Tag: Ballet

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Junot Diaz is a Chatty Character, Who Knew?!

Look what Maud Newton found. Apparently, Google has a whole series of authors reading from their books and giving little lectures available for viewing on YouTube. The video embedded in Maud’s post is of Junot Diaz, whose collection of short stories, Drown, I loved, and whose new novel, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, I’m dying to read. Funny how chatty he is; often authors are so shy and introverted. He reads very slowly too, so you can get all the details. Many authors read fast, probably because of the shyness… There are other authors too: Jonathan Lethem, Jeffrey Toobin, Alex Ross… The series makes me very happy because I used to go to a lot of readings, but since I’ve taken to spending my evenings for the past couple of years at either dance performances or dancing myself, I’ve really missed them.

A couple of other things on the net recently: Laura Jacobs has an article about ABT dancer Veronika Part’s “Sleeping Beauty” out in The New Criterion, which isn’t available online for free, but James Wolcott has substantial quotes from it on his Vanity Fair blog. I’m currently reading Jacobs’s Landscape With Moving Figures, a collection of her dance writing in New Criterion covering about a 10-year period, and the first thing I noticed is how poetic she is when speaking about individual dancers. She talks about them so beautifully; it’s like they’re her muses. She has a chapter called “Assoluta,” which is about then current (2004) ballerina assolutas, or prima ballerinas, and she has a lengthy section on Part there. She describes Part as “a snow princess… (with) white white skin, black hair, a young Ava Gardner, a big white rose … (with) lotus-blossom aplomb, … (an) ivory-sceptor extension … pacific delicacy in the wrists and hands” and she calls Part’s developpe (slow lift of the leg, first by the thigh, then extending up and out as the knee straightens) as “not a step … but a glory,” that “comes up like a law of nature, almost animal, and stays like light.” Anyway, go here to read her writing on Part’s Sleeping Beauty.

Also, Ariel has posted several interviews she conducted with four New York City Ballet dancers when they guested recently with her hometown company, Mobile Ballet. The interviews are here and here and here and here.

Finally, there’s an interesting discussion going on between writers, bloggers, and readers about what the internet means for the future of dance journalism. See the comments section here.

And speaking of such, Doug has begun a new blog within his Great Dance blog devoted to dance reviews for each region. He’s started with New York. Anyone who’s written a review may submit.

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A Weekend of Latin Dance With Two Ballet Legends

Julio!!! Today I trekked all the way out to the end of the 2 line, to Brooklyn College’s Performing Arts Auditorium, to see Julio Bocca’s very final performance in the United States. Julio, Argentinian ballet legend who spent most of his career with American Ballet Theater and who just retired from ABT last year (see my bizillion photos of that splendid event here), danced one final year with the ballet / tango company he founded in Argentina, Ballet Argentino, and is now permanently retiring from dance. His final performance is to be in Argentina next month. He’s 40 years old.

He’s so great. Watching him today made me sad again, remembering last year’s farewell. He looked really good, more in his element today actually than toward the end of his ABT days. He looked really happy and at ease. And he’s let his hair grow out, which to me looks a lot better than short:

At the end, in the final curtain call, he came out in a white bathrobe. At ABT’s final bow, he came out in tights only and had a beer, at one point pouring it all over himself. This curtain call was about 1/100th the length of last year’s, and I’m thinking it’s in large part because the theater was filled with regular Brooklyn College-ites and not Bocca fans. Several people around me exclaimed that they’d never seen the auditorium so packed. They didn’t seem to know…

Anyway, the performance, “Bocca Tango” was a series of balletic tangos, most very beautiful, some cute and humorous.

Julio shined in his solos, in which he danced gorgeous contemporary balletic pieces, one with a table as prop / set, and the other with a ladder. The ladder was my overall favorite, as, judging from the applause, was the audience’s.

The way he worked that ladder, snaking his body through the rungs, hurling himself onto a step and acrobatically throwing his legs up and over his body where they landed on a top bar. It was incredible, and looked very risky.

He also did a few duets with a female partner, and a couple with a male, in which he danced the female part. All pas de deux involved a combination of tango and ballet, so among all of the partnerships, including the male / male, there was both straight tango dancing and beautiful lifts. Julio makes a really lovely follower / ballerina 🙂 There was also a group number involving several couples, two male / female, one male / male (involving Julio again as ‘the feminine’). The male / male duets weren’t really homoerotic or romantic though; they were more cute and playful.

My favorite duet overall was one he danced with a woman to a swift allegro, a kind of milonga-style tango combined with swingy balletic lifts. They were both dressed in light blue — he shirtless and in pastel pants, she in a flowing knee-length baby blue dress. Both barefoot. Much of the partner dancing was barefoot, which I prefer to the typical high tango heels. It’s more natural, you can see the shape of the leg better when the dancer goes on releve (ball of foot), and of course the beauty of the foot itself. Plus, I think it’s easier to dance in bare feet, even if you’re on releve the whole time. He had another seductive number with another woman, both of them dressed only in underwear. The lights were very dimmed so you couldn’t really make out much besides the outlines of their bodies, making it all the more sensuous, in my opinion.

It was of course an irreplaceable experience to see Julio perform, but as far as the choreography went, after about the first hour, everything began to look the same: same overhead lifts, same tango steps, same combinations. I think the choreographer (Ana Maria Stekelman) could work to vary the choreography more, come up with some more original, more poetic lifts at least. And I haven’t taken much tango, but this seemed pretty basic. Luis Brava’s “Forever Tango” had a lot more variety. In Brava’s show, which I saw three or four years ago, I remember seeing a man lift his partner overhead, then, continuing to carry her, do chaine turns (continuous two-footed turns) diagonally across the room. It was breathtaking. I’ve never seen anything like it since.

I still can’t believe this was Julio’s final performance…

Saturday night, Apollinaire and I went to the Baryshnikov Arts Center in Hell’s Kitchen to see one of the best flamenco performances I’ve ever seen, Maria Pages‘s “Self Portrait.” Brilliant! Those bewitching hands! Those boneless wrists! How does she do it? She made me want to take flamenco again so badly.

