Woo hoo — Gary Vaynerchuk just gave the big thumbs up to my friend’s wine. (That’s the Esporao one; the middle “pansies on the nose” one he tastes).
Can you imagine someone setting up a table in front of the Met and podcasting about ballet with the (slightly crazed) enthusiasm of this guy? 🙂 Do you think people would go for it?
On bringing home that big ole disco ball 🙂 See, I was right in calling this the Mark Ballas Show! I really thought it was going to be Gilles. I guess since they said there was less than a one percent difference in votes between the two, they both kind of won.
I always feel anticlimactic at this point. I’m sad.
And the next season isn’t starting until September?… It seems like light-years, but I guess it’s only after the summer during which, for me at least, there will be beaucoup de ballet and ballroom competitions. I’m still a little depressed though…
Well, I was on a train late last night and missed watching the Dancing With the Stars semis on TV. Now I realize how hard the show makes it for you to catch re-runs. Geesh. Rickey doesn’t have everything posted, so I went to YouTube, and they have most of the competition routines, but the sound quality is crap and subtitles (in, for example, Gilles’s visit to his hometown, Cannes, with the French interviews with his mother and friends) are cut off. And they didn’t have the full episode. The YouTube clips re-direct you to this website, but once there, they just keep making you take these ridiculous quizzes, telling you, eventually the site will be unlocked. Well, it never unlocked for me — instead they redirected me to more and more quiz websites. I hope that site’s not a scam that unleashes some kind of virus or something. Anyway, people beware: don’t try to watch re-runs on watchdancingwithstars.com.
Anyway, I at least saw the routines. I only saw the bio on Gilles. Were there bios on the rest of the competitors? If not, that’s kind of silly, interesting as his little trip to Cannes was.
So, semis consisted of: Mark and Shawn dancing Jive and Argentine Tango; Melissa and Tony Quickstep and Cha Cha; Ty and Chelsie Samba and Viennese Waltz; and Gilles and Cheryl Salsa and Waltz (although one YouTube clip called it a Quickstep).
My favorites were Mark and Shawn’s Argentine Tango and both dances by Melissa and Tony.
Sorry, am compelled to call DWTS the Mark Ballas show now, because whenever he dances, it is so all about him. Mark! Can the man ever learn to be the frame? “Oh baby, what’s wrong?” he says to Shawn in practice, before hugging her. Oh Mark — just melt me. But it’s nice to see a pro not beating up on his amateur, unlike Cheryl, who gave Gilles more hard times this week… Anyway, I thought Mark and Shawn’s Quickstep was great fun, but again, was only watching him. The quintessential ham. Seriously, though, he’s an excellent performer, and an excellent dancer… which is rare I think. And I love that half-Texan half-British accent. Shawn seemed to do very well.
Chelsie’s taking over and making it all about her with Ty isn’t as bothersome, I guess, since the woman is supposed to be the picture.
NYCB’s Spring season began on Tuesday and I spent much of the weekend at the Koch theater. Friday night was my first time seeing Balanchine’s Divertimento No. 15, (set to Mozart), which Arlene Croce called one of his greatest ballets, and I can see why, particularly with all the complex, richly detailed variations. The ballet begins with an Allegro section danced by the whole ensemble, the women entering the stage first. But I have to say I felt like the dance properly began when the three male leads — Tyler Angle, Amar Ramasar, and Andrew Veyette– came onstage, particularly Angle and Veyette (I prefer Ramasar in the more dramatic roles but he always has a charisma that draws your eye). With the exception of Sterling Hyltin, who is becoming one of my favorite ballerinas, the men just stood out more. At one point, after executing a step perfectly on beat, Andrew looked out at the audience and flashed a knowing, mischievous grin that made me and my friend (and those around us) giggle, and that set the tone of the whole night for me.
Though all of the women seemed to keep time with the fast-tempo and execute all the intricacies of that insanely quick-footed choreography, Sterling’s dancing had the most dash and flair.
Continue reading “NEW YORK CITY BALLET SPRING SEASON BEGINS! (PROGRAMS 1 AND 2)”
BalletMet Columbus, based in Columbus Ohio, is currently putting on a ballet version of the F. Scott Fitzgerald classic.
