Tag: Michael Northrop

Posted on

Former NYCB Dancer Sophie Flack Signs Her Debut Novel, BUNHEADS, at BEA

My apologies for my lack of blog posts this week. I spent Monday through Thursday at Book Expo America, the largest book industry trade fair in North America, held every year in NY at the Javits Center. (Nevertheless, I did manage to go to ABT’s night of premieres on Tuesday, which I’ll blog about soon.)

Anyway, I was so excited to see in the BEA program that former New York City Ballet dancer (and Winger contributor), Sophie Flack, was to sign from her debut young adult novel, Bunheads, about a teenage dancer  who’s in the corps de ballet of the “Manhattan Ballet,” and who, after meeting a handsome musician named Jacob, must decide whether she wants to continue in the competitive world of ballet or strike out on her own in “the real world.” The novel will be available in October, but I picked up an advance review copy and so am reading it now. It goes without saying that NYCB fans are going to LOVE it! But I think it has a far larger audience as well.

The Bunheads signing line was rather long, and I think Michael and I were the only ones who really knew anything about the author. I heard some young women behind me say they liked ballet and really wanted to read more about it. I heard someone else in line say they loved the cover; it reminded them of Black Swan (that’s the cover on the poster in the above photo). Some were saying they took ballet as a child and were still enamored of it and were really excited to see a book out about it. Basically, for all the pessimists out there, ballet most definitely is not dead.

It was so cool finally meeting Sophie! I felt so sweaty and gross walking all over the Javits Center for hours on end, so was hesitant to have my picture taken with her. That’s why I’m kind of hiding behind her!

Also, for my ballroom readers, I noticed this book:

It’s a memoir written by an amateur competitive ballroom dancer named Patrice Tanaka (who, from the photos inside the book, looks very familiar to me and who’s danced with my former teacher, Emmanuel Pierre-Antoine, whom I’ve blogged a bit about). According to the book cover, Becoming Ginger Rogers is about how ballroom helped Tanaka to become a better partner and business person (she runs an award-winning PR agency). I picked up an advance review copy of that as well, and will write about both books soon. Click on the book cover image above to find out more about the book and Tanaka.

Finally, just because I know some balletomanes who like him 😀 , here are a couple of photos of Colson Whitehead, who has a novel involving zombies (but it’s not a “zombie book,” he’s said on Twitter) out later this year. He didn’t read from that at BEA but from a humorous essay about the constantly changing “in” genres in publishing and what an author can (not really) do about it.

Posted on

Brooklyn Book Festival, Part Two

I had such a nice time at the Brooklyn Book Festival yesterday, despite the rain. I’ve gone to this festival for the past several years; they have readings, panel discussions, and other various quirky little things throughout the day. This year I was planning on listening to a crime fiction panel moderated by Michael Connelly, a set of debut author readings that included Sean Ferrell and Tanya Wright, another set of readings that included Elizabeth Streb – who is an  innovative choreographer and now an author too, and a panel discussion about the economic crisis and what to do about it, amongst other things.

But I ended up doing none of that because my friend, Goodloe Byron, and I ended up getting a last-minute table he’d requested earlier from the organizers. So, I sat outside all day with my books, meeting book lovers, chatting with them about my novel, and personalizing their books. It was my first time ever doing this and I had no idea what to expect, but people were so amazingly cool! People were congratulating me for publishing my debut novel, remarking on the cover, asking me about the novel’s plot, about the publication process. After a couple hours, I ran out of books and my friend, Nicole, graciously watched my half of the table while I ran home to get more. When I returned she told me she’d sold my last copy by telling people who’d approached the table about my awards and reviews, and kind of sweetly reprimanded me for not having that info on a sheet at the table. Methinks sometimes your friends are better sales-people for your books than you, the writer, are 🙂

Anyway, unfortunately at that point it began pouring, and I didn’t even want to take the additional books out of my bag so as not to ruin them (we didn’t have a table with a tent). And it ended up raining the rest of the day, pretty hard. So I left early. Still, I had one of the happiest publishing days of my life. I haven’t sold many print books – the vast majority of my sales have been on Kindle – and there’s something so incredibly cool about selling an actual, physical book — watching people regard the cover curiously, peruse the back, flip through it, and then being able to sign it for them, watching them walk away with it in their hands.

And just meeting people! I really had a blast. I want another festival. Soon.

Anyway, literary blogger Edward Champion has some interviews of BBF participants posted at his blog. The third one happens to be of my friend, Michael Northrop, talking not about his own novels but about his participation in a One Story magazine promotion at the festival. Fun!

Oh and photo above, by me, is of a non-festival-related protest against police brutality that happened to take place on the courthouse plaza, where we were.

