Tag: Friends

Posted on

Pasha!

I don’t have much time to write because I need to head off to Alvin Ailey soon, but here are a few pictures I took last night of Pasha after the “Rhythm of Love” show. Very cute show, and review coming soon; if you’re anywhere near Stamford, Connecticut, it’s playing for one more night — tonight. Go here for tix.

Signing autographs for little fans. So cute! All these people were coming up to him afterward telling him how much they loved him and asking for autographs. Elaine (his former student, very sweet lady, in the blue sweater here) and I were teasing him about how we knew him way back when. He insists he’s not “famous” and nothing has changed a bit. And he definitely hasn’t changed — still same sweet guy who always has time for old friends…

Posing for picture with Elaine after the theater has pretty much cleared out. No pics of me because I have a nasty cold and know it can be devastating for dancers to get sick, so didn’t want to stand too close to him (not to mention, I look like absolute crap). It really sucked missing out on my hug though!

With Elaine again, in front of the theater. I always feel like crying whenever I say goodbye to him now…

Posted on

Little Piggy Am I!

A while ago I posted about a new bakeshop that recently opened on Wall Street. Well, I haven’t yet had a chance to make it over there (not so much because I’m lazy as that it’s been freezing and often rainy or sleety or slushy outside and it’s about 10 blocks away from my office, a lot farther than I’d hoped). So, to make up for my steadfast resistance these last couple of weeks, I dragged Alyssa with me to this lovely little event last night! (Author Rachel Kramer-Bussel is a MySpace friend of mine and she’d posted about it there; read the MediaBistro write-up here.)

It was splendid! Alyssa and I each had four cupcakes apiece. My favorite by far was this mini chocolate cake with chocolate frosting (being the chocolate lover I am), but most excitingly, surprisingly delicious was the middle. When you bit in, a creamy vanilla center just oozed out, flooding your mouth. I loved it! To me, the worst thing about cupcakes is all the cake — I like the frosting and will often half the cake height-wise and only eat the top. So, very happy was I to find a big mound of frosting smack in the middle of the bottom half! Alyssa’s favorites were the very popular red velvet, and a peanut butter-flavored mini. I didn’t get a chance to try that one apparently because I was busy placing my drink order when they were whizzed around.

It was a fun night. They had three raffles, giving away a stationary set bearing a cupcake design, a necklace with a cupcake pendant, and grand prize was an apron and oven mitten set featuring embroidered … guess whats! Apparently, the blog has a meet-up group which gets together every so often to try the City’s various new cupcakeries and learn cupcake design, etc. Hmmm…another group for me to join? Only if I promise myself to go to at least some of my Sambazina events.

The meet-up was held at the Beauty Bar on East 14th Street, which I’d never been to before. Walls were covered with vintage posters of women being coiffed, but what surprised me was that they actually have little manicurist booths where you can have your nails done whilst boozing it up with friends! Cool idea.

Afterward, after four cupcakes and a glass of red wine I was feeling my blood sugar soar a bit, so we headed to Veselka, the East Village’s 50-year-old Ukranian deli, and forced ourselves to eat things that are good for us (ie: borscht and stuffed cabbage). When I very first moved to New York I lived on 9th and Avenue A, the heart of the East Village and just around the corner from this homey little place, and I haven’t been back to the area much since, so it was kind of nostalgic.

Anyway, on the subway ride home I ran into an old acquaintance from my studio who accusingly asked me where I’d been. “Saving money,” I told her. Seriously, I’d meant to sign up for groups this month, but had other things going on on Monday nights, when my favorite instructor teaches. I really really really must sign up for January’s classes though. Especially now…

Posted on

Happy Happy Night: Feisty New Dance By Peter Martins and Promising New Ballet Movie!

I really had a nice time last night at New York City Ballet‘s opening night gala program, celebrating the start of their winter season. The highlights for me were the two world premieres — one of a new ballet, by NYCB artistic director, Peter Martins, the other a brief but fabulous excerpt from a new movie-in-the-making of Jerome Robbins‘s jazzy cool ballet, “N.Y. Export: Opus Jazz.” Rather than go in chronological order of the program, I’ll start with the highlights.

I’ve seen a lot of new ballets lately, and this one by Martins has definitely been one of my favorites. Titled “Grazioso,” it’s set to a score by Mikhail Glinka from the operas “Ruslan and Ludmilla” and “A Life For the Tsar.” I don’t know these operas, but the handy dandy Wikipedia tells me the first is based on a Pushkin poem with a complicated narrative, but at one point depicts three would-be suitors vying for Ludmilla’s hand in marriage. I assume this is the part Martins had set his ballet to, as that’s what I perceived “Grazioso” to be about.

And what a mad fun sexy competition it was! Everyone who knows me knows this is exactly the kind of thing I go for 🙂 : men trying to outdance each other with bravado galore. But there weren’t only high, twisty jumps and sailing-across-the-stage-in-a-splits leaps, Martins filled his male dancers’ variations with lots of very intricate, fast, complex footwork that required great precision and agility. And of course these men had that in spades. They were: Andrew Veyette, recently promoted to soloist, Daniel Ulbricht, who is known for his virtuosity and wowed audiences last season with his Mercutio in Martins’ “Romeo + Juliet,” and Gonzalo Garcia, a recent NYCB transplant from San Francisco Ballet, who I find to be very Rasta Thomas-esque. The sassy, daring, very athletic Ashley Bouder, whom I am growing to love more and more each time I see, danced Ludmilla.

