Tag: Benjamin Millepied

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BARYSHNIKOV AND ANA LAGUNA ON TOUR

 

Mikhail Baryshnikov and Ana Laguna are in Santa Monica where they’re beginning a U.S. tour. Program includes choreography by Mats Ek (Laguna’s husband), Alexei Ratmansky, and Benjamin Millepied’s Years Later, which consists of a solo for Barysh juxtaposed with movie clips of his younger self dancing. Critics say it “should bring a new respect to middle-age dance performances.”

I’m excited to see the Millepied as well as the Ek piece. Here are some clips from another of Ek’s dances for the pair. Baryshnikov still looks like Baryshnikov — the way he moved in White Nights, the way he danced Tharp’s Push Comes to Shove…

 

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NYCB: A DIFFERENT DREAMER, A BRILLIANT HALLELUJAH JUNCTION AND A SWAN LAKE DEBUT

 

I spent all of Saturday at New York City Ballet, watching both matinee and evening performances like the obsessive I am 🙂 Highlight of the daytime performance was Jerome Robbins’s 1979 ballet, Opus 19 / The Dreamer in which Robert Fairchild and Janie Taylor made their NYC debuts in the lead roles. This is only my second time seeing this ballet — the first was a season or two ago when the main parts were danced by Gonzalo Garcia and Wendy Whelan. (Robbins created the ballet on Baryshnikov and Patricia McBride). My research has revealed that critics don’t consider this to be a major Robbins ballet; Arlene Croce seems not to have written a word about it. Audiences seem to adore it though, me included.

Funny but the first time I saw it, I thought the main male character was a “dreamer” in the sense of being an idealist. Wendy seemed to represent Gonzalo’s ideal. And there often seems to be a kind of charmingly airy, carefree, “head in the clouds” quality to Gonzalo’s dance persona.

Robert was more solid and sharp and weighty than Gonzalo. In his beginning solo, he’d slice through the air with his arms and legs, stretch an arm out, hand bent up, as if to be pushing out against something, or stopping something from getting too close to him. What that something is isn’t entirely clear. It seemed more like he was a literal dreamer, someone lost in a dream that was neither entirely pleasant nor unpleasant, something he kind of wanted to escape from but was drawn to as well. And Janie — I love her! — was all tantalizing, bewitching, taunting little mischief-maker haunting his subconscious, not leaving his psyche a moment’s peace. Whenever she was onstage, she completely captivated — both him and us. Even when she’d collapse in his arms, he’d struggle to straighten her up again. He’d lovingly wrap his arms around her; she’d be out of them in a split second. It was very different from the way Wendy danced, if I remember correctly. I wonder how Patricia McBride did it.

I read a review of a dancer who performed the male lead in the 80s. The writer — Jack Anderson — said the dancer — Jeffrey Edwards — looked like a thinker, very introspective. I always love watching Robert — I think he is one of the most fascinating movers around. I’m not sure if what I saw here was introspection or more like inner turmoil. He was definitely lost in himself — he doesn’t even seem to notice all the lavender-clothed dancers flitting about him, didn’t seem to notice anyone until Janie came darting by and commanded his attention. I guess it seemed more like he was lost in his own angst, haunted by his dreams, than lost in his thoughts or his art. But it would be hard, I’d think, to embody introspection.

They don’t seem to be performing this ballet a lot, but I’d love to see Tyler Angle dance the part as well.

Also during the day was Chaconne, which I’m growing to love more and more — particularly the first pas de deux where the man lifts the ballerina and she has her arms out to the sides and does these large, sweeping steps forward, every few beats lightly tickling the floor with one toe shoe, and it looks like she is flying — and Vienna Waltzes, which, probably ridiculously for me since I’m a ballroom dancer, honestly just kind of bores me. The choreography’s not very intricate or compelling (odd for Balanchine) — it’s mostly straight-forward waltzing, which I can only watch for so long. There’s a middle section composed of high-energy allegro ballet which was danced very theatrically by Yvonne Borree and Benjamin Millepied. That section seriously kept me from falling asleep.

