Stephen Hanna is returning to NYCB this winter season. Apparently he’s going to be listed as a guest for the upcoming season, but he’s resuming his principal rank. He leaves the Billy Elliot Broadway cast at the end of this month.
I’ll be excited to see him on the NYCB stage again, especially since the Billy Elliot production, ridiculously, didn’t give him enough to do.
His Billy Elliot replacement hasn’t yet been determined.
Haha! Okay, well after spending much of my evening at the melodramatic (but riveting) Tosca (it was the Metropolitan’s Opera’s opening night gala, with the premiere of a new production of Puccini’s Tosca, by Met newcomer Luc Bondy), it was nice to come home to this rather goofy corny fun – -which is what social dancing mainly is after all! I don’t want to speak too soon, but, to be honest, I wasn’t really looking forward to this season since the last few have been rather blah, but I think with last night’s show, we’re back on track. Lots of characters, some riotously funny, some endearingly sweet, some good dancers, others not so good but serious and hard-working.
For me, the top two (last night was only the men; women compete tonight) were Donny Osmond and, unbelievably, Tom DeLay. I thought DeLay was a natural with the Cha Cha, UNBELIEVABLY! He really nailed it — that slide on the knees, all the faux guitar playing, those awesome New Yorkers, all that hip swaying! The only thing that wasn’t really there were the pelvic rolls. I also thought he was very elegant and polished with the Viennese Waltz and was surprised the judges were hard on him — particularly since none of the guys were that good with VW (except for Aaron). Partner Cheryl seemed annoyed with him in practice though. Well, just so she knows, a lot of people who don’t normally watch this show are watching because of him, so if I were her, I’d snap out of it. She’s been rather short-tempered with her partners lately…
Donny was a total natural – -he nailed both the Foxtrot and the Salsa, which is rare — doing well in both styles of dance I mean. Yeah, I know he has dance training (he “danced as an embryo” I think he said), but still. It’s gonna be a lot o fun watching him dance the season away. And whoa, how much better is he than his sister?!
I also liked Mark (pictured above, with Lacey), the Iron Chef, the martial arts guy. (Sorry, I don’t have all of their last names down yet; too much going on right now in my life; will know them by next week!) I thought his Cha Cha was very good — far from perfect (and he’s doing the dreaded pigeon toes) but he has a natural rhythm and sufficiently loose hips and he clearly knows how to have fun out there and put on a show. But what was he on about with the “man —“? Len accused him of being too martial artsy but having good hips and then he remarked that he’s hiding parts of his body right now, or parts of his dancing, and intends to bring on the “man –” I really thought he said “man moves,” but then Lacey had a rather bemused look on her face and then everyone who quoted him afterward seemed to be saying “man boobs.” Why did he say he was bringing out his “man boobs”? Anyway, quite the character, that one — obviously. I didn’t think his Viennese Waltz was as great — that flexed-footed ronde en l’air almost made me spit out my wine. No flexed feet in rondes en l’air Mark unless you’re trying to be the doll in the Nutcracker.
Okay, I know he’s not popular with the judges, but I totally liked Ashley Hamilton. I think I liked him so because, hello, he was actually a gentleman! I expected a skanky lascivious womanizing perve like his father but no! A total dapper, polished gent! How does a womanizing skank not raise another man to be a womanizing skank? Maybe it’s rebellion — rebellion against one’s parents can take different forms. Hmm. Anyway, I also thought he really looked like Sebastien Marcovici (who we know is not a womanizing skank because Janie would never have any such crap).
Anyway, yeah, Hamilton’s not a natural mover and he has his work cut out for him but I like his personality. I find him endearing and he has a good dance body and I think he can do it if he tries hard. I want him to stay on the show for a while.
Oh poor Chuck, the boxer. Can you say “stiff”? He was seriously nervous during both dances but especially during his first, the Foxtrot. I think he was concentrating very hard, but he needs to loosen up and kind of not think so much.