One of the reasons I love Ashley is that she just throws herself into everything she does with such wild, intense abandon; she’s very much a risk-taker, which is what Balanchine wanted of his dancers. And, she’s a cute actor to boot. If I was a guy, though, I’d be very intimidated partnering her. She doesn’t really wait for the guy to be ready to go into a lift, she just throws herself up and he’d better be there to take her the rest of the way or else! That’s the way it should be of course — do your own thing and let the man figure out how to support you 😀

As far as the choreography: there was some cute partnering — at one point each man takes turns promenading Ashley around slowly and delicately, trying his best to be the most chivalrous. Then she takes off running, fluttering around all three men in an outer circle, like a Firebird, each one taking her hand and doing a little running lift with her before she rejects him and goes on to the next guy. Gonzalo, probably the best actor of the guys, feigned a stunned, dejected look when she threw off his hand and went into a lift with Daniel. Upon her rejection of him, Daniel simply shrugged and prepared for some more crazy bravura turns. Andrew looked thoroughly befuddled by her behavior, in a cute way of course! I liked these duets better than Martins’s “Romeo + Juliet” pas de deux, but I still think where Martins really excels choreography-wise is in the solo dancing, particularly with the men. As I said, some brilliant fast, fun, intricately-patterned footwork that made for a dazzling competition for Ludmilla’s flighty little hand.

The only thing I didn’t get was the costumes. Ashley was wearing this cute A-line cut, slightly puffed shoulder-sleeved dress with an apron-like covering. She looked like a chambermaid. The guys were wearing these 70s-style black tops that looked like they were made out of stretchy lycra with low-cut V necks lined with florescent colors — a different shade for each man. She looked like she belonged in a Dickens novel, they in Studio 54.

Second highlight was the movie-in-the-making adaptation of Jerome Robbins’s “N.Y. Export: Opus Jazz.” (above image is taken from the film’s website). Craig Hall is a natural film actor, let me tell you! He’s extremely photogenic and he has the subtle acting skills required for on-screen close-ups. They only showed a very brief excerpt but I think this is going to be fabulous when finished. They filmed it in what looks to be a run-down area of New Jersey, overlooking the Hudson River toward Manhattan. There’s a sole train track running through a patch of dead grass surrounded by abandoned buildings, and the filmed piece begins with Craig standing right in the middle of the tracks, a cocky, death-defying look on his face. Pretty Rachel Rutherford approaches him from behind, they perform a series of lifts, she seemingly trying to get him both off of the dangerous tracks and to love her. At the end, he walks away and she looks forelorn.

They were wearing regular, street clothes, I think just jeans and t-shirts. So, the filmmakers are taking the Robbins out of its 50s-era creation and placing it in the present to show how timeless Robbins — and ballet — really are.

And what I really love is that the filmmakers shot the pas de deux from various angles, some from high above, so you’re looking down on the would-be lovers at the different shapes their two bodies are making. It’s so much more interesting than seeing it straight on, from floor level, in the theater. This is what film can do for dance, I believe, really enhance the viewing and interpretive experience by showing different shapes and different viewpoints based on the angle of the camera and the distance of its gaze. I can’t wait for the film in whole to come out. The dancers who introduced it, Ellen Bar and Sean Suozzi, mentioned that it had just won an award, though I didn’t get the name of the festival.

So, the rest of the evening: they began with the Rose Adagio from “Sleeping Beauty,” Beauty being danced with the sweet, charming Megan Fairchild. This is the part where she is courted by four princes, who each take her around in a promenade, then let go of her hand while she performs those very difficult one-footed balances on her own. The new Martins ballet kind of had echoes of that now that I think of it. They also performed “Liturgy,” another Christopher Wheeldon Rorschach ballet. NYCB stars Wendy Whelan and Albert Evans (pictured at the top of this post, on the program’s cover) did the physically demanding, at times very beautiful and, as the name implies, beatific, pas de deux. I think I’m learning to not try to “get” Wheeldon — at least not his pas de deux — but just to appreciate Wendy’s mind-bogglingly, seemingly skeleton-less body and the enchanting, spidery shapes she makes with it. At intermission, I saw Philip and he exclaimed, “wasn’t Liturgy fantastic!” Taunting me! They also did a small excerpt from Balanchine’s “Western Symphony” a cutely raucous ballet celebrating the American West, replete with saloon girls, led by dazzling Maria Kowroski, and cowboys, led by Damian Woetzel. I’d seen him in a Fall For Dance Robbins piece several weeks ago and was underwhelmed by his performance then, thinking he didn’t give it his all. But, happily, he was back in full force last night, dancing and acting the rowdy, spur-kicking cowboy perfectly. Damian really is such a cutie.

They ended with a little filmed tribute to Lincoln Kirstein, this year being the centennial of his birth, and then on to the party, which I’m too poor to attend.

But I did see the set-up. Here’s where I stood sipping a glass of wine at pre-performance cocktail hour, apparently across the room from Sandi. I spied Kristin, and was about to say hello when interrupted by a bartender asking for my order. After I was finished, Kristin was nowhere to be found. There was no red carpet bearing famous people, so I guess there wasn’t much for her to film this time, as there had been for Martins’s “Romeo + Juliet” premiere. As I was leaving, I did see David Michalek waiting for the party to begin, which made me wonder if Candace Bushnell was there… the connection being of course celebrated artists married to star dancers, not that Michalek is venturing into the world of social satire / literary chick-lit 😀

Posted on

Am I Too Hard on Contemporary Choreographers?

I the weekend largely looking at art. On Friday night, my friend Dee and I went to the Whitney’s Kara Walker exhibit, “My Complement, My Enemy, My Oppressor, My Love,” about slavery and the Ante-Bellum South, which was excellent, and something everyone who has a chance should see. And the night before, my friend Alyssa invited me an opening of Shinique Smith’s show, “All Purpose,” at the Moti Hasson gallery in Chelsea.

This piece is titled “Thank You, Come Again.” I turned off my flash, because I’m always afraid it’s going to hurt the artwork, so the pics are a bit blurry, but this one’s comprised of several articles of clothing, all clumped together and affixed to the wall, a few scraggly threads trailing from the bottom looking to me almost like blood or tears, and a pile of socks with a sole red rose in the center beneath the wall hanging, on the floor.

