Tag: Ballet

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Macaulay on ABT, and More Same-Sex Ballroom Stuff on NYTimes Website

NYTimes’s website is rocking these days. First, NYTimes Chief Dance Critic Alastair Macaulay’s review of ABT’s opening night gala is now up. Read it here. Whoa, far more critical than anyone was of NYCB’s opening. I’m not trying to be thick, but I honestly don’t understand his paragraph on the excerpt from Othello, danced by Alessandra Ferri and Marcelo Gomes, and choreographed by Lar Lubovitch. This in particular is what I don’t get:

“This choreography pursued a hammy old dance-expressionist rule: ‘Never express an emotion to the left that you don’t also express to the right, preferably several times either way.'”

This is in the context of his contention that Ferri’s “willing victim” schtick didn’t really work and Gomes struggled with being “intense.” So, I don’t get it: is he saying Ferri did something wrong, Gomes did, they both screwed up together, or the choreography was nonsensical? And what does he mean by left and right — does he mean literally don’t do something one-sided or half-assed, or does he mean it in an art versus reason sense (don’t make an intellectual choice if you can’t back it up with the proper emotion), or in a political sense (Ferri’s willing victim and /or Gomes’s macho intensity were anachronistically and stupidly misogynistic for this day and age, making them disingenuous)? They’re all interesting points of view; I just want to understand! Oh wait, is he just saying either she needed to take it down a notch or he needed to take it up a notch? That makes sense, and is what I was saying as well (the second part, rather). Well, everyone just go see Othello and we’ll all figure Macaulay out together 🙂 …

Also, they have a video of the gala here with some rather amusing commentary by former Wonder Woman Linda Carter. The reporter concludes that many of the chi chi guests came out not to watch the dancing, but to hob-knob and boogie down themselves. Interesting.

And, finally, something my friend sent me regarding that same-sex ballroom dance competition held here two weekends ago that I blogged about earlier and was written up in the City section last weekend — the Times has a little video clip up of that too. It’s really quite interesting: they give a little history of the competition and talk about some of the reasons why people participate in same-sex ballroom dancing — it’s not always because the couples are homosexual; sometimes women just feel sexier leading rather than following, and it’s too hard to lead a male partner. Interesting. I never did get the hang of following! Here’s the video.

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Ad Hoc Ballet, and Final Thoughts on Romeo + Juliet With Major Kudos to NYCB for Audience Accessibility

I’m so behind on my blogging! I meant to blog about all of these things I did over the weekend MUCH earlier in the week, but with ABT opening and all, it’s just been…crazy!

So, last Saturday evening I went to see ad hoc ballet, a very intriguing new company founded by engagingly unique Deborah Lohse, with dancers Amy Brandt, Elizabeth Brown, and Candice Thompson, a new contributor to the Winger and the reason I found about about this cool new company in the first place! I had also seen Lohse a couple of weeks ago at Symphony Space in a work by choreographer Monica Bill Barnes and was immediately drawn to her.

I just love ad hoc’s mission statement: “ad hoc Ballet is committed to creating new works, which incorporate elements of classical ballet and modern dance, while exploring current social tribulations. Drawing inspiration from outsider populations that America tends to ignore and uniting pathology with empathy to uncover new movement, ad hoc Ballet explores the beauty in the alternatives to the classical aesthetic of perfection.” This is just the kind of dance I love — dance with contemporary social meaning that is rooted in the beauty of classical ballet and incorporates modern elements to explore issues and devise new, original forms of movement.

This performance was called “The Lucy Poems,” a title taken from a group of William Wordsworth poems, which Thompson talked a bit about on the Winger, and dealt with mental illness. The hour-long ballet opened with Lohse sitting in the corner in various contorted body positions, surrounded by a circle of very bright lights — so bright, they kind of blinded me to look at her. After she finished her first short piece, the lights went completely off and loud, brash sounds emanated from the speakers. It was really rather frightening, and gave you a sense of what the world must be like to a mentally ill person. Then the lights came on again, the music mellowed, and the other three dancers, all on pointe, took the stage and danced various duets and solos. It was really captivating. At times the dancers would contort and distort their bodies, taking different positions and shapes, then they would be perfectly “normal” and dance in the manner of a classical ballerina, as if mental illness could be something that came in waves or attacks. I went to see the program with Doug Fox and we both found compelling the ways that the dancers at times would visibly struggle to control their limbs, as if their arms and legs had minds of their own and operated independently of their minds. What was so amazing was that you could see this struggle played out in the face and body of the dancers — which I’d think would be really hard to do. Another thing I really liked about The Lucy Poems was, in contrast to for example, Forsythe’s You Made Me A Monster, that, sad subject though it was, there were moments of peace, and even within the contortions, there was a strange beauty to the movement.

The costumes were really interesting too and perfectly suited to the theme. They were dresses of haphazardly patched-together pieces of raggedy-edged blue denim-looking fabric, and were tied tightly around the backs of the dancers — so tightly they resembled sleeveless straight-jackets, if that makes any sense, or perhaps corsets, revealing possibly an underflying gender motif?…

It was a brief and small-scale but really spellbinding production and I will definitely look forward to seeing more from this promising company.

Earlier on Saturday, the wonderfully nice Newsday critic Apollinaire Scherr invited me to NYCB‘s matinee for one final viewing of their new Romeo + Juliet. As Apollinaire’s guest, I actually had a good seat at NYCB for once — thanks Apollinaire!! Though, I have to say, I think all seats in the State Theater, including those in Fourth Ring are really quite good.

So I think this was the cast with the youngest leads of all — Erica Pereira, still an apprentice with the company, and Allen Peiffer. I thought Pereira was really sweet — very small and with fluid movements and really beautiful willowy arms; she just glided around the stage, she was just a delight. She worked well with her Romeo, though, very cutely, she didn’t LOOK at him a whole lot! She kept her bright smile and shining face mostly turned out toward the audience, at least throughout her first pas de deux, as if a bit nervous to regard him. She almost looked surprised when he lifted her, from behind! Adorable given given her age — it is kinda scary to look at the boy 🙂 The couple next to us, a sweet, elderly pair who’d been coming to the ballet for many many years, just adored her.

Daniel Ulbricht was an awesome Mercutio again, and this time Craig Hall was Tybalt — the most imposing of all of the Tybalts. He didn’t have Joaquin‘s virtuostic flair, but he acted the part well and he actually wore well that costume (that everyone but me, basically, seems to have had a problem with).