One thing I really love about flamenco is how the band is part and parcel of the dance. Far from being stuck down in some orchestra pit, they sat adjacent to the stage, four band members on each side, their gaze concentrated on Maria. There was one male singer, one female, and instruments included drums, guitars (obviously) but even a cello! Apollinaire and I both remarked we’d never seen such an instrument at a flamenco performance before. The singing, especially the man (although Apollinaire loved the woman) was gorgeous. I don’t know that much about world music or dance (other than the little Latin I’ve taken) but the man’s singing sounded very Indian, not at all Spanish. Both song and dance seem filled with so much anguish and sorrow, but also celebration and immense beauty.

There were also two male dancers who accompanied Maria at points, and of course I went wild over their insanely fast footwork. Plus, one looked quite a bit like Herman, with long, black boyish curls. Irresistible!

The night was made all the more fun by the salon / cafe-style setting. Instead of a regular theater, they had set up little round tables surrounded by folding chairs, and they sold champagne (only $4 per cup!) and little nut mixes that you could bring into the “theater” with you. The relaxed atmosphere made you want to tap your feet to the infectious rhythm, clap your hands, snap your fingers, shout “Ole” and try to sing along with the band. I want more of these kinds of things! The last two numbers were danced to a remake of John Lennon’s “Imagine” (which is amazingly flamenco-friendly — who knew?!), and then the band members all began chanting and kind of cutely cajoling Maria into dancing some more. Their voices sounded like a kind of flamenco rap! So much fun.

Another highlight:

The man himself 🙂 Not onstage, but in the audience, front center. From where I was sitting, I had the perfect view of him and I couldn’t stop watching. I broke out into giggles at several points as well. He’s so cute. He wears his hair all mussed about and has a trendy goatee and he’s still very small and dancerly, so from afar he looks just like he always did; it’s only when you get up close you see all the lines on his face. When we were in the lobby and Apollinaire was taking care of the press tickets while I was placing my alcohol order, he walked in. The ticket collector called out to him. “Misha,” she called him! Not Mr. Baryshnikov!!! I know he probably told all of his employees to call him by his nickname, but still! Anyway, more cafe-style, participatory Latin dance events with Baryshnikov within reach please please 🙂

Finally, this has nothing to do with Latin dance or ballet legends or even dance in general, but while I’m on the subject of my crazy weekend, on Friday night my friend Alyssa, whose friend does PR for The Big Apple Circus, invited me to their gala. I haven’t been to the circus since high school, and I’ve never been to any gala event. Beforehand in the lobby they had very chi-chi hors d’oeuvres like mini duck tacos, along with open bar and cotton candy 😀 Then they gave us box dinners while we watched the show.

Mmmm

Alyssa enjoys a glass of wine with dinner.

Show was fun – -nothing big with elephants or tigers, but there were some good gymnasts and really cute dogs. I know I should probably be against any use of animals, but they were just so cute…

As long as they’re treated well… This lady had these adorable poodles walking on their hind legs carrying various objects. At one point a poodle came out dressed in an old lady’s moomoo and, walking on its hind legs holding a leash connected to a cat, walked the cat around the perimeter of the tent. Alyssa and I were laughing so hard we were crying.

Then, they had these amazing acrobats. This duo reminded me of David and Marcelo mainly I guess because of their hair color. Marcelo lay down on his back, raised his feet in the air, and kicked David all about, sending him into these continuous magnificient air sommersaults!

Sorry about the blur. I didn’t want to hurt anyone by turning on my flash.

Three was a great belly / hoola dancer.And these bronzed people who did these crazy lifts.

Christopher Meloni from Law & Order: SVU, and Meredith Viera, were the celebrity ringleaders.

Hehe, fun night! After the show, they brought out a mat and covered the show area with an array of desserts. It was like midnight buffet on a cruise ship. They had every kind of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream bar imaginable, an enormous cake with “Big Apple Circus” written all over it, cookies, chocolate-covered fruit, brownies, everything. I didn’t feel so well when I walked out of there to be honest. I do wonder how this compares to ABT’s galas…

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Mesmerizing Traditional Thai Dance Versus Dumb White People Tricks

Last night I had my first Jerome Bel experience at Dance Theater Workshop in Chelsea. I went to see the latest work by the French experimental choreographer known for refusing to return the money of disgruntled customers, entitled “Pichet Klunchun and myself.” In the piece, which the program says is an exploration of “very problematic notions such as euro-centrism, inter-culturalism or cultural globalization,” Bel and Thai dancer Klunchun (who is brilliant, by the way) sit on chairs across from each other, Bel with a laptop on his knees. Bel first interviews Klunchun, asking him about his work, Thai culture, the type of dance he practices — “Khon” — a centuries-old Thai dance, and asks him to illustrate various moves. Klunchun then queries Bel about the same regarding himself. The first half of the program I found fascinating and I recommend that everyone in NYC go see it (showing through Saturday, the 10th) for that reason alone.

Khon, Klunchun reveals, began with a Thai king, who danced himself, and is a celebration of Buddha. The body is literally like a temple, the Buddha contained within both the center of the body and the center of the temple. So, arms legs, hands and feet, like Thai architecture, are shaped so that the energy flows out from the center, down through the limbs and rooftop structures, and is then re-directed back to the center, to the Buddha of the temple and soul. That’s why Thai dancers hold their hands and feet as such, which the fingers and toes splayed and flexed outward and upward. After he gives this explanation and begins dancing, you can really see the arcs of energy radiating out and back and out and back. Thai dancers practice flexing their fingers backward, and he shows us how. Ouch! Bel tried to flex his own, but to no avail. I tried as well, equally unsuccessful. It looks like it takes as much work as balletic turnout.