Smith basically assembles her artwork from used / found objects, which reminded me of John Jasperse. Alyssa, who’s an Art history grad student specializing in African, told me using found objects rather than buying new is big among African artists right now because it symbolizes a rebellion against colonialism, globalization and the cultural imperialism of the West. (Smith is from Baltimore, but apparently is associated with African artists.)

I thought this one was charming. (Unfortunately, the gallery didn’t have the names of the artwork in its press release or on its website, so I don’t know all the names of the pieces). To me this looks like an animal, like a donkey, and I found the “head” and “ears” sweet because they’re made of a satiny fabric and tulle respectively, making me think of dance of course. Alyssa thought it looked “flamenco.” But the animal, who is carrying several adorable stuffed animals on its shoulders, appears to be carrying heavy bags on its side as well, so it looks a bit overburdened though not downtrodden.I liked this one because it made me think of Ian McEwan‘s novel “Enduring Love.” There was a rope attaching the crate to a pole in the ceiling, so it resembled a hot air balloon, and that book opens with a horrifying hot air balloon ride gone heinously wrong. The doe at the bottom is nostalgic to me, maybe because it looks like something my grandparents would always keep in a glass cabinet in their living room.

This one, the ‘star’ piece, is called “Glutton.” It was made of gilded cushions, with a red velvet blanket spilling out underneath. Alyssa and her friends thought it looked like a Buddha, which I guess it does, but is Buddha associated with gluttony? I found it beautiful but somewhat hideous at the same time; like incredible wealth and how it can be so striking but can also pervert or uglify.

Alyssa in foreground with friends Alison and Kim (who is an artist in Connecticut) in back. We joked about how Alyssa is becoming the “Where’s Waldo” of my blog 🙂 It was a very well-attended opening.

Anyway, I really enjoyed it, just walking around sipping Vodka (compliments of the exhibit’s sponsor), chatting with friends, and observing, investigating the art, trying to figure out how it was assembled, what materials it was made of, what all of the component objects were, what the work as a whole meant, symbolized, or evoked for me. The whole exhibit had kind of an air of nostalgia to me and made me a bit sad, sweet as the sculptures or wall figures were.

But it made me think about Jasperse too. I liked a lot of Smith’s pieces, but nothing really blew me away the way Jasperse’s clothes hanger sculpture / set did, the same way that none of his choreographic uses of found objects knocked me out like the hangers. And yet overall I still really enjoyed the Smith exhibit. But I was hard on Jasperse, coming away from the performance generally more disappointed. And I wonder why that is… if it’s that I expect more from dance (or something different anyway), if it’s that I spend more time with a dance performance, or more money on it (assuming I’m not buying the artwork anyway). Maybe it’s that I was physically closer to the art, could investigate it more thoroughly and take my time with it, or maybe it’s just that the drink and friendly chatter added to my enjoyment? … Anyway, after this exhibit, I felt like I shouldn’t have been as hard on Jasperse.

Another interesting discussion ensued amongst us ladies: whether you need to know something about the artwork in order to appreciate it or whether a work of art should stand entirely on its own. Funny to me because Jolene and I had just had a similar discussion on her blog (see comments here) regarding the two new abstract ballets ABT just put on. Alison said she didn’t necessarily need to know very much about a work, but titles and little notes did help. Sometimes. For example, the title in the top piece, “Thank You, Come Again,” which the artist’s note says is made from “ex-boyfriend’s clothes,” made her realize the pile of socks wasn’t just a mound of dirty underwear sitting on the floor for no purpose, they were remnants of the subject’s ex and they illustrated her sorrow and emptiness, a feeling made all the more powerful by the rose in the middle.

But, Alison added, Mark Rothko (whose art at least in his later years was extremely abstract, usually consisting of a sole geometric shape or different colored horizontal lines on a canvas) could give detailed names to all of his paintings until he was blue in the face and she would still see only abstract shapes.

I remember from the Kara Walker exhibit a drawing of an old white man, shirtless and with saggy male breasts, who was kind of breast-feeding a black baby. But he didn’t look so happy about it; rather, he tried to shield his rather disgusted expression from the baby’s mother. The image was striking and I kind of understood the racial aspect, but it meant so much more when I read in the curator’s explanation that the white man was famous abolitionist John Brown. So Walker is commenting upon the futility of white-led abolitionism and questioning the patriarchal reverence with which this man is held.

Another silhouette appeared to me, on first look, like a woman was jumping up excitedly, kicking her heels in the air, doing a little happy dance. But it also looked like her wrist was falling off and there was a spill on the ground below her that looked like a big mess. After reading the curator’s words I realized it was a pool of blood; she’d slit her wrist, and was dancing in excitement because by committing suicide, she’d freed herself and performed her own small role in abolishing slavery by depriving it of property.

Even just the silhouettes themselves: I hadn’t realized this little decorative art form was a fixture of, first aristocratic, then haute-bourgeois households, the poser usually being a delicate white woman; in fact, portraiture technique in the 1800s became a way of training “good ladies.” So, by painting most of her subjects in this way, Walker was turning an upper-class white art form on its head. The curator’s notes also say that the silhouette mimics the reductiveness of stereotypes, which I thought of as I was viewing the exhibit. But not knowing the history of silhouettes, I would have missed out on the class issue.

Anyway, sorry this post is all over the place. I’m starting to blab so am going to go to bed now. I also just wanted to point out that there’s a great conversation taking place on Apollinaire’s blog regarding dance-makers’ obligations to their audiences. Go here to take part. The dance blogosphere is becoming fun!

