Tag: Dancing With the Stars

Posted on

Highlights So Far, But Very Quickly!

I have a quick few seconds and then must head off to the preliminary rounds of pro Latin today — my very favorite day!!! And, Slavik Kryklyvyy, my favorite dancer, will be dancing in prelims (all couples who made semifinals last year are exempt from afternoon prelims and don’t dance til evening, but Slavik has a new partnership this year so is not exempt. He placed second in the world — with Karina Smirnoff of DWTS — last time he danced two years ago, so it’s always very amusing to see the greats dancing with the newbies!). So, anyway, I must get there early and get a good seat to hopefully get some good pics 🙂

Anyway, very quickly here are some of the pics taken from my photo album (which I’ll keep updating as time permits) of my highlights from the first few days (opening Congress lectures on ballroom dancing through Amateur Latin and Junior Ballroom).

mirko and alessia

First in the world in Standard Ballroom, Mirko Gozzoli and Alessia Betti from Italy, during opening Congress

The fabulous Maxim Kozhevnikov and Yulia Zagoruychenko from the U.S., currently 2nd in Latin in US and first in world in Latin showdance, showing snippets of their new showdance routine during Congress.

This is from the most interesting of the Congress lectures in my opinion. Retired Latin champs, now theater arts performers Jukka Haapalainen and Sirpa Suutari from Finland are working on a full-length dance rendition of Federico Garcia Lorca’s brilliant play “Bodas de Sangre.” The full-length story dance, the first of its kind to be entirely in Latin Ballroom style, will be performed in Finland. I’m so excited about this! Ballet may have a new competitor for full-length story dances!

Exhibition champs Victor DaSilva and Hanna Karttunen from South Africa performing their new routine. Their signature lift is one where he lies on the floor, lifts her with two arms, then to one, then gets up into standing position all the while lifting her with only one arm. I didn’t want to take a picture of that one and risk distracting them with my flash!

Team USA taking the floor during their opening number for the team match. Match consists of a competition — first Latin, then ballroom, with two couples in each style from each of four countries. This year’s match was between US, UK, Russia and Italy. UK came in first, then Italy, then Russian, then US 🙁 UK has all the great Standard Ballroom dancers — two of the top three in the world are from England, while no one country really has all the great Latin dancers — tops are divided between Germany, Poland, Russia, and … oh I always forget where #3 is from — Andrei Skufca and Katarina Venturinini but it’s somewhere in Eastern Europe — Slovenia??) Anyway, the UK kind of has the team comp in the bag because of its Standard…

Slavik and new partner Elena Khvorova competing in the team match for Russia.

Second in the world in Latin Michael Malitowski and Joanna Leunis from Poland demonstrating during their Samba lecture on the second day of Congress (Sunday).

The adorable Timothy Howson and Joanne Bolton, 2nd in the world in Ballroom, demonstrating Viennese Waltz during Congress.

My second favorite male Latin dancer, Sergey Surkov and his partner Melia from Poland. He is by far the most romantic, passionate male dancer in the world and I think all male dancers could take serious lessons from him — from Latin to Ballet! One of the real highlights of Congress for me was watching him participate in one of the lectures on Latin Dancing Through the Ages.


From that same lecture, given by Richard Porter, here is another couple, represting the Fifties in Latin dancing. I LOVE that dress and kinda wish the styles were still the same — so classic. This was to me the most entertaining lecture. He went through four decades showing how certain basics remained the same but styles and embellishments have changed to reflect the time. It reminded me a bit of Apollinaire Scherr’s recent very interesting article in Newsday apropros of NYCBallet’s new Romeo and Juliet on the different versions of that ballet over time and how they’ve each reflected goings-on in the world at large at that particular time. I’ll have more to say about this (as well as the Bodas de Sangre ballet) when I return because I think this is a very intriguing topic. I can’t think very clearly right now in this over-crowded, noisy, smoky internet cafe!!!

Jonathan Wilkins and Katusha Demidova, third in the world in Ballroom, and the top US couple, demoing during Congress.

Nick Kosovitch (who’s appeared on Dancing With the Stars — I think Tatum O’Neal was his last celebrity) with his partner Lena demoing their James Bond-ish ballroom showdance during Congress.

Max and Yulia again participating in another Congress lecture, this one on making the proper entrance and exit by this amusing Russian guy named Taliat Tarsonov. After they performed the ideal “exit,” they performed their entire routine from America’s Ballroom Challenge / Ohio Star Ball that they also performed here last year (and the performance of which I’ve previously embedded a YouTube code) — don’t have time to find it and link, sorry! So exciting! Another big Congress highlight.

