Tag: Benjamin Millepied

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YVONNE BORREE’S FAREWELL PERFORMANCE

 

On Sunday afternoon, principal ballerina Yvonne Borree gave her farewell performance at New York City Ballet. I always find farewell performances so sad, especially for the ballerinas, for some reason. And Yvonne just doesn’t seem old enough to retire! At all.

Anyway, it was a really lovely program and she looked beautiful. She danced the third, “Andante,”  movement in Balanchine’s Brahms-Schoenberg Quartet. She was partnered by Benjamin Millepied, a very good partner for her, as she looks very comfortable dancing with him, and when they first took the stage, the audience really went wild with applause — and really wouldn’t let up! That’s uncommon for NYCB fans – even with a farewell performance; they usually save their applause until the very end. And the applause wasn’t just clapping; people were really whooting and screaming and calling out “Yvonne, Yvonne!” I think I am not the only one who will miss her. At the end of each section, she got more applause and at the end of Brahms, she and Millepied got three curtain calls. She deserved it. And he did too — I think Natalie Portman is giving him some acting lessons because he’s really doing much better, not just dancing (he’s always been a good dancer) but really projecting as well.

Then came Wheeldon’s new Estancia, which grew on me. I think the dancers found the humor in it — or maybe they did before and I was paying too much attention to the choreography to notice, but it seemed they really vamped it up, with Tyler Angle failing hilariously miserably at taming Andrew Veyette’s “horse,” letting Veyette get away after Tiler Peck roped him all up nicely, then Tyler being felled and rolling around the floor, nearly sweeping Tiler off her feet (in a bad way). It was really cute. And the dancing is really marvelous.

Then, the performance ended with Yvonne doing a pas de deux with Jared Angle — another good partner for her (for everyone really) – Balanchine’s Duo Concertant, which I love.

 

I love how the couple interacts with the onstage violinist and pianist, with the music, and with each other, and yet it is at times a very abstract ballet with lots of angular shapes. And the end is gorgeous but bittersweet, as the stage darkens and the spotlight begins to highlight only her, her head, then various parts of her body, ending with her arm, in the air, reaching upward and outward. It almost made me cry.

And of course the applause went on and on, and all of her partners (besides Nikolaj Hubbe unfortunately) came out onstage to give her a bouquet. Damian Woetzel and Peter Boal got the most whoots.

I’ve only been coming to New York City Ballet regularly for about the past three or four years and I feel I didn’t get to see enough of her. My favorite performances of hers are the delicate, ethereal sleepwalker in Balanchine’s La Sonnambula, which I think she danced with Sebastien Marcovici, and in that ballroom-esque ballet with the art deco mirror of Peter Martins that I love but no one shares my feelings about … 🙁 Can’t think of what it’s called right now but she was always Nilas Martins’s partner. I loved it. And now, my other favorite of hers is Duo Concertant, which I’d never seen her dance before.

Apparently, she’ll still be around. According to Oberon, she’ll stay at NYCB’s School of American Ballet and teach.

Photos by Paul Kolnik.

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BENJAMIN MILLEPIED IN DETAILS MAGAZINE

 

Says writer Katherine Wheelock: “…Millepied, 32, has the potential to become rarer still—that once-in-a-generation crossover star and actress-courting boldface name previously embodied by Mikhail Baryshnikov.”

Read the rest of the article here.

Above photo taken from Details, by Eric Ray Davidson.

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CHRISTOPHER WHEELDON’S ESTANCIA

 

Last Saturday night was the premiere of Christopher Wheeldon’s new ballet, Estancia, at New York City Ballet. Everyone in the audience seemed to go wild over it. When it ended, I overheard people saying they didn’t want it to end, and others saying they thought it was his best work, and in the lobby, several of my friends said they really liked it. I thought it was so so. And definitely a departure from Wheeldon’s usual.

Estancia is a story ballet, set to to music by Alberto Ginastera, that takes place on a ranch (Estancia is Spanish for ranch) in the Argentine Pampas (countryside). A young city man (Tyler Angle) is smitten with country life, and a girl he meets there (Tiler Peck), particularly after he watches her tame a horse (Andrew Veyette). The ballet is his attempt to woo her, and of course at the start she wants nothing to do with him and his annoying urbanity (he wears a suit throughout), but eventually she overcomes her prejudices and lets herself fall for him. He ends up proving his adroitness at being a rancher by taming another horse (Georgina Pazcoguin).