I found his this fascinating, along with Klunchun’s illustrations. At one point, he walks slowly slowly slowly across the room, showing how the spirit of a character who has died inhabits the stage (this after Bel asks him to feign dying onstage and Klunchun says he can’t; for a character to die onstage is for the king to die, for the country to die). Anyway, in his walks, the feet slowly lift from the floor, almost toe by toe, then the knee slowly bends, the leg rises, lifts, extends out, bends, the foot slowly drops to the floor, the step only ending when the last toe has touched ground. I can’t explain — you just have to see for yourself — but it was mesmerizing. His movements were so perfectly stylized down to the very last detail, so formalized, not a skin cell out of place. It really made me want to see the Thai dancer in David Michalek’s Slow Dancing films again, especially now that I understand the movement. He illustrated the four main characters of Khon: male, female, demon, and monkey — demon being his specialty; monkey he can’t do to save his life (my word choice of course; his language, like his dancing was very formal and ascetic). At first I couldn’t see the difference between the characters, but after Bel asked him to explain, I understood. Everything is so subtle. You have to watch really closely. And you will because it’s really so breathtaking in its simplicity. When Klunchun finally danced the role of a woman learning that her husband had died, I understood every movement, every discreet but articulated gesture to a tee. Beautiful! Bel thought so too.

Throughout Bel’s interrogatories, there were little culture clashes, most of which I felt were forced and contrived. Bel exclaims to Klunchun that Western dance (meaning ballet) also originated from a king — King Louis. But it’s a superficial similarity, of course, as, far from having the energy re-directed to one’s inward Buddha: the French king demanded that his court dancers have their bodies always turned not straight ahead, but toward him, thus the balletic turnout. “You direct your energy out,” Klunchun says at one point, demonstrating a very funny faux grand jete. “Out, out, out,” he said as he leaped through the air throwing his arms up. He was really quite an actor and could be very funny in his deadpan seriousness.

Then Bel turned the tables and asked Klunchun what he would like to know. After the exchange of some personal details intended to reveal cultural differences (Klunchun doesn’t understand how Bel can be unmarried and have a child, for example), Bel gets up and illustrates his work. He plays music from his computer. The song is “Let’s Dance” by David Bowie. Bel walks to center stage and stands stationary, looking out at the audience, eyeing us left to right. After about a minute, he begins jumping around, breaking into an unsophisticated version of club dance. After another minute or two of doing that, he sits. Klunchun, playing the outsider / voice of reason asks him, basically, WTF?? (my words again). Bel explains that in France they had a Revolution during which commoners overthrew all of the royals, sparing no family members. Hence, long live the French principle of egalite. He is deconstructing the spectator / performer dichotomy, showing the audience that he is just like them, no better. “But why then would they pay?” asks the voice of reason. “Well, they sometimes want their money back, in fact,” says Bel. The audience erupts with laughter — clearly these are all Bel groupies in the know about his history. “And do you give it back?” asks Klunchun. “No.” You see, Bel explains, he is a “contemporary” artist — this means not ballet, not Swan Lake, not the Nutcracker. “Contemporary” means there can be no expectations, no preconceived notions. It’s in the present. The government pays him a lot of money to go out and do research on this present state of things, about which he then produces work. He walks back to center stage, throws a vase of pencils and other small object onto the floor, falls down, and pretends to fall asleep atop the objects. Not to sound like a philistine, but I really don’t understand what kind of research one needs to do in order to come up with this, Mr. Bel?

Later, Bel talks about the work I think he is most known for, “Jerome Bel,” in which a man and woman, both naked, come out onstage, stand, look down at their bodies, and begin scrunching together a role of fat from their waists, which they kneed up and down and all around, distributing the fat throughout their torsos. “The body is such a marvel in and of itself,” Bel exclaims orgiastically, “who needs movement!” With this piece, he says, he was trying to explore the bare essentials of theater. What better way to do that than by having a stage with no props, no costumes and hardly any light?

Okay, knowing me, this is the kind of thing I would have thought was brilliant — or maybe not brilliant but something I would have at least been into — when I was in college, so I do see where he has his followers. After last night, I have decided that I am not, however, one of them, if my tone hasn’t made that obvious. Having only seen this one piece of his, though, I could be missing something. Here is another perspective from someone I highly admire.

At the end, Bel has just finished sleeping onstage for several minutes to “Killing Me Softly,” when he gets up and begins to pull down his pants. “No, no,” Klunchun stops him. “I don’t, I don’t want to see you naked, Mr. Bel, it is not right.” “Why,” says Bel unzipping. “Because in Thailand, there are certain people you, you don’t share nakedness with,” Klunchun says visibly distraught. “But, Mr. Klunchun,” Bel snickers, “in Bangkok clubs, there’s lots of nudity.” “That’s different,” Klunchun says, averting his eyes, unable to hide a look of disgust, “they’re, they’re working.” “I’m working too,” Bel says with the tone of a high-schooler. “But in Bangkok, they’re working for tourists.” With this the Bel groupies moaned as if the skies had parted. The international trafficking of women as sex slaves has long been one of the most disturbing social issues to me, so this may well not be everyone’s reaction, but I found it completely insulting that Bel assumed that I didn’t already know the truth of Klunchun’s last line, that that was supposed to be a revelation to me as a white person.

Anyway, as I said, “Pichet Klunchun and myself” is totally worth seeing for Klunchun alone. Who knows, you may up enjoying the deconstructionist French guy as well. Go here for tix.

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Sports Injuries

According to Ballet Talk (a reliable source), my other favorite Brazilian dancer (the professional one, not the amateur 🙂 ) is unfortunately injured and will be unable to keep his upcoming guest appearances with the Los Angeles Ballet. Thanks to Delirium and Barbara for pointing me to this. Poor Los Angeleans! And poor Marcelo — this is not his first injury.

Many people don’t realize how hard ballet is on the body; they think it’s just a beautiful art, which of course it is, but it is also one of the most physically demanding and difficult of all sports. I think it was Einstein who called ballet dancers God’s athletes. While it should come as no surprise that dancer injuries are not uncommon, it’s disappointing to me that they’re not treated the same in popular culture as sports injuries. Anyway, speedy recovery, Marcelo!!!

Also, for New York City Ballet fans: Ashlee Knapp recently left a comment on my former post, where there was discussion about her whereabouts. Poor thing; she has a really horrible-sounding injury. Go here and scroll down to the comments section to see what she wrote.