Marcus and Karen Hilton, MBEs, former ballroom champs, giving a lecture on “Quality Ballroom.” The crowd went wild and gave them several standing ovations.

And finally, the illustrious, 9-times world Latin champs, Bryan Watson and Carmen from Germany, ending Congress with their lecture on what makes a world champion. I have more to say on this topic too because, in light of their lecture as well as the previous one by the Hiltons, I think what makes a star and a champ is a really interesting topic as well, and one I will blog more about when I return.

For now, I have to get out of here and get to Winter Gardens for pro Latin prelims!!! Sorry if this is loaded with typos and other mistakes — no time to correct!!

Posted on

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!

Posted on

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!!!

Posted on

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!

Posted on

"Dirty Dancing" in Tribeca With Anna Garnis, and Nearly Woman-Less DWTS

In honor of the 20th anniversary of Dirty Dancing, the Tribeca Film Festival, which is now underway, is showing the film at the Tribeca Drive-In, located outside at the World Financial Center Plaza, for free, tomorrow night, Thursday, April 26th. I already knew, and blogged about it earlier, but what I didn’t know is that one of the teachers from my studio, the amazing Anna Garnis, is going to be one of the pro dancers doing a little pre-movie pro ballroom dance demo.

 

I’m so upset because I have tickets for something else and can’t make it! Figures! Anyway, Anna is one of the very best Latin ballroom dancers in this country; she and her partner, Pasha Kovalev (my former teacher 🙂 ), always place in the finals at the national competitions, and they really have the best show-quality of anyone, IMHO 🙂 She is most definitely worth seeing if you can make it down there tomorrow night. Here are deets on the show.

Anyway, DWTS: So, Heather got booted, leaving only one woman — the amazing Laila — who I don’t think is going anywhere for a while — and nearly all of the men who started. The former cultural history grad student in me just wants to look at this as an interesting cultural phenomenon. I wish they would do a demographics study on who is watching the show — well, I’m sure they have but haven’t revealed it to the public — but from reading the message boards anyway, it appears that it is mostly women watching and voting. So, it’s interesting to me, women really want to watch the non-pro men dance. Which makes sense — the men are rather fun; even if some of them aren’t that good, it’s just really kind of fun to see these guys who complain about looking “girly” and “sissified” (and all those annoying terms) doing the Latin hip-swaying thing, being forced to duke it out with each other on the dance floor. Adult men who did not take up dance as a profession and who’ve never taken lessons are often more reticent than women to learn or even to just get out there on the dance floor, so I really think there is some of the fun of watching that going on. I think Laila is different than “normal” women since she’s a boxer. And I LOVED her lifting little Apolo in that group swing! I do hope anyway that she stays a little while longer for more moves like that 🙂 I just think it’s interesting in general, from a larger cultural perspective, to ponder who likes dancing, who watches dancing, who follows dancing, what it is that turns those people on to dance, and whom they want to watch dance…

Posted on

Gender Bender Confusion!

Last night I went to see the last third of a three-part dance series on the theme “Gender Benders” at Symphony Space. This one was by Monica Bill Barnes & Company and Nicholasleichterdance. (Unfortunately, I missed the second part of the series, by Les Ballets Grandiva; the first was Keigwin Kabaret, which I blogged on earlier). Like the Keigwin, this was comprised of a series of short pieces, some mostly dance, others more like wordless skits, some containing both, and all presumably aiming to challenge our notions of gender.A couple of the pieces choreographed by Barnes and performed by her and Deborah Lohse that stuck in my mind were these cutely humorous Vaudeville-esque sketches featuring the two women in overdone makeup and platinum blonde wigs and wearing maid-like aprons over ruffly skirts, who were kind of simultaneously sexed-up — one kept bunching her skirt and wanting to lift it — and naively sweet and confused. It was very funny, very cute, and Lohse’s expressions were brilliant. She has a tall, thin, somewhat gangly frame, and she really seemed to know how to use that to maximum comical effect here. I recognized her name in the progam then her face as soon as I saw her onstage, and I realized where from when I read her bio: she has her own newly-started company, ad hoc Ballet, whose website I’d visited after the introduction of a new Winger contributor from that company. Anyway, I’d actually like to learn more about Vaudeville since I’ve seen a few modern companies use it now. Kind of ridiculous that I know so little since my boyfriend in grad school was writing his dissertation on its history, and I read Fred Astaire’s autobiography…

I really LOVED Nicholas Leichter though. My favorite pieces were his “Baby Doll,” a solo which he performed, and “Undertow,” a piece for four men wearing tight form-fitting skirts with sexy thigh-high back slits, leather jackets with nude mesh undershirts, and finger and toenail polish. That piece explored in a short time a rather large panoply of male interactions, as the men, flirted with, hugged and caressed, lifted, fought with, and threw each other about. The costumes, along with some of the snaky Samba-y hip swaying would have been very “sexy” on women — but how did they look on men, I felt Leichter asked.