I thought Aaron (singer, actor) looked stiff as well during his Cha Cha. But he was much better in the Viennese Waltz. Much more polished and very surprisingly smooth. Only thing that wasn’t quite right was it looked like he was literally running at points — particularly during a continuous turn in close handhold. He needs to make it look more like he’s gliding not literally running around in a circle. He didn’t score any points with me when we first met him and he said he was happy Karina’s his teacher because she’s pretty and he wants that. Yeah, that’s definitely what’s important in an instructor.
I thought Louie was so cute! (“I’m small — I’m 5’5, 5’6 on a good day…”) I agree with Len that it’s clear he has no dance training but that he took it very seriously and respected the dance form, trying hard to do all the footwork properly (and nearly succeeding) and be a proper partner. He and Chelsie Hightower looked good together.
And, finally Michael, the footballer who used to be with the Dallas Cowboys, and is Jerry Rice’s former teammate. Cute how he’s all into play competing with Jerry, telling us he just wants to get better scores than Jerry in each of his dances. And he remembers exactly what Jerry got from his first Cha Cha. But it’s clearly all in fun. He’s another one with an endearing personality who I like and want to stay on for a while. He’s not a natural dancer — he’s lacking in grace and polish and form, but he’s got an innate sense of rhythm and he’s used to moving and I think he has the ability to do well. He had some good triple chas in that Cha Cha which I think shows when he really gets going, when he really gets into a groove, he can make it work.
Len annoyed me, for the first time ever I think, or one of the first times. He kept harping on everyone for not doing standard ballroom — Donny’s Foxtrot was too “razz-ma-tazz,” Mark’s was too kung-fu, etc. Well, we know, but it’s only the first week — let the dancers have a first dance that’s not totally out of their territory. And that was totally out of line for him to criticize Louie’s shaggy haircut as not being “ballroom enough.” One’s personal hair style has nothing to do with one’s dance ability and Len should know that. It seemed like he really wanted to put everyone into a box and make them conform to his own non-dance standards. Dance is about freedom of expression. I know he was sort of kidding, but he came across as an old fuddy duddy.
I think of the men Chuck, Ashley and Michael are going to be in the bottom. What do you guys think?
New York City Ballet dancers will perform an adaptation of Robbins’ NY Export Opus Jazz tonight, September 10th, from 5-8 p.m. in McCarren Park Pool in Brooklyn. See the latest comment to this blog post or go here for details.
Over the weekend I went to see The September Issue, the documentary about Anna Wintour and Vogue, focusing on the mag’s — well, the fashion industry’s — most important issue of the year. I found it thoroughly entertaining, but not in the way I expected. I expected it to be a real-life Devil Wears Prada, but it wasn’t that at all. I remember from the book, Lauren Weisberger’s main character constantly feeling like a horrid slob amongst all the fashionistas — or fashionista wannabes — who worked at the magazine, and I remember her even being ridiculed by everyone for wearing Ann Taylor, supposedly a cheap designer.
Of course Devil Wears Prada, the film, played up on all of that, having Meryl Streep lecture Anne Hathaway on her decidedly frumpy wardrobe and call her (a size 6) “fat.” But here, everyone who works at Vogue — particularly Wintour and other higher-ups like creative director Grace Coddington (who is really the emotional centerpiece of the film) are pretty mundanely dressed. They seem more like incredibly hard-working women who are far too busy to care much about how they look everyday at the office. No one wears much makeup, hair looks completely unstyled, Coddington munches on a rather bland-looking corner deli-bought salad while enthusing about the photo-shoots she’s designed and her romantic vision for the issue, talking about her past as a model and how she turned to the editorial side of things early on after a car accident ended her modeling career, and bemoaning the wasted money spent on photo spreads Wintour ended up not liking and axing entirely.
But my biggest surprise was how unattractive I found the models to be. And they weren’t — they were all really beautiful. But I think I’ve seen so much dance now that, as much as I used to admire models, I’m now almost horrified at their bad posture, their boney bodies, their completely uncoordinated frames, their sloppy-looking lines. During a shoot, this one model was playing around and she decided to do a kick — a battement — for the photographer and it was just about the worst kick I’ve ever seen. Her knee was bent awkwardly, her foot was doing nothing at all and gave her leg no line, and she almost fell over. The photographer seemed to think it was great though.