Posted on

Just What I Need…

Thanks to my wonderful friend, Kathy, who knows what a horrendous sucker I am for anything containing substantial amounts of sugar, for alerting me to the fact that a new piggery, Crumbs, is opening tomorrow in the Financial District. They will be giving a complimentary cupcake of choice to the first 1000 patrons. Woo hoo! Because I didn’t just learn yesterday at the doctor’s office that I have now gained 9 pounds during my dance hiatus or anything…

Posted on

A Weekend of Latin Dance With Two Ballet Legends

Julio!!! Today I trekked all the way out to the end of the 2 line, to Brooklyn College’s Performing Arts Auditorium, to see Julio Bocca’s very final performance in the United States. Julio, Argentinian ballet legend who spent most of his career with American Ballet Theater and who just retired from ABT last year (see my bizillion photos of that splendid event here), danced one final year with the ballet / tango company he founded in Argentina, Ballet Argentino, and is now permanently retiring from dance. His final performance is to be in Argentina next month. He’s 40 years old.

He’s so great. Watching him today made me sad again, remembering last year’s farewell. He looked really good, more in his element today actually than toward the end of his ABT days. He looked really happy and at ease. And he’s let his hair grow out, which to me looks a lot better than short:

At the end, in the final curtain call, he came out in a white bathrobe. At ABT’s final bow, he came out in tights only and had a beer, at one point pouring it all over himself. This curtain call was about 1/100th the length of last year’s, and I’m thinking it’s in large part because the theater was filled with regular Brooklyn College-ites and not Bocca fans. Several people around me exclaimed that they’d never seen the auditorium so packed. They didn’t seem to know…

Anyway, the performance, “Bocca Tango” was a series of balletic tangos, most very beautiful, some cute and humorous.

Julio shined in his solos, in which he danced gorgeous contemporary balletic pieces, one with a table as prop / set, and the other with a ladder. The ladder was my overall favorite, as, judging from the applause, was the audience’s.

The way he worked that ladder, snaking his body through the rungs, hurling himself onto a step and acrobatically throwing his legs up and over his body where they landed on a top bar. It was incredible, and looked very risky.

He also did a few duets with a female partner, and a couple with a male, in which he danced the female part. All pas de deux involved a combination of tango and ballet, so among all of the partnerships, including the male / male, there was both straight tango dancing and beautiful lifts. Julio makes a really lovely follower / ballerina 🙂 There was also a group number involving several couples, two male / female, one male / male (involving Julio again as ‘the feminine’). The male / male duets weren’t really homoerotic or romantic though; they were more cute and playful.

My favorite duet overall was one he danced with a woman to a swift allegro, a kind of milonga-style tango combined with swingy balletic lifts. They were both dressed in light blue — he shirtless and in pastel pants, she in a flowing knee-length baby blue dress. Both barefoot. Much of the partner dancing was barefoot, which I prefer to the typical high tango heels. It’s more natural, you can see the shape of the leg better when the dancer goes on releve (ball of foot), and of course the beauty of the foot itself. Plus, I think it’s easier to dance in bare feet, even if you’re on releve the whole time. He had another seductive number with another woman, both of them dressed only in underwear. The lights were very dimmed so you couldn’t really make out much besides the outlines of their bodies, making it all the more sensuous, in my opinion.

It was of course an irreplaceable experience to see Julio perform, but as far as the choreography went, after about the first hour, everything began to look the same: same overhead lifts, same tango steps, same combinations. I think the choreographer (Ana Maria Stekelman) could work to vary the choreography more, come up with some more original, more poetic lifts at least. And I haven’t taken much tango, but this seemed pretty basic. Luis Brava’s “Forever Tango” had a lot more variety. In Brava’s show, which I saw three or four years ago, I remember seeing a man lift his partner overhead, then, continuing to carry her, do chaine turns (continuous two-footed turns) diagonally across the room. It was breathtaking. I’ve never seen anything like it since.

I still can’t believe this was Julio’s final performance…

Saturday night, Apollinaire and I went to the Baryshnikov Arts Center in Hell’s Kitchen to see one of the best flamenco performances I’ve ever seen, Maria Pages‘s “Self Portrait.” Brilliant! Those bewitching hands! Those boneless wrists! How does she do it? She made me want to take flamenco again so badly.

One thing I really love about flamenco is how the band is part and parcel of the dance. Far from being stuck down in some orchestra pit, they sat adjacent to the stage, four band members on each side, their gaze concentrated on Maria. There was one male singer, one female, and instruments included drums, guitars (obviously) but even a cello! Apollinaire and I both remarked we’d never seen such an instrument at a flamenco performance before. The singing, especially the man (although Apollinaire loved the woman) was gorgeous. I don’t know that much about world music or dance (other than the little Latin I’ve taken) but the man’s singing sounded very Indian, not at all Spanish. Both song and dance seem filled with so much anguish and sorrow, but also celebration and immense beauty.

There were also two male dancers who accompanied Maria at points, and of course I went wild over their insanely fast footwork. Plus, one looked quite a bit like Herman, with long, black boyish curls. Irresistible!

The night was made all the more fun by the salon / cafe-style setting. Instead of a regular theater, they had set up little round tables surrounded by folding chairs, and they sold champagne (only $4 per cup!) and little nut mixes that you could bring into the “theater” with you. The relaxed atmosphere made you want to tap your feet to the infectious rhythm, clap your hands, snap your fingers, shout “Ole” and try to sing along with the band. I want more of these kinds of things! The last two numbers were danced to a remake of John Lennon’s “Imagine” (which is amazingly flamenco-friendly — who knew?!), and then the band members all began chanting and kind of cutely cajoling Maria into dancing some more. Their voices sounded like a kind of flamenco rap! So much fun.

Another highlight:

The man himself 🙂 Not onstage, but in the audience, front center. From where I was sitting, I had the perfect view of him and I couldn’t stop watching. I broke out into giggles at several points as well. He’s so cute. He wears his hair all mussed about and has a trendy goatee and he’s still very small and dancerly, so from afar he looks just like he always did; it’s only when you get up close you see all the lines on his face. When we were in the lobby and Apollinaire was taking care of the press tickets while I was placing my alcohol order, he walked in. The ticket collector called out to him. “Misha,” she called him! Not Mr. Baryshnikov!!! I know he probably told all of his employees to call him by his nickname, but still! Anyway, more cafe-style, participatory Latin dance events with Baryshnikov within reach please please 🙂

Finally, this has nothing to do with Latin dance or ballet legends or even dance in general, but while I’m on the subject of my crazy weekend, on Friday night my friend Alyssa, whose friend does PR for The Big Apple Circus, invited me to their gala. I haven’t been to the circus since high school, and I’ve never been to any gala event. Beforehand in the lobby they had very chi-chi hors d’oeuvres like mini duck tacos, along with open bar and cotton candy 😀 Then they gave us box dinners while we watched the show.