In “Baby Doll,” Leichter came out onstage alone, dressed in a man’s pinstriped suit, then, pretending to have a conversation with someone else — initially maybe someone gazing at him, then coming onto him, then perhaps a lover who was jilting him — reacted against what that absent other was doing. Initially, he seemed embarrased about being looked at, then nervous and somewhat frightened, then burst into hysterical laughter, then hurt and crying, lashed out. At one point, he pulled his pants down and mooned the absent other, then waddled around the stage, too lazy or angry to pull them back up. It was funny but disconcerting to see a man do such a thing, do all these things. Also, I thought how “feminine” the emoting and the reactions were, which contrasted sharply with his muscular “masculine” physique.

The thing that threw me was, I hadn’t known who Leichter was before this, so I looked in the program and saw the name of the performer for this piece listed as “Clare Byrne.” I then looked at the insert, and saw that they had changed it to Leichter as the performer for tonight’s show. I thought, huh, “Clare” is a strange name for a man … then when I got home looked up the name on the web and found that she was not a man at all. (In fact, she’s the one who’s doing that Kneeling piece throughout next week at various NY locations, which I am definitely going to scope out!) But, unless the whole thing was just a misprint, I couldn’t believe he had choreographed this piece for a woman — it would have been so completely different for a woman to have performed it — gone would be everything I just said above. And that made me think that, of everything I saw in this “gender bender” series, it was really only the men’s performances that I found “gender-assumption” challenging. Not that I didn’t find the women’s dancing beautiful or remarkably athletic. But, I guess women can kind of look or act any ole way — we can wear short sexy skirts, pantssuits, men’s underwear, army camoflauge or ruffly skirts, and we can be ballerinas or pole dancers or breakers or sexy sambistas and it’s all just that; nothing looks out of the ordinary. But for a man to cry or emote at all, to don nail polish and a skirt with a high back-slit and move his hips in a sexy figure eight motion… it just makes you stop, look, and think. And, I mean, how many of the DWTS celebrity males have (beyond annoyingly) freaked over looking too feminine in the Latin dances — Ian and Billy Ray this time around, George Hamilton last time; and there were several guys in my old social dancing school who dropped out of the international Latin classes because they were “too girly”… It’s interesting though, because at the same time, I don’t think this greater gender flexibility amounts to women actually having more power…

Anyway, this was a short program, but it’s inexpensive and thought-provoking. Visit Symphony Space for tix; it’s on through the 21st.

Posted on

Lar Lubovitch And His Phalanx of Cute Guys, Julianne’s Awesome Samba on DWTS, and Fabulously Weird Boris Eifman

Sorry this post is about so many diverse dancey things; just too busy and have to blog all at once…

Last night I went to see the Lar Lubovitch Dance Company at the Skirball Center at NYU. Three works were performed, two of which were world premieres: “Little Rhapsodies” starring Dance Magazine readers’ “sexiest dancer of the year,” Rasta Thomas 🙂

 

along with Jay Franke and the amazing Sean Stewart; and “Dvorak Serenade,” featuring Drew Jacoby, one of the most beautifully muscular women I’ve seen. I really liked “Rhapsodies,” the piece for the three men, which, set to Robert Schumann music, was by turns cute and sexy, humorous, jazzy, and lyrical. And, Thomas 🙂 He really is good-looking, with a very charming stage personality. The piece was kind of quietly, sweetly understated until about three-quarters of the way through, when he came running out and did this spectacular tour jete (that’s a turn and leap all in one — go here and look up jete entrelace to see Vladminir Malakhov demonstrate). The Serenade was beautiful as well: lyrical with light, diaphonous costumes on both women and men. A contemporary piece, there was no pointe work, so you could really see the dancers’ gorgeously arched feet, particularly Jacoby’s.