Posted on

MERRY CHRISTMAS

to everyone who celebrates is. I found this video from my friend, the great writer Michael Northrop 🙂 I love it.

It reminds me of a scene in my favorite novelist Andrei Makine’s Once Upon the River Love, where two Siberian boys wake up to find their entire town covered in snow, as they often do during winter there, and they have a blast burrowing their way up and out.

Posted on

RATED R NUTCRACKER

photo21

My friend, Michael Northrop, and I were invited to a rehearsal of a rated R Nutcracker on Sunday evening. I had to leave early but Michael kindly stayed and wrote up this review. I took the photo above with my iphone. Here’s Michael:

Did you see the movie Bad Santa? No, me neither, but you get the idea. Holiday traditions are familiar and tend toward the precious and that makes them excellent targets for parody and irreverence. The thing about parody in the dance world, of course, is that it has to be well danced. The examples that leap to mind, en pointe, are the bounding “ballerinos” of Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo. The modern ballet Nutcracker: Rated R fits the bill nicely, as well.

This raunchy, entertaining Nut is set in early 1980s New York, the era of subway trains tagged tip-to-tail with graffiti, collapsing tenements, and a drug dealer on every corner, rather than a Starbucks. I got an early Christmas present when I got to watch a rehearsal of Act I on Sunday night.

Choreographer/director Angela Harriell got right to business working through the kinks, so to speak, in an intricately choreographed fight scene pitting rats vs. the soiled soldiers of the Department of Sanitation. The rats knew martial arts, which was bound to happen in this city sooner or later. Hyosun Choi, a Mighty Mouse of a rat, flew over the top of a leaning Sanitation worker with a perfect miss of a kick only to take on another.

Harriell gave the dancers plenty of freedom to improvise: “And then it’s whatever you want,” she said. “Wrestle! wrestle! And then there’s the hitting sound.”

Many hitting sounds later, a quick run-through revealed a fun, feisty fight scene, and it was on to the next piece: the Party Scene. The Tchaikovsky was cued up and the partners took their places. A few more quotes from Harriell should give you a good idea of the action:

“Then there’s the moment when you pick up the dildo and you’re like, ‘Nobody needs to know about that,’ and you keep it for yourself.”

“So let’s get back to the drunk parents dance . . . Yeah, you’re totally easy.”

“Then it’s open step and closed step and open and shake-a, shake-a butt.”

Sometimes the dancers had questions:

“So on the second triple thing,” said Eddie Gutierrez, “there’s no butt at the end?”

Harriell had the answers and kept them on the music:

“And roll in, and throw up, and 1-2-3-4!”

The party scene ends on a late-night subway platform. [I’ll pause here so you can remember what that’s like.] And then there was a final run-through of “most of Act I.” The marked steps and questions were replaced by muscular lifts-at a few points, dancer Michael MacLaren was defending three women against the ground-dramatic extensions, and long stretches of seriously good dancing. The dancers were having fun, and it came through in the movement. It was a blast, even in an unadorned studio after two and a half hours. I don’t see what chance the audience has to resist it when the full production hits the stage.

Nutcracker: Rated R begins its fourth season, December 17-31, at New York’s Theater for the New City in the East Village.

Posted on

RADIO CITY CHRISTMAS SPECTACULAR

pb112329

Last week, my friend — the illustrious Taylor Gordon! — invited me to watch her dance in the Radio City Christmas Spectacular. (Taylor, trained in classical ballet, is not a Rockette but a seasonal dancer in the show.) As last year, the show is a lot of fun, very Christmassy, very geared toward the tourist crowd and to children, with a somewhat corny story-line (younger boy strives to and eventually convinces older, more skeptical boy of Santa’s existence). But the dancing and the costumes and the sets are tremendous and are the reason you really go (if you’re an adult, that is 🙂 ).

The Rockettes in particular are wondrous. Talk about astoundingly perfect synchronicity…

pb112334

pb112335

The soldier scene is my favorite. They march, they step, they turn in formation in almost mind-boggling unison, and then they fall, one by one, s-l-o-w-l-y, ever so slowly, one after and onto the other, in, again, mind-bogglingly perfect timing.

pb112336

And now a few pictures of Taylor! She’s in the middle, in the coolly colorful tights.

pb112338

Pink scarf, green bag, cool tights. So proud of her … again!

pb112343

As a Santa — I’ve no idea which one.

pb112332

And as a tutu-clad bear.

pb112345

And a few more of the Rockettes.

pb112347

Kick line!

pb112349

Finale.

Taylor’s also a writer. Visit her blog for her accounts of what it’s like to be in the show.

And here is our friend Michael’s write-up of the evening.

