Tag: Marcelo Gomes

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Julie + Marcelo = The Ultimate Romantic Partnership!

Last night I saw American Ballet Theater‘s “Manon,” the 18th Century story, originally an opera, about a French woman torn between her love of a poor young student, Des Grieux, and the monied gentleman, Monsieur G.M., to whom she has been promised by her brother, the greedy, callous Lescaut.

First, ABT’s casting has been weird lately. Originally, when I bought the ticket I’m pretty sure I was expecting to see Julie Kent perform the title role, with Marcelo Gomes as Des Grieux, and when I looked at ABT’s website recently to remind myself whom I was seeing, it indeed said Julie and Marcelo. Last night, I opened my Playbill to see an insert announcing that Diana Vishneva is ill and unable to perform, so the title role will be danced by … Julie Kent. Okay…? There were several casting changes: instead of Gennadi Saveliev dancing Lescaut, I had Sascha Radetsky; in place of Michele Wiles as Lescaut’s mistress was Carmen Corella (yay! 🙂 🙂 🙂 ), and the beggar chief was Arron Scott instead of Jared Matthews. Commenter Larry on Matt’s blog had mentioned numerous casting changes happened during last Saturday’s Sleeping Beauty as well. Is ABT like one of those cruise ships where everyone onboard comes down with flu before the tour is over?!

Anyway, I was perfectly happy to see Julie — whom I was expecting to see after all — dance with Marcelo because they are so my favorite ballet couple! They work so well together, and it’s completely obvious how comfortable they are with each other. Their size and age differences to me are part of what make them so compelling, so charming, romantically endearing — she is like a china doll in his big, protective arms, and she’s so easy for him to lift, he just scoops her up into those beautiful waist-high poses then hoists her up into an overhead lift with such ease and fluidity. In a way, the way he swung her about from low slides on pointe, to those ever-sweet “cradle”-looking lifts, into flowing arched-back spins, and poetic overhead lifts, looked a bit reckless, but their love IS reckless here so it works. And, I know he’s only 10 instead of 20 years younger than she, but there is still something somewhat Nureyev and Fonteyn about them — not compeletely, but somewhat — she radiates beautiful, wise maturity and sophistication and he is all young, strong, ingenuous boyish passion.

And Marcelo is just always so cute, I can’t even handle it sometimes! As I’ve said before, he’s so everyguy, guy-next-door, which isn’t to say he’s not fully into character in these long-ago period dramas, but more that he’s so down to earth, he brings an air of realness and relatability to it. At the beginning, it’s so sweetly human when his Des Grieux feigns accidentally bumping into Manon, just to meet her. I couldn’t help but giggle. And those were definitely real kisses in the bedroom scene; I could hear the final smack he planted on her lips right before dashing out to mail his letter!

Marcelo’s free-arm-floating-in-the-air-to-make-a-line thing didn’t look awkward like it did to me in Othello, maybe because of his white, blousy, flowing shirt or maybe just because the choreography was more fluid. Still think there’s still a bit of overacting on Marcelo’s part (shaking head, head in hands, etc. — emotions I’d rather see register just in the intensity in his eyes), but I guess he is trying to project all the way to the back of an enormous house, so maybe it’s unfair to want him to act like a film actor having an on-screen close-up.

So, the others: Carmen!!! I love her so! She wore this sweetly playful but maneuvering smile all throughout. And something about the way she wears her costumes makes me want to try all of them on! She made this deep greenish / golden corseted thing with black taffeta skirt look so brilliant… Seriously, I think I’m the same size … am probably dreaming though; likely am three times her size and wouldn’t be able to pull the underneath leotard over my butt…

Some say Sascha is too small and cute-ish to emanate evil adequately, but he scares the living crap out of me when he dances these “mean” parts. In Act I, my first thought was, oh no, it’s Iago all over again, but then, in Act II after he got drunk (after Lescaut got drunk that is), the more humorous, human side of his villain shone through. He ended up doing the very wobbly, drunk-off-his-butt Lescaut better than I think I’ve ever seen it done. And he is a superb dancer.

Ditto for Arron Scott as the beggar chief. That must be very hard to do — pretending to be falling all over yourself in intoxicated stupor while doing terribly hard jumps and turns. Your balance would be so off.

Best part of the ballet though is all of those beautiful pas de deux between Manon and Des Grieux. I fear there’s never going to be another choreographer again like Kenneth MacMillan, who can make pas de deux like that — embodying poetry and beauty and sublimeness and passion and love… Maybe Lar Lubovitch — he has an edge and a wryness of course on top of all that but I want to see more…But back to Manon: query — does she HAVE to die at the end? Why can’t they just end up in America, struggling and broken with no money but still in love and surviving? Is there some unspoken rule that ballets always have to end in this gut-wrenching melodrama?

Side note: I saw NYCB principal dancer Nikolaj Hubbe during intermission talking to this guy pictured with Marcelo in this post on Matt’s blog, apparently named “Clinton” and perhaps an ABT ballet-master? (going by Matt’s blog…) Nikolaj is absolutely GORGEOUS — oh my gosh, with his hair all mussed about and in jeans — whoa!!

Also during intermission, on my way to the ladies room I ran into this attractive Russian guy in the lobby, with whom I made eye contact. During the second Act, he came down and sat in the unoccupied seat next to me … with his wife 🙁 When I whipped out my notepad and pen though, he did a double-take at me, perhaps thinking I was “someone” hehe! I noticed as well a couple of other people around me noticing my pad and pen… Oh, and thanks to everyone who commented on my previous post with their note-taking methods and advice! That was fun! After going over my notes this time, which were much more legible than last, I realized I’d actually already remembered everything I wanted to say! So, I think what impresses you most stays in your mind — though it always must help to have it jotted down — AND, you look like “someone important” in the process! 🙂

“Yeah-baby!” guy from my Othello audience was there too. He actually came down to orchestra during the second Act, like he did last time, and sat a few rows in front of me. Methinks he has a thing for Julie… But then he left before curtain calls so had no chance to hoot at everyone?.. Curtain calls were actually very short, and I don’t remember Carmen taking a bow now that I think of it…

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"Writing (Or Scribbling Messily) in the Dark," "The Nightingale and the Rose," and My Sleeping Beauties

On Friday night I went to New York City Ballet to see the premiere of a new ballet, “The Nightingale and the Rose,” by current resident choreographer (though soon to leave NYCB and focus on his own new company) Christopher Wheeldon.

Above picture is of my crazy notes, hehe. After attending a marathon post-modern dance panel discussion, about which I previously blogged, and hearing a small consensus of choreographers name Arlene Croce a good (former) critic, I’ve been flipping through her book, “Writing in the Dark, Dancing in The New Yorker” (which is a lot of fun by the way — reads almost like a novel or memoir of going to the ballet practically nightly in New York for two and a half decades and makes the NYC dance scene look like THE place to be from the seventies through early nineties — which, with the likes of Barsyhnikov and Suzanne Farrell and Merce Cunningham and all, it WAS … but, hey, it still is, just with different people!) Anyway, she talks up front about her method of note-taking, by which she carries a pad and pen to the performance, then jots things down, or sometimes — more often actually — gets so carried away by the performance that she forgets to write anything down at all, then is forced to rely on memory, which didn’t always work for small details like colors of costumes, etc., which is not a good thing when on deadline. Still, she concludes minimal notetaking is best: “it is the afterimage of the dance rather than the dance itself which is the true subject of the review,” she says, and in order “[t]o let an afterimage form, one has to give the stage one’s full attention, without the distraction of notes” (pg. 6). When Apollinaire Scherr invited me to NYCB to see one of the “Romeo”‘s, I noticed she did the same thing — had a small notepad and pen. I don’t think she wrote anything down though — it’s hard – you don’t want to take your eyes off of that stage! Anyway, I often forget small details like costume colors and minor props and sometimes even the exact sequence of events, so, I figured I’d try to be like a ‘real writer’ and actually jot down deets. Well, suffice it to say, it didn’t go too well — I was writing while looking at the stage, my scribbling is so sloppy I can barely read a word, some sentences are completely atop others, and some run off the page and into the open Playbill, where they’re now superimposed over pictures of dancers rehearsing, etc. Oh well, I tried… Anyway, here are my “afterimages”:

I thought Wheeldon’s ballet was beautiful in the images he created and emotions produced by the sad story, a great idea that may not have been completely perfectly executed (but are they ever on very first try?) The ballet’s narrative derives from the Oscar Wilde short story of the same name, and the storyline is as follows: a nightingale is onstage singing of love when a professor’s daughter enters followed by an ardent student infatuated with her. The daughter, aloof and undesirous of his attention, refuses to entertain his affections unless he can bring her a red rose. He runs about the school gardens, searching for one, but can find only yellow and white. The nightingale, touched by his plight (and perhaps in love with the student herself?), agrees to help him. After searching long and hard, she finally finds a rosebush that produces red roses, but the winter has chilled its veins to the point that it cannot provide a vibrant red flower. In order to produce the desired object, the tree tells her, she must sing to it with her breast against its thorn giving the bush her life-blood, which she agrees to do. After the tree has produced the rose, the student hastily plucks it and presents it to the professor’s daughter, who, finding its aroma unappealing, refuses it and runs off. In his haste to continue pursuing her, futilely, the student steps on the discarded rose, crushing it and in the process nearly tripping over the now lifeless body of the nightingale.

It’s a sad but gripping story. Wendy Whelan danced the nightingale, Tyler Angle the student, Sara Mearns the professor’s daughter, and Seth Orza and Craig Hall led the ensemble who performed the part of the rosebush. I thought the tragic beauty of the piece really came alive in the scenes where the men forming the red rosebush surrounded the nightingale, raising her into a series of poetic lifts, enveloping her as she sings, then stabbing and ripping at her, a slicing arm here, a kicking leg there, eventually draining her of her life, before blossoming to produce the red rose. The costumes worked magnificently. The rosebush men wore brownish outer-clothing and must have been wearing red tights and tight undershirts underneath the brown, because, in order to show the nightingale’s blood-letting, reddening the bush’s stems, the dancers somehow discreetly rolled up their sleeves and outer tights to reveal the red under-clothes.

The parts that didn’t impress so well were the dancers who comprised the members of the white and yellow rosebush trees. They just kind of danced on their own, each seeming to do her own thing, and after Whelan passed them by holding up a hand to them, presumably to show that they had told her they had no red roses to give her, they continued dancing as before. I thought this could have been more powerful. The nightingale could have tried hard to wrest a red rose, climbing on them, reaching out to them, pawing at them, trying desperately to penetrate their core, while they could have pushed her away or huddled together, moving as a unit away from her, in rejection.

I also thought Sara Mearns, whose part was small, was too nice. She should have been more bitchy and spoiled in her rejection of Angle, who was perfect as the lovelorn male student, and her demand of the red rose. Another thing I don’t always understand and probably often lay the blame in the wrong place when something doesn’t work perfectly, is the music composition and the speed at which the conductor leads the orchestra, which in turn dictates the speed at which the dancers dance. Mearns took the rose from Angle, and in a split second, practically rammed it into her nose, tossed it down and fled, leaving no time for her character to take in the smell, determine it wasn’t good enough, and perhaps act at first as if she may accept it, playing meanly with Angle’s emotions. Her haste made the scene look very fake. But I don’t know whether it was Mearns’s acting or the orchestra playing way too quickly that was at fault.

Also, I love Wendy Whelan and think she is a wholly unique, very interesting dancer with a wiry, hyper-flexible body that well-suits the more contemporary pieces that NYCB does. I thought her angular body with its sharp lines made her nightingale very distinct and tragic in its own way — and that image at the end of her lifeless nightingale lying in a tangle on the floor is one only she is capable of making — but I would like to see another ballerina, known for her beautiful, swan-like evocations dance that part as well and see how it comes out. I know this nightingale is not a swan or a firebird, etc., but I’d still like to see someone else’s interpretation; I think it would make a very interesting contrast.

One final thing, that I can’t help but find endlessly amusing, but don’t know if anyone else will: at the beginning of the sound accompaniment, composed by resident composer Bright Sheng (this ballet marks the very first time he and Wheeldon have collaborated, which I didn’t know), the only sound is that of a lovely but very faintly chirping bird. Of course it’s beautiful and perfectly fitting. But, funny thing is, you can hear human voices speaking throughout the chirping, interrupting the bird. I thought this was intentional: I thought, oh that’s interesting, he’s trying to evoke the world of the humans — the professor’s daughter and the student who are offstage but presumably about to enter — encroaching as they do in ultimately tragic ways upon the sublimity of the natural world. And, I noticed this chatter resume whenever the orchestra stopped playing and the sound consisted only of the bird. I mentioned this to Philip, of Oberon’s Grove, at intermission, and he said it was the stage manager! He said he can often hear the talking whenever it gets very very quiet onstage! Haha, I had no idea — I honestly thought it was part of the composition! Anyway, the stage manager, as it turns out, added to my interpretation of the piece.

Yesterday, I went to my second, and my last, of two “Sleeping Beauties” at American Ballet Theater. This Beauty is a new creation by artistic director Kevin McKenzie, but ‘after Petipa,’ which, to be honest, I’m not completely sure what that means in terms of exactly how novel it is. This ballet in general is not my favorite, so I didn’t have many expectations nor much to compare it to, and I wasn’t that upset when I had to miss the original premiere, which happened while I was still in England. But I did see the original cast, performing a few days later. To be fair, one of the reasons the ballet is not my favorite is that I don’t really relate to the themes of the fairytale it is based on. Unlike others, such as Cinderella (who CAN’T relate to the hard-working slave who never gets any recognition from elites until, through friendship and compassion for those less fortunate, she gets her day in the sun?), the morals from Sleeping Beauty (don’t fail to invite someone to your party or they might wreak havoc??, etc.) don’t really speak to me. Anyway, those feelings aside, after viewing it twice, I actually ended up really liking it. I saw it on Monday night and again yesterday (Saturday, matinee), and I’m so glad I waited to blog about it until I’d seen it again because I was just way too tired to enjoy it fully on Monday night, just after I’d returned from my long trip.

So my first (Monday night) cast was Veronika Part and Marcelo Gomes in the leads (Beauty and her Prince, of course), with legend Gelsey Kirkland as the evil fairy Carabosse, Stella Abrera as the ethereal day-saving / kingdom-saving Lilac Fairy, and Herman Cornejo and Xiomara Reyes as Bluebird and Ms. Bird (the latter of whom Playbill refers to as Princess Florine, but here she enters as a caged bird, released by Beauty in order to dance with Mr. Blue) who ham it up for the crowd-cheering bravura parts during the wedding dance scene. Veronika was a dreamily serene Beauty who danced with splendid perfection, Marcelo a very cute prince who jumped sky high during his solos, and, together they completely overtook the stage with their glorious Grand Pas De Deux, complete with those gorgeous fish dives I live for 🙂 Note: Veronika’s feet are like no other ballerina’s — her point is so pronounced and her arch so high, they nearly pop right out of those toe shoes! Herman and Xiomara were astounding as the high-flying ‘birds’ and I got all of my breathtaking overhead lifts I missed out on in their opening night “Romeo and Juliet” excerpt (thank you, Herman 🙂 🙂 🙂 )!

But, oh, the one who really took my breath away that night was Gelsey! The way she hunched her back, scrunched up her face, and hobbled around, she was pure perfect fairytale wickedness on that stage, and with her tiny little body, she commanded your attention like no one’s business! The way she captivated your gaze, it actually made me sad to think of what I must have missed out on by never having had the opportunity to see her dance in her heyday — so sad I missed that era in ballet… she must have been amazing with Baryshnikov.