My favorite piece of the night though was “Love’s Stories,” from 2005, with three pretty, lifty duets by various couples, and two jazzy solos by Stewart. That man has no bones in his arms at all — they moved so fluidly and at times with such speed they were a shadowy blur. The second pas de deux was my favorite: “Prelude to Kiss,” danced by Marty Lawson and Kate Skarpetowska. One of the most romantic, sexiest I’ve ever seen — at the end he tugs her top straps down her shoulders and plants a passionate kiss on her neck; she collapses in his arms … yes, if a man wants to kiss you, he should be so bold — but only after picking you up and carrying you all around the room for a good 10 minutes 🙂

Also, I just have to say, there were all these good-looking guys in the audience. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many at one performance. I wondered if they were dancers. During the first intermission, Mr. Lubovitch quietly, nonchalantly walked into the orchestra and took a seat two rows down from me. At the second intermission, all the cute guys immediately gravitated toward him, where they hovered about, chatting him up. So, they were dancers, or at least involved in dance, and with Lar. So, there it is: go to a Lar Lubovitch performance and see hot guys 🙂 — both onstage and in the audience 🙂

Anyway, I was surprised to see that the house was not very packed. People are paying big bucks to see Thomas dance Othello at the Met in the spring, but you can see him up close for only $40 here… There are two programs; Program B, which I didn’t see, includes a piece performed by the Limon Dance Company but excludes Stewart’s solos from Love’s Stories. It’s on through the 21st; go here for tickets.

Onto Dancing With the Stars. The highlight for me this week was definitely Julianne Hough‘s samba. When I first saw her walks, I thought, wow, she’s a pro and she’s not doing those cruzado walks with the proper technique at all. But boy did they look enticing. And they also looked familiar. After she did that mad fun squatting pelvic roll with undulating rib cage, which I’ve never seen in ballroom but have most definitely seen in Quenia Ribeiro‘s Rio / Carnival-style class at the Ailey studios, I realized that those alternative, rather runway-looking cruzado walks were familiar to me because I’ve seen them on Quenia’s tape, as well as in Carnival videos on YouTube. She was basically fusing formal, ballroom samba with the social, Rio-style form of the dance, and to very fun effect. I thought she was simply beautiful! And obviously the judges felt the same since they had Apolo and her re-perform their routine last night. I’ve often found this rather annoying reluctance by ballroom dancers to think outside the official syllabi so I really appreciate someone who can and will do that. So go Julianne!!!

That said, of course I’m annoyed that Heather was in the bottom two, over John, especially after the judges said something to her that really resonated with me– that she, more than anyone else, really knew how to let loose, have fun, and act like no one was watching, which is, I think, the first hurdle any beginning dancer has to overcome… you can’t free yourself to dance until you’ve made the decision to shed certain inhibitions. Well, she may well not be on the show after next week, and, at this point, I just feel like throwing my hands up and saying, ‘oh well… what can you do?’ I kind of liked Clyde too, personality-wise — he was such a sweet little thing … or sweet big thing rather! — but he wasn’t that good dance-wise, so it’s okay that he’s gone…

I also like that they’re showing the celebrities having “normal” busy lives. This is how real people who take ballroom dance lessons are as well — okay, we’re not out filming episodes of our TV shows and traveling to China and England every weekend, but we have jobs, we work, and we’re not professional dancers who spend 80 hours a week in the studio. So, I felt like that kind of sent a jolt of reality into the dancing aspect of the show: see, you can only get so good when you actually have to work for a living and dance isn’t your full-time occupation.

Tonight I went to see the “The Seagull” by the Eifman Ballet, a company based in St. Petersburg, Russia. When I’d gone to her reading a couple of weeks ago, critic Joan Acocella called choreographer Boris Eifman “a menace to society.” She did this in an eye-rolling, definitely not joking way. After seeing them tonight, I have to say, I have no idea what she was talking about. Actually, that’s not true — I could see how someone might feel that way about his work. But, for me, this was one of the best performances I’ve seen this year. It was fantastically weird, over the top, melodramatic, completely angst-filled, over-acted, by turns mesmerizingly beautiful, creepy, and frightening, and, as one person sitting near me said, “chaotic.” But to me all that’s exactly what made it. For one thing it was the antithesis of boring — don’t think I’ve ever been so entranced all the way through a full-length ballet; for another, I felt like Eifman was kind of ridiculing the melodrama of classical ballet. If he’s a “menace” to the dance world; it’s a menace in a good kind of way — someone who holds a kind of funhouse mirror up to something revered, compelling you to think about what you’re seeing. The main music was by Rachmaninoff, flavored with interludes of hip hop and techno. A modern reinterpretation of the classical and based on the Chekhov play, the choreography was stunning, the sets were used to brilliant effect, and the dancers were just incredible. It was like a company of all Wendy Whelans or something– everyone, men and women alike, had that long, beyond thin, hyper-flexible, sinewy-muscled body that moved as if there were no ligaments or tendons whatsoever to constrict it. And, I just feel like Russians just own the world of ballet, both classical and modern, — they just do. Even the hip hop was rapturous. When I left City Center tonight, I felt more than ever before how much I regret giving up dance as a child…

Posted on

Yet Another Red Dress, Friends on TV(!), and New York City Ballet Tix

This evening, after work, I went out to Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn, to visit Latin / Ballroom costume-maker extraordinare, Valentina.