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Could They Please Stop Scaring Me

by waiting so late into the show to announce that Helio is safe?!

So Jane Seymour left tonight, which I don’t think was much of a surprise to anyone, though I did think she was a lovely Standard dancer. What was a surprise to me was that Kenny Mayne actually has quite a sense of humor, as exhibited in that little faux sports broadcast he did with Judge Len and Jerry Rice. I haven’t seen that skit before, if it’s been on. Did Mayne mean to wear all of that makeup?

I saw the Apple iphone commercial after the show was over and with My First Time guy doing the advert. Doesn’t it make more sense to show Kristin demonstrating her use of the phone and during the show?

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First Cha Cha in Six Months

I was so sad over ABT season ending, I felt like I needed to pull myself out of my depression. And what better way to do that than by … taking a dance class! I returned to my very first studio, Paul Pellicoro’s DanceSport, where I began three and a half years ago with group classes before I’d transferred to Dance Times Square and started privates with Pasha. It all seems like such a long time ago now, but remarkably, I recognized so many faces — so many of my old friends were still there and I was reunited with four of them in a one-hour period! Passion for ballroom is something that just stays with you forever.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t all that prepared with my dance bag. I forgot to pack a pair of beige tights, so had to look like a bit of an ass with mismatched shoes.

I wanted to ease myself slowly back into it — it’s been six months since my last lesson at DTS — so I decided on a bronze (lowest-level) Cha Cha — always my easiest dance.

Ugh, not anymore! I remembered all the steps but forgot how hard it is to maintain proper technique when the teacher plays the music at full speed! Warm-up went well-ish, but when the actual partner dancing began, I was tripping all over myself in no time. Plus, I forgot how hard it is to dance, to function really, in those blasted high-heeled, open-toed shoes. I’m always sliding forward in them, leaving my heel unstable. I guess it helps if you normally wear similar street shoes, like high-heeled sandals, but I don’t.

Happily, whenever I felt or saw myself in the mirror reverting to a nasty habit — like rising up on my toes during the middle cha cha cha instead of staying grounded with my heel on the floor, or falling backward during an underarm turn because I forget to have my body weight forward — I’d hear Pasha’s voice (“no leaning back, Tonya”), or feel his hand lightly but firmly pushing down on my head (which he used to do to keep me from rising on the cha cha chas). So, even though bad habits die hard, the words of great teachers don’t 😀

So I made a lot of mistakes. But, eh, I’ll get back into it.

Interestingly, I met an old friend from my Swing team, Mark, in the lobby. He was heading to a Hustle class and asked me what I’d signed up for. When I told him the International Cha Cha, he told me he thought the teacher, Werner Figar (who is new since I was last at the studio), was a member of the modern dance group, Elisa Monte Dance. He told me he recognized his name from a recent New York Times article, which I looked up when I got home and is here. The guy in the picture does look like Werner (who was very good — both as a Latin dancer and teacher), but his name isn’t on the company’s website. It’s just so odd to me that someone dances both Latin Ballroom and Modern professionally. They are such different kinds of dance and usually a person isn’t good at both. But very cool if he is! I’ll have to ask him next class…

DanceSport has relocated since I was last there — used to be at Columbus Circle and is now on 34th Street right near the Empire State Building. Their new space is way the heck bigger than the last — really floored me.

So many rooms!

And here’s the new huge lobby, which even has a little cafe off to the side. Paul, the owner, taught Al Pacino to dance for “Scent of a Woman,” so that poster stays up always. 🙂

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ABT Marathon Weekend Wrap-Up

Just finishing my City Center-spectating season and am so sad. I hate this time of year. My favorite dance company is gone and I won’t be seeing them again until May. Oh well.

I went to the last three performances (Friday night, Saturday matinee, Saturday night); here are my highlights:

 

I really loved all of the dancers who performed my favorite short ballroomy ballet — Tharp’s “Sinatra Suite” — but yesterday Herman and Misty Copeland (in headshot above) in particular took my breath away. Herman was the closest thing to Baryshnikov that I’ve seen, in terms of the actual movement (he has the smallest body of the three men who danced the role — other two were Jose and Marcelo — thus the closest in body type to Baryshnikov). The piece was choreographed on Baryshnikov and some of the movement, like the quick, jumpy weight shift in the first song, looked the cleanest on Herman; whereas Marcelo, for example, almost couldn’t move fast enough and missed a beat. But what Marcelo and Jose may lack a bit in that department, they more than make up for in the over-the-top personality they give to the role, particularly in the “That’s Life” song. In fact, everyone seemed to be able to do the “That’s Life” cocky shithead guy very (almost frighteningly) well; it’s the other three songs: “Strangers in the Night,” “All the Way,” and “My Way,” where they seem a little more bland, seeming to play the same guy three times. To me the first song (“Strangers”) is about two people just meeting and falling for each other, the second (“All the Way”) actually falling in love, the third (“Life”) having a problem moment, and the fourth (“My Way”) his saying he needs to go it alone, then the fifth, the male solo danced to “One for My Baby,” evokes his missing her. It seems like all the men danced to each of those songs besides “Life”, played each of those roles, the same way: all classy and romancy, giving only cocky “That’s Life” guy something unique.

Misty danced the female role better than I’ve ever seen it done, including by Elaine Kudo, who danced the original with Baryshnikov. That girl had personality galore and was not about to let the guy get away with anything. Go Misty! The others seemed to let the guy push them around too much. But again, I focus on “That’s Life.” She didn’t seem to do anything breathtaking in the other three duets. It’s funny, ballet dancers normally dance dreamy in-love princes and princesses, temple dancers and warriors, fairytale characters and their knights in shining armour — you think they’d be able to do a contemporary romantic routine?…

 

Anyway, Misty also floored me with her performance in Tharp’s “Baker’s Dozen,” which I ended up seeing a total of four times. In my final viewing of it yesterday, Misty danced the part of the flirty girl who keeps hopping on poor Craig‘s unsuspecting back. She was so fun and playful, proved to have just as much charisma as Craig, and she just has a natural jazz body. If I was Twyla, I’d definitely choreograph everything new I did from here on out on Misty; she is THE female Tharp dancer.