Highlights from the evening program were Peter Martins’s Hallelujah Junction, Joaquin De Luz in Donizetti Variations, and Sebastien Marcovici’s debut as Prince Siegfried in Balanchine’s Swan Lake. I hadn’t seen this cast of Hallelujah before — it was Sterling Hyltin, Gonzalo Garcia, and Daniel Ulbricht. This cast wasn’t so dramatic, so romantic, so intent on telling a little story, as other I saw (Marcovici, Taylor, Veyette), but seemed more focused on simply making the music visual — and they did so to fascinating effect. I greatly enjoyed just sitting back and watching all that brilliantly fast-paced, razor-sharp movement — Gonzalo with his sexy impish bouyancy (he’s not really a small man but somehow he seems like he’s always airborne; I think he’d make a great Sleeping Beauty Bluebird), Sterling with her Russian ballerina-high extensions that she does with incredible speed, and Daniel for his intense precision. This is the best I think I’ve ever liked Daniel Ulbrich before. He didn’t just jump inhumanly high; he really nailed very difficult-looking, intricate footwork and he did so with such sharpness and tautness. If he’d only be given more than just jumping guys parts, he can show that he can actually dance extremely well.

Sebastien danced Siegfried with great passion, expectedly. Balanchine really eviscerated the man’s part in his version of the ballet but Sebastien went as far as he possibly could with it. At one point, one of the corps swans in the back row fell and of course the audience had to go “ooooooohhhhhhh,” but he didn’t let it faze him as his Siegfried searched desperately among the swans for his beloved Odette. He had a minor flub on one of the many traveling turn jump thingys but no big deal. It was heartbreaking when Wendy bourreed back away from him and he reached out to her like she was taking his life with him as she went. Also, I love the black and white plastic swans swimming in the little stream at the beginning and end, but the people working them should just make sure the white swan appears at the right time! One time Wendy wasn’t fully into the wings yet when her swan form began sailing across the stage and Charles Askegard’s Prince Sig didn’t know where to run — the swan or Wendy. This time it was a little late and Sebastien kind of had to go searching upstream for her 🙂

Balanchine’s Donizetti Variations was danced brilliantly by Joaquin De Luz and Megan Fairchild. But what I really love about Joaquin isn’t his bravura dancing but his dramatic abilities — how he interacts with the other dancers. Even when dancing a storyless ballet, he’ll look at the others as they do their thing, shoot them a cocky grin — or a genuine smile — and do his thing, his steps a clever or comical response to theirs.

Also on this program was the newish ballet by Melissa Barak, A Simple Symphony – -my second viewing of that. She does borrow from Balanchine, but her choreography also has its own wit, which you notice on multiple viewings. Like Balanchine, the drama is in the actual choreography — every little flex or softening of the wrist meaning something. At one point, the ensemble of ballerinas all turn their hands and flex their wrists, and it looks like they’re cutely shrugging their shoulders. It’s such a pretty ballet with such mellifluous music though, sometimes you don’t want to focus on the choreography; you just want to sit back and enjoy the loveliness of it all.

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NEW YORK CITY BALLET: JANIE’S DSCH, KATHRYN’S SCOTCH AND MORE VIEWINGS OF PREMIERES

 

 

 

I can see how ballet is so addictive, especially to those with dance training who’ve either danced the roles they see onstage or pick up choreography on sight. It’s so interesting to see different dancers perform the same roles, to see what they can each do with something, where they can take it. A ballet can look completely different depending on cast.

Janie Taylor recently debuted as the female lead in Ratmansky’s Concerto DSCH and I absolutely loved her. I thought she brought a certain vulnerability, delicateness, and romantic touch (both big and small “r”)to the role and as such created a poignant centerpiece to this ballet that is mainly full of fast, frolicking fun. She was perfect partnered with Tyler Angle, who gives everything an emotional, Romantic quality. There’s one point where the girl bourrees (tip toes) backward from the guy and he steps toward her in a series of lunges, arms outstretched. It was rather heart-grabbing when Janie and Tyler did that. It was like Tyler was reaching for her with all his might, but she just kept falling away from him, telling him no, it couldn’t be.

The original cast for the romantic couple was Wendy Whelan and Benjamin Millepied, and when I saw them perform it again a few days ago, I looked for that part. I almost didn’t see it until Wendy had bourreed practically into the wings. Benjamin, instead of reaching toward her with all his power, bent his knees and performed those walking lunges close to the ground, kind of bouncing up with every step forward. His arms were still outreached but the deep kneed, close to the ground walks gave it overall a more playful feel, or perhaps like he was looking up to Wendy, his supreme ballerina. Wendy’s of course such an icon in the ballet world and she’s stronger and less vulnerable and delicate than Janie and so it just had a kind of man worshiping woman instead of a boy trying desperately to hang on to his love feel.