As perfect as all the dancing was on Monday night, though, I don’t know what it was — perhaps I was just still tired from my trip or missing my Latin men and their beyond sexy hip-swaying, pelvic contractions or what have you, but I just couldn’t get that into the ballet at that point and was really rolling my eyes over the silly story. BUT all that changed with yesterday afternoon’s performance, which really brought home to me “Beauty’s” magic. Cast was Gillian Murphy and David Hallberg in the leads, with Carmen Corella as Carabosse, Craig Salstein as the King’s Chief Minister (who tries futilely to warn of the coming danger) and Sascha Radetsky and Hee Seo as the birds. Part of the magic for me of yesterday’s performance could have been the children who filled audience. No one dances to kids like Gillian. I know she runs the children’s program at Stiefel and Stars over the summer in Martha’s Vineyard and she must be so good at that; little ones just eat her fairy-princesses up. And, there’s no more ideal ballerina than she to both show little girls the splendor of ballet with her beatific, glowing face, and to prove what women dancers are capable of with her bedazzlingly athletic jumps and turns. If others like Veronika and Diana Vishneva perhaps excel at conveying more mature subject matter through their subtle acting and artistry, Gillian is the consummate fairytale heroine.

And there’s no more perfect a prince than David. He doesn’t come on until the second half, and when he did, this row of little girls behind me, sighed almost in unison. They were so young and it was so real and so completely adorable, the grown woman next to me (who I didn’t know) and I took one glance at each other started cracking up. Who cares if there’s no relatable moral when Prince David, running all over stage with furrowed brow searching and searching for his princess, ends up saving you and the whole kingdom with just one heavenly kiss!!! One thing I noticed about David though, sitting so close: he looked overly sweaty and a bit out of breath quite early on — a little too early on. I’m sure no one noticed sitting further back, and it didn’t show in his dancing AT ALL — which was nothing short of spectacular, but I did worry. I heard he didn’t dance last night, as he was billed for, so I hope he’s okay and is just taking a breather. He’s both an amazing dancer and a dependable, almost preternaturally responsible man, so I know he is counted upon to fill in for anyone and everyone who gets ill or injured (Vladimir Malakhov, unfortunately, is out this season with injury, so David’s been cast to replace him), and I’m sure it gets to be a bit too much, especially to be dancing two principal roles in one day — as much as I long to see him onstage, the last thing I want is him getting sick!

Sascha and Hee were brilliant as the birds — Herman is known for his sky-high jumps, so it’s a little expected that he is going to go soaring across stage, but I thought Sascha performed his with just as much knock-out height and speed.

Philip, whose review is here, didn’t like the casting of Craig Salstein, a young dancer after all, in the non-dancing role of the king’s advisor, face painted to make him appear older. True, as Philip says, there are many older, retired dancers in the company perfectly capable of such a part (and I had Wes Chapman on Monday in that role), but I rather liked Craig. He was hilarious in his defeat, especially when getting his hair plucked out by Carabosse. I actually think he looks pretty good with longish hair (albeit without the male-pattern baldness up top) and think he should consider growing his real hair out a bit… 🙂 Seriously, his acting was really pretty extraordinary and he put so much umph into that goofy little part that at points I couldn’t take my eyes off his reactions to Beauty’s dancing to look at Gillian!

Carmen Corella: ooh la la, big time! Okay, I have always had a bit of a thing for her, and her Carabosse, though completely different from Gelsey’s, just sent chills up and down my spine! Her devious fairy, instead of being pure evil, was more sexy sultry vixen, albeit totally hilarious, kind of in the manner of her would-be seductress “Cinderella” stepsister (which I CAN’T WAIT to see her perform again later this season — I so wish they’d bring Erica Cornejo back just for the role of her little dorky sidekick — they were miraculous together; they MADE that ballet, IMO). After she makes her first crackling entrance, complete with pyrotechnic display, the whole kingdom aghast, Carmen turns toward the King and Queen and, raising a pinky to the air, gives a little wave, all sweet smiles drenched with wicked sarcasm crossing her face. It was so funny, I wanted to burst out laughing. Anyway, Philip hated Carabosse’s costume … well, after seeing Carmen wear that thing, ooh how much do I want it! She made that thing so gorgeous — I’d so cut it short, clip off those fairy wings and make it into a mad hot Art Deco-ey ballroom outfit — totally serious! Carmen really excels in these kind of roles — she does so much with them — the deliciously mischievious fairy, the goofy sexpot evil stepsister, Lescault’s frighteningly charming mistress (who she dances with Marcelo 🙂 ) in Manon… I wish they’d give her a principal role to try; I just love her!

Sarah Lane was so sweet as the Fairy of Joy, in both of my casts. Everytime I see her onstage, I can’t help but remember her ever-sweet performance and curtain call with Angel in Sinatra Suites last season. So cute she was dancing, then receiving, all wide-eyed, her numerous bouquets and curtain calls, with him! Oh and, hehe, the Fairy of Joy is dressed in bright yellow (a detail I wouldn’t have remembered but for this: Philip said he didn’t like the costumes — I thought nothing of them, but now am remembering overhearing a little girl behind me say, “yellow, really mother! I mean really!” just like an adult and as if her mother was somehow responsible … hmmm, maybe she was?? Anyway, I guess Philip is not the only one who didn’t like the costume colors…) Misty Copeland is a powerhouse, as always, and I’m so sorry I missed her in Sinatra Suite. Vitali Krauchenka stood out to me as well in the various smallish roles he had — don’t know why exactly — he didn’t have any huge dancing parts, but he seemed very tall and upright the way he just stood about and took up space, and he was always in character… and, he kind of looks like a little Max… don’t know, could just have Russia on the mind, having come from a ballroom festival (which I can’t stop mentioning for some reason…)

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Depressed, Missing Slavik and Sergey, and Suffering TAC Headache…

Sorry no posting for the last couple of days. It took me forever to get home, first because of a several-hour-long plane delay, then over an hour-long cab wait at Port Authority (to which I took a bus from JFK). And I’m still so tired. I didn’t get much sleep the entire time I was there (in Blackpool), and it’s now really catching up with me. I’m just kind of depressed, missing Slavik Kryklyvyy and Sergey Surkov and all of my favorite Latin people…

Slavik is such a ham, as I realized for the first time this competition. The only other time I’ve seen him dance live was at U.S. Nationals in Florida last September when he competed in the open-to-the-world category, and there, he didn’t play so to the crowd since it really wasn’t his people. Here of course, everyone went completely nuts screaming and cheering the nanosecond he stepped onto the floor so he really hammed it up. How do I choose these guys? Marcelo, Jose, now this one… guess I’m just naturally attracted to a certain dancer-personality type …

Although Sergey seems more quiet, like a David Hallberg. No hamminess, no crazed fanfare, just great dancing, near flawless technique, and intense passion for his very pretty partner… It’s funny because, at one point during finals, Joanna Leunis and Michael Malitowski were dancing very close to Sergey and Melia and I could see from afar that the way Michael threw Joanna out to his right into a lunge, she was going to brush Sergey’s left side. She kind of reached out and playfully petted his left shoulder to let him know she was there, and he was so focused, as he always is, on Melia, I thought oh no, Joanna’s totally gonna disturb his concentration! He did seem a little surprised, but not too much so — obviously he’s used to dancing on a very crowded dance floor after all! After the round was over, still close to Michael and Joanna, he kind of tenderly patted her on the shoulder as well. It was cute. He seems kind of shy. Very attractive 🙂

Hehehe, do you think he’s mad at me for this pic?!?! I nearly dropped my camera when he shot me this look 🙂 Isn’t he cute — doesn’t he look kind of like Keanu Reeves?! He and Melia were meeting fans and autographing posters at the Chrisanne boutique in the shop pavilion, which I blogged about earlier, but here is a better picture. Sorry about the crappy cell phone pictures, by the way. It was the only way I could blog without worrying about an insecure wireless connection for my laptop. I’ll get a better cameraphone the next time!

Anyway, it was just so exciting to be there and I feel like none of my world favorites come to the U.S. competitions and so I don’t know now when I’ll see them again. I hate to think of having to wait another whole year… Now on top of being tired and depressed, or perhaps because of one or both of them, I have another one of these horrid headaches, which means, after the pain, days of being all woozy from the meds…

Anyway, I managed to get all of my pictures downloaded, although the captions are not all up and some names are spelled wrong and there are typos galore… all of which I plan to have fixed by this weekend, at the latest. Unfortunately the pictures this year are not as good as those last year, mainly because I couldn’t get a very good seat up close to the action, so everything is from afar, and pics of the finals in all competitions are from all the way up in the balcony, so you can hardly make out most of the dancers’ faces… It was insanely crowded, so it meant reaching up and over heads, snapping away haphazardly and hoping the picture came out okay… Another thing that kind of depressed me though I guess it shouldn’t. I should be happy that “Dancing With the Stars” and all of these shows have made ballroom dancing so popular that the number of amateur entries basically doubled and it was so crowded you could hardly move, but … I don’t know, it just meant I could hardly see any of the action.