Says 35-year-old choreographer Jimmy Orrante: ” The story has parallels with today, with the cycle repeating of people going to parties, being careless with overspending and going into debt. The parties were big and the spending was big — without any question of how much things cost.”
Says artistic director Gerard Charles: “The era is a good one to portray in dance but there are certainly challenges to it because of the literary style of the writing.”
I’ll say! I love modern story ballets; should be interesting. It appears it’s showing this weekend and next. Anyone in Ohio?
Via Mr. Elegant.
This Brazilian documentary about two young, black, underprivileged aspiring pro ballet dancers that will premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival later this month looks good.
I finally got around to seeing Billy Elliot on Broadway. I’d resisted for a while since I’m not a fan of musical theater — at all — but my friend Mika had an extra ticket and talked me into going with her (by telling me there was a lot of dancing) 🙂 And she was right — there was. Unbelievably, I actually liked it!
It follows the movie pretty closely, is the story of a boy from a working-class town in Northeast England who, amidst a miners strike his father and older brother are involved in, falls in love with ballet after mistakenly happening in on a dance class — he’s only supposed to be returning some boxing mitts to their proper place but the teacher sees him and asks him to join class, which he does begrudgingly. Once he realizes he’s pretty good at the turns, etc., he’s a goner. Of course his father believes that ballet is for pansies and, besides, the family doesn’t have the money for expensive lessons and admission to the Royal Ballet Academy and all that, but of course it all works itself out throughout the course of the play.
There was a lot of dancing — not only in obvious places like the dance classes and audition, but in the scenes between the striking miners and their clashes with police — in full riot gear, present to protect Scabs — and the ballet students, and Billy. It was really well orchestrated. Go here to see some great performance photos.
I also loved the actor who played Billy’s father, Gregory Jbara. He’s of course the most dynamic character in the whole thing since he’s got a lot of gender prejudices and class issues to overcome, and when he does finally begin to change, to support his son, he really makes you want to cry.
There are three Billy’s — the one on my night was Trent Kowalik, who was pretty good as well. As a dancer he excels at turns. But of course what I was waiting for the whole time was Stephen Hanna, (former) New York City Ballet principal dancer, who plays the older Billy. I was a bit disappointed in the way they used him though. The film ends with the grown-up Billy doing a portion of Matthew Bourne’s Swan Lake, so I was expecting that. But they completely cut it! And I was so upset! I waited all night to see Stephen Hanna do that! Instead they had this rather corny scene in the middle (pictured above) where the little Billy is having a dream and he dances with the image of who he will become — Stephen Hanna. At first it’s nice — they both do some turns and jumps in tandem, and eventually some partnering with Stephen lifting Kowalik into some lovely little fish dives. But then Hanna straps Kowalik into a harness and for about the final third of the piece, the damn harness carries Kowalik all around stage — it’s like circus tricks, not dance!
After that I kept waiting and waiting for more Stephen, but the only other time we see him is in a non-dance scene with the father. It’s actually a pretty funny scene and Hanna’s able to utilize his acting skills — and he’s pretty good, except that he falls back into an American accent at the end of his last line 🙂 . It’s at the Royal Ballet Academy where Billy is about to try out. Billy’s gone back to change and the father’s left in the hallway alone — still trying to get over his homophobia / fear of male ballet dancers, when along comes Hanna (and then you knew why they needed such a big, muscly dancer), for a smoke. Hanna’s dressed in a blousy 18th Century-style top and tights, so when he takes out a smoke and strikes a nonchalant pose it’s rather funny. Then he starts doing some developpes (slow lift of one leg, with bent knee, into full extension of that leg), lifting his leg right in Jbara’s direction, exposing his crotch. Jbara looks like he’s going to have a heart attack and the audience is cracking up. It ends with Hanna warning Jbara to support his son lest he may lose him to his dream, and the father listens.