Ashley Bouder has been out with an injury so Ana Sophia Scheller is filling in for her in the main allegro ballerina part, still dancing alongside Joaquin de Luz and Gonzalo Garcia.

 

 

There seemed to be a slight bit of drama going on between Scheller and Garcia at first — I don’t know what it was — he was his usual sexily mischievous, charismatic self and she seemed nervous and holding back a bit (albeit not with Joaquin), but hey, drama is always fun 🙂 I think that has been all worked out though. The last time I saw them dance this together they were right on. She appears to be a lovely dancer and I’d like to see more of her.

I’ve also seen two very different casts in Scotch Symphony: the first Benjamin with Jenifer Ringer, the second Robert Fairchild and Kathryn Morgan. This is a sweet Balanchine ballet, telling the story of a young kilt-clad Scotsman lost in the Highlands who becomes completely smitten with an ethereal goddess dressed in Romantic tutu. He keeps trying to reach her but is thwarted right and left by a group of Scottish guards. Finally, they meet and dance a lovely pas de deux.

My friend, Alyssa, now has a huge crush on Benjamin. I don’t know how it happened; we were standing in line at the box office to pick up tickets one night and he was talking on the overhead screen, likely about his new ballet (I’m not sure because the sound was off) and Alyssa became mesmerized by his face. “That’s the guy who recently premiered a new ballet,” I said. “Oh, he’s a choreographer? He’s cute!!” Then when we got inside and were looking at the Playbills she screamed, “look, the cute guy is dancing!”

 

 

Afterward at dinner all she could talk about was how other dancers (like Daniel Ulbricht, who we saw in Tarantella that evening) were great jumpers and technically perfect and all, but Benjamin just brought so much more to the dance. “He was just so … so… he was perfect in everything he did, but he wasn’t just perfect, he was… ” she waxed unable to come up with the right word. It was Ethan all over again (whom she fell for after seeing at Martha’s Vineyard merely introducing his Stiefel and Stars and saying he was unable to dance because of the knee operations).

I nodded. He does have a certain beneath-the-surface charm (Benjamin that is), and he is a very good dancer, always coming through with those ever so challenging fast-paced Balanchine roles.

But of course I was dying to see Robert Fairchild in the same role, with Kathryn Morgan as his ethereal love object. They were so beautiful together. She’s just so angelic, and he always dances with such passion and boundless amounts of energy, and of course he’s always got that boyish charm that he’s had since debuting in Romeo two years ago at age 19 but that I don’t think is every going to go away. He’s such a hard-working young guy, you can tell — he puts everything he has into his dancing. He had a tiny fumble coming out of a jump and had to check himself with a couple extra steps to secure his footing (but he didn’t fall), and at one point he was a bit too far from Kathryn during a supported arabesque penchee and she couldn’t get her leg all the way up in the air. But, to me, honestly, when a dancer makes a blunder it only makes him or her all the more endearing, more human.

 

 

(Robert Fairchild, Kathryn Morgan)

I loved Tiler Peck in Tarantella — another role that usually belongs to Ashley Bouder, but Tiler brought a certain freshness and wit to this cutesy extreme high-speed dance. Ashley usually brings a sexy, flirtiness to it; Tiler was more sweet and smart. I like both, and, again, it shows dancers often make the dance.

 

Daniel Ulbricht (photo above by Paul Kolnik), as always, delivered on the technical and difficult athletic aspects of the dance — the high jumps the turns and all. Audiences always go absolutely wild over him. I personally like Joaquin de Luz a bit better (in this and the other roles he dances — he and Daniel usually alternate) because he delivers on the virtuosity as well but he makes it more about the character. At the end, the boy here steals a kiss from the girl. With Daniel, the high jumps and theatrics are the dance, the kiss is just a little reward at the end; with Joaquin the whole thing is about that kiss, the mad leaps and spins and turns with the tamborine are simply leading up to it. But audience do go completely wild over Daniel.