The dancing was all very good — Pazcoguin and Veyette were wonderful as the wild horses, and the T(i)ylers were perfect for these roles. Tyler Angle is always so good at those deep longing romantic lunges toward his partner. For the most part, though, the choreography was a bit blah, I thought. Except for some interesting backwards walks, that looked at bit like moonwalks, performed by the “horses,” the choreography seemed like nothing I hadn’t seen before, which is unusual for Wheeldon. The romantic pas de deux  between the leads were pretty but the lifts were rather basic.

The Ginastera score was originally commissioned in 1941 by Lincoln Kirstein for a ballet to be made by Balanchine to be shown when Kirstein’s American Ballet Caravan toured Buenos Aires. But the Caravan disbanded and the ballet was never made. I feel like Wheeldon, or someone at NYCB, felt the need for closure on the project. It had the feel of something out of a bygone era, particularly with the horses – you really don’t see dancers galloping around stage these days in horse costumes. But it doesn’t seem as corny if you think back to Firebird, for example, with all the forest creatures.

The sets were designed by architect Santiago Calatrava (and NYCB is showing a short film about his work and his collaboration with the choreographers every time his sets are used this season). They consisted of water-color-looking paintings displayed on the back wall, one of a countryside, another more abstract one of horses (I think – because of the storyline, but maybe they were bulls … they seemed to have horns).  Anyway, all in all, it was a fine ballet but didn’t blow me away like it did many others.

Two other ballets were performed, both by Balanchine — Danses Concertantes, with my favorite, Gonzalo Garcia and Sterling Hyltin in the leads, and Brahms-Schoenberg Quartet in which Yvonne Borree danced particularly well partnered by Benjamin Millepied. It’s going to be sad to see her retire this Sunday afternoon.

Above photo by Paul Kolnik.

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BARYSHNIKOV RETURNS TO THE STAGE

 

Here’s an interesting preview by Joel Lobenthal of Baryshnikov’s return to the stage, which happened at BAC this Wednesday. He danced three solos, along with two other men — Steve Paxton and David Neumann. Program was called, aptly, “Unrelated Solos.” I went last night, and particularly loved the last piece for Baryshnikov, a work in progress by Susan Marshall, which, to me was a meditation on how dance is meant for an audience, a performer must have a viewer or s/he is not a performer. It left a lump in my throat at the end. The other two solos for Baryshnikov were by Benjamin Millepied and Alexei Ratmansky – the Millepied another rather sobering reflection on a life spent in dance and the aging process, and the Ratmansky a rather funny retelling of composer Mikhail Glinka’s obsession with an aristocratic woman that made me realize how great an actor Baryshnikov was and made me sad that his and Ratmansky’s eras didn’t really intersect. I’d think Ratmansky could have come up with a lot of very clever, humorous work for him.

Both of the Neumann pieces were highly entertaining and witty, and the Paxton reminded me of Sara Rudner and the dance for dance’s sake / Judson Movement where the emphasis is more on the inner awareness of the dancer than strictly on the “performative.”

Anyway, don’t have much more time to write about the program right now but plan to write more this weekend. But read the Lobenthal article. And here is Macaulay on the program.

Photo by Julieta Cervantes.

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NEW YORK CITY BALLET OPENING NIGHT GALA: NAMOUNA AND WHY AM I NOT WHERE YOU ARE

 

 

All photos by Paul Kolnik. Top two are of Benjamin Millepied’s new Why am I not where you are, and bottom two are from Alexei Ratmansky’s new Namouna: A Grand Divertissement.

 

 

Sorry I’m late with this post — I had serious internet problems over the weekend and they’d better not continue today or I may kill someone from Time Warner. Anyway, Thursday night was the opening night of New York City Ballet’s Spring / Summer season, and there were two world premieres: first Millepied’s Why am I not where you are, followed by Ratmansky’s Namouna, A Grand Divertissement.  I thought both were good and entertaining, if nothing earth shattering. And maybe it’s just that I’m getting to the point where I’ve seen so much ballet but it seems that everything is a combination of several other things, which isn’t bad. Millepied’s kept me more engrossed, only because Ratmansky’s was just too long.