But no dancing in that scene. So, I was waiting and waiting until the end, and then, curtain call after curtain call, and dance-within-curtain-call after dance-within-curtain-call and it just never happened. Hanna also plays one of the regular strikers and so is dressed for the final dance scene in his construction boots and all, so I’m thinking maybe he just didn’t have time to do a costume change. But then just have another actor / dancer do those scenes — you certainly don’t need a NYCB principal-caliber dancer for that! — and leave Hanna to the ballet! Argh! I realize Hanna took the role knowing what it would entail, but they really could have used him to much better effect, showing audiences what male ballet dancers are really capable of, and what the future Billy will be like.
Anyway, overall I did enjoy it — for those very well choreographed dance scenes I mentioned above and for the actors, particularly Jbara. It’s worth seeing if you get the chance.
Katrina alerted me to this. Apparently, two Dancing With the Stars celebrity contestants have had to pull out of the show due to injury, and just the weekend before season eight is to premiere. It was first rumored that singer Jewel had to pull out due to tendinitis, but now, according to ABC’s press release, her injuries are much worse: fractured tibia in both legs. I know from covering the Sean Bell trial that fractured tibia are extremely serious. Two men who were in Sean Bell’s car during the shooting sustained fractured tibia from bullets and a doctor testified it would have been impossible for the one to walk or run on the injured leg and that he would be (and he most definitely was, judging by video footage) in howling pain. Both underwent surgery to have permanent metal rods implanted to hold the bones together. I guess the seriousness of a fractured tibia can vary — I mean obviously, but good lord, you’d think to sustain a fracture in each leg, she would have had to have fallen from an overhead lift or something. Anyway, no wonder she’s pulling out.
Continue reading “TWO DANCING WITH STARS CELEBS PULL OUT WEEKEND BEFORE SHOW”
Apparently the artistic director of the Houston Ballet, Stanton Welch, whose work — that I’ve seen anyway– I’ve really liked, has made a new ballet based on the life of Marie Antoinette, which is just about to premiere. See a video of the company’s rehearsal footage here, and some photos of the making of face casts to be used during the execution scene here. And follow progress on the ballet on the company’s blog.
I’d so love to see this, though I can’t really go to Houston right now. I hope they take it on tour. If anyone is local (DA perhaps?), please do report!
Say that five times in a row 🙂 (
Last Wednesday, my friend Judy and I went to NYCB for their Founding Choreographers II program, which included two by Balanchine — Ballo della Regina, and Robert Schumann’s Davidsbundlertanze (it’ll be a miracle if I don’t misspell it at some point), and Jerome Robbins’s Glass Pieces.
My favorite was the middle one (whose name translates to “Dances of the League of David” — Schumann’s imaginary society of artists organized to combat Philistinism), and it’s becoming one of my favorites of Balanchine’s in general, though many people can’t stand it and think it moves way too slowly. Made in 1980 and one of Balanchine’s last works, it’s meant to depict the mid-19th Century composer Schumann’s relationship with his wife, a pianist named Clara Wieck, and his ensuing mental breakdown, which led to a suicide attempt, followed by institutionalization.
There are four couples who seem to me to depict various stages of the same relationship — one is older and more mature, another is young, hot-headed and full of passion, another frolicking and playful, and the last and most pathos-ridden somewhere in between, full of loving and longing but pockmarked with fateful misunderstandings and missed connections, generally standing I think for the tragic impossibility of true human connection.
Sunday evening I attended another Works & Process event at the Guggenheim. These programs are so fantastic — they’re designed to kind of make the average person an insider, to give you a behind-the-scenes view of how art or cultural programming is created. Anyway, this one was on female choreographers and American Ballet Theater. Unbenownst to me (and most I think), ABT in conjunction with Altria has set up the Women’s Choreography Project, whose mission is to encourage more young women to venture into choreography — an excellent aim given that there are so startlingly and inscrutably few female choreographers, at least in ballet.
The women participants whose work we saw were: Gemma Bond, Misty Copeland, Nicole Graniero, Elizabeth Mertz, and Xiomara Reyes — all ABT ballerinas, and all, except Xiomara and Misty, members of the corps de ballet. (Xiomara is a principal and Misty a soloist.) It’s not a given or a demand of course that these ballerinas will necessarily become choreographers, but the program, led by Stephen Pier, exists for them to explore their talents, ultimately decide whether choreography is for them. It will be interesting to see, if programs like these proliferate, if it leads to more women dancemakers.
