New York City Ballet, the last he’ll choreograph for the company in his role as resident choreographer. Named ROCOCO VARIATIONS, because it was choreographed to Tchiakovsky’s music of the same name, it was relatively short and minimal, involving a total of four dancers — two male / female couples. Overall, my first impressions are that it was sweet and pretty, but nothing that really blew me away. The curtain opened to a bare stage, no sets. First one couple emerged, then another, the two women dressed in really lovely bronze-colored strapless dresses, the flowing skirts A-level and knee-length. They resembled a cross between ballgowns and a long tulle ballet tutu, and at first I thought it was going to be reminiscent of a Balanchine ballroom ballet, but I was wrong; it was pretty much straight ballet pas de deux. The men wore brown tights and white billowing tops covered by 19th Century-esque beige vests. The music was absolutely beautiful, it goes without saying, and Wheeldon’s very musical; the steps “looked like” the music.

I appreciated a few moments of original partnering and movement: at one point, when all four are onstage, the women stand next to each other and extend their arms toward each other, and the men walk around them and underneath their arms, on the way through grabbing each other and doing a short, jaunty little male -on- male dance. Cute! There was also a nice, evocative shape made by one couple — Sterling Hyltin and Giovanni Villalobos — when Giovanni lunged deeply toward her and she leaned toward him on one toe, her back leg in an arabesque. Where normally the ballerina would keep her head up to maintain her balance and smile brightly at her partner’s face, here she covered his hands with hers and let her head fall all the way underneath their locked hands. It looked like she was really deferring to him, really trusting him, and it was original. Near the end, Adrian Danchig-Waring, the other man, bent down, and his ballerina Sara Mearns, lay on his back, her body straight, almost like a log, and he carried her off that way, bent-backed, as if now bearing a weight.

I was really mesmerized by Mearns and Danchig-Waring. Adrian’s arms were so fluid, they were like water. And both were very expressive with their upper bodies; they had beautiful port de bras (arm movements) culminating with intricate, delicate shaping of the wrists.

I’ll see the ballet again, but, on first sighting, I found the choreography pretty and lyrical, with points of originality, but nothing tremendously profound. My thoughts are that Wheeldon is petering out a bit, wanting to focus now on his own company, Morphoses.

The rest of the evening consisted of Balanchine’s sweetly Romantic “Divertimento from ‘Le Baiser de la Fee'” — which translates to “The Fairy’s Kiss” and is based on a Hans Christian Anderson tale; Peter Martins’s short tribute to China, “The Chairman Dances,” likely in honor of the Chinese New Year (Happy Chinese New Year everyone!); and Balanchine’s fun, raucous “Stars and Stripes,” a patriotic tribute to his adopted country, choreographed in honor of NYC mayor, Fiorella LaGuardia, to iconic Philip Sousa marching music.

I then came home and watched Randy Jackson’s “America’s Best Dance Crew,” on MTV, which I’d taped. I thought it was a lot of fun — very different from the other dance TV shows. For people who didn’t see it, it’s all dancing — no singing, unlike “Dance War” and the groups have been working together for some time, so they’re familiar with each other and know what they’re doing. It appears that the judges give the groups a different song to choreograph to and they have to come up with something original in a short period of time. The crews with the two lowest scores have a dance-off in the end. But the dancing is really only hip hop with some breaking thrown in, so there isn’t a variety of styles, unlike SYTYCD. My favorite crew overall thus far is “Live in Color,” though I’m not in love with the name — too much like “Living Colour,” whose lead singer the lead dancer actually kind of resembles, with the mohawk (though the dancer’s hair is shorter than the singer’s was). I loved how that guy threw in those fouettes at the end (which one of the judges called “art spins” 🙂 ) Anyway, I’m expecting to write more about the show on my Huffington Post blog column, when it’s up (I’m thinking it got a bit delayed by Super Tuesday). If it’s not up soon, I’ll write more about the shows here.

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Night of Premieres

Just a reminder, tonight Randy Jackson’s new reality TV dance show, “America’s Best Dance Crew,” premieres on MTV, 10 p.m. ET (although it looks like it’ll be rebroadcast a bunch of times). Mario Lopez from “Dancing With the Stars” co-hosts and Shane Sparks from “So You Think You Can Dance” is one of the three judges. In this show, whose orientation is mainly toward hip hop, the competition is among several dance teams. But these teams are already formed and have been working together for some time, so it’s not another “Dance War.” For more info go here.

Tonight’s also the premiere of — don’t laugh, I’m honestly kinda excited to see it 🙂 — “Lipstick Jungle,” starring Brooke Shields and based on Candace Bushnell’s book of the same name. That’s on NBC also at 10 p.m. ET.

And finally, if you’re in New York, tonight is the premiere of the last ballet Christopher Wheeldon will choreograph for the New York City Ballet in his job as resident choreographer of that company. After this season he will leave his post (possibly to be replaced by the Bolshoi’s Alexei Ratmansky), to concentrate on his own company, Morphoses. That’s at the State Theater at 8 p.m.

Happy night!

Oh, and also, speaking of ballet, look at these gorgeous pictures by Patricio Melo of Ballet de Santiago’s “Swan Lake”! Wow!