Mmmm

Alyssa enjoys a glass of wine with dinner.

Show was fun – -nothing big with elephants or tigers, but there were some good gymnasts and really cute dogs. I know I should probably be against any use of animals, but they were just so cute…

As long as they’re treated well… This lady had these adorable poodles walking on their hind legs carrying various objects. At one point a poodle came out dressed in an old lady’s moomoo and, walking on its hind legs holding a leash connected to a cat, walked the cat around the perimeter of the tent. Alyssa and I were laughing so hard we were crying.

Then, they had these amazing acrobats. This duo reminded me of David and Marcelo mainly I guess because of their hair color. Marcelo lay down on his back, raised his feet in the air, and kicked David all about, sending him into these continuous magnificient air sommersaults!

Sorry about the blur. I didn’t want to hurt anyone by turning on my flash.

Three was a great belly / hoola dancer.And these bronzed people who did these crazy lifts.

Christopher Meloni from Law & Order: SVU, and Meredith Viera, were the celebrity ringleaders.

Hehe, fun night! After the show, they brought out a mat and covered the show area with an array of desserts. It was like midnight buffet on a cruise ship. They had every kind of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream bar imaginable, an enormous cake with “Big Apple Circus” written all over it, cookies, chocolate-covered fruit, brownies, everything. I didn’t feel so well when I walked out of there to be honest. I do wonder how this compares to ABT’s galas…

Posted on

First Cha Cha in Six Months

I was so sad over ABT season ending, I felt like I needed to pull myself out of my depression. And what better way to do that than by … taking a dance class! I returned to my very first studio, Paul Pellicoro’s DanceSport, where I began three and a half years ago with group classes before I’d transferred to Dance Times Square and started privates with Pasha. It all seems like such a long time ago now, but remarkably, I recognized so many faces — so many of my old friends were still there and I was reunited with four of them in a one-hour period! Passion for ballroom is something that just stays with you forever.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t all that prepared with my dance bag. I forgot to pack a pair of beige tights, so had to look like a bit of an ass with mismatched shoes.

I wanted to ease myself slowly back into it — it’s been six months since my last lesson at DTS — so I decided on a bronze (lowest-level) Cha Cha — always my easiest dance.

Ugh, not anymore! I remembered all the steps but forgot how hard it is to maintain proper technique when the teacher plays the music at full speed! Warm-up went well-ish, but when the actual partner dancing began, I was tripping all over myself in no time. Plus, I forgot how hard it is to dance, to function really, in those blasted high-heeled, open-toed shoes. I’m always sliding forward in them, leaving my heel unstable. I guess it helps if you normally wear similar street shoes, like high-heeled sandals, but I don’t.

Happily, whenever I felt or saw myself in the mirror reverting to a nasty habit — like rising up on my toes during the middle cha cha cha instead of staying grounded with my heel on the floor, or falling backward during an underarm turn because I forget to have my body weight forward — I’d hear Pasha’s voice (“no leaning back, Tonya”), or feel his hand lightly but firmly pushing down on my head (which he used to do to keep me from rising on the cha cha chas). So, even though bad habits die hard, the words of great teachers don’t 😀

So I made a lot of mistakes. But, eh, I’ll get back into it.

Interestingly, I met an old friend from my Swing team, Mark, in the lobby. He was heading to a Hustle class and asked me what I’d signed up for. When I told him the International Cha Cha, he told me he thought the teacher, Werner Figar (who is new since I was last at the studio), was a member of the modern dance group, Elisa Monte Dance. He told me he recognized his name from a recent New York Times article, which I looked up when I got home and is here. The guy in the picture does look like Werner (who was very good — both as a Latin dancer and teacher), but his name isn’t on the company’s website. It’s just so odd to me that someone dances both Latin Ballroom and Modern professionally. They are such different kinds of dance and usually a person isn’t good at both. But very cool if he is! I’ll have to ask him next class…

DanceSport has relocated since I was last there — used to be at Columbus Circle and is now on 34th Street right near the Empire State Building. Their new space is way the heck bigger than the last — really floored me.

So many rooms!

And here’s the new huge lobby, which even has a little cafe off to the side. Paul, the owner, taught Al Pacino to dance for “Scent of a Woman,” so that poster stays up always. 🙂

Posted on

Capitalism, Poetic Clothes hangers, and $500 Apartments in the Village?!

Last night I went to see experimental choreographer John Jasperse‘s new work “Misuse Liable to Prosecution” at BAM’s Harvey theater in Brooklyn. Fun night! I went with Tony Schultz from the Winger, and we met up with some of his friends, one of whom is Ashley Byler, an up and coming choreographer who also contributes to the Winger and just landed a coveted residency at experimental dance venue Dance Theater Workshop in Chelsea. (Her first show will be in May.) We all went out for drinks and little foodie things afterward at nearby Scopello, which I loved. Very good food, spacious comfy area and very decent prices. I guess this is why people live in the outer boroughs… Everyone was so smart and it was a great time hanging out and talking about dance and art and Jasperse and Chuck Close and Labannotation, and all kinds of compelling stuff! I didn’t get home until early this morning, which is why I’m late with my review…

Anyway, Jasperse. Ashley and Tony loved it, I liked but didn’t love it, but thought certain parts were brilliant. According to the program notes, Jasperse began with the idea, “What is it like to exist in a capitalist society with little or no capital?” Sets and props are comprised of other people’s discarded items — clothes hangers, brooms, milk crates, bottles, etc., which Jasperse and his group of four dancers seek to re-invent, finding new, poetic meaning in society’s refuse. So, I guess by finding new uses and meaning in what society deems trash, while starting with the initial capitalist question, he is in a roundabout way perhaps questioning what a capitalist society finds meaningful (work that produces money) and what it doesn’t (experimental art / art in general).