But, the ballet as a whole … I still had the same problem with the overacting and the lack of interesting choreography. The couple next to us, loving as I said, Pereira, felt the same about what they considered a lack of movement in the choreography. But these are the things that the critics and the avid balletomanes, who have seen every version of the ballet under the sun, are kind of naturally going to focus on. But Martins was trying to reach out to new audiences. And here’s what two such new audience members had to say:

My friend from work and her husband, compelled by the brilliant ads they saw in the Times (the design of which is pictured above on the postcard setting on my lap), along with my offer to buy them $10 discounted Fourth Ring tickets, attended Sunday’s final performance, starring the original cast. My friends, a public interest attorney (meaning, poorer but more arty than the average lawyer 🙂 ) and an actor, have sophisticated aesthetic sensibilities but have not attended a concert dance performance in years. They know the play of course, but nothing of all of the prior versions of the ballet, and almost nothing of the dancers and who’s a big ballet star and who is not (though my friend did know of Kistler).

So, their verdict: they couldn’t get enough of Ulbricht 🙂 🙂 , they thought the leads — Fairchild and Hyltin were lovely, their dancing was beautiful and they captured the innocense of youth. They thought the minimalist sets were fine, but the costumes garish, particularly Tybalt’s, and unlike me, had a hard time appreciating Joaquin’s brilliant dancing because of it. They thought the choreography was a little “fast” in places — such as the balcony scene, when Juliet only has a second to look down and find Romeo before running down the steps; they wanted her to do a little lyrical dancing up on the balcony ballet before slowly spotting him and then processing whether or not she should go to him, then excitedly skipping down) and the death scenes at the end happened too fast to be believable. And, like me, they thought the acting was way too overdone. My friend laughed this off though, thinking it was silly but not a huge deal, and telling me her father-in-law, a ballet fan, won’t go to the story ballets because of the “bad acting. I mean, everyone knows the story of Romeo and Juliet,” she said, “we don’t need all the extreme gestures.” So, to them, it didn’t ruin the ballet at all, but was just a silly but inevitable thing that one should expect to see in a story ballet.

My problem with the overacting — and it was the same way with all three casts that I saw so I’m now assuming the dancers were only following Martins’s instructions — is that, I really believe in a story ballet it’s of the utmost importance, it’s what emotionally moves the audience and propels the drama along, and if it’s totally overdone, it ends up looking cartoonish — resulting in the exact opposite effect. In the Saturday afternoon cast, Jonathan Stafford played Paris and his kissing Juliet’s hand in an attempt to win her over at one point was so abrupt, so overdone, it just looked comical. As revealed by the excellent Tragic Love videos made by Kristin Sloan (discussed further below), the company spent so much time on the sword-fighting — and it shows; that scene is by far the best. Mercutio doesn’t toss up his sword the moment he is fatally stabbed, clench his chest and fall straight to the ground screaming; rather, it takes him a lot longer than that — as it would had he actually been struck. Tybalt’s death is the same. If they would have just had some actors come in and instruct the dancers on how to emote without overdoing it to a ridiculous extreme, I think the whole would have been so much better. I realize these dancers are used to performing abstract ballets; so much more reason then to have actors come in and help out for this kind of ballet.

Last Thursday evening, I attended a studio talk at which members of the original cast — Robert Fairchild, Sterling Hyltin, and Joaquin De Luz — spoke. I have to say NYCB people are really some of the nicest people. Originally the talk was to be held in the Rose Building, where apparently they normally take place, but it was moved last minute to a studio in the State Theater, so there were a lot of lost people wandering around in the bowels of the studio corridors! None of the young dancers made fun of me in the least, annoying though I must have been holding them up on stairs and in narrow hallways trying to figure out where in the world I was supposed to be! When I finally arrived at my proper destination, the moderator and the other organizers actually congratulated me 🙂

Anyway, the discussion was very interesting. One thing the moderator asked the dancers was how they dealt with all the criticism of this new production. (I actually didn’t think there was that much harsh criticism though.) Hyltin was sweet. She said, after a bad experience once reading, in the midst of the run of a particular ballet she was performing, a critic’s harsh words about her, which really hindered her next performances, she no longer reads reviews until the run was finished. I think that’s very wise. Although all artists put themselves in the public eye and must be able to take criticism, dancers in general tend to be the youngest of artists, and these dancers in particular are very young, so it’s got to be hard on them. DeLuz, older and more jaded, with a good sense of humor, shrugged his shoulders and said he stopped letting it get to him: they’re gonna say what they’re gonna say you know; you can usually predict at this point who will say what. Fairchild, called “Robbie” — how cute! 🙂 — ran in late and sweaty from a rehearsal. I realized listening to him talk at this, just how young he really is. All wide-eyed and smiling brightly, he chirped, “Well, I’m totally new at this, so I read EVERYTHING!!” He sounded pretty happy about it and I don’t remember any bad reviews of him. But, in general, I have to say to Hyltin (and to Morgan, whom I was a little hard on in my last post!), maybe sometimes, not always, but sometimes, the critics are harsh because they see a kernel of something there and are anxious to see it taken to another level. I’d think that a critic’s not noticing you is worse than them saying something critical. A critic is writing for the general public and readers of his or her publication rather than the dancers and ballet-makers, but maybe, taken the right way, a critic’s words can help improve something. Assuming of course that the critic is open to looking at the next performance with fresh eyes, which I think was what Joaquin was complaining is all too often unlikely. Hyltin said after she finishes her run, she will read some reviews, take what she can of the criticism, and learn from it, and leave the rest. I think that’s so smart — she’s a wise young woman 🙂

And one other happy thing about ‘Robbie’ 🙂 🙂 : the dancers were also asked how they prepared for their roles. Apropos of what I said in my earlier post about watching the greats dancers of the past, he said his sister, the magnificient Megan, gave him a DVD of Nureyev and Fonteyn dancing the ballet 🙂 So, see, the good dancers do agree with me!

One last thing about R+J: I feel that something that was left out of many of the reviews was recognition of all the hard work the company put, especially Kristin Sloan, into making this production publicly accessible to everyone, both in and outside of New York, and to attracting new audiences. That Tragic Love video series broadcast over the internet, originally on NYCB’s website and now on bliptv, here, is downright trailblazing. Also, the advertising, with those very cool designs, the already inexpensive but further discounted seats in honor of Kirstein’s birthday, the studio talks allowing audiences to hear directly from the dancers — invaluable to me for one — for all of that, NYCB is really on the forefront of promoting ballet and expanding audiences, particularly through internet use, and for that alone it deserves MAJOR KUDOS.