Millepied’s reminded me by turns of Balanchine’s La Valse (which everyone seems to have thought), Robbins’s West Side Story, and even Balanchine’s version of Swan Lake, particularly where Siegfried frantically tries to find Odette through the swarm of swans who run around her in circles, frighteningly, creating a kind of hurricane.  It seemed there were also parts of the White Swan pas de deux between Sara Mearns (who danced gorgeously, as always), and her “love interest” Amar Ramasar. There even seemed thematically to be elements of Angelin Preljocaj.

The main character is Sean Suozzi who, wearing all white, seems to be a lost in time, or a human searching for other earthlings and who runs into this lot of ethereal creatures all dressed in colorful Romantic tutus. But instead of being beautifully beguilingly ethereal, they are more frightening, like aliens. There’s a very modern set by architect Santiago Calatrava (who collaborated with many of the choreographers who are premiering ballets this season and to whom the season is devoted — he was toasted by Peter Martins at the beginning of the evening), that to me gave the sense that someone — either Suozzi or the others — were from another place. Music, by Thierry Escaich, is unsettling as well. Suozzi falls for Kathryn Morgan, but in their initial pas de deux Morgan can’t see him. She seems to be blind to him. But he tries. The group of men do a kind of intense West Side Story dance, and eventually, Suozzi manages successfully to fit in, to become one of them, as is made clear by Ramasar’s giving him several articles of colorful clothing (a la La Valse) to don. Afterward, he dances again with Morgan but now it is he who cannot see her. Soon, the others swarm around her, violently plucking pieces of her tutu off. Eventually she’s the one wearing nothing but white undergarments, and she’s left devastated, alone and alienated. It was intense and enthralling and I definitely want to see it again, perhaps with Janie Taylor in the female lead (she withdrew due to injury).

Ratmansky’s reminded me of a cross between Branislava Nijinksa’s Les Biches and his own Concerto DSCH with elements of Balanchine’s Midsummer Night’s Dream thrown in. It’s harder to describe than the Millepied because there wasn’t much of a through story, just abstract portions combined with smaller stories that didn’t seem to merge into a larger whole. It’s set to really lovely music by Eduoard Lalo, which in places sounded like Glass’s In the Upper Room. I can’t remember the whole thing but Robert Fairchild is this guy dressed in white sailor garb. At one point, he happens upon some women dressed in 1930s beachy-seeming clothes and wearing hair caps and kind of taunting him with their humorously sexy cigarette smoking. Jenifer Ringer did a fabulous job of playing the main cigarette-bearing “taunter.” She’d puff in his face and he’d look enraptured but confused. Later, a group of people run toward him, carrying a passed-out Ringer and one man bows at Fairchild, as if for forgiveness. The other women haughtily puff on at the front of the stage. Everyone laughed. This cigarette girl part was my favorite. Then, there were some bravura parts for Daniel Ulbricht, dressed in kind of Puck-ish Midsummer Night‘s garb and doing the same high jumping, running through the air leaps as Puck. If I can remember correctly he was accompanied by some cutely impish female elfs, in the form of Abi Stafford and Megan Fairchild. There are sections where a lot of women in long yellow dresses do various port de bras and rather humorous (to me anyway) jumps in place a la Concerto DSCH, and toward the end Wendy Whelan emerges and is this kind of bride for Fairchild. They do a pas de deux filled with lots of classical ballet lifts and then they get married and supposedly live happily ever after.

I liked the Ratmansky and would be happy to see it again if it weren’t so blasted long! It felt like it went on for about an hour and a half! Before seeing it, I recommend taking a walk at intermission to stretch your legs, and go to the bathroom!

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CASTING FOR OPENING NIGHT NEW YORK CITY BALLET

 

Ballet season is almost here in NYC! New York City Ballet opens April 29th with a program that includes two premieres — one by Benjamin Millepied and one by Alexei Ratmansky (now ABT’s resident choreographer). The Millepied ballet, set to music by Thierry Escaich, will star several SLSG favorites: Janie Taylor, Sara Mearns, Sean Suozzi and Amar Ramasar.

The Ratmansky, set to a score by Eduoard Lalo, will be danced by Wendy Whelan, Jenifer Ringer, Sara Mearns, Robert Fairchild, Megan Fairchild, Abi Stafford, and Daniel Ulbricht.