I felt that the most brilliant reinvention of trash was the set. As I walked into the theater, my eye was immediately drawn to the stage, which looked ablaze with gleaming white holiday lights weaved into some kind of intricate snowflake formation. It was really breathtaking. Once I sat down and looked more closely though, I realized the Christmas lights were actually about 1,000 ordinary clear plastic clothes hangers. The way the plastic was lit by stage lights produced the glowing effect. It reminded of a sculpture I once saw in an American exhibit in the then newly-opened Kiasma Museum of contemporary art in Helsinki. From afar this striking piece hanging from the ceiling looked like a gorgeous chandelier. But on closer inspection I realized it was made entirely of chicken bones, which made me momentarily disgusted. I had to walk away, but I then kept returning to that piece, it was so jarringly mesmerizing. When I first saw the coat hanger sculpture, part of which hung quite close to the stage, forcing the dancers to interact with pieces of it, I thought it was brilliant. I felt that the movement, though, just didn’t rise to that same level.

As four dancers walked slowly around the stage carefully balancing several tied-together broomsticks on their heads, Jasperse came up front, sat on a milk crate (the name of the work, by the way, comes from a warning on a milk crate, which is really rather funny when you think about it — what possible wrongful, prosecution-inducing uses are there for a milk crate?), propped an orange traffic cone on top of a broomstick, and used the cone as a bullhorn reading various economic statistics through it: Judge Judy’s salary is something like $26 million more than that of all of the United States Supreme Court justices combined (which enrages me), employees of small arthouse BAM make half of what those of Manhattan’s posh Lincoln Center do, how much our government spends on the Iraq war as compared to funding for the arts (don’t even ask), how much money Jasperse makes ($26,000), and his various expenses, including those involved in transporting props to the studio, rehearsal space fees, food, and, most audience-wowing, his apartment — $500 a month, in the Village! Well, that’s certainly a thing of value, Mr. Jasperse! (For non-New Yorkers, the average teensy one-bedroom in the Village is currently going for $3350, says my friend who is looking.)

Anyway, after these stats are read, Mr. Jasperse joins the other dancers interacting with various props. Music is played by a woman (musician Zeena Parkins) standing off to the side wearing a mini-dress made of FedEx envelopes who plays a homemade industrial-looking harp. Bagpipes occasionally sound from above, from musicians standing on the balcony sides.

Some of my favorite moments: a dancer brings Mr. Jasperse a large box containing an item he seems to have purchased. He opens the box, finds a bean bag chair. He takes the chair out and looks quizzically at it, as the dancer throws the open box over his head. He takes the box off and begins playing with the bean bag chair, eventually with others, who throw it at each other like a giant hacky sack. Eventually, when the players tire of the game, Jasperse winds up with the bean bag chair over his head, walking around stage completely unable to see or breathe, stumbling into the clothes hanger sculpture. So, it’s like he’s been consumed by his own consumption.

Another favorite moment: four dancers take off their jeans. They then sit down on the ground and meticulously begin to fold the pants, like you see Banana Republic and Gap employees often doing. As soon as they’ve smoothed them all out, ready to be presented to the customer on the display table, the dancers lie down on them, use them as bed and blanket, wend their feet through the pants legs, eventually getting all tangled up. They then rise, untangle themselves, take the pants in one hand, grab the bottom of a leg, and begin whirling them around over head like a lasso. They whip the pants at the floor, each other, and eventually into the back wall. I saw in this well-founded anger at all those horrendous chain stores that have completely taken over and all but ruined parts of the city like SoHo, which, for non-New Yorkers, used to be the gallery district and is now basically a mall.

At another point, a male and female dancer take a clothes line on which several garments are hung, lie down, and, using only their feet, somehow weave the clothes all into the woman’s top. She ends up a Humpty-Dumpty-esque literal “stuffed shirt.”

A part the audience found amazing, judging by the ooohs and aaaahs: two women roll out a sheet as if they’re about to have a picnic. They disappear into the wings and return with several water bottles, which they put onto their picnic cloth. They disappear again, making me think they were going to get their baskets filled with food. But instead they return with more bottles, then more and more, until it’s not they who are having a picnic at all but the water bottles themselves. They then lie on the sheets amongst the bottles, and, using only their feet and legs, scrunch up the sheet so that eventually they have several water bottles lined up between their legs. They lift their legs in the air, rotate them, the bottles still held tightly between legs, then one by one deposit each bottle into the sheet, still using only their legs. I guess it is a difficult feat, but what was this supposed to mean? At another point, one which takes up a large part of the whole, a mattress is brought out and dancers thrash themselves at it, the mattress eventually enveloping a dancer as had the bean bag chair earlier. But the bean bag chair had arrived in a box, so it was like a purchase; the mattress was just lugged out onstage. A lot of these kinds of uses of the props were comical and interesting and involved difficult feats using entwined limbs, but some of them I couldn’t figure any meaning into, and none had the poetry of the clothes hanger set.

At the end, Jasperse returns to his traffic-cone megaphone and tells the audience that he couldn’t really figure out how to end the piece. He thought of lining the theater’s edges with explosives and setting them off like firecrackers so that the walls would fall like dominoes and the ceiling would open up so we could see the sky. The audience cracked up at this. Realizing that wouldn’t do, he asked us all to take a deep breath and open our imaginations instead. He gave us a moment to do so, then told us all he hoped we enjoyed the rest of our evenings. It felt like the end of a yoga class.

I guess it’s kind of one of those things where everyone takes away something different. Here’s Counter Critic’s review, and here’s Jennifer Dunning’s in the Times. It’s showing tonight and tomorrow, go here for tix.