One final thing about Romeo + Juliet and then I swear I’m done, is this from the Wired blog. Which prompted me to write this to Apollinaire, who sweetly posted my thoughts. I fully realize this writer, Todd Jatras, who from his oeuvre appears to be of the Sebastian Junger uber-mensch school of journalism, is writing for a certain audience and is trying to convince his readers to try a ballet performance, as he did, after meeting Kristin and viewing her awesome Tragic Love videos. And I’m very happy that he did and that he admitted his formerly-held prejudices about “muscely men in tights”, etc., were silly. But it just worries me that promoting a ballet on the bases that it’s just like action-packed film with lots of sword fights is problematic … I mean, what are people then going to think of the more abstract ballets, which is what NYCB primarily puts on? And why must one go to the ballet in order to see the same thing you can see at the movies? For a Schwarzenneger film, you need simply to run up to your local mulitplex; ballet is art; it’s like the opera, it’s like an art museum — people should go for the same reasons they’d go to those things, to be exposed to something different, to have a cultural experience. I mean, I obviously love a good drama too, which is why Romeo and Juliet is one of my favorite ballets, and I CAN’T WAIT to see ABT’s Othello next week (!!), but ballet is drama mixed with poetic movement and beautiful music, or it’s abstract beauty and lyricism … it’s just so much more than a Schwarzenneger film! And that led me to wonder why the same people who don’t mind spending an evening at the opera or afternoon at an art museum — who are NOT expecting to see Schwarzenneger action in such a place — are hesitant to go to the ballet, when it’s the same art form… I don’t get it.

Okay, one more thing, not related to R+J but to NYCB: Sarah, a friend who I met on the Winger (where I’ve made many new ballet friends 🙂 ) sent me some information about a talk hosted by the Jewish Community Center next Monday, in celebration of the centennial of Kirstein’s birth, on the making of Dybbuk, one of Jerome Robbins’s ballets. NYCB dancers will be there performing and there will be a talk on staging this ballet and the music used in it. For more information, go here and here.

Okay sorry for the hugely long post; I’m done, for now!

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Joaquin Cortes on Dancing With the Stars!!!!

Omigod omigod — did everyone see him on DWTS?!?! He was soooo amazing! I think it totally came through what a stellar, world-class dancer he is on TV — at least the studio audience could tell, judging by their cheers. I believe this is a new high for this show – Cortes is one of the greatest dancers in the world. Did you see that footwork — hello?!!!!! And Joaquin is also an ambassador to the European Union representing the Roma people, flamenco being a dance that emanated from the Gypsies. For more about that, visit Root Magazine, here. Pretty cool having a dancer as ambassador 🙂 I really think this proves mine and Dean Moss‘s points about Dancing With the Stars — that watchers of the show are, in Moss’s words, “developing an aesthetic for viewing dance,” and that its popularity can lead to increased popularity of other forms of dance such as ballet and modern…

So, Ian and Cheryl just got booted. I didn’t really like the Elvis look on him — particularly the wig, and I thought even in his last jive he was trying so hard to dance like “a guy,” to not be “girly” (which he had earlier complained about Latin seeming to him) that it really hindered his learning technique and acquiring proper dance skills. Virility in dance, as in life I suppose, is something that, if it is there, is just going to come out naturally, certainly not from stomping around on the floor consciously trying to look macho. He could have benefitted from watching Herman and Marcelo and Seth, and Cortes too!

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No Red Carpet or Film Stars But Dancing So Breathtaking I Got All Depressed Again!

Funny there was no red carpet, no big showy movie stars, no former President of the United States, no big huge to-do at American Ballet Theater‘s opening night gala tonight, unlike at NYCB two weeks ago, but just walking into the Met Opera House amongst all of these hugely wealthy patrons wearing all manner of couture just made me feel so poor and ugly… like I NEVER felt last week or any time I’ve been in NYCB for that matter. ABT people can just be so intimidating…

Anyway, the program was excellent — at least the second half, though I have tons of miniscule criticisms to make, of course of course. First, Marcelo. Not because he was on first — he wasn’t on til the second half — but just because, he’s Marcelo!! He danced with Alessandra Ferri in the final scene of Othello. Ugh, they were both so good, I got depressed again — like I felt after watching Pasha and Anna last week… just a huge lump in my throat, just sad. Alessandra is so so so good, and it’s just so horrible she’s retiring — it really is tragic. I don’t mean to be melodramatic but I just feel like there’s never going to be another ballerina like her and it’s so terribly upsetting. She just has something no one else does. It’s just beyond words watching her. And Marcelo is such a big, huge, gorgeous man, such a star — he’s so perfect as her support. He is of course a great actor too, and that is so absolutely necessary for this scene. He was so frightening and powerful and uber-virile — as Marcelo always is, but so sadly broken as well. He could definitely have taken all of that a bit further, but he is just returning to the stage after a hiatus and you could see the concentration in his eyes. He’ll take it up a notch when he performs the whole ballet, I’m sure! That ballet is going to be THE BALLET to see this season — it’s gonna rock! Lar Lubovitch (the choreographer) is a genius … well Shakespeare was a genius so anything anyone does that’s based on his plays in my mind is superior to the other story ballets… But the choreography looks so engrossing — if anyone is kinda sorta an ABT fan and is thinking about maybe possibly going to see something this season, SEE THAT ONE!!!

So, the other stuff: Herman Cornejo and Xiomara Reyes did the balcony pas de deux from Romeo and Juliet, and to me, it ended up being an interestingly different take on that scene, but just not good enough. It was ALL ABOUT HERMAN — show-stealer that he is 🙂 It really was a bunch of bravura dancing from him, while Xiomara just kind of looked on sweetly — which was interesting, really in its own way: it was like, “Hey, Juliet, look how hot I am for you! I’m just flying all over the stage doing all these crazy-ass tricks!” And she, “Oh Romeo, Romeo, you’re sooo great, you’ve definitely won my heart now…” Cute take, but they totally watered down the choreography — they took out all those beautiful crazy big huge run and jump lifts — you CAN’T take those out!!!!! It’s plain and simply NOT MacMillan’s pdd without them!!!! And they just eased up on the choreography in general – -the partnering just wasn’t there for me. And that’s what the pdd is, after all, not bravura dancing for the man.

The Swan Lake excerpt was danced beautifully by Nina Ananiashvili and Angel Corella. A crowd pleaser as well that Angel is of course of course — it looked like he did about 10 pirouettes in a row. She did 30 fouettes — this is the first time I’ve EVER counted them and only did so because I know it is the balletomane thing to do. I’ll never do it again; it’s boring and takes away from enjoying the beauty of the dance. People who count are, to me, just silly… I didn’t count Angel’s pirouettes — I said they looked like there were about 10 in a row; I’m sure they weren’t; he just has that Angel way of … just being Angel… 🙂 And I’m happy I got to see Nina; she’s not dancing much this season and I don’t know if I’ll make it to anything she’s in.