 

(Tiler Peck)

I saw the new ballets once again — Benjamin Millepied’s Quasi Una Fantasia and Jiri Bubenicek’s Toccata, and both grew on me. Funny, but I sat in orchestra this time for both — first time I was looking down from the first ring side, and it’s really interesting how different the ballets look from different vantage points — especially the Millepied. Looking down from above, this ballet really seemed to evoke a flock of birds, at times sinister and foreboding. Looking at it straight on, it was still unsettling — with that haunting Gorecki score — but at times the dancers resembled insects reminiscent of Robbins’s The Cage, and later, just figures — one weak and somewhat broken, the other strong — moving in various groupings. My friend Michael and I both noticed how he’d make various groupings or formations with the dancers — phalanxes, Michael called them. Sir Alastair had noted the same, saying he likely got the ability to work a large ensemble like that from Balanchine. I don’t always notice such things until someone points it out — I’m usually more focused on the theme, what the choreographer is trying to evoke, or make me think and feel.

I wish I had a picture of what the dance looked like from above. Overall, I think I still see Hitchkockian birds 🙂

I still don’t know exactly what Toccata is about but I love how there is a great deal of really intense partnering, sometimes several duets happening at once, the dancers by turns pushing and pulling, sliding, strugging with and embracing each other, and I love how at points the bodies just kind of mesh into one another, just melt into each other. It’s really kind of sexy in its own way. I love Robert Fairchild in these kinds of abstract roles. As I think I’ve said before, he always makes a little character out of a role no matter how abstract, and he dances with such expansiveness. With that and his immense charisma he devours the whole stage.

 

(Robert Fairchild and Georgina Pazcoguin in Toccata, by Paul Kolnik, from Oberon’s Grove)

I’m also liking Maria Kowroski much better. I heard she is taking acting lessons and it shows. Every little step is meaning something, saying something, a little quip perhaps, a little retort, to her partner (who has often been Sebastian Marcovici these days) and to the audience. I particularly liked her in Balanchine’s modernist Movements for Piano and Orchestra and his sweet, more classical Chaconne. Huge kudos to Sebastien in the latter for doing some really intensely fast footwork and really nailing it all. He is a large guy and that’s not easy. A friend told me afterward he thought Sebastien looked a bit “heavy” in the role, and I can definitely see that — a smaller dancer would have looked much lighter and more frolicking and playful — where Sebastien brings more virility and power and intensity — but, again, what makes ballet so addictive is the different bodies, different strengths, different personalities, different interpretations.

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ARE THE 'BUZZIEST' CHOREOGRAPHERS MALE IN THE US AS WELL AS UK? AND DO CRITICS IN THE UK HAVE MORE POWER?

There’s currently a debate raging in London over Sadler’s Wells (the most important venue there for contemporary dance) and its new season lineup showcasing the work almost entirely of male choreographers. Thanks to Pinballpeople for pointing me to it!

See Guardian posts by dance and culture writers Judith Mackrell and Charlotte Higgins here, here, and here (and read the comments section in that last link; some are by choreographers and are very astute.)

Alistair Spalding, the artistic director of Sadler’s Wells, has apparently responded that he realizes there’s an imbalance but can’t do anything about it; he has to choose the works he thinks best. Spalding posits one reason for the lack of female choreographers as being that women are perhaps not as “assertive” as men, but it’s unclear to me what exactly he means.

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TWO WORLD PREMIERES — QUASI UNA FANTASIA AND TOCCATA — AT NEW YORK CITY BALLET GALA

 

 

 

Last night I went to New York City Ballet’s Spring season gala. I always love galas but they’re especially exciting when they showcase world premiere dances. In this case, there were two such premieres, along with the world premiere of a new piece of music set to one of the ballets.

First things first: I missed most of the red carpet events, unfortunately, since the program began early (so as to make time for the after-show dinner, which I am far too poor to attend). And shame on me for mismanaging time like that — that Waiting For Godot experience from two years ago was too much fun. I did get there just in time to see the paparazzi flashing away at (Sex & the City author) Candace Bushnell and (NYCB principal) Charles Askegard. Sweet Charles soon stepped aside to let his wife bask in the glory all on her own. She looked radiant. I was jealous.