Posted on

Very Happy Night :)

It’s almost 4 in the morning and I’m very tired, so am just going to post some pictures now and will blog about it (So You Think You Can Dance tour) tomorrow (well, later on today, I guess). In general, it was a lot of fun, the dancing was all excellent — really some of the best I’ve ever seen, the choregraphy so so (some good, some not as good as the rest, but oh well … there was a new group number I hadn’t seen before: the swamp creatures? Was it on a show I missed? Anyway, I really liked it — it was contemporary lyrical mixed with some African moves, very interesting). Dominic is a doll, has THE BEST personality with a great comedic sensibility and I think has a future as an actor, seriously! He also looked awesome break-dancing on that big stage! Danny it goes without saying looked great on a big stage as well, but I still think his solo (same one he did on the show) could be much better — turn some of those grand jetes into barrel turns and do some of the pirouettes on a bent knee going up and down like Angel Corella 🙂 In my opinion Pasha and Anya stole the show with their samba/cha cha, but of course I am biased 🙂 One thing I noticed is that Latin / Ballroom looks better on TV and on a small stage, ballet on a big stage. (Tidwell, by the way, introduced himself as a jazz and contemporary dancer, no ballet.)

My only real criticism of the program is that they had too many flashbacks and too much talk about the show and not enough dancing! They had three big screens erected over the stage and they used them to show all these scenes of early rounds in which bad people were eliminated (why do we need to see this again?), they showed scenes over and over and over again of people falling, they had a bunch of footage of those little off-screen moments between the dancers most of which were already shown on TV, and the judges’ reactions to things, and even some of the dancing on the show. I wish they would have axed all this and just created more original dances for the dancers to perform. I guess it was more of the actual show on tour rather than the dancers on tour. But it was still a very fun night. I’m perturbed at Danny though for not showing up to the backstage “meet and greet”!!!!! Where were you, Danny????

Anyway, here are a few pics (the rest you can find by clicking on the link to my Flickr page, which is that very last link on the right-hand side of the blog):

Pasha greeting former student, Elaine, and spotting me!!!

Anya doing the same! (greeting another of Pasha’s former students, Mariana). So many of us 🙂 He sure was popular 🙂


Sabra greeting Tony Meredith.

Dominic and Lacey.


Neil greeting what appear to be friends.

Neil and Lacey performing the Mia Michaels choreography dedicated to her father.


Danny and Neil doing Mia’s “Princes” piece.

Sorry my pictures are so blurry but I was one of the few who actually obeyed orders and turned off my flash. If you’re a dancer and you’re reading this and you’re thinking of trying out for the show, just be assured that if you make it to the end you’re going to be performing amongst bizillions of flashes going off incessantly! It was crazy — it was like a continuous light show in there!

Pasha’s solo. He used a cape this time, no mannequin 🙂

Group number.


Danny and Anya’s beautiful waltz.

Pasha and Anya’s samba / cha cha.


Pasha and Sabra’s quickstep.

Hehhe, going back in time to the beginning of the trip, when we were just boarding the bus to go out to Long Island, this is Steve, a friend of mine from the studio and Anya’s former student, telling me, apropos of my crazy rampage yesterday against poor Claudia LaRocco and dance criticism in the Times (he assures me he reads my blog, just doesn’t comment 🙂 ), that he enjoys The Sun!


One more of Pasha! Here with former student Mariana. Isn’t he cute!!!!!

Okay, that’s all for now, I have to go to bed. It was a very fun night and I really had a lovely time reuniting with all of my friends from the studio, and of course seeing Pasha and Anya, and of course watching all of these amazing dancers. I am out of my bad mood now 🙂 At least until I read the reviews!!!

Posted on

Only Three Weeks Now!

Until City Center season!!! Yay 🙂

friend Alyssa, who is a grad student at Columbia and also has a part time job as a receptionist. She revealed to me that a few days ago, he came into the place where she was recepting. She wasn’t sure if it was him, having seen him only once, with me last year at Martha’s Vineyard, so she didn’t say anything to him. But she whispered to the person he came to see that she thought he was a dancer. The person mentioned it to him, telling him the receptionist recognized him. She said his face was aglow; he was very excited about being recognized! And that he was very warm and nice and a lovely person. I knew Marcelo was warm and nice and lovely! And I knew he appreciated his fans! I love him so 🙂 I should be his publicist…

Posted on

Officially Bitten

by the Ethan bug! Yes, I’ve repeatedly rolled my eyes at friends for falling for his goofy macheesmo motorcycle-riding ballet boy in Center Stage, for swooning right out of their seats over his simple (non-dancing) self-introduction at the start of Stiefel & Stars; I’ve shrugged my shoulders at his macho motorcycle-riding real self in Born To Be Wild (Jose‘s cuter and more interesting, being from the forbidden land, I thought), and his ceiling-high assemble during which he beat his feet together more times than I could count at ABT’s Met gala last year (pshaw, David can do that, I declared… well… almost). No one could understand my offensive nonchalance, my dumbfounding indifference, my mentally ill resistance to Ethan-infatuation. No, they couldn’t understand me, and I certainly couldn’t understand them.

Well, all that changed last night when I spotted him in the audience at the New Ballet program at Columbia University’s Miller Theater. (I’ll write about this very soon, along with the tap dancing rock concert, Revolution, which I saw at the Joyce in Chelsea Thursday night). He was watching the new ballets a couple of rows behind me, with Damian Woetzel. He had his hair all fashionably brushed forward and it looked like he had some highlights put in (yes, he has blonde hair to begin with, but his hair now seems to be different shades of blonde). He was just kind of sitting there flashing his cocked little half-smile at everyone who looked at him, seemingly slightly self-conscious about all the attention, but not in a shy way, if that makes any sense at all. At intermission, he got up and politely shook hands with some people, and when he sat down again I saw an older man — obviously a fan — approach him and ask him the obvious — was he coming back to the stage this Fall?? With a sad, wistful look in his eyes, he shrugged his shoulders and looked down at his knees. As they continued to talk, his cute cocked half-smile slowly returned. I could see him telling the man, “thank you.” Something about it was just so sweetly endearing. He just looked so handsome and forlorn. And I don’t know how to explain it, but something happened. I saw flashing lights. The skies opened. I saw what every other woman on the planet has seen. Right then and there I fell head over heels. I am in love with Ethan Stiefel! I am normal! All I could think about on my subway ride home was how I have to see him do that assemble again — soon! I almost even watched Center Stage again but then came to my senses 🙂 I’ll wait for City Center.