And then there was a Manon excerpt, a pas de deux, with Julie and Jose — two of my favorite dancers. They did this pdd like the Romeo and Juliet should have been done. They are spectacular, they are beautiful and poetic, and I really think Jose is one of the very greatest dancers in the world right now. I’m so scared he is going to be retiring soon too… Julie is perfect; she’s flawless and she’s beautiful. But to me, artistically, she still doesn’t have that something undefinably extra that Alessandra has. But she still has time. There is something about her and Marcelo dancing together too — they just have something together that makes them both better than they are alone…

The gala ended with La Bayadere excerpts, performed by David, Paloma, Gillian, and the illustrious heartthrob (so say his bizillions of adoring female fans) Ethan Stiefel — returning after a very long hiatus due to double knee surgery. He got a lot of applause, understandably so, and performed breathtaking jumps — he was really awesome. So cute! David seemed to be the only principal who didn’t get applause when he entered the stage. I think it’s because people are angry about his lack of contributions lately to the Winger … Just kidding of course 🙂 I think it’s because he entered kind of suddenly, albeit with a very loud manly clap 🙂 and people were a bit surprised and didn’t recognize him at first. I heard several voices around me going, “oh oh oh, that’s that David Hallberg, that’s who that is…” Plus, he was wearing a bright white turban, which, when I first saw it, I thought he’d gone and dyed his hair platinum now… I couldn’t see all that well from balcony…

In the first half — I know, I’m going totally backward — first piece was a Bayadere excerpt with all corps members. I’m not one for ensemble work with lots of people onstage at once — I’m a pdd (& occasionally bravura guy) girl — but Misty Copeland stood out to me in this first piece. Then Sleeping Beauty (excerpts from classic Petipa version, no new McKenzie version revealed yet! — that’s for later in the month), with Michele Wiles, Veronika Part, who slipped a bit in the Rose Adagio but nothing serious, Diana Vishneva, favorite of all the critics, and Irina Dvorovenko and Maxim Beloserkovsky. Personally, I love Irina. I know she is not favored by the critics, but she is still one of my favorite ballerinas. I think her dancing is breathtaking, she has gorgeous lines and beautiful extensions, and I think she’s a very good actress — she puts her heart and soul into everything she does, and she really loves and respects the audience. I just love her, and wish she’d dance once in a while with Marcelo and David! Diana was stunning, but one thing she did that was weird was she didn’t stay around and take her curtain call with the others. She took her bow right after she finished her part, then left, without waiting until Irina and Max were finished with theirs to take bows along with them, Veronika and Michele. It was noticeable to the audience as well — VERY noticeable. I hope she had a good reason for leaving early; I don’t think it sits well with fans if you don’t do as everyone else does — might make one look a bit superior. Just going by whispers I heard happening around me…

And then right before the intermission was “Lady’s Choice” a contemporary, ballroomy piece choreographed by Brian Reeder set to Chopin and danced by Stella Abrera and Sascha Radetsky. I didn’t think they worked very well together. He’s too small for her, for one, and for another, neither was very expressive.

After the first piece, Kevin came out and spoke, along with Caroline Kennedy, but the microphones weren’t set up well and I could hear hardly anything, so can’t tell you much of what was said. I do remember he said they were showcasing their corps members as well as their stars this time around — just reminded me of that difference between ABT and NYCB – the idea of having “stars.” Kevin seems like such a sweet man — I may be totally wrong, but he just seems like a really nice guy.

Looking at this picture on my wall made me realize who was missing — Carmen! (pictured with Marcelo of course!)

All in all it was a really lovely night even though I felt poor and ugly and then depressed??? Marcelo and Alessandra were just so beautiful together… He’s gay and she’s married, and I’m totally jealous of how great they were together. How much sense does that make?! It’s just like great dancing goes beyond great dancing sometimes, you know?… Ugh, it’s a good thing I don’t have a crush on Ethan or some other straight guy with a gorgeous and perfect paramour 🙂 I’m really sorry if I’m a bit slap happy here — it’s late and I’m tired! 🙂

Just one last thing, on a totally different note. I made it home just in time to see the end of “Dancing With the Stars” — think there was a humorous remark made by Kennedy about being grateful that some young people were pulling themselves away from the show to be at ABT tonight, but I’m not sure because, as I said, the acoustics were off — but I think I overheard the TV show’s hostess say that tomorrow night, they are having Joaquin Cortes on the show?!?! The brilliant, spectacular, not to mention HOT, flamenco dancer?! If I heard correctly that is simply awesome — a real high point for them — that, THAT is CLASS!!!

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Seth Orza = Heartthrob Romeo, For Sure(!), But Production Still Lacked Intensity…

Last night I decided last minute to see Martins’s “Romeo + Juliet” at NY City Ballet again. Okay, I just couldn’t resist wondering what Seth Orza looked like in the lead 🙂 I have to say, its sweetness grew a little on me seeing it a second time. Could have been, of course, just watching gorgeous, hunky uber-mensch Orza 🙂 Interestingly, Alastair Macaulay in the Times compared the four pairs of leads and concluded that this was his favorite set, a view shared by NY Observer’s Robert Gottlieb, who wrote a rather humorously sardonic review. Though I liked Orza a lot, I still feel like there was something significant missing.

Orza doesn’t show a lot of facial expression; he’s more stoic and serious-looking, or perhaps a bit shy-seeming even, somewhat like Herman Cornejo of ABT. But this isn’t a bad thing; his body is more his instrument of expression. When he grabbed that sword and walked toward Tybalt following Mercutio’s slaying, he needed no facial emotion — I was terrified for Tybalt! And he’s so strong — he just scoops up his ballerinas, raises them high above his head and carries them all around stage, which just oozes with romance! And he’s just so handsome in that classic movie-star / Rock Hudson way, he doesn’t really need to “act”; he just naturally IS a romantic leading man.

My problem with Morgan was that I thought she was too much the opposite of him. She over-emoted, acting like a crying little girl throwing a temper tantrum when her parents pushed her to Paris, and, at the end, she threw up her arms and beat the sky in over-acted despair before she even fully turned around to see Romeo lying dead. I thought she might have been better partnered with Robert Fairchild, the younger, more impetuous Romeo, but paired with Orza, she seemed more like his little sister. I know he’s not much older than she, but perhaps because of his more calm demeanor, or his large body and upright, manly posture, he seemed so much older. I prefer to see him partnered with more mature, sophisticated ballerinas like Miranda Weese, as he was in Evenfall. They were beautiful together in that ballet! Of course, maybe it’s the Nureyev / Fonteyn mystique that I so long to see re-appear in the present day, of which there is a tiny bit in the Marcelo / Julie dynamic at ABT… I also found a few technical glitches — at one point during the balcony scene, it looked like she slipped, then, when they repeated the step, I realized it was a slide. I don’t remember it looking like a mistake though when Sterling Hyltin performed it.