Posted on

BOUDER’S "BOLDNESS OF ATTACK" SHINES IN SCHER’S "TOUCH"

 

 

(left to right: Ashley Bouder, Antonio Carmena, Russell Janzen)

 

 

 

All photos of Ashley Bouder, Antonio Carmena and Russell Janzen by Matthew Murphy.

Review by Michael Northrop

Avi Scher & Dancers debuted the dynamic new piece “Touch” at the 2009 Contemporary Dance Festival at Manhattan Movement & Arts Center Saturday. The music, Aphex Twin’s “Blue Calx” performed by Alarm Will Sound, fit right in on a mixed bill that ranged from quieter balletic moments from the host company, Thang Dao Dance, to some entertaining, Pilobol-esque body-stacking from Phoenix Project Dance Theater.

That was it for fitting in, though. Everything else about “Touch” stood out, starting with the dancers. New York City Ballet corps member Russell Janzen, soloist Antonio Carmena, and principal Ashley Bouder were tremendous, and the choreography made the most of the trio’s athleticism. This was not a timid exploration of the stage. Whenever there was a question (a half step, a reach), the answer was yes (continue, embrace).

Janzen and Carmena came out shirtless in bike shorts. Aesthetically, this highlighted the physicality of the piece, which included some exceptional lifts. (Psychologically, it just made every guy in the audience feel like a toneless dumpazoid—or perhaps I project? In either case, it was a big hit with the row of teen girls behind me.)

Bouder, dressed in black, was marvelous. She reminded me of that great line, that great scene, from Geoffrey Rush’s Oscar-winning 1996 movie Shine: “Boldness of attack.” In the movie, Rush, as a brilliant pianist, has to be prodded to it. On Saturday, Bouder was committed to it from the start. Her pointework was precise but bristling with power.

Anyone who saw Scher’s work at the City Center Studios in June or the Ailey Citigroup Theater in September knows that he has a real flair for physical, crowd-pleasing pieces set to contemporary music. This fierce, fresh piece manages to both fit right in with that and, again, stand out.

Posted on

MICHAEL TO THE RESCUE!: TERESA REICHLEN, JANIE TAYLOR AND TYLER ANGLE STAND OUT IN FINAL MIDSUMMER CAST

 

 

Yesterday was stressful. Had to make a hard hard choice: whether to spend the matinee at New York City Ballet watching three of my favorite dancers — Gonzalo Garcia, Tyler Angle, and Janie Taylor — make their debuts in Midsummer Night’s Dream, or at American Ballet Theater seeing Hee Seo debut as the title character in La Sylphide, with one of my favorite ABT dancers, David Hallberg opposite her. (Review coming very soon, along with earlier Sylphide cast, and two Midsummer casts — yes, I’m behind behind behind!)

I’d actually contemplated running back and forth across the Plaza, like I know some have done in times past, but the running times for the first acts were totally different and there was no way I was going to be able to see Gonzalo’s Oberon in Midsummer and then make it to the Met in time for David and Hee in the first act of Sylphide. So, I chose my David, and the lovely debuting Hee. Ever so thankfully I talked my friend, author Michael Northrop, into covering the goings on across the Plaza.

p6202228

Afterwards, over drinks and food at the Alice Tully Hall Cafe (they have half-priced specialty drinks from 3-6 pm! And not watered-down at all! I nearly passed out after two sips of that mojito in front of me 🙂 ), he told me that Gonzalo did just fine with that crazy high-flying scherzo for Oberon in the first act (I knew he would!), and that he really liked Teresa Reichlin as Titania and Janie and Tyler in the second act divertissement, which received a lot of applause, which I can just imagine! He also agreed to write a little review, which I’ll post in a minute. (If you don’t know the story of Midsummer, read about it here — Balanchine pretty closely follows the Shakespeare).

p62022292

But first, it being Michael’s last day at NYCB this season, he browsed the gift shop, and ended up with a pair of Kathryn Morgan toe shoes. He told me (and, apparently the amused gift shop attendant) he figured she wasn’t going to be $5 for much longer 🙂 I guess their shoes cost a certain amount according to their status: principal ballerina shoes are $30, soloists are $15 and corps members $5. I didn’t know all this. I’ve never wandered over to the toe shoes section. I initially wondered why, then realized, oh, my favorite dancers don’t usually wear toe shoes. Sorry to be lewd, honestly, but I then couldn’t help but wonder — just because of that crazy strong mojito that nearly put me on the floor — why they don’t sell other kinds of used dancewear that my favorites *do* wear, alongside the toe shoes. Sorry! But can you imagine? Total alternate universe.

Anyway, here is Michael’s review:

At Dunkin’ Donuts, they sell munchkins 25 at a time. That’s about how many you get at New York City Ballet’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, as well. The squadron of young dancers from SAB added a nice dose of fun and energy to a matinee that already had plenty of both on Saturday.