Anyway, it was really interesting watching Pier work with the women, but, to be honest, a bit confusing. At the beginning, Pier defined choreography for the audience as the movement of bodies through time and space. “That’s all,” he said. Then, he had Gemma Bond demonstrate a phrase she’d been working on. She walked to the middle of the stage, smiling bashfully, and did a short, abstract lyrical segment. Then, Pier told her to focus on the back wall, to look at the shape of three windows, the lights coming through them, their geometry, and some writing on the wall underneath them (which I think was something like a dedication to whoever funded the auditorium, in small letters).
Bond used her hand to shield her eyes from the stage lights, and squinted up toward the windows. We all turned around, followed her gaze to the back of the room. She then laughed, shrugged her shoulders, and gamely re-performed the phrase. “It’s the same thing,” said the woman next to me. But I didn’t think it was. I thought she used the stage a little more; the pattern was now more horizontal than vertical, which went along with the three, horizontally aligned windows. She did exactly what was asked of her, I thought. Then Pier asked her, “well, what are you going to do with that red light coming out from the middle window?” She looked back at the windows, focused for a moment on the middle one, then, seemingly concentrating hard, repeated the phrase again. This time it was the same horizontal pattern as before, but now she stepped forward in the middle, kind of punctuating the movement with a little dot, making both vertical and horizontal use of the stage. “Now, that’s different,” said the lady next to me. I agreed, but thought this difference was far more subtle than the last.
It was really interesting, but I think we were all intrigued because we knew exactly what was going on, what the choreographer was using to guide her. If we didn’t, I think it would just have been three slightly different patterns with no real meaning.
Pier then gave the women a pair of opposites to work with: fast and slow, light and dark, sharp and soft. All chose sharp and soft, except for renegade Misty, who chose freedom and constraint — which wasn’t one of Pier’s categories! (At one point, he asked each what they found hardest about the project and Misty said it was keeping within the rules. I love her!) Anyway, I looked deeply at the dances, trying hard to concentrate, to see the contrasts, but couldn’t always find them.
But as I was watching this, I was thinking of what I’d seen earlier in the day — the rehearsal footage of Alvin Ailey choreographing on his dancer Donna Wood Sanders, which I wrote about here. How he told her, you’re a prisoner, you can’t escape, you’re struggling, trying, let me see that. And this dance, Masekela Langage, about a group of people living under systematized racial oppression, was obviously very close to his heart.
I realize Pier was only giving these women exercises, that he wasn’t saying this was all there was to choreography. At least I hope that’s what he meant. He had said choreography was only about the movement of bodies through time and space. Is that all? I couldn’t help but get the feeling that Ailey’s world was so different from that of a lot of contemporary ballet, where it’s all about geometric patterns, interesting shapes, use of space, use of different rhythms, and not so much about creating something from the heart. I mean, literary writers and artists have to create because they have something to tell the world, something they find deeply meaningful. Although this was obviously only a glimpse into their process, I didn’t get the sense that these women were being encouraged to explore their visions of the world and learn to make movement that emanates from that place. It makes me wonder how most contemporary choreographers work — if they’re just thinking of light and shadow and abstract oppositions and geometry; if they’re not concerned with trying to tell us something.
Anyway, I have to say Xiomara (photo up top) completely blew me away with her work. She danced a lyrical balletic piece, but it had a kind of hippy-ness to it, a kind of swaying Gyspy-like, Latin feel. She danced with so much emotion. Her facial expressions almost reminded me of a flamenco dancer’s. I’ve never seen her dance like that before. I feel like perhaps she’s someone who’s better at dancing her own work than classical ballet. And perhaps she’d be good at creating work for other contemporary ballet dancers like her. Maybe she’ll be our next female ballet choreographer?
They also showed pieces by women who’ve choreographed for ABT: Lauri Stallings (whose Citizen I wrote about here) and Aszure Barton, whose work I’d never seen before and really loved. ABT II (the studio company, comprised of teenaged dancers) performed her Barbara, a sweet ballet that didn’t really have one single linear narrative, but had a lot of little subplots involving cutely intriguing characters.
On an endnote, Irlan Silva — whoa! Methinks he is going to be in the main company soon…