But, speaking of the greats of yore, do the young dancers of today ever watch them, ever pay close attention, dissecting what exactly it was that made them who they were? What is still so missing, I feel, is that the dancers don’t seem to know entirely the dynamic of the ballet they’re performing. The bedroom pas de deux is almost the same — both stylistically and choregraphically — as the balcony scene. Juliet acts silly and girlish and excited. But her new husband has murdered her cousin and consequently been banished from Verona — that’s kind of a big thing. If I remember correctly, Nureyev and Fonteyn gave that scene so much more passion, so much more tragedy…

I remember Julio Bocca saying that ABT used to be far different than it was today: in the past, the dancers used to watch each other intensely in the wings; today everyone is too interested in their cell phones to care about what makes a great dancer. That’s simply pathetic. I once saw Jose Carreno in the wings at City Center watching, with much intensity, Angel Corella perform Sinatra Suite. Jose is of that Julio generation, and it’s not at all surprising to me why he is so far above his fellow dancers when it comes to many of the big story-ballet roles. I find it tragic that he’s not going to be around that much longer…

A classical musician named Griffin recently posted some very interesting comments on my former post about Macaulay’s criticism of NYCB and Balanchine (I haven’t yet figured out how to have “recent comments” show above the blogroll, but those comments are really interesting and are worth looking at) saying more attention needs to be paid to the ballerinas on whom Balanchine created those ballets. I also just think that in general dancers need to pay more attention to the past and current greats. Pounding your fists at the air is not showing grief; that emotion needs to come from far deeper within. Watch Margot Fonteyn dancing with Nureyev, or for a live rendition, go watch Alessandra Ferri show grief and despair when she performs the role at ABT in July — but hurry up, she is about to retire…

Finally, just one more thought about Tyler Angle, who was cast last night as Tybalt. I find him to be a very interesting dancer, and a beautiful man with a very striking, dramatic face that’s full of expression and on which he just loves to apply that make-up! It’s fun and it’s his thing and I love that he stands out to me whenever he is onstage, but I think he was miscast as Tybalt. Tybalt is, in a sentence, a hyper-masculine, testosterone-laden, aggressive bad-ass and I thought Tyler was a bit too flamboyant. When Orza’s Romeo went after him following Mercutio’s slaying, it seemed like an unfair fight. I wanna see more of Angle for sure, just not as Tybalt!

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Pasha and Anna Return to the Stage!

I know it is near impossible to see, but here is the great, the amazing, the beyond talented, the bewitching, the captivating, the truly wonderfully incredible — not enough superlatives to describe her! — Anna Garnis, taking her bow after performing in the pro part of the Dance Times Square pro / am showcase last night in Hunter College auditorium. Pasha Kovalev, my former teacher, who is of course all of the same and more(!), is to the left of her.

It was actually really nice not to perform, to just sit and relax and watch everyone else — especially them. My studio friends and I — a bunch of us sat together up in the balcony — were worried they weren’t going to show. Pasha’s just coming out of a long, weird illness, but is finally, thank Heaven, fully recovered. They didn’t appear until the last quarter of the show. When Pasha walked out onstage, my heart fluttered, and my friend grabbed my arm and squealed, “that’s him!”

I don’t know what it was, but tonight — just like after the first time I ever saw them perform, at the first DTS showcase two years ago, before I actually began my lessons with Pasha — I just felt this huge lump in my throat watching them. After they left the stage, I felt like I couldn’t concentrate for the rest of the night — all I could do was stare into space. After the show completely ended, I just felt like crying, but not out of sadness, out of … I don’t know what. My friend tried to get me to go to the studio, to the after-show party, but I hadn’t planned on it since I had to get home and get rested up for my hectic work week ahead. But even if I would have decided to go just for a little while, I knew I wouldn’t be able to have fun and be social. I don’t mean to sound ludicrously melodramatic; I just felt like I have when I’ve just finished a novel or seen a movie or play that drove me to tears, that I could only come straight home and just … be. I don’t know what it is — it’s definitely not jealousy — I know I’ll never be Anna and I can definitely appreciate her greatness without thinking how horrible I am; it’s something else entirely … just like something you just can’t talk about for a while.

Anyway, it’s also so amazing, just such an experience, to watch people being exposed to dance for the first time witness truly great dancers. I hardly recognized any of the student performers from the studio, and, since I’ve spent so much time there over the past two years, I knew many of them were new. Being primarily a student showcase, most of the audience was comprised of students’ families and friends, who were, judging by their comments about dance, likely similarly inexperienced in the ballroom scene, or any other dance scene for that matter.

Before Pasha and Anna danced, the crowd was laughing and cheering on the students, having a great time and really enjoying themselves. One of the professionals, Lauren, did a three-quarter splits in her Rhumba routine, and I guess because she went down so quickly — speed being a key element in Latin — this guy up in our section who was being pretty vocal throughout, shouted, “Whoa! Man!” like it was the coolest thing he’d ever seen! The theater’s small and everyone heard him and laughs abounded — Lauren couldn’t help but be affected by his hilarious enthusiasm herself — and she even cracked a smile up there on the stage.

Well, Lauren and Fred, her partner, finished and Pasha walked out. I heard vocal guy say, understandably, “Who’s he?” Every other pro had been on at least once already, if not a few times. My friend and I exchanged glances and giggled. We both wondered if vocal guy and the rest of the crowd would recognize that these two were on a completely different level than everyone else up there. You never really know with a crowd that’s new to something, if they will recognize greatness, you know? A guy in orchestra called out, “Pashaaaaa!” Women down below began cheering. My friend and I clapped. After their music began and Anna took about two Rhumba walks toward him, the crowd went completely still. And remained so throughout. After they finished, slowly the crowd came to its feet. Vocal guy screamed “Oh my God, oh my God,” and several others started a chant of “Bravos” — the first I think I’ve EVER heard for a ballroom performance. It was the most breathtaking Rhumba I’ve ever seen. I really felt like crying. My friend squeezed my arm ever harder. I guess when you’re out for a while, sick and recovering, you just naturally come back with a bang. A huge one.

It’s well known in the studio and the ballroom world in general now that Pasha and Anna tried out for and got pretty far on “So You Think You Can Dance” — the TV show. They’re sworn to secrecy now and cannot reveal what happened in the final cuts until the show airs at the end of this month. I hope so much they did well. They so deserve it. They are true performers. And this is the cruelty and travesty of ballroom. They’re currently stuck in fifth position in the U.S. National Latin championships and basically will be until the four above them retire. Because that is The Rule of the ballroom world: The Rule is that couple number one is Andrei Gavriline and Elena Kruyshkova, couple number two is Max Kozhevnikov and Yulia Zagorouychenko, and so on down the line, and the judges never forget it, those are The Ranks, set in stone. Perhaps I’m being unfair and Pasha and Anna don’t really do that well in competition; perhaps they just excel in performance. Some dancers are like that. And when I see other dancers competitively ranked above them do a solo showcase, they’re nothing compared to Pasha and Anna. But maybe that couple is just better at competition. Maybe competing and performing take two completely different sets of talents, who knows. But I do know that Pasha and Anna deserve to be better than Number 5 in the country for the rest of their careers.

Anyway, here’s my friend Parker taking her bow. Yes, that’s the same Parker from the previous night’s bellydance showcase — this one does practically every kind of dance imaginable 🙂 ! Yes, she’s actually worse than me in that department 🙂 She did a very sweet, very fast fun cha cha, and got a lot of applause!

And here’s the whole “cast.”