It’s so far out there for me and always seems like such a long way from Manhattan, but occasionally it’s a fun, sometimes even relaxing ride on the subway, which goes above-ground after Park Slope.

Here’s sweet little house kitty, Tosha, napping on a bed of fabrics.

Saw this hanging on Valentina’s wall: it’s a picture of my very first Latin teacher, Kelvin Roche, and his partner, Lori Ann Greenhouse, world Hustle champs for a few years in a row now. They had their costumes done by Valentina.

So, I gave Valentina this picture to show her what I was thinking of for my foxtrot costume:

 

She asked what color I was thinking and before I answered, she just started laughing. I’m so predictable… can’t help it; I just always want red. It’s just so happy and cheery and bright and rosy and … red…

Kelvin 🙂

So, we chose this fabric (she always gives me a swatch so I can show it to the teacher) for the main bodysuit, and then she’s gonna find matching chiffon for the skirt.

Before we started talking about the actual costume design, though, Valentina took one frowning up and down look at me and said, “Tonya, I think I need to do measurement again.” Geez, is it that frigging obvious??? In addition to the late-night fries and martinis with Alyssa, I think it may be my recent reversion to my childhood comfort food:

Mexican; can’t help it — I grew up on it and just love it, especially when I’m a bit nervous about stuff, which I have been lately… Okay, no more beans, no more tortillas, and no more french fries (don’t think I can say no more martinis and red wine 🙂 ) until after early May…

Sorry I’m so photo-happy today; I think it’s because my brain hurts from working on a crazy hard brief all day… just don’t have the energy to make lots of words … so am making pictures instead…

Got home just in time for Dancing With the Stars. I was happy they had a re-cap tonight because I had to miss it last night for a late dance lesson. Karina’s Paso cracked me up, in a good way. I feel like she said to herself, “Okay, I’m tired of dancing with amateurs. I’m a pro and am going to dance like one, dammit. If I have to lift myself and carry myself all over the floor, I’m damn well going to do it!” And she did — she just flew; and he wasn’t doing a whole lot to help her! Go Karina! And I LOVE the way she does those upper-body isolations in Paso. She just simply rocks. She MAKES that show if you ask me.

And I was also happy that Andrei Gavriline and Elena Kruyshkova performed. I was complaining last week that they didn’t have the top couples demonstrating the moves, so am very happy they had the country’s top Latin couple give a sample Samba. Although… I kind of wish they’d have used Andrei and Elena to demonstrate something else, and had Max Kozhnevnikov and Yulia Zagorouitchenko do the sample Samba because those two are really the king and queen of that dance. Until my web guy can set up my blog so it can embed YouTube links, click here for Terpsichore’s posting of Max and Yulia’s butt-kicking Samba, performed at last year’s Ohio Star Ball / America’s Ballroom Challenge. I don’t really know that anyone does ballroom Samba like they do.

Also, while I think Andrei and Elena have near perfect technique, for some reason they just don’t have a lot of showmanship in their routines. I don’t know what it is; can’t put my finger on it, but they’re just not a couple that reaches out and grabs your attention. Andrei is a gorgeous dancer; has a long thin body that can move in Latin like no other, but you don’t really see it unless you see him dance alone, and, perhaps in person. He blew me away the first time I saw him do a very simple basic three chas step in Cha Cha; I couldn’t take my eyes off him dancing alone and in the studio, but I don’t see him so much when he’s out on the floor with all the others and on TV. Still, so bizarre to see someone you kind of know on TV — I mean on a big huge poppy show!

Speaking of which … one of my friends told me at the studio last night that a couple of our good friends there are trying out for the show So You Think You Can Dance. Apparently, they’ve made the first two cuts, which are underway right now. The show premieres at the end of May. I’m so excited! I hope so much they make it — these two are such fascinating, fun, sexy, charismatic dancers with excellent Latin technique; ideal representatives from the world of ballroom 🙂 And, I just can’t imagine watching my friends on TV like that — so surreal!

Oh one more thing I was thinking about Dancing With the Stars: I also liked how the judges went into a bit of detail on what it is that makes a dancer good, both in terms of overall ballroom technique (and dance technique in general for that matter) and for each individual dance. I think it helps to direct viewers’ attention more toward the actual dancing and away from the popularity contest of it all…

Also, I went to Lincoln Center early this morning to get a few tickets for New York City Ballet’s upcoming season, which begins at the end of this month. It was pretty quiet out on the plaza so early… According to Oberon, yesterday, when the box office first opened for Spring season sales, there was a pretty long line. But today, the only other person there was this Santa Claus-y-looking guy waiting to get a standing-room ticket to tonight’s opera…

Anyway, I got tickets for the opening night on May 1st, when the premier of Peter Martins’ Romeo and Juliet will take place — premieres are ALWAYS exciting! 🙂 , and one for the farewell performance of retiring ballerina Krya Nichols. I think both are selling out quickly, so if you’re thinking of going, buy now! Visit their website to buy tickets here.