Made me think how much better dancers might be at making the clothes look good. I don’t know, maybe most dancers are too short or the fabric doesn’t drape as well over built musculature as it does over basically skin-covered bone.
This wasn’t the same model from the film — I can’t find a photo of her — but it’s taken from Italian Vogue. I mean the clothes look good — she’s pretty — but look at her lines underneath…
This in contrast to the New York City Ballet dancers, as photographed with this gorgeous flowing diaphanous fabric for NYCB’s Winter season calendar, which I just received in the mail today.
Just looking at a couple of the photos New York City Ballet dancer turned photographer Kyle Froman has shot for Morphoses to publicize that company’s upcoming City Center season (tix go on sale for that today, by the way) and am realizing what an excellent photographer he is. I mean, he doesn’t just take pictures of dancers in action (which is an art in itself) but he has a real vision for dance with the way he poses his subjects against a setting and the overall images he creates and the feelings they evoke. He’s like Balanchine as a photographer. I don’t see a lot of dance photography like this.
I enjoyed watching him dance with NYCB — particularly his hilarious turn as the pompous Russian danseur in Balanchine’s Slaughter on Tenth — but sometimes I think a dancer finds his or her true calling when he “retires.”
Here is his website. He also has a book out, In the Wings, consisting of photos he took behind the scenes at NYCB when he was still dancing there.
This is a most interesting pairing, and one I hadn’t thought of before. One of my NYCB favorites, Sebastien Marcovici, and ABT’s Michele Wiles will dance the Black Swan pdd this weekend in Miami at the International Ballet Festival. It’ll be their first time as a partnership. Apparently, they both take class with David Howard here in NY and he thunk it up. Wish I could be there… There’s a lot going on this weekend.
For the past few evenings I’ve been partaking of the Met Opera’s outdoor Summer HD Festival on Lincoln Center Plaza. The first night I went was Benjamin Britten’s Peter Grimes. It was on a week night and the plaza was about half full. I’d bought a sack pique-nique dinner from Bar Boulud across the street — which was delic by the way (chilled gazpacho soup, baguette of brie and fresh fig spread, waffle chips, bittersweet chocolate tart, and bottle of Pellegrino). But when I took a seat in the back and began to unwrap my brown bag I realized what a commotion I was making, how dead silent it was. I waited until a noisy helicopter buzzed around above us for a few seconds to tear into my sandwich. I absolutely loved the quiet, but figured it must be because this opera was so serious and esoteric — only true opera-manes would go.
But then last night, Puccini’s far more popular La Boheme was the same. Plaza was packed. I mean, every single seat was taken (both of the fold-out variety set up by the event organizers and make-shift seats like construction cones aligning Avery Fisher Hall), there was hardly a square foot of ground to stand on all the way to the street — people were even camped out atop the temporary Koch Theater ticket trailer (until police came around telling them to get down). But once the music began, there was the same dead silence. Everyone stared up and the screen, completely captivated. It was even quiet around the food and liquor stands, where people were basically whispering their orders. Children (the few that were there) behaved, dogs (the many that were there) behaved. Well, dogs usually behave in a crowd, actually… But even the little kids seemed to know it was important to try to concentrate on the screens.
The noisiest part of the evening was when South Pacific, showing next door at the Vivian Beaumont, let out. But once the theater-goers realized there was something important going on out on the Plaza, they shushed each other and ventured up to watch — in total silence — as well.
Such a complete contrast with some of the outdoor dance festivals — Lincoln Center Out of Doors, the Downtown Dance Festival, site-specific summertime events, sometimes SummerStage. I’ve heard from several people now that the Saratoga Performing Arts Center where NYCBallet has their summer season, is much the same, making me honestly not all that excited to go up there. I mean, kids are running around, parents yelling, people talking to their friends at the same pitch as if they were in a noisy bar, people unwrapping food, opening soda cans, popping gum.
