Visit the Examiner for more details and a slide show including a few more pics from the movie. Photo above looks rather creepy imo … which I guess goes along with the genre.
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.
GEORGINA PARKINSON HAS DIED
Former Royal Ballet ballerina and current American Ballet Theater mistress Georgina Parkinson has died of cancer. She was 71. In addition to her work with ABT, she was apparently coaching Natalie Portman and Mila Kunis for their dance roles in the upcoming film, Black Swan.
Photo above, by Ruby Washington, of Parkinson rehearsing, it appears, Gillian Murphy and Ethan Stiefel, taken from the NY Times.
BENJAMIN MILLEPIED CHOREOGRAPHING FOR "BLACK SWAN" MOVIE
There were rumors swarming around that NYCB’s Ben Millepied would be choreographing for the upcoming film starring Natalie Portman and Mila Kunis, and they appear to be true.
Says Director Darren Aronofsky:
“My sister was a dancer growing up and I was always in the background, so I always thought it would be a really interesting world to film in. And after wrestling and working with maybe the lowest form of art [in ‘The Wrestler’], it was kind of interesting to move to the highest form of art,” he said, adding that dance appreciation can be an acquired taste: “It’s taken a long time to develop an understanding of the details, and the more you get exposed to it, the more complexity you see.”
Click on that first link, by the way, for an interesting script analysis.
WINONA RYDER & NATALIE PORTMAN IN MOVIE BASED ON NYCB DANCER
Oh cool — apparently, Winona Ryder, Natalie Portman and Mila Kunis are to star in a film called Black Swan, a thriller that follows the story of a fictitious NYCBallet dancer who may or may not be having delusions about a rival. All actresses play dancers with the company, and supposedly, there is some kind of “extreme” sex scene between Portman and Kunis. Hmmm… Can any of them dance, or will they have doubles to do the dancing, I wonder. Or will there actually be much dancing?
Directing is Darren Aronofsky, who last directed The Wrestler, and filming is expected to begin in New York next month, with a release date sometime in 2010.
LAURA JACOBS' THE BIRD CATCHER, AND WHY THOSE MARTHA GRAHAM MEN WEAR SUCH SKIMPY COSTUMES
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“Well I’ve only been twice,” Margret answered, realizing her mouth wasn’t working so well. “I mean, the one about Oedip … Oedipus.”
The wine was warping her consonants.
“Night Journey,” he prompted.
“Is that the one? It was like an Assyrian,” she said slowly, “bas-relief. Those little palms and things in profile.”
Her face was hot. Why did he keep looking at her?
“What I want to know,” Emily said, pointing a pretty finger at Azam, “is why Graham men are always in such skimpy costumes? I mean, really, Azam, it’s jockstraps and loincloths. Do you guys ever, among yourselves, admit she was sexist?”
“Noooo.” He smiled lazily. “She just liked to see men’s bodies. You know the famous line?” He squared his shoulders. “Walk like you carry the seed.”
“What seed?” Nan called from the far end.
“Sperm,” Fred said.
“What are you talking about?” Ollie demanded.
“Martha Graham,” Emily, Fred, and Azam said in unison.
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Above text from The Bird Catcher, by Laura Jacobs.
Photo from Night Journey (with requisite male dancer in loincloth) by John Deane, taken from here.
I’d really liked dance critic Laura Jacobs’ first novel, Women About Town, so I was really excited for her second one to come out. She writes fiction like she writes about dance (for the New Criterion; she also has a collection of her dance writings): lyrically, beautifully, poetically.
The Bird Catcher is the story of Margret Snow, a young New York artist working as a window-dresser at Saks, and her attempts to overcome the grief caused by her husband’s untimely death. She and her late husband, Charles, a Columbia professor several years her elder, had loved to bird-watch together in Cape May, New Jersey. So one of the ways she salvages his memory and pulls herself back into life is to go down to lower Manhattan and collect various birds who, during their migration, were felled by the glass skyscrapers. She retrieves their bodies and performs taxidermy on them — and, really, I never knew how poetic this practice could be, how artistic! And this project of hers eventually figures, rather dangerously, into her job.
There are lighter moments in the novel as well, like the scene above, where she’s at a dinner party and meets this young, sexy Martha Graham dancer named, fittingly, Azam, who ends up figuring rather prominently into things as well.
It’s a really beautiful book. One of those you want to read slowly and really savor the language. And she has a way of making you really feel for her characters. It’s also rather educational. I didn’t know much about different bird species and their migration patterns, or the variety of bird-life passing through New York City and how dangerous those skyscrapers can be to them.
Anyway, Emdashes currently has a contest on, through which you can win a free copy of the book. You have to enter by this Friday. You can do that if you’re on Twitter by responding to @emdashes and giving the name of your favorite bird. If you don’t tweet, then visit James Wolcott’s blog for more details.
And if you don’t yet have a favorite bird (as I didn’t — I mean aside from the obvious), this site seems to be pretty informative.