Of course I’m sad I didn’t perform as well. But on the other hand, I saved about $2,000, and I got to see Pasha and Anna’s emotionally moving return, from the audience, from their perspective, instead of cramped in the wings.

And … Just one week — ONE WEEK NOW — till my other favorite returns to the stage!!!!!!

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Where Does the "Queen" End and the "Woman" Begin?: Alexis Arquette. And, Alonzo King’s LINES Ballet

Last night, I saw at the Tribeca Film Festival a documentary about the journey of Alexis Arquette, of the famous acting family, from man to woman.

I’m glad I pre-ordered tickets; door sales lines were long:

Entitled “Alexis Arquette: She’s My Brother,” this was one of the most fascinating documentaries I’ve seen, but not for the reasons touted by the filmmakers, who, unfortunately, had to return to L.A. and England and were unable to stay for an after-show Q&A. Will teach me not to wait until the end of the festival to see a movie — that’s one of the reasons I go to festival films, argh. And how much I would have LOVED to meet Alexis — a true character! Anyway, the press release stated that, though filled with celebrities, drag queens and Hollywood glitterati, the film was a serious look at transgendered life. I felt like it was actually more about the former, and regarding the latter, it left me with more questions than it answered — neither of which made it at all a disappointment. To the contrary, it was absolutely mesmerizing.

My only other experiences with the subject of transgender life come from Jeffrey Eugenides’s profound, brilliant novel Middlesex, one of the greatest American novels, ever, I think. And that story differered from this because the main character was hermaphrodic and, without an operation, decided to re-define himself as a man after being raised female. I missed the Felicity Huffman movie, which Oberon blogged about in detail. Other than that, I remember a person in college, who called herself Tatiana. My school was huge, though, and I never knew her; I only knew she tried out for both male and female parts on the cheer squad, freaking out many a male cheerleader, including my lovely then boyfriend. I felt sorry for her.

But this, I found to be more a very sympathetic portrait of a younger sibling lost in the shadows of his very famous sisters and searching desperately for his own voice. It drove home the point, without necessarily meaning to, that growing up in the light of the cameras with a large family and many flamboyant, big-personalitied drag queen friends, can, ironically, make for a very lonely life.

Of course he doesn’t seem lonely, having adopted that same ‘huge personality’ as his sisters and drag companions. It’s a self-made documentary, so his face and voice are everpresent, and, while his incessant whining can really grate on your nerves at times, overall he’s just simply fascinating. By the way, I’m very aware that some would say it’s wrong to use masculine pronouns to refer to him since he sees himself as a woman, but this was the crux of my problem here. Unlike Cal in Middlesex, who begins life as a girl but narrates his story from his older, male point of view which compels the reader to envision him as a man, Alexis, who changed his name in his teens but, interestingly, never says what from, for the vast majority of the film actually is a man and seems, to me, essentially masculine — a total preening Queen, who loves dressing in drag and wearing makeup and continuously changing hair colors, but definitely a man. The film includes several clips of him growing up, and spending his teens, twenties and early thirties as a gay man, and a really good-looking one at that — in fact, he kind of reminded me of Evan McKie on the Winger 🙂

A gay man, he seemed to know little of women’s bodies. When he goes to the plastic surgeon, of course he wants humongous breasts, with nipples practically at chin-level. The surgeon can only laugh. “What, you can’t do that?” Alexis asks dejectedly. Forced to undergo psychiatric therapy in order to gain the right to have the surgery — understandably humiliatingly aggravating (is this mandatory for people having breast enhancement or lyposuction?) — Alexis brings his therapist a self-made drawing of how he envisions his future vagina: it resembles a sweet, tiny peach core. First thing though, he is quick to assert, the nose has got to go. His nose, he tells his surgeon, is that of a man — the type of man he is attracted to for sure — but it’s just not a female nose. So, he has a very idealized notion of the exact female body he wants. It wasn’t surprising to me that many of his friends began to accuse him of making the film not because he actually wants the reassignment surgery, but for attention.

For a film about changing one’s sex organs, it dealt very little with actual sexuality. There are some really interesting interviews with doctors about how far male to female reassignment surgery has come in the last few years: parts of the penis are maintained and used to construct the clitoris, making the new clitoris nearly as sensitive as a real one — but that’s more physical than sexual. As a gay man attracted to and used to sleeping with other gay men, if he became a woman he would need to turn to straight men for romantic partnership, with whom he seemed to have little experience. That’s just so completely mind-boggling to me. I’d think it would take a very open-minded straight man to go for someone who was once another man. At one point, he does film himself with a very young boyfriend, but he is still male then, and it’s unclear whether this shy, untalkative young man, so different from Arquette, is gay, straight, or bi.

Unlike in Middlesex, where I felt myself vehemently hating any character who wanted Cal to remain female, here I found myself wanting so badly for Alexis NOT to get the surgery. Maybe it was just that I kept thinking of that young Alexis as so Evan-y and such a beautiful man, or maybe it’s that I was just so scared for him, as I would be for anyone, to have such a serious surgery. I won’t reveal the end, but he begins to freak out a little as well after he “passes” his psych exam.

All in all, I found it an absolutely fascinating portrait of a preening but confused, emotionally needy, but very human person whose need to feel comfortable in his skin, though taken to another level here, is ultimately something everyone can relate to. If he was trying to gain celebrity, and I DON’T think he was, I have to say, he is as unforgettable as Cal, Eugenides’s main character. From here on, I think every time I see anything starring any Arquette, I will definitely think of him. I highly highly highly recommend it when it hits the theaters.

On Thurday night, Dea and I, used Dance Link’s two-for-one ticket offer (you’ll get a one-year subcription to their discount program if you attend the Fall For Dance Festival), and went to see the fabulous Alonzo King’s LINES Ballet at the Joyce in Chelsea. They danced two pieces, “Migration” (about “the hierarchical migration of birds and mammals”), and our favorite, “The Moroccan Project,” a gorgeous contemporary ballet danced to beautifully rhythmic and melodious African, Moroccan, Arabic, and Andalusian Flamenco music. To me, it epitomized what I love in contemporary ballet — dance ripe with possibilities for taking traditional ballet and fusing it with other kinds of beautiful movement from around the world — here, African, Spanish, Moroccan, Indian — to create something really sublime and worldly.

The piece consisted of a combination of beautiful duets — some romantic, some playful, some fraught with discontent — solos, and ensemble work. During the group parts, the dancers would never dance alone but always worked with and off of each other, looking closely at each other, reacting to each other’s movement, at one point literally bouncing off of each other: during one of my favorite parts, four men laced arms and turned away from a lone woman who, in “Red Rover” fashion, thrashed and hurled her body at them desperately attempting to convince them to allow her into their fraternal circle.