Also, when I first saw this ballet I wrote that I felt the company wasn’t putting everything they had into it, but suspected that may be because it was a brand new one for them. After having seen it numerous times now, I know I was right. They’re doing so much better, they’re really nailing the teasing / sexy / cool / jazzy / clownish / playful / swingy nature of it all. What a fun ballet! Craig still stands out, but in a ballet like this that requires solid acting skill, it’s almost unfair to compare anyone else to him, he’s such a natural. If he wasn’t a ballet dancer, I’m positive he’d be enjoying a very successful Broadway career.

(do not ask why these photos are varying sizes; I’m simply copying them from ABT’s website and have no clue what kinds of codes they’ve written in or what kind of codes my blog software is somehow putting in! It just so happens that pictures of Marcelo come out the largest, I swear! Above are Marcelo and Julie in “Leaves”)

Yesterday, I had my first ever viewing of Antony Tudor’s 1975 ballet, “The Leaves Are Fading,” which the company has revived for this season. Wow, it was really beautiful, albeit in a bittersweet kind of way. It began with a woman coming out onstage wearing a long, green ballroom dress. She walked around as if deep in thought, reminiscing. She left and several male and female dancers entered all wearing pinky-peach costumes — the women in flowing summery dresses, the men in blousy tops with sweet gentlemanly little silk scarves. The group danced lyrically as an ensemble then broke into duets, each seeming to symbolize a different time in a relationship — young innocent love, then slightly older and more fraught with angst, then more mature; and Marcelo and Julie, my favorite partnership (have I said that before? 🙂 ) danced the main, more mature couple. They dance so beautifully together, she just floats in his arms so effortlessly, so romantic, so poetic. The backdrop and wings were painted various shades of green, as if to evoke a field, and the pink costumes made the dancers almost look like flowers at points. At the end, green dress woman re-enters, her presence framing her memories, coming to terms with them, making clear they are about a past youthful love that no longer exists but will always remain part of her. Fittingly teary end to my own emotional farewell to ABT season! It was so lovely you just get caught up in the images, in the feelings they evoke. They didn’t have many performances of this ballet and I only got one chance to see it, so I hope they put it on again next year. I’d really like to see it again.

Finally, this year the company revived Agnes de Mille’s “Fall River Legend,” based on the true life story of Lizzie Borden, who killed her parents with an axe after their severe abuse of her. I saw this ballet on Friday night with Apollinaire, who loved it. Go here for a little write-up on that (read the “Note,” at the end of this post; also read the post for her review of Ballet du Grand Theater du Geneve, which I saw with her (and really liked!) but haven’t had a chance to review yet). Anyway, I personally didn’t care much for the de Mille. I feel that she only presented a partial story, leaving out the parental abuse that’s necessary to make sense of Lizzie’s actions. The ballet begins with Lizzie’s being sentenced to hang for her crime, then flashes back to her life. The flashback begins with her father being very loving toward Lizzy, then a sister dies and a stepmother enters the scene, who doesn’t much seem to like Lizzy, but doesn’t seem particularly horrible to her, and the father still seems to be loving albeit traumatized by the sister’s death. All of a sudden Lizzie is shown fighting the urge to hack up her dad and stepmom, then eventually succumbing to it. The rest of the ballet (the main part) is devoted to Lizzie being remorseful and haunted by what she has done, slowly accepting her fate. I agree with Apollinaire that Gillian Murphy was just amazing in this role — she perfectly captured the awkward outcast, making me both feel sorry for her Lizzie and fearing her. But, without the choreographer’s devoting any time to the family’s abuse of her, all of that great acting was unfortunately reduced to melodrama.

Lastly, I saw Benjamin Millepied’s “From Here on Out” again yesterday and it did grow slightly on me the second time around. I’m still far more in love with the Nico Muhly musical score though and can’t wait to get my hands on a recording of it. Again, I particularly liked the final third of the ballet, when the crescendo really starts to build. I feel like Millepied was really getting started just as he was ending. I really liked the second cast that I saw, led by Isabella Boylston and Cory Stearns. Isabella in particular was perfect at those angular abstract contemporary moves — I almost thought I was seeing NYCB (who does more abstract contemporary ballets) at points!; Isabella’s ideal for contemporary.

Well, I’ll be excited to hear what others, for example, in Berkeley, (for example, Jolene!!!), have to say about the new Millepied as well as the new Elo, “Close to Chuck.” Sad as I am about ABT leaving NY now, the good thing is they’re a touring company, so you don’t have to be in NY to see them. Go here to check their touring schedule. These are the greatest dancers in the world (Tidwell was once one of them, remember 🙂 ); please do not pass up the opportunity to see them if they come near your neck of the woods!

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Three Sailors Made My Night

No, I don’t mean at the Halloween parade, but onstage at City Center 🙂 Well, last night was my first less than stellar night at ABT. But I’m not that bummed because I still had a good time.

First, the best.

Last night marked the debut of one of my favorites, David Hallberg, in Jerome Robbins’s “Fancy Free”, a short but sweet ballet about three loveably cocky sailors on shore leave vying for the attentions of only two ladies, and who, due to their silly preening competitiveness with each other, don’t fare so well.

This was an interesting role for David because he’s usually either the ethereal, lyrical type or the noble prince. He hasn’t been assigned a part with a real comical acting job before, that I know of anyway. He actually brought his dreamy, head-in-the-clouds romanticism with him to this role and it worked really well. And, I’ve never noticed the Fred Astaire-ish “tap dancing” steps so vividly. Oftentimes, the sailors all kind of blend into each other. Here, each had his own personality, which is the way it should be. David’s sailor was the romantic, sandwiched between Craig Salstein‘s show-off, jumping-jack of a funny guy who tries to wow the girls by performing such feats as jumping off the bar into a splits, and Jose Carreno‘s cool, hip-swaying, macho dude who fancies himself (wrongly of course) Mr. Seduction. (The way Jose grabs his dazed girl and forces her into a “romantic” tango is beyond funny; it’s like Pepe Le Peu tango.) David’s sailor initially tries to impress his girl with tall tales of military feats he hasn’t performed, but soon realizes, what the heck, he’d really rather just dance with her. Showing off is just not his thing, and he’s almost forced into performing his little solo by the other two, which, after finishing, he ends up at Gillian Murphy‘s feet, lying on his stomach, head propped up in his hands, dreamily gazing into her eyes. Sweet!
Anyway, those three guys were a good end to a rather blah night.