I’m going to be talking about this likely for weeks to come, and posting things as I remember them, but here are a few more quick highlights:

bryan and carmen Bryan Watson and Carmen taking their final ballroom floor walk en route to the judges to receive their final first-place Latin champions trophy. So sad. So many retirements this year in dance in general…

Max Kozhevnikov and Yulia Zagoruychenko being called to the floor to receive one of their two finalist awards: they placed sixth in Rhumba I think fifth in Jive. Max was so cute when their number (198) was called as finalist! He ran out onto the floor and started jumping around pounding his fists into the air like a cute little kid. Yulia ran up behind him and grabbed him from behind. He then remembered her and turned around and hugged her.

Same EXACT actions from these two:

Victor Fung and Anna Mikhed

Victor Fung and Anna Mikhed who, for the first time, made finals in Standard Ballroom in three of the four dances (excluding waltz). He ran out in his tux and tails, jumped around pounding the air excitedly, then she ran out behind him in her ballgown, and had to tap him on the back before he turned around and remembered, oh yeah my partner, she helped too, really should include her in the euphoria… Ballroom men!!!!!

It was a great Blackpool for America this year. With Anna and Victor making finals in Standard and Max and Yulia in Latin, and Jonathan Wilkins and Katusha Demidova placed second overall in Standard.

jonathan and katusha

Okay, that is all for now… more later…

Also, I went to see ABT‘s Sleeping Beauty last night but will blog about it after I see it again, with another cast, later this week.

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Chunnels Chunnels Everywhere…

Ha ha, now that I’ve calmed down a bit, looking at my last post, I was pretty harsh! It’s fun to be angry though … the truth often comes out when you’ve just come from something that impassioned you and you’re writing at 1:30 in the morning all cranky because of all the work you have to get through the next day to go on your dance vacation the following day — under such circumstances you’re not bothering to edit yourself and you’re just more honest… Anyway, I was basically trying to ponder ways to make ballet more popular. I feel that some of the reasons young people are turned off is because of the melodramatic acting and the story-lines that they can’t relate to either because they are too silly and not relevant or because they’re too abstract and don’t make sense. Everyone knows Shakespeare, everyone can relate to Shakespeare, he is timeless… I feel that if you do Shakespeare you can’t go wrong, and, even though I would most definitely go see Lubovitch’s Othello again and again and again, because that’s just how I am, it was still far from perfect, and I don’t know that a non-obsessed ABT-o-mane would do the same…

Anyway, apropos of all this, I had asked Apollinaire Scherr why she thinks opera is so much more popular than dance, and she and some other critics and readers responded. Go here to see that discussion.

By the way, not a whole lot of people went to Othello. There’s hardly any chatting on BalletTalk, not many pro reviews. And where is Alastair Macaulay’s NY Times review? Shouldn’t it be online by now? The audience Tuesday night wasn’t very full — I’d say 1/2 to 2/3 seats filled, which upsets me, especially given that this was the NY debut… We have to make younger audiences understand how great ballet is, how relevant and exciting and profound and moving and beautiful and poetic…

Speaking of which … Apollinaire has great hopes for ABT’s Sleeping Beauty! (Yay!!) … the debut of which I’m unfortunately going to be missing because of my trip. But I’ll be back for one of the later performances… I will also, horribly, be missing “Essential Balanchine” at New York City Ballet …

why oh why oh why does Blackpool have to come at this time of year! Can’t someone re-schedule it to coincide with opera season for cry-eye????

And why oh why can’t I take some other form of transportation … I love travel, I love trains, I love cars, and I LOVE ships — can’t I take a ship across the Atlantic?… like in the Titanic? I mean, not the Titanic per se of course, but a big huge ship — so romantic to travel in 19th Century fashion! Or why can’t there be underwater Chunnels everywhere like that between London and Paris? That would be soooo cool to take a big long Chunnel train to England, or Australia or Thailand or Japan… chunnels everywhere… who decided to create air travel instead of underwater transit…

Anyway, packing is oh so much fun:

 

I’ve been packing all week little by little, as I always do so it’s not so overwhelming all at once… I tend to forget less this way. Everyone makes fun of me because I’m so anal, but who was the only American at the dance festival last year who could use her cell phone and palm pilot and re-charge her digital camera???? — because who was the only one who remembered to bring, not just all of her chargers, but U.K. / Hong Kong electrical converters as well! I was very popular last dance festival…

 

I always go through my money belts as well scrounging around for any pounds and pence I can find. England does still use English money, right; they didn’t switch to the Euro yet? Look at all this pre-Euro European money I have (on the right) — I hope it’s worth something someday!

And look at all this Russian cash. I have so much left over because when I was in St. Petersberg, I met up with friends who were going on to Moscow while I was (traveling alone) returning to Helsinki. Since I was planning on giving my leftover cash to them, I didn’t exchange or spend it, but then whilst trying to catch my train at Finlandia Station, I couldn’t find my proper track because I was spelling Helsinki with a Cyrillic first letter that looks like our “E” instead of the letter that looks like our “X” – (the Russian alphabet doesn’t contain our “H”). So, I almost missed my train and forgot to hand over my cash! What am I gonna do with it now?!…

Packing my Winger t, for dance-y comfort 🙂

Aw, a pic from packing last year. My dear little Najma passed away last October from congestive heart failure. I miss her so much. Packing is just not the same without her…

Anyway, on one last dance note:

hehehe, I was joking around earlier about a male Bayadere and Marcelo Gomes dancing the lead. Then I saw in this week’s Time Out New York Gay and Lesbian section that there actually are some gay bars with male bellydancers!!!

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Othello Cannot Survive Nonsensical Melodramatic First Two Acts and One-Dimensional Iago

Ugh. I’m so angry. Just got back from seeing the NY premier of ABT’s Othello and I should probably wait to blog until I’ve gathered my thoughts better, and I may well change my mind at some point in the future, but sometimes it’s more fun when you’re raging, flaming mad. Everyone who knows me and reads my blog knows how much I love ABT and have never ever trashed anything they’ve done. But my initial reaction toward this is repulsion. I love a good drama, but I feel like this was more melodrama and it left me feeling cheap, man-hating, and repelled.

I don’t know whom exactly to blame — whether it’s choreographer Lar Lubovitch’s fault for not fleshing things out better or explaining to his dancers what his ballet was all about, or whether it’s the fault of the dancers — mainly Sascha Radetsky. Radetsky danced the part of Iago, and he played him as complete, pure evil, no complexity whatsoever. Completely black and white. I’m sorry but Shakespeare’s character is so much more complicated, and Radetsky has nowhere near the level of artistry, sophistication and intellect to pull it off. And he is going to need Botox for that damn, deep-ass frown he insisted on wearing the whole way through. He’s got to have a permanent crevice in his forehead by now. I need to see David Hallberg in this part — he has everything that Radetsky does not, and he should not be playing Othello; he should be playing who is really the most important character in this play because if someone gives this one a dumb-ass one-dimensional intepretation, the whole thing is reduced to the level of a cartoon. And you DON’T reduce Shakespeare to a cartoon, you just DON’T.

I know Lubovitch keeps insisting he’s not going by the Shakepeare but is working from an earlier source, but guess what, Mr. Lubovitch, we all know Shakespeare, we don’t know the novella by Geraldo Cintio, most of us don’t know the opera by Verdi, everyone knows Shakespeare, so you’re getting compared to him.