Posted on

"The New York City Dance Community"

dance community NY group photo in bryant park

I don’t know who in the dance community annoys me more: those who consider themselves hipper than thou and call themselves “downtown,” or those who consider Ballet the only form of dance.

Spurred by Eva’s suggestion, I went to Bryant Park this afternoon to take part in the first ever group photograph of the New York dance community, organized by Belgian online dance initiative Sarma and local dance collective Chez Bushwick. Everyone who considered themselves part of the dance community was invited. Since I’m a dance blogger, ballet and modern fan and amateur ballroom dancer, I decided that included me.

When I arrived I spotted a robust, jovial-looking, curly-haired man wearing a t-shirt that announced he was a member of the photo op, and headed toward him. I kind of look like Sylvia Plath but shorter and with darker hair, or maybe Suzanne Farrell but not anywhere near as pretty 🙂 I have long hair and was wearing a ballet-y black bouncy-skirted sundress bow-tied at the waist by a red silk scarf, and sandals whose straps were topped with embroidered flowers. I was carrying an oversized pink bag bearing books. After making brief eye contact with me, the man peered around me to another woman and began greeting her, until I stopped right in front of him.

“Oh hi,” he said to me, surprised. “Um, we’re actually taking a photograph of the New York dance community here. Would you like to participate?” he asked hesitantly.

“Uh-huh, that’s what I’m here for,” I said.

“Oh. Oh good,” he said handing me a piece of paper announcing the rules (you gave them permission to use the photos of you on the internet and in magazines, yadda yadda). He also told me after the picture was taken, I was to sign my name on a roster of attendees and would receive a sticker entitling me to a free drink at one of the concession stands. He then told me they were running a little behind schedule and directed me to take a seat at one of the tables in an adjacent elevated area along the path.

I did as he suggested. Turned out to be the perfect little perch for me since its elevation gave me a good view of the crowd. I enjoy being an observer. Plus, I was having a bad hair day and was a little worried of running into Marcelo or David or one of my ballet heartthrobs, so could be on the lookout and duck for cover if need be. I had nothing to worry about as it turned out: there wasn’t a soul from the ballet world there.

Many people began arriving, and I didn’t know anyone. Finally, I spotted a fellow blogger in the crowd. As he was making his way to the tabled area after receiving his instruction paper, I waved to him.

“What are you doing all the way over here?” he said as he approached. I didn’t really understand the question so responded with a quizzical look.

“We don’t ever see each other,” he then announced, “because you’re a snobby elitist who only goes to uptown things. I go to all the cool downtown things.”

I just stared at him, not really knowing what to say. He laughed. Apparently I was supposed to take it as a joke.

“Well, I’m going to go around and meet new people while you sit here like a wallflower.” And he was off.

I kind of sat there stupefied. I think I saw Eva, but after that didn’t feel like getting up to say hello. Maybe some other time. I saw Jonah Bokaer, one of the organizers of the event and a dancer with Merce Cunningham. He’s rather cute in person 🙂 He was going around giving people who looked like they belonged small bottles of water. That didn’t include me. He looked right through me when he passed directly in front of my table even though I had my piece of paper with the instructions prominently displayed. A twenty-something woman with dark hair bearing a green “press pass” around her neck was going around with a notepad. She stopped at a table in front of me at which sat a man and two women with really cool-looking dreadlocks. I overheard them tell her they were retired dancers, now choreographers. I wondered if the interviewer was Gia.

About half an hour later, an announcer muttered something over a microphone that barely worked. From the crowd’s actions, I figured he was telling people to line up to his left. I followed suit, but kind of wish I’d just have stayed where I was to take pictures. I got a space all the way in the back of the crowd. I could hear him now telling taller people to move to the back, but apparently the average man over six feet either doesn’t understand English or has no sense of his size in comparison to others. Or else “downtown” male dancers are just rude. Some tiny women in the back brought over some chairs and stood on them. Soon, a security guard was in on the action ordering the people to get off the chairs. They paid him no mind. He yelled louder. They continued to ignore him. I couldn’t believe their audacity. And it did look dangerous: the plastic chairs were very insubstantial and the ground was really rocky and unstable. I wouldn’t stand on such a thing and these were dancers. He walked right up to one of them and yelled in her face to get off the chair or else. This was far more exciting than the photographer up front!

“Oh come on, officer” she whined like a character in Rent. Thankfully the last picture was snapped and the whole experience over, so there was no further trouble.

Good thing about being in the back was I was first in line to record my name. That of course didn’t mean I was actually first to do so. As the man handed me pen and paper, someone reached over my head and snatched the whole right out of my fingers, bumping me on the crown with the back board. Other pens and rosters were handed about, arms flying feet stomping everywhere. About fifteen minutes later I was finally able to scribble my name, identity (blogger), place of birth and email address, and receive my sticker, which I promptly took to the nearest concession stand.

“What’s this thing?” the clerk snapped.

“We’re supposed to get a free drink?” I said.

She laughed shaking her head. “I don’t know nothin’ about this.”

“The dance community gathering, over there,” I pointed to the raucous crowd bombarding the man with the rosters and stickers.

“I don’t know and I don’t wanna know,” she spit.

I guess it was a fitting end to a discomfiting experience. Weird, I was just saying how good it felt to be part of the dance community.