More notably, the evening also marked the company debut of Twyla Tharp’s “Baker’s Dozen.” I sat in the Front Gallery, which is way up at the top of the City Center auditorium. They rarely open this area, especially for dance performances, but ABT was so sold out, they were forced to create some more space. Though I could see David and his marines okay, I don’t think it was generally a good place for viewing dance. Jorma Elo’s “Close to Chuck,” showed for the second time, and from all the way up there, the backdrop of Close’s gorgeous self-portraits was almost entirely obscured.

Anyway, back to Tharp: this was my first time seeing “Baker’s Dozen,” and I thought it was a fun jazzy little number. It involved an ensemble of 12, all dressed in egg-shell-colored jazz clothes (pictured above, with Isaac Stappas and Kristi Boone dancing). Nothing was on pointe, only jazz shoes were worn, and the piece — broken down into five parts all danced to Willie Smith music — varied between the playful and the lyrical. At times dancers would run up behind each other, tease with a shoulder-tap, leap-frog over each other. Craig Salstein (the poor man danced in three of the four ballets performed: I don’t know how he was still standing at the end of the evening), the best actor of the bunch, was constantly cajoled by a woman who repeatedly jumped on his back unexpectedly. He’d carry her off, she riding over his shoulders childishly flexed-footed, almost playfully piggy-back but upside-down, he with a sadly funny, hopelessly wearied frown. But then he’d return dashing across the stage with crazed high jumps, almost drunk on his freedom, however temporary.

The problem was, Craig was the only real actor of the bunch, and Tharp’s work methinks requires very good acting skills. Isaac Stappas and Sarawanee Tanatanit impressed as well, but they still didn’t have Craig’s level of comedy, and the rest of the company just kind of seemed to be going through the motions, not really giving the piece their all. Maybe that’s to be expected since it’s their first time with it, though. I have high hopes they’ll get more into it the more they perform it.

And then there was Marcelo‘s Sinatra in Tharp’s lovely, ballroomy “Sinatra Suites.” I fell in love with this piece last year this time when I saw Marcelo dance it. For some reason, it didn’t have the same magic for me this time around. I’m not really sure why. Perhaps, this is where I really needed to be down lower in the theater. I couldn’t see his face very well at all, and, like I said, Tharp requires a real acting job. But maybe he just wasn’t that on, either, which is unusual for Marcelo. Or maybe my expectations were so high because of last year. Or maybe it was … Argh .. maybe it was

this damn DVD!!! I’d fallen so head over heels in love with the ballet last year that I: bought the DVD, in which Baryshnikov and Elaine Kudo dance the piece; insisted my ballroom teacher incorporate some of the lift sequences into a Foxtrot showcase I was working on; and, in preparation for said showcase, I then watched the blasted Baryshnikov DVD what must’ve been well over a hundred times, because I realized last night, I really have that thing memorized. Not good. I have to say, I do think when you know something too well, your spectating enjoyment is just diminished. All I could see were the things Baryshnikov and Kudo did that were not quite as smooth here, the tricks that weren’t quite as fancy, the difficult drags and pulls that went on for too short of a time, unlike B&K’s longer, extended ones, the little cheeky lifts where she is bent over butt up under him, between his legs, and he bends down and lifts her up toward his crotch, upside-down — it’s a very funny and contorted lift, but B&K did a few ups and downs, here there was only one. And, like, at the end of the third song, “That’s Life,” after he’s been a cocky, gum-chewing shithead treating her like crap throughout, and she angrily runs at him, throwing herself like a cannonball and he catches her in his arms but at the very last minute, surprising the both of them and the audience, and showing that she can really make him her slave if she wants: well, Baryshnikov was looking the other way when he caught her as she flew at him, so he surprised even himself. Marcelo looked back at her while she took her running leap, both making the trick not as extravagant (since he knew when she was going to jump because he was watching her) and dissipating his degree of cockiness since he was actually paying some attention to her. Which in a way is good really. Marcelo’s a nice guy; it’s hard for him to load on too much swagger 🙂 His Sinatra is simply different than Misha’s. And what am I even saying? I mean, I’m faulting Marcelo for not dragging his woman across the floor like a sack of potatoes for long enough, not lifting her by the butt like a naughty child enough times, and paying her some attention … what’s wrong with me? Hmmm… I don’t know. Just don’t watch a DVD of someone else doing something a million times and then go see your favorite do it live. Others loved it: the audience downstairs went wild and I even heard some “Yeah!!!s” so it wasn’t just polite applause. Okay, no more DVDs. At least not when I have access to a live Marcelo. If you don’t have access, however, to a live Marcelo, or a live Jose, or an Angel, or a Herman, do buy the DVD of Misha — it’s gorgeous!

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Carlos Acosta Movie In The Making? Yes Please!

Judith Mackrell from London’s Guardian newspaper blogs that, according to the BBC News, Hollywood is interested in making a movie based on the life of Cuban ballet dancer Carlos Acosta (who is now with the Royal Ballet in London and has formerly been with ABT and still sometimes guests with my favorite company; Danny Tidwell has listed him as one of his heroes, along with my love Jose 🙂 who also happens to be Cuban).