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New York City Ballet Season Finale and Wrap Up With Response to Sir A

 

 

So, Sunday marked the end of New York  City Ballet’s winter season. I was honestly in a blue funk all day yesterday, which shows, I guess, that I am really beginning to love this company since I’ve normally only gotten so sad over ABT and Alvin Ailey.

Sunday was a one-day only program, the All-American Season Finale, which included Robbins’s Glass Pieces, Martins’s Hallelujah Junction, and Balanchine’s Tarantella and Stars and Stripes. Tarantella (this is the only time it showed this season) is always fun, with its cute Neapolitan peasant boy-tries-to-get-girl caricatures, lightening-charged footwork, and series of bravura solos for both man and woman, all performed with a tambourine. I was completely out of breath after watching Joaquin de Luz fly across the stage and ultimately steal a kiss from Megan Fairchild. Joaquin is not just a dancing virtuoso but a dramatist as well and his characters are always these virile, sexed-up, but charming, innocuous men. I really love him.

Glass Pieces and Hallelujah Junction also really grew on me. I don’t know if it was Maria Kowroski or what, but the  slower, more adagio section of Glass Pieces was very compelling this time, and it really spiced up the last man-centric, drum-beating, section as well. At first I wasn’t a huge fan of Maria Kowroski, but either she has improved or she has really grown on me. I always thought she had an excellent dancer body, but now she is using it in a much more expressive way, really to say something. The only thing I’m not in love with choreography-wise in Glass Pieces is in the last section, how the men come jogging out, hands powerfully punching the air, doing their ‘man things’ to the booming drums, and then the women daintily slink in to the sound of the flutes. Corny.

I was able to watch more than just the mesmerizing lighting in Hallelujah Junction this time. I love the movement theme –toward the beginning — of the landing a jump or phrase on releve and then swiftly lowering the ankle to the floor. On Andrew Veyette it looked kind of teasing but in a sinister way, like the slicing of a knife. There is something very sinister in general about Andrew Veyette, very virile in a threatening way, which makes him perfect for the devious man dressed in black here.

And I love how Sebastien Marcovici, the man in white, kind of Janie Taylor’s saviour, would powerfully jete across stage after him, threatening him, banishing him. Sebastien and Janie are such the romantic couple, in part because they work so well together and in part because of their respective sizes. Someone very knowledgeable in the dance world told me they thought he’d been working out a lot, trying to build muscle. I do think he seems to have become more muscular lately, especially his legs. Building muscle often decreases the muscle’s flexibility and he doesn’t seem to make a perfect split on a jete like some of the others, but I still think it’s so romantic that he’s so much larger than little Janie; he can just sweep her off the floor and scoop her up into his arms — aw 🙂

The program notes state that Stars and Stripes, the somewhat cheesily patriotic but excellently danced Balanchine ballet, was shown at presidential tributes, like that of Kennedy and Johnson, and at Nelson Rockefeller’s NY gubernatorial inauguration. It’s so weird to me to think of that, though I could see it performed back then. But now? At President Obama’s inauguration? It just doesn’t seem like it would fit. It would seem kind of anachronistic, sadly…

Anyway, the talk of the ballet world lately has been Sir Alastair’s New York Times season wrap-up.

Taylor Gordon, my friend and fellow blogger / dance writer, says, “whether you agree with him or not, it boggles me that one person has the power to say these things in basically the one print medium dance criticism has left. Ouch.”

Macaulay basically takes the women of NYCB to task, saying none of them really command authority like true ballerinas,

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DAVIDSBUNDLERTANZE!

 

Say that five times in a row 🙂 (

Last Wednesday, my friend Judy and I went to NYCB for their Founding Choreographers II program, which included two by Balanchine — Ballo della Regina, and Robert Schumann’s Davidsbundlertanze (it’ll be a miracle if I don’t misspell it at some point), and Jerome Robbins’s Glass Pieces.

My favorite was the middle one (whose name translates to “Dances of the League of David” — Schumann’s imaginary society of artists organized to combat Philistinism), and it’s becoming one of my favorites of Balanchine’s in general, though many people can’t stand it and think it moves way too slowly. Made in 1980 and one of Balanchine’s last works, it’s meant to depict the mid-19th Century composer Schumann’s relationship with his wife, a pianist named Clara Wieck, and his ensuing mental breakdown, which led to a suicide attempt, followed by institutionalization.