Another favorite part of mine were the “solos” — where only one dancer is actually moving on one part of the stage, but other dancers are onstage as well, very closely watching the moving dancer, examining his or her movement, their facial expressions and tilted heads intently trying to understand the statement that moving dancer was making with her or his body. Visually, it had the effect of being an exercise in learning another language: the moving dancer was definitely speaking to the stationary dancers, and they were surely listening and understanding. With the music bearing foreign lyrics beating in the background, the point is compellingly made that dance is another language as vibrant, complex and meaningful as any spoken.

Dea and I also noticed that the dancers — all wearing matching costumes of understated peach dresses for the women, tan gaucho-styled pants for the men — somehow blended in with each other, though they had varying skin color: no one person stood out as being, for example, “the African American dancer” or “the Latino dancer.” Because it was a truly multi-ethnic company, it did not look at all out of the ordinary for, for example, a red-haired freckled man to be doing intense African-based movements to Gnawan percussive instruments. How awesome is that!! “If I could be a ballet dancer,” Dea said, “this is the kind of company I’d want to be in!”

Also, Dea brought this for me from Brazil:

 

It’s a CD by a Brazilian singer named Marisa Monte, with lots of really pretty samba songs. I’ve never heard of her and I love the music — how sweet is Dea 🙂

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Pissed at Hallberg

I am so mad at this one right now. It’s less than two weeks before ABT’s Met season and he hasn’t written a single post on the Winger in weeks. This time last year he was posting like nuts, keeping the bizillions of ABT fans abreast of all the excitement. He had such a huge fan base at the Winger and I feel he is neglecting us. Just like a typical young guy who gets a fun toy and tires of it in five seconds. I realize he is very busy learning new choreography, preparing for the upcoming six-week season and flying all over the world giving guest appearances, but this is EXACTLY what audiences want to hear about — the lives of the glamorous jet-setting dancers who are starring in the world’s greatest ballets in the world’s largest opera houses. The high point of the Winger was when he was posting from Japan. He didn’t post ONCE from Europe. If he’s so busy he should find someone else at his level to temporarily take his place. One of the “aesthetic” differences between NYCB and ABT is that the former is very “female” the latter very “male” which is what I and so many other female fans love so much about ABT. But I guess we forget that unfortunately women are so much more responsible!!!!!!!

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We Are Celebrity Whores, We Are ABT Fans, and We Are Proud, Dammit!: Jock Soto, Joaquin de Luz, Bill Clinton (and Marcelo) at NYCB Opening Night Gala

I hope no one takes the above title the wrong way — I’m totally joking, and trying to make light of out that earlier tiff on this blog 🙂 I do actually think there are different styles, aesthetics, even theater etiquette as Kristin Sloan called it (which I’ll get to soon) between the fans of American Ballet Theater and New York City Ballet, which had its opening night gala dinner tonight and the official premiere of NYCB artistic director Peter Martins’s new version of Romeo and Juliet.

Since it was a nice day out, I arrived a bit early so as to relax at the Lincoln Center fountain and perhaps take some pictures. Last year, I saw Angel Corella out front on this gala evening kind of smiling out at the crowds and looking all handsome, so I figured I might see “someone” again 🙂

Sure enough, red carpet was rolled, Peter Martins and ensemble arrived, paparazzi power cameras began flashing away, and anyone who happened to be anywhere on the plaza at that time promptly made a mad dash toward the State Theater entrance.

Here is Martins with a young girl, I assume his granddaughter? (Late edit: I now know this is his daughter, Talicia. Thanks to everyone who emailed me, posted a comment, and replied to my post on the Winger message board for correcting me 🙂 Sorry about that!)

Anyway, I, apparently being one of the biggest celebrity whores, managed to make my way to the front of the railed-off section. Passersby began crowding around, whipping out cell phones, asking excitedly, “who’s that, who’s that?”

“Peter Martins.” I said. The woman next to me looked quizzical. “The New York City Ballet artistic director whose Romeo and Juliet is premiering tonight,” I said.

“Oh, I’m an ABT fan; I’m going to the opera tonight. I saw all the commotion. Are there any famous people here?”

“I don’t know, I think it’s just the gala attendees and City Ballet people,” I said.

“Leonardo, has Leonardo come yet?!” a woman shrieked, running up from behind.

“Leonardo who, diCaprio?” the first woman screamed.

“My daughter said he’d be here. I’m an ABT fan; I’m going to the opera tonight, but my daughter told me Leonardo was going to be here and to be sure to get a picture. Oooh, if I missed him, she’ll kill me,” she said dismally.

“Leonardo diCaprio?!” a guy said running over. “I have to get to the opera, when does this thing start?”

“I dunno, I’m an ABT fan; I’m going to the opera,” said yet another voice.

“The ballet starts at 7:30,” I said.

“Oh good,” they all said in unison.

“Well then, all the famous people will have to get here by about 7:20 then,” the guy said assuredly.

Cameras began flashing.

“Oooh, ooh, who is it, who is it??”

“I don’t know. It’s not Leonardo, but it’s looks like someone famous.”

And for the next half hour, it continued like this. A paparazzi camera would flash, everyone would get their cell phones or digitals ready and ask who is it, who is it, oooh, that’s someone, I don’t know who, but they look famous, or I know them from some show just can’t remember which…

Good lord. Anyway, I can’t make too much fun of these people, seeing as how I was one of them and all :), so let the celebrity fest begin:

Actress Elizabeth Berkeley. Funny everyone knew her as “that girl from Saved By the Bell,” or “that girl from, oh what was it, that TV show about the high school kids?…” No one remembered that she was in Showgirls!!!

Artist Anh Duong.


Actress Anna Paquin, in the white dress.

Two young ladies no one knew, but everyone agreed “looked famous.” Does anyone know who they are?

By far the biggest, hugest, most important celebrity of all, Kristin Sloan!!! Here operating her enormous camera, likely for her latest project…


Kristin and her boyfriend, Doug Jaeger, who caught my eye, or my camera pointed directly at him rather(!), and had Kristin turn her camera on me… I have no idea what that one’s going to look like … yikes!

This girl in the red dress — gorgeous dress by the way — was apparently an actress from young adult films … someone mentioned “Ice Princess”??? If anyone would like to clue me in, I’d be grateful!

“Well, I have to get to the opera,” the Leonardo woman said around 7:20. “Yeah, me too,” another man said. “I guess he already went in,” she said sadly. “Well, it’s still good I came to see this; I need to know what to wear if I decide to go to ABT’s gala. They’re my favorite,” she blushed.

“Me too,” I said.

“Oh really? I wonder who all will be there!” she said, excitement returning.

Anyway, 7:25 rolled around and I figured I’d better go in and get my seat — I was sitting all the way up in the 4th Ring so it’d take me a while.

Before the show began, Martins took the stage and gave a little talk mentioning that this season marked the centennial of Lincoln Kirstein‘s birth. He then pointed out an audience celebrity, Bill Clinton! It took a while before I spotted him; he occupied a center seat in the first ring, the seat, Martins noted that had belonged to Lincoln Kirstein. Martins told Clinton whenever he wished to attend the ballet, he need only phone him and he’d reserve the Kirstein seat especially for him. Everyone applauded. Martins then declared May 1st “Lincoln Kirstein and New York City Ballet Day.”