Anyway, this project is so exciting to me. I remember when I was young and “White Nights” starring Baryshnikov came out. Everyone was talking. I remember seeing pictures in the newspapers of little Alexandra Baryshnikova (several years younger than me — wonder where she is now?…) being lifted out of a limousine by her father to accompany him down the red carpet for the film’s premiere. I remember all the talk about nude pictures Baryshnikov posed for with co-actor Isabella Rossellini to promote the film and his then-scandalous out-of-wedlock affair with Alexandra’s mother, Jessica Lange. I remember all the network news stories reporting that the little girl cried during the film when the KGB agents threatened her father and had to be comforted by him. I remember eventually seeing the film with my mom and thinking how fun was the tap dancer (Gregory Hines) and how beautiful and polished and smooth were Baryshnikov’s pirouettes (and how many he could do!), and I remember finding the KGB people thrillingly scary but their accents so attractive. I was too young really to appreciate the art of dance, other than Baryshnikov’s perfect, dizzying, never-ending turns, and I don’t even remember the film’s full plot, but to me ballet became this world filled with exotic beauty, intrigue, spies, scandalous taboo-breaking, glamour, Hollywood, the global political situation. Ballet was enchanting and beautiful in itself but it also heavily involved the world around us.

I think it’s time for another big ballet movie. I think perhaps Danny Tidwell has paved the way for mass audience appreciation of the dance, at least in this country. He may have called himself “contemporary” on SYTYCD, but that doesn’t matter; people recognize the form as ballet. And what better story than that of a boy born poor and minority in the slums of Havana who became one of the greatest dancers in the world?

The interesting issue is, as Mackrell points out, who is going to portray Acosta? He seems to want to play himself, but that seems odd to me: who has ever played himself in a narrative, non-documentary film? And talk about the potential for a struggle over artistic control between director and actors… “White Nights” was not the story of Baryshnikov’s life but rather very loosely based on what might happen if a plane he was on crash-landed in Soviet Russia, from which he had just defected. If the Acosta movie is going to be a direct re-telling of his life, I think it makes more sense for a professional actor to play him. But then of course who is going to be able to dance like that?!

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Sexy Costumes, Swish Sets, Genius Composers, and, Oh Yeah, the World’s Greatest Dancers: Two ABT World Premieres

I’m still in a state of sugar shock. Like when you’re having a little meal of chocolate truffles (as some of us are occasionally wont to do 🙂 ); the first couple make your blood race in a good way and you’re hyper-aware and -active, but then you have one too many and hyper-activity turns to jitters and your brain starts racing ahead of you and you have no coherent thoughts whatsoever? Anyway, too much going on last night! It was the world premiere of two new ballets: “Close To Chuck,” a collaboration between choreographer Jorma Elo, composer Philip Glass and artist Chuck Close (whose self-portrait is pictured above) in tribute to Close’s body of work. It was also the not premiere but second performance of a new ballet by NYCBallet dancer Benjamin Millepied called “From Here On Out,” set to new music by 20-something composer Nico Muhly, whom I talked about here.

These premieres are so much fun to be a part of, they’re such an event extraordinare. Practically everyone in the ballet world turns out. I’m so thankful to Apollinaire for inviting me since they were nearly sold out. We sat in front of Tobi Tobias — so fun putting a face to writing. I was hoping we’d see some other familiar dance writer names, but they must have been sitting on the other side of the theater. On our side were also NYCB ballerina Maria Kowroski and Tyler Angle, and some people who I recognized but couldn’t put names to, including a Paul Taylor dancer.

Okay, first things first: the evening began with another performance of choreographer Stanton Welch’s “Clear” again starring Jose Carreno, which I wrote about in my last post. Last time I saw him it was his debut in the role and I wrote that he concentrated more on the steps than the drama; this time I felt differently. I felt that he gave it much more emotion, was probably just getting the steps down the first time. I was also sitting on the right side of the theater instead of the left this time so I might have had a better view of his face. He danced it gorgeously, perfectly, emotionally, everything. I LOVE that ballet. The more I see it the more it evokes different things for me. Last night, it kind of reminded me of a more abstract version of Death in Venice, where the men, resplendent in pants that are skin-colored but have a bit of golden quality to their sheen, no shirts, have their arms and legs outstretched looking up to the heavens, as if they are both in worship and the objects of someone else’s worship (like the viewer’s). At other points, others of the men act silly and playful, covering their eyes with their hands, much like Tadzio (the older man’s muse and unrequited love interest in “Venice”), at times kind of bouncing around jovially zigzagging their heads. It goes from beautiful and poetic to cute and playful and back again, with the final pas de deux between the lead man and the ballerina ending in a beatific embrace, his head on her shoulder and her head pointed to the sky, her arm reaching upward. People have said they think the ballerina was superfluous, that Welch must have felt he needed to put her in because it was ballet. I thought about it and, though I think that ending scene is gorgeous, she was hardly in the ballet and she didn’t really seem to belong. Why not simply replace her with one of the other men, like one of the young sun-god, playfully flirty Tadzio-types, like the one danced by cute Jared Matthews? I know the ballerina on pointe has classically been the element bringing forth the poetic, but Welch’s whole point is that men in and of themelves can be so. Maybe he was afraid of it looking “gay,” or something, but, please, ballet audiences are more sophisticated than that.

Anyway, the fun thing about sitting on the right side of the theater is that it’s near the curtain, so when they pull it back and the dancers come out front for their curtain call, they’re right in front of you. Completely beyond surreal being that close to Jose. I love him so! You just want to reach out and touch… don’t worry I would never 🙂 Oh, and then at the end of intermission, before the new “Close to Chuck” began, I spotted him in the back of the orchestra section, watching. I had to force myself to turn back to the front to see the ballet. Even standing there in a plain black t-shirt, the man just melts me.

Second on was the “Close to Chuck.” A disclaimer: I always get more out of a piece the more I go see it — I see all kinds of things I missed on first glance — so these are only my initial afterimages after viewing it only once. I have to say the costumes (by Ralph Rucci) and backdrop (various stages of a painting of Mr. Close’s Self Portrait pictured up top of this post) were so stunning, my focus was largely there. In future performances, I’ll pay more attention to the actual dancing 🙂 The audience was abuzz. As the curtain lifted to reveal several people — Marcelo front and center, Herman to his left in back (this after Jose, both on stage and in audience is where my “truffles” were starting to go into overload…) — all covered neck to foot in shiny black, the bottom portion of the costume a long wide skirt for both men and women, the audience gasped in unison. As a curtain against the back wall lifted to reveal a sparsely filled-in black and white rudimentary etching of the portrait, a single person walked around stage, whipping off each dancer’s vest. The men were now shirtless, the women wearing black mesh leotards with a large black cross down the front and back. Everyone wore handless black gloves that started at the wrist, ended at the elbow. The costumes were very reminiscient to me of those used in Nacho Duato’s “Castrati” which I recently blogged about. They were very medieval, religious, but in a retro vogue way, not authentic like in the Duato. The long skirts for the men made Marcelo and Herman — two of the dance world’s most manly dancers– all the more striking, and ironically more rather than less virile, especially with the gloves which looked similar to the leather arm gear in Castrati.