There are four couples who seem to me to depict various stages of the same relationship — one is older and more mature, another is young, hot-headed and full of passion, another frolicking and playful, and the last and most pathos-ridden somewhere in between, full of loving and longing but pockmarked with fateful misunderstandings and missed connections, generally standing I think for the tragic impossibility of true human connection.

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New York City Ballet: Tradition and Innovation

 

 

On Friday, Judy and I went to see New York City Ballet’s “Tradition and Innovation” program. I know, I really should just move into Lincoln Center…

On the bill were Balanchine’s Concerto Barocco, Mauro Bigonzetti’s Oltremare, and Balanchine’s Tschaikovsky Suite No. 3 (I’m using their spelling of Tschaikovsky, with the first “s”; I often see it spelled without).

Concerto Barocco is one of Balanchine’s leotard ballets that makes music visual (the two ballerinas — here Wendy Whelan and Rachel Rutherford — almost become the double violins of Bach’s Double Violin Concerto in D Minor) and, according to Terry Teachout, is one of Balanchine’s most definitive. It’s funny. I’ve seen it before and really liked it then, but I think in contrast to the similar Stravinsky Violin Concerto, that I saw on Wednesday, it didn’t fascinate me as much. There didn’t seem to be as many interesting little flourishes. I still enjoyed it though — especially where the groups of women all hop repeatedly on pointe — it’s so sweet — and the way the dancers nearly become the violins is always fascinating.

Oltremare is one of my favorites this season. I’ve written about it before. It’s an expressionistic piece with some brilliant lifts, some high-charged jumps, at times the mood rather haunting, about immigrants coming to the New World, dejected about all they are leaving behind and fearful of what may lie ahead. My favorite part is always Andrew Veyette’s bravura turn. See a great video here of him talking about that role and the ballet in general, along with scenes from the ballet. (you may have to scroll down for it; I don’t know if the link will go directly to that video — but do scroll down, it’s worth watching!)

 

And my favorite of the night was Tschaikovsky Suite No. 3. It’s divided really into two parts, and I’ve seen the second — Theme and Variations (pictured above, Sterling Hyltin and Benjamin Millepied in the leads) — before a few times. (I wrote about a small bit about it here when ABT did it). I hadn’t realized though until now that there even was a first part.

Well, the first section is really beautiful (pictured at top), and kind of reminded me of La Valse. The ballet begins behind a black netted scrim, and takes place in a kind of Romantic dreamscape. A man, Ask La Cour, searches for his beloved, his ideal, represented by the poetic Sara Mearns, who kind of gets lost in all the women, all dressed in long, floating lavender gowns. Interestingly, no one was on pointe; everyone was barefoot, which would seem to undermine the women’s ethereal quality. And yet it gave the whole a kind of softness and lightness. They were almost like ghosts floating through the air.

The next part of this section was a soft, melancholic waltz performed by a duo — Rebecca Krohn and Jared Angle, which was juxtaposed with a fast, sprightly “Scherzo” by a really impressively quick-footed Tiler Peck (don’t think I’ve ever seen her like that before!) and the always high-jumping Daniel Ulbricht.

And then the curtain went down and when it lifted again, we were in a courtly ballroom in imperial Russia, no scrim in sight, the chandeliers shining brightly. Beautiful as the first Romantic, part with Sara Mearns, was, I still love this courtly celebration the best with the Tchaikovsky music swelling to a climax, the floor flooded with dancers, all performing the extremely fast combinations, the big huge twisty jumps for the men — my favorite. I first saw my favorite dancer dance this part, so it’s hard for me to judge fairly anyone else, but Benjamin Millepied did very well with that first set of continuous jumping turns that seem wondrously to go on and on and on, and then, in the end, when the music starts to go at the speed of light, because he is so much smaller than Marcelo, he seemed to keep up with it a little more. Marcelo is still more leading-manly though 🙂 And Sterling Hyltin was the perfect princess. Funny, but when I see ABT perform, I tend to miss the women because the men so stand out to me. Not so with NYCB; they’re more equal. I kind of feel like I saw Sterling’s part for the first time.