But far far FAR more important than the former president, in the house was also

🙂 🙂 🙂
He sat in the very first row, sixth seat in from the right aisle — almost the exact same seat where I sit to see him perform 🙂

Anyway, the performance:

Well, I’m extremely tired and groggy and I’ll probably have more thoughts later, and I know people will feel differently and I’m not saying I’m right and anyone else is wrong, but my first reaction is: it was pretty and sweet and cute and overall a lovely little ballet. It didn’t take my breath away, it didn’t make me cry, it didn’t move me, it got long in parts, I got bored, with the exception of one scene I was nowhere near the edge of my seat, and with the exception of two dancers — one of whom had a non-dancing part my heart didn’t stutter. I don’t know why people in general go to the ballet — it likely varies for different ballets (full-length story or abstract one-act) and different companies — but the aforesaid reasons are the reasons why I go to see a full-length story ballet, and this didn’t do it for me. The balcony scene, which ended the first act (there were only two; one intermission), was very pretty. Juliet’s dress was lovely, much shorter and sweeter than the gown worn by ABT ballerinas — ABT should trim that gown; this one was far more beautiful! The choreography was sweet and lovely with several pretty lifts of the kind I’ve seem umpteenth times before — nothing out of the ordinary, nothing original, nothing striking. No MacMillan’s ‘let me run toward you at maximum speed, dear, and hurl myself at you whilst turning and you catch me and throw me up over your head feet first’ lifts that to me is what makes the balcony pas de deux so thrilling, so magnificent, so emotionally compelling, and by far my favorite pdd of all.

The only scene that had me on the edge of my seat was the beginning of the second act, the sword fight in which Tybalt slays Mercutio, then Romeo slays Tybalt and the reason for that is that the dancers were top quality. When I first sat down in my seat, I have to admit I pulled out my binoculars and began searching the floor for Marcelo since I’d just seen him in the lobby (sorry no pictures — I’m too shy to approach and didn’t want to be a bad fan and take pics of him unaware), and when I found him I began fixating 🙂 So, when the lights went down and the curtain up, I hadn’t yet looked at my program. When I first saw Tybalt I was mesmerized — I loved Daniel Ulbright‘s Mercutio too most definitely, but there was something about Tybalt that just blew me away. I couldn’t figure out who he was. Joaquin de Luz happens to be my favorite dancer in the company but he was wearing facial hair and his hair was shorter or gelled back and I didn’t recognize him, and didn’t know it was Joaquin until I later looked at the program. So, I WAS NOT sitting there thinking “where’s Joaquin, oh I can’t wait to see Joaquin;” he captivated me nonetheless.

I was also blown away by Jock Soto, one of the most illustrious NYCB dancers of the past who recently retired, who played the non-dancing part of Lord Capulet. I already knew he was going to play that part and when he and Darci Kistler, as Lady Capulet, emerged onstage, I went to clap then realized no one else was and if my hands met I’d make an enormous commotion. What’s wrong with people, I thought, do they not know who he is? I ran into Kristin during intermission and mentioned it to her, and she laughed and said, “No people don’t do that here, that’s ABT. It’s a different audience etiquette.” Even if I wouldn’t have known Jock was Jock, he had so much physical presence and power, he commanded your attention so, I just couldn’t take my eyes off him.

Anyway, I do think Kristin’s “different audience etiquette” was a great way of putting it. Generally, I do think there’s a totally different aesthetic between the two big NY ballet companies, which I guess are sort of rivals in that it seems not that people love one and hate the other (anyone who’s a real ballet fan is going to go to both) but that people really really love one and just like the other. For me this is why. Martins deliberately chose to cast the two main roles with young, relatively inexperienced dancers. He said he didn’t want the dancers to “act”; rather he wanted them to just be themselves — young. It takes artistry, though, and perhaps “star quality” — whatever exactly that is — to make the characters live and breath and move the audience to the edge of their seats, and you just can’t do that, no matter how hard you try if you’re too inexperienced. Robert Fairchild (who played Romeo) is really really cute and it was clear that he put his heart into it and tried with all his might, and I think he, and Sterling Hyltin (Juliet) both have bright futures ahead, but I really think it was a mistake to cast young, inexperienced people in these major roles. It’s as if Martins is saying Romeo and Juliet don’t really matter; it’s Tybalt and Mercutio and Lord Capulet who are the important characters here. They are important but certainly not more so than the leads. I feel like I’m saying the obvious and I can’t believe he hasn’t got more criticism for this…

Anyway, I hope I’m not offending anyone; I do think I have a certain thing I go to the ballet to see and part of it is acting and artistry that will blow me away and I didn’t get that here, although I did think the choreography was very pretty and the dancers were all very good-looking, and it was generally that — a good-looking ballet that, to me, lacked substance with the exception of Joaquin and Daniel and Jock — all of whom had relatively minor roles and couldn’t pull the whole no matter how much they wanted to. It would be interesting to see more experienced dancers dance the leads and perhaps I’ll see it again if they do, but only if they do.

Other thoughts: the sets are very minimalist, which is normally neither here nor there with me — I care more about the dancing, though here, perhaps it’s just that I’m used to the fuller stage apparatus of ABT because I just felt like there wasn’t enough for me to feel I was really “in” the world he was re-creating. He said he wanted “more dancing, less crowd action” — I felt like there was less of both though I guess he did cut down on those long, drawn-out sword-fight scenes and ball-dancing scenes at the beginning that I could do without in the MacMillan. I guess I just felt like most of the dancing wasn’t compelling enough to me, so it didn’t matter. I did like his balcony scene, pretty but plain though it was, better than the Lavery.

Anyway, I am falling asleep. Just wanted to get my thoughts down and I hope people aren’t angry! I’m sure everyone who sees this will have their own thoughts and feelings about it!

To end, here are a couple more pics, taken from inside:

Yum! Dinner for the gala guests, from above.

And, a side pic of the gala guests. Sorry so dark – -I need a new camera badly!

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Tonight

Ugh, it’s only 1:58 p.m. When it is going to be tonight??? I just can’t wait!

Since I’ll be at the premiere of NYCB’s Romeo & Juliet tonight, and since I forgot to set my VCR before leaving this morning, I’ll have to miss Dancing With the Stars, which means when I get home, I’ll be forced to consult the dreaded message boards… I don’t have much to say about the show at this point other than that I hope Laila sticks around for a while! And, I wish they would use real Samba music for that dance once in a while! I know it’s difficult since they have a live band and all, and it’s definitely much easier for American singers to scratch their way through “Besame Mucho” than try their hand at Portuguese, but, it’s like a 10 bizillion-dollar show; you’d think they could have a real Brazilian band play for once… With all of those cool pulsating drums — it just makes me mad that Americans are so missing out!