The two world premieres will launch this season’s Architecture of Dance – New Choreography and Music Festival, devoted to new work. Acclaimed architect Santiago Calatrava has created scenic designs for five of the season’s premieres, including opening night’s Millepied piece.

Go here for tickets and details.

Above drawing by Santiago Calatrava.

ABT, currently on tour in Chicago, opens its classical season at the Met, in honor of its 70th anniversary this year, later, in May.

ABT, NYCB, Yankees — CLEARLY the best time of the year 😀

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JEWELS

 

Janie Taylor and Benjamin Millepied in “Rubies.” All photos are by Paul Kolnik.

 

Sterling Hyltin and Gonzalo Garcia in “Rubies.”

 

Jonathan Stafford and Sara Mearns in “Diamonds.”

 

Maria Kowroski and Charles Askegard and cast in “Diamonds.”

 

Abi Stafford and Jason Fowler in “Emeralds.”

So New York City Ballet ended its Winter season with Balanchine’s Jewels, his three-act abstract ballet in homage to three different styles of classical ballet: “Emeralds” set to Gabriel Faure in honor of the French style; “Rubies” set to Stravinsky in honor of the American jazzy / showgirl-y style; and “Diamonds” set to Romantic Tchaikovsky and in the imperial, celebratory Russian style.

“Diamonds” has long been my favorite part, but the more I see of the full-length ballet (“Rubies” is often performed apart from the rest, in mixed rep programs), the other two are growing on me, particularly “Emeralds” with its complex patterns, its subtlety and nuance. And of course I like “Rubies” because I think, through this part of the ballet, new audiences unfamiliar with Balanchine can best see how he created a certain kind of “Americanized” ballet for his adopted country.

There were several debuts in the various roles: Janie Taylor and Gonzalo Garcia in “Rubies,” and I think Sterling Hyltin in “Rubies” as well (it was my first time seeing her anyway). Janie was an absolute blast to watch. She doesn’t really have the proper hips for this heavily hip-jutting, hip-swaying role — she’s so tiny and waify — but she was putting everything she had into it, taking every single movement, every jump and stretch and supported penchee and pose as far as it could possibly go and you just couldn’t take your eyes off her. It was the best performance of that part that I’ve seen since Ashley Bouder debuted in it a couple years ago. What was also so stunning about Janie’s performance was her commitment to perfecting every little detail in making a certain shape — it reminded me of her absolutely captivating performance as the Novice in Robbins’ The Cage. Except this wasn’t a creepy male-devouring insect, but a fun flirty showgirl. And yet there was a certain darkness to it — I think there always is with her (Alastair Macaulay has noted the same), but that darkness somehow worked here. She made the role her own, which is what a great interpretive artist must always do.

Janie Taylor danced with Benjamin Millepied, who was very good as well — the most animated I’ve seen him lately, actually. Maybe Natalie Portman was in the audience? I didn’t see her though.

When Gonzalo debuted he danced with Sterling. Of course I always love Gonzalo and, as always, he was very animated and dramatic, making a little story out of every little interaction with Sterling. Which is what I always love about him and what I find so engaging. They did have a few kinks to work through though – -sometimes it seemed like they’d nearly missed hands in connecting, like they weren’t completely in sync with each other. But that was only physical and was likely something you might have only caught if you were sitting up close (as I was). Emotionally they connected perfectly — which to me is more important — unless of course a physical mis-connection results in a fall or something. Hyltin does have the hips for this role and she seemed like she was having a lot of fun with it too. She was really stunning.

Of course I loved Sara Mearns in “Diamonds,” which I knew I would. This was my first time seeing her in the role and she was perfect. It was just like Swan Lake all over again. Sir Alastair in his end of the season review calls her the best ballerina in NYCB and perhaps all of New York and I generally agree, especially regarding her adagio. I guess the perfect ballerina would be someone with her or Veronika Part’s adagio technique and Gillian Murphy or Paloma Herrera’s allegro — I would have preferred for Mearns, for example, to be a tiny bit more seductive with the fouettes in the SL Black Swan pdd — but I don’t know if that ballerina exists today. I don’t know if she’s existed ever. Maybe Gelsey Kirkland? I don’t know, I never saw her dance live, but judging by what I hear from those who did, and from my own video-watching, she seems to have had everything…

Anyway, “Emeralds”: I liked Abi Stafford in the solo; I liked her port de bras — very beautiful arms, very well-articulated gesturing. Her performance was sweet. I also liked Jenifer Ringer as the second girl who does what I call “the courtship walk” with the male dancer. Her performance was full of subtlety and charm; I sensed a kind of  sweet shyness as she tip-toed en pointe along with the boy, first going in his direction, then kind of changing direction and walking around him in circles, making him kind of follow her.