Which is not at all to say Shakespeare can’t be taken in a different direction, and Lubovitch clearly gives the Iago / Othello interaction a homoerotic motif. I usually don’t do this, but I read some reviews of this ballet before I went tonight and one reviewer from Critical Dance noticed this theme. When I read her critique I rolled my eyes, thinking, oh sure, anytime there’s any kind of dancing between two men, it’s got to be considered “homoerotic.” But after seeing it — she’s totally right. And if she’s not, Lubovitch has some serious re-working to do. This makes me think that Lubovitch tried to give Iago some depth here and Radetsky just wasn’t getting it. NO MORE RADETSKY as Iago — use David, please Kevin, use an intellectually and artistically sophisticated dancer in this role — please! Jose Carreno could do it too… I know Ethan Stiefel and Max Beloserkovsky are supposed to dance him as well, but unfortunately I have to miss them. If anyone goes, please tell me how they stack up.

Anyway, besides my disgust with Radetsky in this role, my other problem is it really doesn’t pick up until the third Act, and that is way too damn late for a full-length ballet to get going. This is mainly because the first two acts don’t make a lot of sense; they just wiz by — I think the intermissions were longer than those acts.

The ballet opens with Othello dancing a solo, then the corps come out and do these puppet-like moves. Why puppet-like? I have no idea? It’s never explained. There are all kinds of odd, contorting, modernist, angular moves. They just don’t make sense. If they are there just to set the general tone that something is very awry, they’re way too obvious. Another ridiculously obvious thing: in the second Act, when Othello is on his throne having a nervous breakdown over what he wrongly perceives is Desdemona’s infidelity (and it is clear, contrary to Alessandra Ferri’s interpretation, as discussed below, it is wrong), the back of the throne is made of glass and it has a huge mar in it, as if a rock has been thrown at it. Has anyone heard of the concept of subtlety? Good lord, I mean really; you just want to laugh! In fact, there are creepily weird mirrors all over the place — why?

In the second Act, the frenzied tarantella (a dance that was popular at the time and considered by the Church to have satanic connections) is performed by the prostitute Bianca and other women and men standing around on the dock awaiting the return of Othello’s fleet (which has just defeated the Turks). So, Othello and the men of his command are still out to sea en route to home, but somehow Othello is running around stage carrying Desdemona over his head in one gigantic lift. Why? This is the scene where Desdemona, while dancing, will lose the handkerchief that Othello gave her at their wedding symbolizing her faithfulness to him, that Iago eventually gets his hands on and plants on Cassio — the other man — in order to convince Othello of Desdemona’s infidelity. So what is Othello doing running around stage with her? And while Adrienne Schulte is gorgeously tantalizing as Bianca (she makes all these intentionally broken lines — legs bent, etc., to illustrate the foreboding ugliness that will result from her actions), the rest of the dance is more repulsive than in any way sexy.

Oh, and going back a minute to the beginning, also making no sense is the choreography up front. In their wedding pas de deux when they’re in love, when Othello has no reasons to suspect Desdemona of anything, he still holds her head tightly, aggressively between his hands as if about to break her neck. In this scene it’s supposed to be a loving gesture and I guess also a foreshadowing of what’s to come, but it’s too obvious.

The best thing about the ballet was that Julie Kent (as Desdemona) and Marcelo danced gorgeously together –so much better than he danced with Alessandra in the excerpt on opening night. The problem with opening night, as I now realize Alastair Macaulay was getting at, is that, poetic as Alessandra is, she pulled that willing-victim schtick straight out of her butt. After now seeing the whole, I have NO IDEA what she was thinking — that is NOWHERE in the text, nowhere in the choreography, nowhere in the first two acts, and she completely made it up and Marcelo had no idea what in the world she was doing and couldn’t keep up with her. Julie’s Desdemona tried with all her heart to convince Othello of her innocence right up until the end; she loved him the whole time. No stupid childishly kinky crap that has no place. That’s why real partners work together and two people who may be great on their own just don’t. If Alessandra was going to do some crazy interpretation, she might have let her partner in on it beforehand. Alessandra’s admitted that she doesn’t practice with the rest of the company very much and it shows unfortunately…

The only other thing I have to say about Marcelo — not to be nitpicky, but why does he always need to raise his free arm in the air during a trick? Does he need to show that he can lift or hold Julie with one hand, or does he think it makes a good line? At one point, he didn’t even get his free arm all the way up, and it looked very odd. He held her in a lunge with one arm, the other shot up half-assed and failed to make a complete line. Then, he threw her into a lunge supporting her with the other arm, and the opposite hand shot up for five seconds making a likewise incomplete line. With his large bone structure, the free arm in the air doesn’t always look very beautiful. It’d look far more romantic if he left both arms wrapped around his ballerina. Who cares if he can hold the woman with his pinkie if it looks unnatural and off?…

One last note on the music. Very melodramatic, very loud, booming, frightening. Don’t sit near the orchestra pit. I was in the second row and I feel like I’ve just come from a rock concert my eardrums are so numb…

There was this gross older guy shouting, “yeah, baby” really horrendously pervertedly when Adrienne and Julie came out for their curtain calls. He really created a scene and several people looked his way. On the way out of the house he gave me the eye and I worried he was going to grope me from behind. If he would have done so I swear I would have found the super-human strength to push him to the ground, nail his crotch to the floor with my stiletto heel while calling the police on my cell phone. Something about this ballet made me feel dirty, disgusted, and repulsed at all men; I can’t help it — even Marcelo. I feel like between Lubovitch and Radetsky, they ruined Marcelo, ruined Shakespeare, ruined my night…

Okay, calming down: in general, the first two acts need to be fleshed out much much MUCH more, Iago’s motives and love for Othello need to be explored further, Iago needs to be better portrayed, the choreography needs to make sense, and the concept of subtlety needs to be realized. Then perhaps it won’t be flat, one-dimensional, cartoonishly melodramatic, and misogynistic…

Okay, Marcelo acted it really well and he gave the lead a lot of depth and was extremely conflicted and almost killed her by accident. But it’s after 1:00 in the morning and I’m tired and cranky and hating all men right now and that includes Marcelo so screw them all and him too!…

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Veronika's Beautiful Pathos, Diana's Passionate Abandon, Marcelo's "Every Guy" hero, and Ethan's need to join overactors anonymous: My Bayadere Roundup

Crappy picture of Marcelo Gomes and Veronika Part mid-bow after ABT‘s Friday night performance of Bayadere at the Met.

Uh, I meant to blog about this so much earlier but had to get a brief in today so my supervisor wouldn’t murder me.

Anyway, I finished my Bayadere viewings on Saturday night. I was toying with trying to go tonight to see the legendary Nina Ananiashvili perform the lead, but I just have too many things to do in preparation for my upcoming trip to Blackpool and just couldn’t swing it. So if anyone goes tonight, please let me know how it went!

So, the casts I saw were: 1) Paloma Herrera, David Hallberg, and Gillian Murphy as, respectively, the temple dancer (Bayadere), Solor the warrior, and the princess Gamzatti, which I blogged about in my earlier post (and if you’re not familiar with the ballet, please go there for my description of the characters and story); 2) Veronika Part, Marcelo Gomes, and Michele Wiles in those same parts; and 3) — probably the most chi chi “famous people cast”: the critically acclaimed Met Goddess Diana Vishneva, “Center Stage” heartthrob Ethan Stiefel, and Stella Abrera.

So, I have a couple of thoughts that kind of border on the sacriligious 🙂 The first is that, I thought long and hard about it, and … I actually preferred Veronika over Diana as the Bayadere!!! Diana was beautiful and she made gorgeous lines and had, as Susan had commented on my last post, more of the authentic, Indian-looking styling with the more beautifully expressive wrists and exotic, sinuous arm movements and flexible back arches than the others (though Veronika I think had all that as well, but not as pronounced). She is also known for, both literally and figuratively, throwing herself into her roles with such abandon that she sometimes makes too hasty of a stage exit that she trips and falls, or to show her character’s misery, she’ll throw herself down on the floor with so much passion that she’ll come up a bit bruised and bloodied. I can see why. She was so heavily in character, that when something upset her and her bayadere needed to flee the stage, she really did fly up those back stairs or into the wings, running at full speed. I found this made for very passionate dancing fully in-character, but to me this also made her bayadere seem a bit immature.