Posted on

Freedom To Be Who You Are: Isn't That What Dance Is About?

My favorite part of Dancing With the Stars last night was watching Tony Dovolani and… Kim was it?… dance to Josh Groban’s live singing. I was getting a bit bored with the show since it was a lot of singing and not a lot of dancing and so was focused on my computer until I peeked up at the screen and saw the lovely lyrical number they were doing — which is why I didn’t get the name of the female dancer; just know she was one of the blondes… Anyway, I just love that kind of dance; it was closest to a Waltz I guess but resembled more of a lyrical contemporary piece with the beautiful ballet costume (light-colored underlying leotard with diaphonous chiffon pieces strewn about for the skirt) and pretty bare feet.

Funny, I’d wanted to do the exact same thing — balletish costume with leotard and chiffon and dance in bare feet — for my first showcase (our music was Take My Breath Away, Jessica Simpson version — so a soft, lyrical rhumba that would easily lend itself to that kind of style), but my then teacher pronounced emphatically, “NO. BARE FEET AND BALLET CLOTHES ARE NOT BALLROOM.” Okay then. Rules and labels and narrow-minded thinking. Love them all; can’t get enough of them. Sorry, not to be cranky, and I did wake up with a bit of a headache today… I know that dance instructors are excited about teaching us the rules that they’ve taken such pains to learn. But I wish they would understand that when you’re a lawyer and you deal all day with Rules, you want to come to your dance studio at night and just bask in the atmosphere of creative freedom that surrounds you there, or that should. I’m a lawyer all day; let me be meeeee in the evening please please…

Anyway, the second contestant to go was, as I expected, Shandi — just because I know people didn’t like her. I actually thought her Jive was quite good. Those Jive kicks are HARD. It’s very difficult to get that bounce, kick, bounce, kick just right, and she did pretty well with them, especially for a beginner. I was also kind of disappointed to see Leeza in the bottom two since I thought she improved so much from the first night. I guess people have their favorites from the get-go. I also think people just love to judge others; couch potatos are probably the best at that. Dancing is frigging hard; I’d love to see the most judgmental of the spectators (I think Sylvia Plath called such people “the peanut-munching crowd”) get off their lazy butts and try.

Posted on

Magda Steps In

Tonight, Magda, a teacher at my studio who specializes in standard ballroom — the only one there who does I think — thankfully offered to help with my foxtrot routine! So, she and Luis re-thought some of the parts that didn’t make a lot of sense in terms of the music (some lifts and kicks didn’t correspond that well to the rises in the music) and she put in some more traveling steps like promenade runs (which are really pretty) and traveling grapevines, so that the dance moves about the floor more, like foxtrot should. She also put in some nice lunges and dips since there’s a lot of “up” in the routine and not a lot of “down.” I like her sense of making the dance well-rounded 🙂 We didn’t finish, which I think everyone knows is making me really nervous, so, sweet thing, she’s listening to the music and watching my DVD of Tharp’s Sinatra Suite to find a couple of nice lifts to fit into the music, so we’ll be ready to finish up next lesson. Then we’ll have a couple of weeks to go over it. And that’ll be that!

So, it’s back to watching the video over and over until I’ve got it! Magda’s such a graceful dancer… and so nice!

When I got home, I found this in my mailslot! It’s a flier advertising the website I was talking about a couple of posts ago, devoted to showing audiences the making of NYCB’s upcoming production of Romeo and Juliet, which Kristin Sloan has helped to film and broadcast on the internet!

I didn’t get home until 8:35 tonight so missed the first half hour of Dancing With the Stars. I can’t help but like Heather. I just really like her personality. Same with Joey. I’m just a personality-drawn person, I guess… How goofy was that stint in the Chippendale’s place with Ian?! I’m sure the producers tell them to do such things. And Karina with the horse-back riding… I’m not sure what she was talking about regarding Argentine tango. I don’t know the origins of Standard International Tango, which is what they dance in the competitions and what most of the contestants on the show are dancing. Argentine tango, which is danced socially in Argentina, originated out of brothels. And the faces are completely the opposite of Standard tango, where you don’t look at each other but are looking off to the side. In social Argentine you’re practically kissing each other you’re so close, and are definitely face to face, cheek to cheek — which is what I think makes it a bit uncomfortable for Americans. In my first studio, where I learned Argentine, the teachers originally were all American. They didn’t have us dancing so face to face. Then, for some reason there was an exodus of the American teachers and the studio owner brought in a bunch of dancers he knew in Argentina. They were shocked at how afraid of each other we were! “It’s another human being. What is with you people!” I remember my teacher, Beatrice, crying out in horror.