Marcelo walked over to Julie Kent, dancing the lead ballerina here, examined various parts of her body — or perhaps measured her — his movements very rigid and staccato, almost unsettlingly so. After a short pas de deux, everyone left the stage, and the back curtain lowered back down over the painting. The dancers then re-emerged now without the skirts. The women wore simply the leotards, the men these biker-ish looking pants, all black but a darker more textured inky black lining the inner leg, a lighter, more diaphonous black lining the outer leg. A thick piece of elastic hugged the waist, and in front there was a long horizontal rectangular cut-out between the waist and pelvis which I found sexy and suggestive, albeit rather odd. The women were on pointe and then men wore either black ballet slippers or possibly jazz shoes — I couldn’t really tell, but it looked like there was a very small heel. The back curtain drew up again to reveal another black and white version of the portrait, but this one more filled-in than the previous. The work was being created.

Movement — both partnering and solo — was intentionally stiff, rigid, and awkward, but with hints of fluidity, very much like that I described in Elo’s just-premiered piece “Brake the Eyes.” In fact at one point, Marcelo performed the same exact movement pattern as the ballerina in “Brake” as his body was seemingly divided into two, the left half held stiff and bent, the right arm making flowing, wavy watery movements, as if half of his body was struggling to break free from the other. In “Brake,” I interpreted this to be half classical ballet, half puppet and thought of it as some kind of statement on the world of classical ballet. With Marcelo performing the same movement (and it looked very different on Marcelo’s huge body as compared to the petit ballerina’s), I thought of it more as the artist trying to break free of constraints or, in Close’s case, the limitations of his own body.

I don’t know a huge amount about Close, but I do know he was a promising youngish artist when struck with an aneurysm, which rendered his arms and legs nearly useless. He then developed a new kind of painting method, by which he would photograph his subject, then employ others to put various computerized graphs over the photo, over which he would, using an arm brace, paint in the little graphic squares, making a colorful complex portrait that was almost industrial-looking if viewed from up close, but poetic if viewed from afar. I felt like Marcelo symbolized the artist / subject (since Close was both) and both his personal struggles and his work process; a lot of the movement evoked the artistic struggle to create.

The dancers again left the stage, the curtain fell and rose again, this time revealing a colored, fully-painted portrait, very majestic.

Marcelo was the perfect body for Elo to create this piece on. With his large bone-structure, every awkward movement he made, a hip jutting out due to intentionally uneven weight distribution, a shoulder asymmetrically hung down, made the awkwardness of his body contortions all the more obvious. At one point, he almost looked like Billy Crudup’s Elephant Man that played on Broadway several years ago (Crudup, by the way, wore no makeup or prosthetics in that play; rather the way he moved his own normal body in such a distorted, awkward manner illustrted both the burden he bore from the disfigurement and how beautiful he was underneath it all). In the final segment of the ballet, the dancing becomes more mellifluous. The work is created, beauty triumphs. I’ll be seeing this ballet again at least one more time before the season ends, so I will likely, well definitely, get more out of it, and will report back when I do.

Oh, almost forgot: the curtain call was fantastic. Not only was Elo there (the choreographer usually takes a bow at the premiere), but Mr. Close came out onstage too! He was wheeled out in the most artful wheelchair. Instead of the regular four wheels on the floor, this one had its wheels stacked, two top two bottom, so it was like he was riding a permanent wheelie, making his height far above everyone else’s. Marcelo ran over and gave him a hug, as he’d done seconds earlier with Elo. Marcelo is happiness 😀

The third ballet of the evening was the other new one, Millepied’s abstract “From Here On Out,” with original music by Nico Muhly. I’m sure that I’ll get more out of this ballet upon my second and possibly third viewing of it this season as well, but my initial thoughts are that the music far outshone the choreography. Muhly is a genius, make no doubt about it. After I’d seen Muhly speak about the project at the Guggenheim, I’d joked that I was excited to “hear” the ballet. Well, that’s exactly why you should go. I don’t know much about music but there were so many different kinds of instruments, I think a xylophone even, mixed with computerized sound to miraculous effect. And the way the percussion or horns would build into a crescendo then subside, then build again when you’re not expecting it, like a wonderful surprise. The music was enchanting, there was so much going on, it’s just a feast for the ears. I just felt that the genius of the choreography didn’t match that of the music. Which is not at all to say it wasn’t still interesting, it just didn’t take my breath away.

It may partly be that the choreography just didn’t start out strong enough. It opens with several dancers, all wearing purple unitards bearing various cut-outs — one on the side of the waist, another on the opposite hip, for the men over one breast — all standing in a huddle, simply shifting weight one foot to the other. There’s some partnering, then ensemble work, and eventually a pas de deux between a man and a woman takes place. For the most part this duet doesn’t do much for me save for a few longing stretches and holds. (Go here to see one of my favorite shapes from that duet performed by Marcelo and Paloma Herrera.) From there, the ballet builds up a bit then ends on a stronger note: several women get whisked up and carried off into the wings. It’s a rather lovely end. I just wish it had the same momentum throughout. But as I said, I’ll be seeing it some more this week, so will report back on what further viewings yield.

Until then, I just discovered that Muhly actually has a blog! Go here to read a cute post about his freaking out at the last minute over a note. Go here for a Times article about a couple of things ahead in the coming week for ABT (a revival of a piece by Antony Tudor and Tharp Tharp Tharp!), and go here for the rest of the season schedule and tix. Only one week left 🙁