At my final performance of the season, I sat next to James Wolcott and Laura Jacobs, who introduced me to several Ballet Review people. Ballet Review seems like such an excellent publication and it’s really too bad the articles aren’t available online because Jacobs has a very interesting scholarly piece on this ballet, arguing that it’s more about Balanchine’s love of Suzanne Farrell than anything else. If you can get your hands on it, I highly recommend that article!

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NYCB CLOSES ITS FIRST CLASSICAL SEASON WITH BALANCHINE AND ROBBINS

 

(photo of Liebslieder Walzer by Paul Kolnik, taken from Washington Post review).

New York City Ballet is closing out its Winter season — and first ever Classical season — this week. Tomorrow begins Balanchine’s masterpiece (imo), Jewels (which continues through Sunday); last week were two programs of mixed rep, which included Balanchine’s Liebeslieder Walzer and Tschaikovsky Piano Concerto No. 2, and Jerome Robbins’s Dances at a Gathering and West  Side Story Suite.

 

Making his debut in Liebeslieder was corps member Justin Peck (headshot above by Paul Kolnik, from NYCB website); he danced the part that Nilas Martins is dancing in the photo at top, along with Jennie Somogyi (who is also in that photo). I thought they really did well, and they stood out the most to me of the four couples.

This ballet is divided into two sections: it begins with the ballroom section where the women are in ballgowns and dancing in regular heeled ballroom shoes, and the section section where they are in long skirts made of tulle, and toe shoes. The men remain in tuxedos throughout. Balanchine has said that in the first section, it is the couples who dance; in the second it is their souls.

And that sentiment is really beautiful. But I don’t see a real difference, except for the obvious — the women’s costumes and shoes. I still thought each section was lovely though, particularly the opening ballroom section, but that could be because I’m trained in ballroom.

Critics have also said that each couple is supposed to represent a man and woman at a different stage in their romantic lives (one couple was supposed to be young love — which I thought would be Justin and Jennie; another more mature love, etc. — so I thought Darci Kistler and Philip Neal). But I didn’t really see that — I thought at points Justin and Jennie represented young, sprightly love, but then at other points their movement is slower and more deliberate and less scoop-me-off-my-feet — and at one point he picks her up and carries her horizontally, as if she’s collapsed, either from fainting or from sleep or perhaps sickness? It’s a beautiful lift whatever it means. And then at points Darci will run playfully and let Philip chase her. It’s sweet and made me fall in love with them momentarily and become involved in their story. But it didn’t seem then like they were this more mature couple. Not that you can’t run and jump and be excited and playful if you’re not “the young ones” of course, but I mean, the couples didn’t really seem different to me. And the fact that I couldn’t discern any particular story behind any of their actions made me less involved in the ballet than I wanted to be. But I still found the movement and the music (Brahms Opus 52 and 65) relaxing and engaging. Maybe I need to see it a few more times.

Every time I see Tschaikovsky Piano Concerto No. 2 on the program I think I’ve never seen this Balanchine / Tchiakovsky piece before, and then once it begins, I realize it is the ballet ABT calls Ballet Imperial. I think ABT has a set though, which resembles a palace, which makes it seem more “imperial.” At NYCB the stage is bare. This is the ballet with all the beautiful brises for the main man — the jumping from side to side with many beating together of the feet in the air. Here, that man was Stephen Hanna and he did an excellent job. Teresa Reichlen and Kathryn Morgan were the female leads. Hanna was most memorable to me though. Hanna partnered Reichlen very well, and I’m thinking he and Jared Angle are probably two of the strongest male partners in the company.