So what gives? Do people just think opera is mainly about music and so to enjoy it everyone must be able to hear it above all else, whereas dance is more visual — so you can make all the noise want and not bother people because they can still see? Maybe it’s about the children — people are much less inclined to bring small kids to the opera, but they somehow think their two-year-old is going to have a deep appreciation of Balanchine or Karole Armitage or classical Indian dance. Maybe they equate outdoor dance performances with outdoor social dance events like Midsummer Night’s Swing, where you’re hardly going to disturb social dancers by talking. Or maybe there’s something about a big ole screen being up there.
I wonder if it would be different if ABT would have a summer HD festival and show outdoor broadcasts of some of the spring season’s ballets. Probably not… although the crowds were pretty quiet for the David Michalek Slow Dancing exhibit two years ago (once Midsummer Night Swing ended anyway)…
Anyway, tonight (Saturday) is Mark Morris’s Orfeo ed Euridice. I mean Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice but Morris produced and choreographed. We’ll see how it goes when there’s some dance involved… The Met outdoor HD festival continues through Monday night, ending with Anthony Minghella’s production of Puccini’s Madame Butterfly.
Remember the film version of Jerome Robbins’s New York Export: Opus Jazz that NYCBallet dancers Ellen Bar and Sean Suozzi had planned — and begun — to make in 2007? If not, I wrote about it here and here when a completed scene (pictured above) that was filmed in Manhattan’s High Line starring Rachel Rutherford and Craig Hall had been shown at NYCB and the Guggenheim.
Well, as of August 24, 2009, filming has resumed thanks to WNET (New York’s PBS station), who has acquired the film for its excellent Great Performances: Dance in America series.
The team — which consists of Bar, Suozzi, and filmmakers Henry Joost, Jody Lee Lipes, Matt Wolf and Anna Farrell — is currently scouting locations to shoot the remaining four movements of the 28-minute ballet (the film will consist of the ballet, interspersed with documentary coverage and narratives of the dance’s characters and their background stories). Each danced movement is to be filmed in a different part of the city (to capture NY’s different moods) and will be danced by NYCB dancers.
WNET plans on a broadcast sometime in the Spring of 2010. I’m really hoping it shows on other local PBS stations outside of New York as well, please please PBS — so everyone else can see it! This is the first Robbins ballet to be filmed since West Side Story. I will keep you updated on times and stations, and you can check the project’s Website and Facebook page as well.
In the meantime, here’s a trailer:
Philip was really sweet and sent me some pictures taken by his friend, Kokyat, of the Morphoses / Martha Wainwright performance Saturday night in Central Park. Above are my three favorites from ABT and NYCB respectively: Marcelo Gomes, Gonzalo Garcia and Tiler Peck (seated). They’re dancing Christopher Wheeldon’s Fool’s Paradise.
It was a fun night. For people unfamiliar with Martha Wainwright’s music, she’s kind of a folksy, bluesy, country mix. So, the dances, mostly choreographed by Wheeldon, a couple by Edwaard Liang, complemented that with lots of wavy-armed, lyrical, softly jazzy, almost social-dance-like movement, with ruffly dresses for the women and open t-shirts, casual vests and buttoned Oxfords with ties for the men.
Here’s a photo by Andrea Mohin of the NYTimes, of Bleeding All Over You, chor by Liang and set to Wainwright’s song. Teresa Reichlen is in the middle, surrounded by Jason Fowler and Adrian Danchig-Waring of NYCB. See Mohin’s slide-show here.
Here’s another favorite of mine by Mohin from the NYTimes slide show, of Gonzalo Garcia and Tiler Peck in Love is a Stranger (set to Wainwright’s re-interpretation of the Annie Lennox hit). This was one of my favorite dances of the evening because, well I love both these two, and it kind of reminded me of when they danced Other Dances together at NYCB this season.
And my other favorite from that slide show, of Rory Hohenstein dancing a solo in Far Away, the first piece of the night.
I don’t know if it was Craig Salstein and the wine or the promise of seeing Marcelo in the second act or what, but everyone seemed to have an extra glow or something; everyone seemed to dance so much better than I’ve ever seen them before — particularly Hohenstein. He was really fluid, really beautiful in this dance.