Veronika was the opposite — a very mature bayadere sadly accepting of her fate. She brought me so fully into her world, I nearly cried for her. She was not at all melodramatic, but held her deep sorrow inside, showing it subtilely through closed eyes — to me all the more powerful than running at full speed into the wings. And she is such a tall, beautifully statuesque ballerina with such exquisitely elongated lines, as Delirium said to me, she just “devours the stage.” Perhaps because of her larger bone structure, she may not have the ability to make the same intricate poses with her hands and wrists as Diana, which, ironically, is what I was complaining about in my former Bayadere post. But she was overall such a beautiful dancer who brought me so completely into her world anyway that that styling “authenticity” didn’t matter. I will most definitely be watching for more of her. And, I’ll be seeing several more of Diana’s performances as well; I’m sure I’ll see more of what makes people so enamored of her in the weeks to come.

Regarding Paloma’s performance in the role, I love her in general but didn’t think she really inhabited this part very well. But I think she rocks as the fun, flirty Kitri in Don Quixote! Former New York Times chief dance critic John Rockwell had suggested that ABT and the other big dance companies be more “star” driven, and, like the Met Opera, alternate ballets on a daily rather than weekly basis so that one or two dancers could “star” in a certain role without getting tired. I think this is a very worthy idea, especially since, with my upcoming trip, I’m only going to have the opportunity to see one Othello, a couple of Sleeping Beauties, and am going to have to miss entirely the Dream / Symphonie Concertante mixed rep, which disappoints me because David is debuting in that. That if a person goes away for a week they miss an entire program, combined with the fact that certain dancers excel in certain roles, I think Kevin McKenzie should take seriously Rockwell’s proposal…

Now, on to the MEN OF ABT, my very favorite people 🙂

Oh, and now I am going to have to recant what I said above because, the men of ABT are so great, I just want to see ALL of them in every role… As I said in my earlier post, David can virtually do no wrong in my eyes… it’s so interesting to me because he and Marcelo perform just about all of the same roles and there couldn’t be two more different dancers; you just get a completely different character depending on which one is performing that night. David’s Solor, as all of David’s characters are naturally more sensitive, more vulnerable, more cerebral, more pensive, whereas Marcelo’s characters are warm-hearted, down-to-earth, the every-guy. Marcelo’s the guy you want as your boyfriend: fun-loving, always happy, dependable, a big fuzzy teddybear in a way (I hope that’s not offensive 🙂 ) — I know, everyone says he’s a really good bad guy, and he is, but I think that’s because he’s never really THAT evil; deep down he’s just Marcelo 🙂 And David is the male friend who you just wanna talk to all night long 🙂 I love seeing them both — it’s just when David’s up there on the stage, you’re going to get the noble, poetic, sensitive warrior / Prince Charming / Romeo; with Marcelo it’ll be the everyman, old familiar high-school boyfriend, all-American boy (even though he’s not) version of the same. Funny, beginning tomorrow night, they are both alternating as Othello, and Art had mentioned in a comment on an earlier post that when he saw that ballet Othello tended to come across as a big brutish rather brainless hulk. There’s simply no way either of these two are going to play it that way, even if they tried!

So, I said I had two sacriligious thoughts about Bayadere. First is my preference for Veronika over Diana, and my second is that … I must confess, I just don’t get Ethan’s appeal! I just don’t — isn’t it horrible! Of course I haven’t yet seen “Center Stage.” I mean, yes, his jumps were spectacular, and I’ve never seen anyone beat his feet together as many times as he during his super-high assembles. You’d NEVER know he was just coming back from double knee surgery. As I mentioned in this post’s title, I thought he overacted, which Jennifer Dunning of the Times recognized as well, so I’m not alone on that! He does this thing where he widens his eyes when he’s freaking out over something. Well, I could see those bulging eyes from the Dress Circle (mid-priced seats about half-way up to the ceiling for people unfamiliar with the Met) sans binoculars. And the throwing the arms to the ceiling thing: can everyone stop, PLEASE!!!! Okay, Marcelo did it a bit too, but he is Marcelo and I’m so infatuated he could do cartwheels across the stage and I’d be all, “oh isn’t that the greatest!” Ethan’s jumps were truly breathtaking though, as I said. And I’m sure once I see “Center Stage” I’ll completely understand the madness 🙂

Other thoughts: I liked all three ballerinas who performed the role of Gamzatti (the princess betrothed to the bayadere’s love-interest). Stella was splendidly bitchy — she was plotting and evil and nasty and all the things that I guess a good Gamzatti should be. Michele Wiles seemed more like the snooty rich spoiled white girl, which worked as well. And Gillian was the most interesting princess to me because she has such a natural sweetness; just look at that headshot! How could this girl ever be wicked! She was like Glinda the Good Witch Gamzatti, which worked in its own way because her princess was more an unfortunate victim of circumstance than an evil, plotting shrew.

I LOVED Craig Salstein as the lead fakir (in the ballet, the fakirs are these weirdly cute loinclothed animal-like people who jump wildly back and forth over this makeshift campfire — really so much fun and one of the most entertaining parts of the first Act, IMO). Who better than Craig to do all that crazy wild jumping. Craig performed the part on Saturday night; on Friday night, equally bedazzled, I looked in my Playbill and was shocked to see it was Jared Matthews under all the wild-man hair and body paint… he’s so sweet-looking and seemingly well-behaved — who knew he was so capable 🙂 Expectedly, Herman Cornejo was an excellent Bronze Idol, another male bravura part (which, for some strange reason I keep wanting to call the Bronze God), but so were the others, such as Arron Scott (who also happens to be Matt’s new cohort in crime). I find myself always disappointed by the idol though because he’s only onstage so briefly; he leaves me wanting so much more…

One last thought: Susan’s comment in my last Bayadere post suggesting that Matthew Bourne or Mark Morris re-make an authentic Bayadere made me think … what about a male Bayadere ala Bourne’s Romeo Romeo? Not all male: a male Gamzatti would make for a completely alternate universe, but just a male bayadere would be realistically intriguingly different — I’m sure some Radjas had male temple dancers after all…

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Macaulay on ABT, and More Same-Sex Ballroom Stuff on NYTimes Website

NYTimes’s website is rocking these days. First, NYTimes Chief Dance Critic Alastair Macaulay’s review of ABT’s opening night gala is now up. Read it here. Whoa, far more critical than anyone was of NYCB’s opening. I’m not trying to be thick, but I honestly don’t understand his paragraph on the excerpt from Othello, danced by Alessandra Ferri and Marcelo Gomes, and choreographed by Lar Lubovitch. This in particular is what I don’t get:

“This choreography pursued a hammy old dance-expressionist rule: ‘Never express an emotion to the left that you don’t also express to the right, preferably several times either way.'”

This is in the context of his contention that Ferri’s “willing victim” schtick didn’t really work and Gomes struggled with being “intense.” So, I don’t get it: is he saying Ferri did something wrong, Gomes did, they both screwed up together, or the choreography was nonsensical? And what does he mean by left and right — does he mean literally don’t do something one-sided or half-assed, or does he mean it in an art versus reason sense (don’t make an intellectual choice if you can’t back it up with the proper emotion), or in a political sense (Ferri’s willing victim and /or Gomes’s macho intensity were anachronistically and stupidly misogynistic for this day and age, making them disingenuous)? They’re all interesting points of view; I just want to understand! Oh wait, is he just saying either she needed to take it down a notch or he needed to take it up a notch? That makes sense, and is what I was saying as well (the second part, rather). Well, everyone just go see Othello and we’ll all figure Macaulay out together 🙂 …

Also, they have a video of the gala here with some rather amusing commentary by former Wonder Woman Linda Carter. The reporter concludes that many of the chi chi guests came out not to watch the dancing, but to hob-knob and boogie down themselves. Interesting.

And, finally, something my friend sent me regarding that same-sex ballroom dance competition held here two weekends ago that I blogged about earlier and was written up in the City section last weekend — the Times has a little video clip up of that too. It’s really quite interesting: they give a little history of the competition and talk about some of the reasons why people participate in same-sex ballroom dancing — it’s not always because the couples are homosexual; sometimes women just feel sexier leading rather than following, and it’s too hard to lead a male partner. Interesting. I never did get the hang of following! Here’s the video.

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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!

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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!!!

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Pasha and Anna Return to the Stage!