Anyway, I’m off on a tangent as usual… It’ll be interesting to see what happens tomorrow night…

Posted on

New School, Cheese, Juilliard, Twyla Tharp, Alastair Macaulay, Paulina Porizkova, and Blackpool Tickets!!

 

Could this post have a longer title?? I just had a crazy weekend… Friday night, my friend Alyssa’s roommate, who is getting her MFA in drama at the New School, appeared in a series of one act plays as part of the school’s student showcase. So we went for support. It was a lot of fun and reminded me of my college days when we would go to downtown Tucson to watch small, but brilliant, theater. My favorite one-act of the night was the one Alyssa’s roommate was in, called “Desire Desire Desire,” by Christopher Durang. It was a riff on Tennessee Williams’s “Streetcar” and made me burst out in laughter several times, which I needed since I’ve been kind of stressed lately about dance showcases and other stuff… That also reminded me of Tucson because I remember being introduced to Durang (as I was to so many other playwrights) by some miniscule hole in the wall’s terrific production of “Beyond Therapy” which a friend of a friend was in as well. Fun memories.

Anyway, perhaps the funniest part of the night happened after the performance, during the post-production party. They brought out this lovely display of food, which everyone got a little over-excited about. Apparently no one, including me, had eaten dinner, so the table became a bit overcrowded — particularly the cheese platter (cheese being more filing to an empty stomach than fruit and sweets perhaps…) Well, there was only one cheese tray and a bit of a non-verbal fight actually erupted over it, mainly between two little old ladies, but others, including me I have to confess, got a bit into it as well. This one lady just could not figure out how to work the tongs, which, being made of cheap plastic, ended up breaking, so she stood there frowning trying to figure out how to politely take some cheese. People tried to wait patiently in line while she just stood looking around helplessly, and I for one was getting hungry. Then this other little old lady came from nowhere and basically pushed first lady out of the way, I guess assuming she was done (?), then picked up the broken tongs and looked sadly at them. She tried to slice into the brie with one half of the tong but was taking forever and making a real mess. While we were all trying to be patient, out of nowhere came this guy who, apparently not realizing there was a long cheese line, walked right up behind the lady with the half tong, reached with his fork out right over her head, and began jabbing around at the gouda cubes. When the lady turned around to give him a dirty look, thereby taking more time out of her brie-slicing mission, first lady came pushing her way back through the crowd with another pair of tongs, which she promptly broke on her first attempt to get at a mozzarella ball. That’s when it got ugly. After much harrumphing, people just began reaching over heads, in front of faces, grabbing with their bare hands whatever they could get. Wine cups went flying. First lady, practically in tears over the tongs, picked up an entire goat cheese ball and plopped it onto her plate. “She’s going to get constipated,” Alyssa said shaking her head. Anyway, next time I’ll have to remember to eat before the play, especially if there is an after-party. Above pic is of Alyssa, who is smiling brightly because she ended up with a bit of cheese after all!

Last night I went to another student performance, this one by dancers in the MFA program at Juilliard. The first was a new modern piece by Susan Marshall, the second (and my favorite of the evening) was Twyla Tharp’s Deuce Coupe — a combination of swingy jazz and traditional ballet set to Beach Boys music, and the third a beautifully haunting piece called Soldiers’ Mass by Jiri Kylian. It was my first time seeing the Tharp, which makes sense since this is the first time it’s been performed in NY since 1992 and I haven’t been here that long. I love her work the more I see of it, even with non-professional students performing, and I’d love to see Alvin Ailey do this one. She’s so fun, so funny, and I love how she is able to combine different dance styles to sometimes humorous, sometimes thought-provoking, but always entertaining effect. I know some see her as ‘poppy’ and roll their eyes at the mention of her name, but I stand by my thoughts that if anyone’s work can be used to take off from the current (and hopefully long-lasting!) ballroom craze to revive popular interest in ballet, it is hers.

At the end of Saturday night, I realized that, although I miss seeing all the theater I used to, as I get older I prefer dance. I guess I feel like I can relax and just let my senses take over — listen to the beautiful music and watch the beautiful movement and let it take me wherever it does; I don’t have to listen really intently for each spoken word fearing I may miss something crucial to understanding something else later on.