See more photos in the Times slide show here. And read the accompanying review by Sir Alastair in which he gets just a bit caught up in the spelling of the word “Whither.” I don’t see that anyone has blogged about the review, but it’s certainly making its way around via email because of that paragraph. It’s like the critics are becoming part of the performance…
Anyway, Marcelo danced in the last two ballets — Wheeldon’s well-regarded Fool’s Paradise, and Tears of St. Lawrence (a new collaboration between Wheeldon and Liang). Paradise was set to recorded music by Jody Talbot (the only non-Wainwright music of the night) and Tears to Wainwright’s song of the same name.
Marcelo danced the opening pas de deux in Paradise with Tiler Peck and I feel like I saw things anew and like I was more connected to and moved by some of the twisted, unique, two-body shapes just by seeing a dancer I connect with in the part — his covering her ears, his bowing down to her in arabesque… No one could make the arabesques Marcelo was making, and there were several parts where he and another male dancer — at the beginning Gonzalo — would frame the women with those arabesques and Marcelo’s raised leg was always significantly higher. I always love Gonzalo, and it could just have been my seeing him next to Marcelo, but he didn’t seem as stretched-out Saturday night. His extensions weren’t as heavenly as they usually are. Actually, there was nothing in any of the ballets that really brought out the qualities that make Gonzalo Gonzalo. No Mercurial Manoeuvers, no Hallelujah Junction, no MNS Oberon, no Other Dances, no Concerto DSCH where he could fly all over stage and charm you to death. He doesn’t excel as well at the slower, pretzel-shape pas de deux-heavy dances. Well, it’s not that he doesn’t excel, it’s just that his personality doesn’t have the chance to shine. I want Wheeldon to choreograph something high-flying for him and put it in the Morphoses program 🙂
Back to Paradise: I have to say, upset as I was over not being able to see the dancers up close, I was able to see the patterns better from sitting back in the sky box. Wheeldon and Liang both came back there and stood beside us to get a view of the overall, so I guess Susan and I ended up in the kind of ideal Balanchinian viewing area. From there I really could better appreciate the patterns and the look of the whole.
For all the “whither wather” goofiness, one of Macaulay’s lines in the afore-linked-to review really resonated with me: “I like the control with which Mr. Wheeldon keeps making you pay attention, but I can’t get interested in these dances as thought or drama.” I think that’s what prevents me from getting entirely into a Wheeldon ballet (at least his ballets for Morphoses; some of his ballets for NYCB have been far more dramatic or expressionistic); I feel like I need to come away from a work of art with something other than just a beautiful image. I need more in order to keep thinking about the piece over and over again, which is the effect I want a work of art to have on me.
But I’ll keep trying with Wheeldon — I’m sure if I liked Mercurial Manoevers and the After the Rain pdd, other dances of his will eventually grow on me. Especially if he uses my favorite dancers more often 🙂
Here are some more Kokyat photos of Fool’s Paradise:
And here are some of Tears of St. Lawrence:
Cast taking a bow, with Wainwright and Wheeldon in center. Look how cute they are 🙂
As I said earlier, there was a lot of music and it almost felt like a music concert with some dance thrown in, but, like others have mentioned, I’m glad the program exposed Wainwright fans to dance. Toward the end, Wheeldon came up onstage and introduced the dancers the way Wainwright introduced her band. He called his dancers “his band” and jokingly noted this wasn’t often done in the dance world. At one point, he remarked to Wainwright that he thought she might dance some and she responded, “Oh … no … oh, I don’t know… I could lie down and let people do things to me?” Everyone laughed. “Maybe it could be you,” she tacked on. “Ah, I don’t think it would be me,” he said after a long pause. He seemed a bit embarrassed. It was cute.
Anyway, thank you again to Philip for letting me use some of Kokyat’s photos. Definitely visit Philip’s blog where he has several posts filled with more gorgeous photos. The photos begin with this post (keep clicking on previous posts titled “Starry Night” to see more).
In light of the recent downpour of Tulsa Ballet reviews, many of which critized the selection of dances artistic director Marcello Angelini chose to bring to NY, my friend Christopher Atamian writes a note on programming selection. Chris also talks about Pilobolus, who were recently at the Joyce and big shame on me for missing them (I was recovering from an insanely exciting ballet season — the best EVER in my NY lifetime– and hystericizing over putting the finishing touches on my novel, so please forgive me for failing to cover this most exciting troupe).