Daniel Ulbricht didn’t dance the role of Puck, so instead of gravity-defying antics, we just got antics. Corps member Troy Schumacher was announced as a late sub for soloist Sean Suozzi in the role, and there were some disappointed Ohhs around me. The thought: We’re getting the third string. Schumacher did an excellent job, though. He moved with an appropriately sprightly energy and showed a nice touch with the comedic moments. When he realized his magical matchmaking mistake, you could almost hear the “D’oh!”

Teresa Reichlen was fantastic as Titania, displaying just the right balance of regal, playful, and otherworldly for a fairy queen. And Robert Fairchild, a very busy man this season, excelled in yet another role (albeit in a ridiculous Prince Valiant costume) as Lysander. His put-upon love interest was once again Sterling Hyltin. The leads from NYCB’s Romeo + Juliet both showed they can handle Shakespeare’s comedy as well as his tragedy. Hyltin, for example, dialed up a slightly manic quality to great effect.

And Balanchine’s choreography tells the entire story in Act I, leaving Act II free for the divertissement. A quick wedding march and then Janie Taylor and Tyler Angle were center stage. They brought down the house.

Angle is a strong presence, but he defers so gracefully and lifts so effortlessly that he never soaks up more than his share of the spotlight. I noticed that when he partnered Tiler Peck in Mercurial Manoeuvres, and again on Saturday. Janie Taylor was both a delicate vision and a physical wonder, sometimes in turns, sometimes simultaneously. It’s a complete oxymoron in print, but she pulled it off onstage. Amazing.

The final scene was especially poignant for me, because I knew this was the last performance I’d see this season. Fireflies flickered around Puck against the dark backdrop of, yes, a midsummer night. It was the kind of night you don’t want to end, and the kind of season.

And here is Oberon’s (I mean Philip’s) review of the same cast.

And this just in! Another review (I’m interested in what he says of Gonzalo Garcia) — the one (by a pro critic who doesn’t say things are good when they’re not, and with great detail and specificity) that I’ve been waiting for 🙂 I knew Gonzalo’d nail it! I knew he’d be brilliant! I knew it!

 

 

Posted on

TONIGHT AT NEW YORK CITY BALLET

 

 

 

Top to bottom: Ashley Bouder and Robert Fairchild in Lifecasting, Tiler Peck in Mercurial Manoeuvres, and Maria Kowroski and Philip Neal in Slaughter on 10th. All photos by Paul Kolnik, courtesy of NYCB.

My friend Michael (whose novel is reviewed in the New York Times Book Review this Sunday, woo hoo!!!) and I saw this program Wednesday night. It was one of my favorites at NYCB and I think his as well. (Well, he loves Ashley and I love Mr. F. so it was a given we’d be melted into our seats by the end of Lifecasting).

But we were also both blown away for the first time by Wheeldon’s Mercurial Manoeuvres, I think because Tyler Angle plus Tiler Peck equals serious magic… Oh my gosh, Tiler Peck really made that ballet. I can’t wait to see her again tonight. She was just everything and more. Unfortunately Tyler won’t be partnering her (he’s my favorite male partner, along with Marcelo Gomes at ABT); she’ll be partnered instead by Adrian Danchig-Waring, a dancer who I am not all that familiar with but am excited to see. Also, heinously, my love Gonzalo Garcia (who owns the lead in this) is not dancing tonight; instead it’s Joaquin De Luz, who, yes yes, I’m sure will be spectacular as well 🙂 It will be interesting to compare, as I so love to do…

Casts are the same for Lifecasting with the aforesaid mesmerizing Robert Fairchild and Ashley Bouder, and Slaughter on 10th, starring Maria Kowroski and her legs, Philip Neal and his tap shoes, and Vincent Paradiso and his gangster persona! I’ll write more about this program after I see it again tonight.

Posted on

GENTLEMEN

 

Today my friend, Michael Northrop‘s, debut novel, Gentlemen, officially comes out!

Published by Scholastic, it’s classified as a Young Adult book, which means it’s geared mainly toward a teenage audience.

I have to admit I never read much YA even when I was that age (was too busy reading books like Valley of the Dolls and Peyton Place and thinking I was ooooh so sophisticated — big laugh, of course 🙂 ) Anyway, I have flipped through a few recently to see what’s out there and it seems that many of them are kind of about teenage girls and the whole popularity thing, about fitting in, some more serious and about eating disorders and multicultural issues, etc., but many are about girls and by women authors. So, Michael’s is a bit different in that it focuses on boys from a rather tough, working-class background, and is a bit darker. My kind of book! And one of my favorite novels, Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment, is at its center. Honestly, I read it quickly and really really liked it. It should be widely available, as of today. Yay 🙂