I know it is near impossible to see, but here is the great, the amazing, the beyond talented, the bewitching, the captivating, the truly wonderfully incredible — not enough superlatives to describe her! — Anna Garnis, taking her bow after performing in the pro part of the Dance Times Square pro / am showcase last night in Hunter College auditorium. Pasha Kovalev, my former teacher, who is of course all of the same and more(!), is to the left of her.

It was actually really nice not to perform, to just sit and relax and watch everyone else — especially them. My studio friends and I — a bunch of us sat together up in the balcony — were worried they weren’t going to show. Pasha’s just coming out of a long, weird illness, but is finally, thank Heaven, fully recovered. They didn’t appear until the last quarter of the show. When Pasha walked out onstage, my heart fluttered, and my friend grabbed my arm and squealed, “that’s him!”

I don’t know what it was, but tonight — just like after the first time I ever saw them perform, at the first DTS showcase two years ago, before I actually began my lessons with Pasha — I just felt this huge lump in my throat watching them. After they left the stage, I felt like I couldn’t concentrate for the rest of the night — all I could do was stare into space. After the show completely ended, I just felt like crying, but not out of sadness, out of … I don’t know what. My friend tried to get me to go to the studio, to the after-show party, but I hadn’t planned on it since I had to get home and get rested up for my hectic work week ahead. But even if I would have decided to go just for a little while, I knew I wouldn’t be able to have fun and be social. I don’t mean to sound ludicrously melodramatic; I just felt like I have when I’ve just finished a novel or seen a movie or play that drove me to tears, that I could only come straight home and just … be. I don’t know what it is — it’s definitely not jealousy — I know I’ll never be Anna and I can definitely appreciate her greatness without thinking how horrible I am; it’s something else entirely … just like something you just can’t talk about for a while.

Anyway, it’s also so amazing, just such an experience, to watch people being exposed to dance for the first time witness truly great dancers. I hardly recognized any of the student performers from the studio, and, since I’ve spent so much time there over the past two years, I knew many of them were new. Being primarily a student showcase, most of the audience was comprised of students’ families and friends, who were, judging by their comments about dance, likely similarly inexperienced in the ballroom scene, or any other dance scene for that matter.

Before Pasha and Anna danced, the crowd was laughing and cheering on the students, having a great time and really enjoying themselves. One of the professionals, Lauren, did a three-quarter splits in her Rhumba routine, and I guess because she went down so quickly — speed being a key element in Latin — this guy up in our section who was being pretty vocal throughout, shouted, “Whoa! Man!” like it was the coolest thing he’d ever seen! The theater’s small and everyone heard him and laughs abounded — Lauren couldn’t help but be affected by his hilarious enthusiasm herself — and she even cracked a smile up there on the stage.

Well, Lauren and Fred, her partner, finished and Pasha walked out. I heard vocal guy say, understandably, “Who’s he?” Every other pro had been on at least once already, if not a few times. My friend and I exchanged glances and giggled. We both wondered if vocal guy and the rest of the crowd would recognize that these two were on a completely different level than everyone else up there. You never really know with a crowd that’s new to something, if they will recognize greatness, you know? A guy in orchestra called out, “Pashaaaaa!” Women down below began cheering. My friend and I clapped. After their music began and Anna took about two Rhumba walks toward him, the crowd went completely still. And remained so throughout. After they finished, slowly the crowd came to its feet. Vocal guy screamed “Oh my God, oh my God,” and several others started a chant of “Bravos” — the first I think I’ve EVER heard for a ballroom performance. It was the most breathtaking Rhumba I’ve ever seen. I really felt like crying. My friend squeezed my arm ever harder. I guess when you’re out for a while, sick and recovering, you just naturally come back with a bang. A huge one.

It’s well known in the studio and the ballroom world in general now that Pasha and Anna tried out for and got pretty far on “So You Think You Can Dance” — the TV show. They’re sworn to secrecy now and cannot reveal what happened in the final cuts until the show airs at the end of this month. I hope so much they did well. They so deserve it. They are true performers. And this is the cruelty and travesty of ballroom. They’re currently stuck in fifth position in the U.S. National Latin championships and basically will be until the four above them retire. Because that is The Rule of the ballroom world: The Rule is that couple number one is Andrei Gavriline and Elena Kruyshkova, couple number two is Max Kozhevnikov and Yulia Zagorouychenko, and so on down the line, and the judges never forget it, those are The Ranks, set in stone. Perhaps I’m being unfair and Pasha and Anna don’t really do that well in competition; perhaps they just excel in performance. Some dancers are like that. And when I see other dancers competitively ranked above them do a solo showcase, they’re nothing compared to Pasha and Anna. But maybe that couple is just better at competition. Maybe competing and performing take two completely different sets of talents, who knows. But I do know that Pasha and Anna deserve to be better than Number 5 in the country for the rest of their careers.

Anyway, here’s my friend Parker taking her bow. Yes, that’s the same Parker from the previous night’s bellydance showcase — this one does practically every kind of dance imaginable 🙂 ! Yes, she’s actually worse than me in that department 🙂 She did a very sweet, very fast fun cha cha, and got a lot of applause!

And here’s the whole “cast.”

Of course I’m sad I didn’t perform as well. But on the other hand, I saved about $2,000, and I got to see Pasha and Anna’s emotionally moving return, from the audience, from their perspective, instead of cramped in the wings.

And … Just one week — ONE WEEK NOW — till my other favorite returns to the stage!!!!!!

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We Are Celebrity Whores, We Are ABT Fans, and We Are Proud, Dammit!: Jock Soto, Joaquin de Luz, Bill Clinton (and Marcelo) at NYCB Opening Night Gala

I hope no one takes the above title the wrong way — I’m totally joking, and trying to make light of out that earlier tiff on this blog 🙂 I do actually think there are different styles, aesthetics, even theater etiquette as Kristin Sloan called it (which I’ll get to soon) between the fans of American Ballet Theater and New York City Ballet, which had its opening night gala dinner tonight and the official premiere of NYCB artistic director Peter Martins’s new version of Romeo and Juliet.

Since it was a nice day out, I arrived a bit early so as to relax at the Lincoln Center fountain and perhaps take some pictures. Last year, I saw Angel Corella out front on this gala evening kind of smiling out at the crowds and looking all handsome, so I figured I might see “someone” again 🙂

Sure enough, red carpet was rolled, Peter Martins and ensemble arrived, paparazzi power cameras began flashing away, and anyone who happened to be anywhere on the plaza at that time promptly made a mad dash toward the State Theater entrance.

Here is Martins with a young girl, I assume his granddaughter? (Late edit: I now know this is his daughter, Talicia. Thanks to everyone who emailed me, posted a comment, and replied to my post on the Winger message board for correcting me 🙂 Sorry about that!)

Anyway, I, apparently being one of the biggest celebrity whores, managed to make my way to the front of the railed-off section. Passersby began crowding around, whipping out cell phones, asking excitedly, “who’s that, who’s that?”

“Peter Martins.” I said. The woman next to me looked quizzical. “The New York City Ballet artistic director whose Romeo and Juliet is premiering tonight,” I said.

“Oh, I’m an ABT fan; I’m going to the opera tonight. I saw all the commotion. Are there any famous people here?”

“I don’t know, I think it’s just the gala attendees and City Ballet people,” I said.

“Leonardo, has Leonardo come yet?!” a woman shrieked, running up from behind.

“Leonardo who, diCaprio?” the first woman screamed.

“My daughter said he’d be here. I’m an ABT fan; I’m going to the opera tonight, but my daughter told me Leonardo was going to be here and to be sure to get a picture. Oooh, if I missed him, she’ll kill me,” she said dismally.

“Leonardo diCaprio?!” a guy said running over. “I have to get to the opera, when does this thing start?”

“I dunno, I’m an ABT fan; I’m going to the opera,” said yet another voice.

“The ballet starts at 7:30,” I said.

“Oh good,” they all said in unison.

“Well then, all the famous people will have to get here by about 7:20 then,” the guy said assuredly.

Cameras began flashing.

“Oooh, ooh, who is it, who is it??”

“I don’t know. It’s not Leonardo, but it’s looks like someone famous.”