I think Chris makes good points about not only the selection of programs but the placement of dances within the programs. I think this is one thing that Judith Jamison of Alvin Ailey is genius at: that company always performs their choreographically richest, most upbeat piece at the end: either Ailey masterpiece Revelations, the versatile hip hop / modern / African combo Love Stories, or Tharp’s wild-ride, The Golden Section. And interestingly, now that I think about it, New York City Ballet usually puts their premieres in the middle of the program, ending with a Balanchine. I definitely think you’d want to put the less established pieces in the middle, and bookend them with the tried and true. I do wonder if we “cranky New Yorkers” in Apollinaire Scherr’s words would have received Tulsa’s program better had Hue’s piece been in the middle or the beginning and the Duato at the end.
Anyway, here is Chris Atamian:
It is presumably the role of the artistic director to choose the particular program or set of dances that a company will perform on any given night. I don’t know if anyone else has noticed a rather curious phenomenon, but I have attended a few performances of late by some truly fine companies that would have benefited enormously from a more judicious dance selection. There was of course the Tulsa Ballet’s amazing 1-2 MacMillan-Duato punch at the Joyce which was unfortunately followed by a much weaker This Is Your Life by Young Soon Hue. Why not start with the Hue piece-if one must include it-and then work up to the Macmillan and Duato? The audience would then walk away with an even stronger impression of this wonderful company.
The week before, I attended all three Pilobolus programs, also at the Joyce. Program One began with a fine martial arts/capoeira-inspired piece Redline choreographed by Jonathan Wolken. This was followed by a stunning piece Darkness and Light developed in collaboration with the truly astounding puppeteer Basil Twist involving shadow play and a presentation of nothing less than the cosmos itself, whirring by at breakneck speed in front of a mesmerized audience. Then after a short break, the company came back with the 1971 work Walklyndon, a cute, short piece which involves the company dancers walking back and forth across the stage and engaging in some wonderfully humorous gags and movement with elements of clowning, physical humor and even a touch of vaudeville perhaps. The members wear hilarious, lively costumes.
I compared the piece elsewhere to a jived up version of Romper Room and I meant that in the best way: it’s humorous and soulful and it gives the audience a good idea of the company’s history and evolution-how else will younger people ever see the early pieces of a company which has now thrived for close to forty years? My beef is that it came as a complete anticlimax after the Basil Twist piece-you could literally feel the audience deflate: they were waiting for something stellar, fast-paced and acrobatic and instead were presented with a funny and somewhat tame amuse-gueule. (Of course a company that specializes in say baroque dance or a classical ballet company may have an easier time of things programming an evening of performances simply because they have a theoretically more restrained group of works to choose from than a contemporary company…) There are of course many ways to curate a night of performances: by similarity or contrast; by choreographer; by time or setting; by pace or style; etc) No one way is correct per se, one just wishes that the choices were sometimes more judicious or logical. As with everything in a very difficult field, that is easier said than done and there is always something to be said for experimentation. And of course this is just one critic’s opinion….others are free to disagree with me!
Our David Hallberg (with flying blonde mane and miraculous feet!) rehearses the Black Swan pas de deux with Ashley Bouder, which they’re currently performing at the Vail International Dance Festival. Great Paloma Herrera-esque fouettes, Ms. Bouder (with the multiple pirouettes thrown in; I haven’t really seen the NYCBallet ballerina in a dramatic part yet; she and David look good together!)
Bouder’s also performing Balanchine’s Who Cares with SLSG favorite Robert Fairchild, and David’s dancing Apollo with Pacific Northwest’s Carla Korbes. So wish I could be there…
If you haven’t already seen, there’s an excellent slide show of photos of dancers and choreographers that have appeared in Vanity Fair over the past decade or so on the magazine’s website. Of course you know I would have to post this one (by Bruce Weber by the way), but there are also some really beautiful ones of Darci Kistler and Peter Martins, Bill T. Jones, Alvin Ailey dancers, and some oldies from New York City Ballet, just to name a few. Check it out here.