 

This is a picture of Lincoln Center, which is currently under construction. Normally, they have a walkway lined with benches passing over 66th Street and connecting Lincoln Center to Juilliard, which is on the side of the street where I’m standing to take the picture. Stupidly, I forgot they were doing construction until I was in the plaza at Lincoln Center, wondering where in the world that bridge went and how I was going to get over the Juilliard! I hate construction — especially since I really liked that bridge! I mean, I like the idea of revitalization, I just wish they could do it, like, overnight!

 

Today’s New York Times’ Arts and Leisure section contains the first real article I’ve seen by the new chief dance critic, Alastair Macauley. There was a bit of controversy caused by his appointment because of his sex and the fact that he’s from London, not New York (thus arguably bypassing several female critics far more familiar with the New York dance scene). So, since there will probably be a lot of scrutiny of his first few writings, let’s join in and make him feel REALLY welcome, ha ha! Just kidding 🙂 Anyway, this article is on the current Romeo and Juliet trend: the ballet is being performed by both ABT and the New York City Ballet this upcoming season; ABT is doing the 1965 version by Sir Kenneth MacMillan (my favorite!!!), and NYCB will be doing a new version choreographed by their artistic director Peter Martins. Kristin Sloan of the Winger (and a NYCB dancer of course!) has helped put together a behind-the-scenes video of the upcoming production, which can be viewed on the NYCB website, here. I also linked to it in my blogroll, on the right, under Dance: Ballet, etc. It’s a lot of fun to watch and see how the dancers learn to sword-fight and all that great stuff, so do check it out! Click here to read her post where she talks about it.

So, I guess that’s my biggest complaint about the Macaulay piece — he neglected to mention Sloan’s new exciting project, but then I am partial to her 🙂 The piece centered on placing the ballet within it’s historical context and comparing the different versions over the years both to each other and to some theatrical, non-dance, versions. He says it’s appropriate for him to write about this ballet as his first piece for the paper because this was the ballet that originally made him fall in love with the art form. I definitely hear him on that! Same with me 🙂

He starts off saying he thinks the ballet has been so oft re-choreographed because of the “popular idea . . . that in any case dance is all about sex.” I didn’t know that was a popular idea, and I’d thought of that ballet as being more about romance and doomed love and all that, but maybe that’s just me… But overall, a good article and I learned several new things — one being that the Nureyev version had Mercutio come back to life as a ghost to haunt Juliet and talk her into her final actions! He also talks about different dancers’ interpretations of the roles: Lynn Seymour, MacMillan’s original Juliet from the sixties, for example, danced a rather ‘naughty’ balcony scene fraught with sexual tension. When he’d asked the ballerina why she’d made that artistic choice, she said that she was emulating Judy Densch in the Zefferelli film version! The thing that most struck me though was, when describing Margot Fonteyn’s take on the part, he mentioned she was 56 when he saw her perform. I know she danced all the way up until she was in her mid-sixties, and I wonder why ballet dancers today retire SO young? If she could dance for so long, why not everyone?

I also saw in the Times a full-page ad for ABT!

 

Under each principal photo, they put a little blurb by a critic praising the dancer 🙂 Awesome advertising!

Finally in the Times, Style section this time, was a little story on Paulina Porizkova going to get a pedicure in a SoHo salon.

 

I thought it was funny because I’m pretty sure it was written before she got booted off DWTS (there was only a small parenthetical blurb mentioning it and most of the piece dealt with her new status as dancer and novelist — she has her first novel due out soon, apparently). It was cute, and I’m really glad they still decided to run it after she, unfairly dammit!!! 🙂 got kicked off.

Finally (and then I’m almost done for the night, I swear), I booked my plane ticket for Blackpool! I’m so excited! But it was a little too stressful, I hate to admit. Ever since 9/11 I have this crazy stupid nervousness of flying, and I say crazy and stupid both because it has been so long since everything happened and I just feel like I should be so over it by now, and because I really do love to travel and this obviously hinders that. For the first couple of years afterward, I wouldn’t even fly — I just kept taking trains and going on cruises — the latter of which can get ridiculously expensive, especially if you’re just using the ship as a mode of transportation and not appreciating all of the amenities like the entertainment and food and all. I started flying a few years ago when, believe it or not, I had to go to a dance competition in Florida and couldn’t take off all the time from work needed to take the 30-hour-each-way Amtrak. So, I guess dance got me flying again 🙂 I’ve since taken many flights, and I guess I’m okay once we’re in the air, but it’s just sitting on that runway thinking… ugh! It actually has been good for me to read the Winger and Matt’s blog and see all the fearless ABT people flying all over creation — makes me feel like if they can do it, everyone can do it, I can do it, ‘there’s nothing to fear but fear itself’…