The Dances at a Gathering production on Sunday afternoon (Feb. 21) was the best I’ve ever seen of that ballet. SLSG favorite Gonzalo Garcia (!) was the guy in brown, and he did an excellent job. That character really sets the ballet in motion as, at the end of his opening solo, he looks out with a bit of nostalgia at the stage, surveying it, kind of preparing the audience for all of the characters who will appear on it — who seem to be people from his life, his memories. It’s like he’s taking you on a journey with him and Gonzalo set that up perfectly. And then everyone else was just so on! Maria Kowroski was the carefree, independent girl in green cutely shrugging off male onlookers, Jenifer Ringer and Abi Stafford were the younger, frolicking girls; when Jenifer partnered with Jared Angle those two did some of those lifts with the most sweep I’ve ever seen — the audience exclaimed practically in unison.

And Jared Angle was stunning with his tour jetes and his series of corkscrew jumps flowing right into the Russian folk-steps afterward. He is definitely one of the best men overall at NYCB right now — in terms of his technique, his form, his ability to both partner strongly and dance those bravura solos perfectly. You don’t think of him as a bravura dancer, and he’s not really — he’s more of a great partner, which is probably why I’m just now recognizing his brilliance, during this classical season where strong partnering is essential for being a successful romantic lead.

Sara Mearns was brilliant (again) as the dreamy, pensive woman in mauve, and I realized at one point what it is that makes her a favorite of mine. She was dancing alongside two other women — all three were partnered by men and they were all doing supported slides with the women in a dipped position, the men sliding the women across the floor like that. Well, the two other women immediately brought their free arm down at the beginning of the slide and held it in that position, which was pretty and created a nice line. But Sara brought hers down slowly and made a fuller, kind of half-circle motion, nearly brushing the floor with it. She doesn’t seem to strike poses so much as she is always moving and I think that’s what makes her so captivating — she’s always doing something, carrying out the line and extending the shape, and embellishing the music.

As for the other dancers: Antonio Carmena was very on with all of his jumps and turns, as was the fast-moving Megan Fairchild, and Jonathan Stafford and Amar Ramasar stood out in their roles as well. Amar always looks good in those strutting walks and that Russian folk-like movement Robbins uses in many of his ballets.

And that day ended with West Side Story Suite, which the audience went wild over. A woman behind me exclaimed that it was better than what she’d seen on Broadway. This ballet is always a romp, though I think it starts to lose some of its thrill the more times you see it. Still, I always love Andrew Veyette as the leader of the Jets and watching Georgina Pazcoguin do all those gorgeously high kicks and belt out the tune to America. I can’t imagine ever seeing anyone else in that role. And of course she gets loads of applause at curtain call. Benjamin Millepied danced Tony, which I’ve seen him dance before. He did fine, as always, but I wondered what Gonzalo might be like in this part?

Okay, on to Jewels!

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NATALIE PORTMAN: "HOMEWRECKER"??

Apparently the New York Post’s Page Six people have found out about Benjamin Millepied’s prior relationship with ABT’s Isabella Boylston (and are finding it newsworthy) because they’re now depicting Natalie Portman as a “homewrecker” who tore the two apart. (Doesn’t that term usually apply to someone who splits a family apart?) They’re saying Millepied and Boylston were together for three years, lived together before Portman moved in on him, and were thinking of marriage. Really? Wasn’t he dating Saskia Beskow until pretty recently? And isn’t Boylston rather young — were they really together for that long? And marriage??? Celeb bloggers are picking the story up as well.

Isn’t it so surreal though that Page Six is interested in this at all? I guess I’ve repeatedly bemoaned that we haven’t had a famous dancer since Baryshnikov — and I think Millepied may be the first since him to date a celebrity. I wonder if more people will actually turn up at NYCB when he’s dancing, or at ABT to see Boylston?

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NATALIE PORTMAN AND BENJAMIN MILLEPIED ARE ALLEGEDLY DATING

 

I’ve been hearing rumors about this for a while now, but now that the celeb gossip mags are starting to pick it up, I feel authorized to post about it. Millepied is doing the choreography for the upcoming film Black Swan, which Portman is starring in.

Ever since the World Series, I’d been secretly hoping for a Derek Jeter / Ashley Bouder romance (don’t know why; just thought they’d look so cute together — she seems to be his type and he needs an athletic woman to kind of play-rival him and to show him how to really jump 🙂 — and how fun would it be to see him at Lincoln Center all the time!) but, okay this will certainly do as well… 🙂

Photos above from The Hollywood Gossip.