And for the next half hour, it continued like this. A paparazzi camera would flash, everyone would get their cell phones or digitals ready and ask who is it, who is it, oooh, that’s someone, I don’t know who, but they look famous, or I know them from some show just can’t remember which…

Good lord. Anyway, I can’t make too much fun of these people, seeing as how I was one of them and all :), so let the celebrity fest begin:

Actress Elizabeth Berkeley. Funny everyone knew her as “that girl from Saved By the Bell,” or “that girl from, oh what was it, that TV show about the high school kids?…” No one remembered that she was in Showgirls!!!

Artist Anh Duong.


Actress Anna Paquin, in the white dress.

Two young ladies no one knew, but everyone agreed “looked famous.” Does anyone know who they are?

By far the biggest, hugest, most important celebrity of all, Kristin Sloan!!! Here operating her enormous camera, likely for her latest project…


Kristin and her boyfriend, Doug Jaeger, who caught my eye, or my camera pointed directly at him rather(!), and had Kristin turn her camera on me… I have no idea what that one’s going to look like … yikes!

This girl in the red dress — gorgeous dress by the way — was apparently an actress from young adult films … someone mentioned “Ice Princess”??? If anyone would like to clue me in, I’d be grateful!

“Well, I have to get to the opera,” the Leonardo woman said around 7:20. “Yeah, me too,” another man said. “I guess he already went in,” she said sadly. “Well, it’s still good I came to see this; I need to know what to wear if I decide to go to ABT’s gala. They’re my favorite,” she blushed.

“Me too,” I said.

“Oh really? I wonder who all will be there!” she said, excitement returning.

Anyway, 7:25 rolled around and I figured I’d better go in and get my seat — I was sitting all the way up in the 4th Ring so it’d take me a while.

Before the show began, Martins took the stage and gave a little talk mentioning that this season marked the centennial of Lincoln Kirstein‘s birth. He then pointed out an audience celebrity, Bill Clinton! It took a while before I spotted him; he occupied a center seat in the first ring, the seat, Martins noted that had belonged to Lincoln Kirstein. Martins told Clinton whenever he wished to attend the ballet, he need only phone him and he’d reserve the Kirstein seat especially for him. Everyone applauded. Martins then declared May 1st “Lincoln Kirstein and New York City Ballet Day.”

But far far FAR more important than the former president, in the house was also

🙂 🙂 🙂
He sat in the very first row, sixth seat in from the right aisle — almost the exact same seat where I sit to see him perform 🙂

Anyway, the performance:

Well, I’m extremely tired and groggy and I’ll probably have more thoughts later, and I know people will feel differently and I’m not saying I’m right and anyone else is wrong, but my first reaction is: it was pretty and sweet and cute and overall a lovely little ballet. It didn’t take my breath away, it didn’t make me cry, it didn’t move me, it got long in parts, I got bored, with the exception of one scene I was nowhere near the edge of my seat, and with the exception of two dancers — one of whom had a non-dancing part my heart didn’t stutter. I don’t know why people in general go to the ballet — it likely varies for different ballets (full-length story or abstract one-act) and different companies — but the aforesaid reasons are the reasons why I go to see a full-length story ballet, and this didn’t do it for me. The balcony scene, which ended the first act (there were only two; one intermission), was very pretty. Juliet’s dress was lovely, much shorter and sweeter than the gown worn by ABT ballerinas — ABT should trim that gown; this one was far more beautiful! The choreography was sweet and lovely with several pretty lifts of the kind I’ve seem umpteenth times before — nothing out of the ordinary, nothing original, nothing striking. No MacMillan’s ‘let me run toward you at maximum speed, dear, and hurl myself at you whilst turning and you catch me and throw me up over your head feet first’ lifts that to me is what makes the balcony pas de deux so thrilling, so magnificent, so emotionally compelling, and by far my favorite pdd of all.

The only scene that had me on the edge of my seat was the beginning of the second act, the sword fight in which Tybalt slays Mercutio, then Romeo slays Tybalt and the reason for that is that the dancers were top quality. When I first sat down in my seat, I have to admit I pulled out my binoculars and began searching the floor for Marcelo since I’d just seen him in the lobby (sorry no pictures — I’m too shy to approach and didn’t want to be a bad fan and take pics of him unaware), and when I found him I began fixating 🙂 So, when the lights went down and the curtain up, I hadn’t yet looked at my program. When I first saw Tybalt I was mesmerized — I loved Daniel Ulbright‘s Mercutio too most definitely, but there was something about Tybalt that just blew me away. I couldn’t figure out who he was. Joaquin de Luz happens to be my favorite dancer in the company but he was wearing facial hair and his hair was shorter or gelled back and I didn’t recognize him, and didn’t know it was Joaquin until I later looked at the program. So, I WAS NOT sitting there thinking “where’s Joaquin, oh I can’t wait to see Joaquin;” he captivated me nonetheless.

I was also blown away by Jock Soto, one of the most illustrious NYCB dancers of the past who recently retired, who played the non-dancing part of Lord Capulet. I already knew he was going to play that part and when he and Darci Kistler, as Lady Capulet, emerged onstage, I went to clap then realized no one else was and if my hands met I’d make an enormous commotion. What’s wrong with people, I thought, do they not know who he is? I ran into Kristin during intermission and mentioned it to her, and she laughed and said, “No people don’t do that here, that’s ABT. It’s a different audience etiquette.” Even if I wouldn’t have known Jock was Jock, he had so much physical presence and power, he commanded your attention so, I just couldn’t take my eyes off him.

Anyway, I do think Kristin’s “different audience etiquette” was a great way of putting it. Generally, I do think there’s a totally different aesthetic between the two big NY ballet companies, which I guess are sort of rivals in that it seems not that people love one and hate the other (anyone who’s a real ballet fan is going to go to both) but that people really really love one and just like the other. For me this is why. Martins deliberately chose to cast the two main roles with young, relatively inexperienced dancers. He said he didn’t want the dancers to “act”; rather he wanted them to just be themselves — young. It takes artistry, though, and perhaps “star quality” — whatever exactly that is — to make the characters live and breath and move the audience to the edge of their seats, and you just can’t do that, no matter how hard you try if you’re too inexperienced. Robert Fairchild (who played Romeo) is really really cute and it was clear that he put his heart into it and tried with all his might, and I think he, and Sterling Hyltin (Juliet) both have bright futures ahead, but I really think it was a mistake to cast young, inexperienced people in these major roles. It’s as if Martins is saying Romeo and Juliet don’t really matter; it’s Tybalt and Mercutio and Lord Capulet who are the important characters here. They are important but certainly not more so than the leads. I feel like I’m saying the obvious and I can’t believe he hasn’t got more criticism for this…

Anyway, I hope I’m not offending anyone; I do think I have a certain thing I go to the ballet to see and part of it is acting and artistry that will blow me away and I didn’t get that here, although I did think the choreography was very pretty and the dancers were all very good-looking, and it was generally that — a good-looking ballet that, to me, lacked substance with the exception of Joaquin and Daniel and Jock — all of whom had relatively minor roles and couldn’t pull the whole no matter how much they wanted to. It would be interesting to see more experienced dancers dance the leads and perhaps I’ll see it again if they do, but only if they do.

Other thoughts: the sets are very minimalist, which is normally neither here nor there with me — I care more about the dancing, though here, perhaps it’s just that I’m used to the fuller stage apparatus of ABT because I just felt like there wasn’t enough for me to feel I was really “in” the world he was re-creating. He said he wanted “more dancing, less crowd action” — I felt like there was less of both though I guess he did cut down on those long, drawn-out sword-fight scenes and ball-dancing scenes at the beginning that I could do without in the MacMillan. I guess I just felt like most of the dancing wasn’t compelling enough to me, so it didn’t matter. I did like his balcony scene, pretty but plain though it was, better than the Lavery.

Anyway, I am falling asleep. Just wanted to get my thoughts down and I hope people aren’t angry! I’m sure everyone who sees this will have their own thoughts and feelings about it!

To end, here are a couple more pics, taken from inside:

Yum! Dinner for the gala guests, from above.

And, a side pic of the gala guests. Sorry so dark – -I need a new camera badly!