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New York City Ballet: Early Music Masters Program

Last night I brought my friend Judy with me to New York City Ballet for their Early Music Masters program. It happened to be a very ballroom-y night: I saw two sets of ballroom dance friends — one a fellow former Pasha student from Dance Times Square, and the other a former fellow West Coast Swing team member from my first studio, DanceSport. Always fun to reconnect and see what everyone’s up to. Actually I often see people I know from the ballroom world at the ballet. So, just a little note to ballet companies: I do really think serious ballroom dancers are a potentially big cross-over audience for ballet.

Anyway, first on the program was Balanchine’s Divertimento No. 15 set to Mozart and in the style of a courtly dance from his era in which ballerinas are clad in sky blue and yellow tutus and their cavaliers in blousy tops with ornate vests. Honestly I find Mozart rather bland for ballet.

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New York City Ballet: Founding Choreographers I

 

Tuesday night I went to see New York City Ballet’s Founding Choreographers I program (I know, I’m very late; it’s been a nasty week of migraines and sanity-destroying upstairs neighbors — more on the latter later).

It was a good, varied program. First on were two short abstract but very musical “leotard ballets” by Balanchine, both set to Stravinsky, that went together nicely (though they were choreographed years apart), Monumentum Pro Gesualdo and Movements for Piano and Orchestra. The pieces are mainly abstract and play with geometrical shapes and configurations, and there’s a bit of cute “Egyptian” styling in the flexed hand and feet gestures, and the ballets really give the dancers the chance to show off their musicality, especially the second, fast-paced one. I’m liking Maria Kowroski (in the top picture with Charles Askegard) better and better. She was very charismatic. Even though the ballets were story-less, she was kind of playing a part, and it really drew your attention to her. Askegard was really on too.

The second piece, Robbins’ Dances at a Gathering (pictured second, up top) was what I really went for. It was Kathryn Morgan’s debut in the ballet. She was very good, but who really ended up standing out to me was Sara Mearns. She danced her part in a way that really reminded me of ABT’s artiste supreme Julie Kent in Robbins’ similar but shorter, more virtuosic version, Other Dances. Mearns, like Kent, really connected with the music — not just like she was dancing to the music but with it; it, rather than the male dancer, became her partner. I remember in Other Dances when Kent girlishly lifted her shoulders and a big, joyful grin sweetly overcame her face when the onstage pianist first put his fingers to the keys. Sure Angel was there too, but the music is what made her dance, he was secondary. Robbins has I think three (that I know of) of these dancers-interacting-with-musicians dances: this one, Other Dances, and Suite of Dances, danced by a solitary man to/with an onstage cellist.

The problem to me with Dances at a Gathering is that there’s so much, it’s just too long, and you lose the quality and the mood that are so prevalent in the other two. Instead of one dancer connecting with a musician, or a duo with each partner connecting in his and her own particular way, here there’s a multitude of dancers, each trying to do that throughout the l-o-n-g dance. Every time I see it, I’m in love with it until about half-way through when it starts to drag. Then there’ll be another section that draws me in, and then another section that drags, then another section that drags, then another that begins to draw me in again where I begin to think, gee if there weren’t all those sections earlier that dragged, this one would be quite engaging, but by this point, I just want the damn thing to end already. And I know I’m not the only one who felt that way. You can feel the whole audience shifting in their seats. You can hear the heavy breathing. Someone needs to seriously edit that ballet!

Anyway, that said, I also really liked Benjamin Millepied. He dashed around the stage as if he were desperately searching for someone or something he’d lost. There was a longing and a quiet urgency to his performance that was really quite poignant.

 

See principal Megan Fairchild talk about that ballet (and see excerpts) here.

Last on was Balanchine’s Stars and Stripes, the high-speed, super-energetic ballet danced to John Philip Sousa’s marching band music that today looks kind of goofy in its hyper-patriotism. At first you want to roll your eyes at what seem to be a cheesy series of Rockette-like high kicks and formation changes and almost circus-like high jumps and stage-traversing turning jetes in the soldier section, but then you realize that in 1958, when it premiered, it was still kind of a point at which America was becoming acquainted with ballet, with the movements and with the Petipa structure — the wondrous in sync ensemble work, the pas de deux with the breathtaking lifts, the solos with their athletic jumps for the man, fouettes and fast chaine turns for the woman. As eye-rolling as this ballet may now be, if you look at it with a historical eye it was very original in its celebratory Americanization of the classical.