“It turned out it was Lana who had to have the stage. Not in the way they did, not being on it. . . Each production was a mystery to be solved. . . Lana would answer with her own performance — on the page. . . Deep down, Lana knew she would end up in New York. A city where they argued about the arts. And respected critics.” (emphasis added).
From the novel, Women About Town, by Laura Jacobs.
Last night, I met up with fellow dance blogger, Art, at the NY Library of the Performing Arts to watch a newly restored film of George Balanchine’s 1965 ballet Don Quixote, performed by the choreographer and his then muse (and one of the greatest and most famous ballerinas of the 20th Century) Suzanne Farrell. The film, which is now available for private viewing in the library’s research carrels, was shown last night to an audience.
I’m currently reading Ms. Farrell’s autobio (one of MANY books overspilling my night table…) but this was my first time actually seeing her dance, and, oh my gosh, I was beyond blown away. She was just the epitome of grace and serenity and beatific, angelic, ethereal purity. Her arms were like water and her body at times looked like a candle’s brightly flickering flame. I can see why she was his muse! And she was only 19 in the film; all of those qualities that make a sublime dancer thusly so are present from the get-go, several of us agreed after the showing in the lobby.
The film is a bit wobbly in places. The filmming wasn’t sanctioned (making the movie a piece of bootleg!) So, at times the light is so dim you can’t really make out what is happening; sometimes the camera is focused on a dancer who isn’t dancing, cutting off someone else who is, there’s lots of blurriness, and the sound is often distorted. Somehow you can always see radiant Suzanne, though, which is what is most important of course!
Also, this version of the ballet is rather dark, based closely on the original Cervantes, not on (19th Century ballet-maker) Petipa’s more fun-loving, celebratory classical ballet filled with flirty characters and thrilling, virtuostic dancing. I rather liked Balanchine’s more melancholy interpretation. I wish New York City Ballet was still performing it today. Sadly, the ballet got mixed reviews, so they nixed it.
It was really fun seeing this with an actual audience. I think if I’d viewed it at a private carrel or checked it out and watched it at home on video I might have got bored. But seeing it with other ballet fans (some very long-time), hearing their gasps when Balanchine’s Don Quixote has his feet washed by Farrell’s Dulcinea, then dried by her long, flowing hair (Balanchine, many many years Farrell’s elder, suffered an unrequited romantic love for her), their heavy applauding at the end of one of Farrell’s solos, their enthusiastic whispering when someone who was obviously a famous dancer back then came on the screen, all made it so much more intriguing, made it all come alive. Some of the faces I’m seeing at all of these dance events are beginning to become familiar now, and it’s really nice sensing that you’re part of a community, especially in the hugeness of New York City.
Speaking of familiar faces, Art and I ran into Monica in the lobby and we chatted for a bit, which was fun. Her daughter is an aspiring ballerina and currently studies at the School of American Ballet, founded by Balanchine and connected to New York City Ballet.
Art is just amazing, and, after reading his blog for several months now, it was so great finally to meet him! So knowledgeable about ballet, though so young 🙂 He lives in L.A. but was here checking out grad schools in art admin. After the showing, I dragged him to Cafe Mozart because I’m a pig and a half 🙂 to chat more. As an undergrad at USC he took a dance history class with the (in)famous critic Lewis Segal! He said I should be reading Edwin Denby (which Terry Teachout and my friend the great dance writer Apollinaire Scherr 🙂 have told me as well), so when my next Borders coupon arrives via email, I will have to break down and buy it. We discussed dancers, dance companies, dance journalism, dance presenters, theater, London verses New York for all of the above … he recommended for my next Blackpool trip (in May / June next year), I fly into London instead of Manchester so I can bookend my ballroom dancing extravaganza with some dance at Sadler’s Wells. He even knew what was on their agenda at that time of year! See, smart!! It was so nice meeting you, Art, and I hope you do relocate here for grad school 🙂 In the meantime, keep blogging!
Last night I went to my first Works & Process discussion of the Fall season to investigate the Boston Ballet, who will soon be performing as part of the Fall For Dance Festival at City Center. These Works & Process events held by the Guggenheim Museum, by the way, are really a good value. For only $25 you can see, in a very intimate setting, prestigious dance companies perform new pieces from their upcoming reps, and hear the artistic directors and/or choreographers talk about the works.
Last night’s program featured speakers Mikko Nissinen, Boston Ballet’s artistic director, and choreographers Helen Pickett and Jorma Elo. Elo is the main reason I wanted to attend, as I have loved both of the two very modern ballets I’ve thus far seen of his: “Slice to Sharp” performed by New York City Ballet; and “Glow Stop” by my favorite American Ballet Theater 🙂 This makes me a bad person, as dance critics just lurve to hate Elo 😉 I guess many find him vapid and aerobic. But I think his ballets are fast, fun, sharp and bedazzling, and they both showcase the dancers’ athletic abilities with their numerous mid-air turns, high jumps, and fast precise footwork, and take dancers out of their comfort zone (as this favorite of mine once put it) which, in a weirdly extended way, does the same to us.
Anyway, tonight’s piece of his, an excerpt from “Break the Eyes” was the best thing I’ve seen by him yet. The music alternated between a section consisting of heavy, disconcerting, foreboding sounds (at first sounded almost like something out of “Jaws”), and was accompanied by the voice of a young woman breathing frantically and speaking urgently in Finnish, and a section of sweetly mellifluous Mozart piano music. A solitary ballerina danced to the foreboding soundscape, her movements at the start sharp, jerky, and frazzled, which became less so as the ballet went on. The Mozart pieces were danced by a small ensemble whose dance vocabulary — pretty partnering, lifts, quick-paced but mellifluous allegro steps — mirrored the flowing music, the solitary ballerina’s angular, harried, awkward movements a stark contrast to theirs. As the piece developed, the music was at times played together, the frantic Finnish woman’s voice crying out over, disrupting the Mozart. The ensemble and solitary ballerina seemed to struggle with and react against each other, eventually helping to define each other. The dance was intriguing: though I didn’t “get” everything the first time around, as I never do with abstract ballets, there was a real development there, a kind of story, and I felt Elo was trying to say something, making me curious to see it again. I’ll get that chance with Fall For Dance, as Elo’s is the piece the company will perform.
Boston Ballet, as Nissinen explained, seeks to perform a blend of contemporary and classical ballet. Ballet, he said, is “not just a church or museum, but must pave the way for the future.” I like that, and it’s true. There’s nothing more beautiful and romantic and fairytalish than classical ballet, but for the art to stay alive, there must be new along with old. (What if the only plays performed on all of Broadway were by Shakespeare? Going to theater would be a historical enterprise, like visiting a museum.) In this vein, the company also presented a Swan Lake pas de deux — you realize just how beautiful classical ballet is, what genius possessed Ivanov, and how iconic Tchaikovsky is when you see something like this juxtaposed with the modern — along with an excerpt from the first professional work by new choreographer Helen Pickett. Interestingly, Pickett said her process was to choreograph a dancer’s solo, then allow the five or so others sharing the stage to improvise their own moves, taking cues from the soloist’s movement “reading” her vocabulary and reacting to it. She said it was empowering to the dancer, which I can see. Still think I’d be very nervous making up my own movement right on the spot before an audience though!
Anyway, if you wish to see the Elo piece at Fall For Dance, go here; for Guggenheim’s W&P schedule, go here.
Watching “window” by bill shannon
Originally uploaded by swan lake samba girl via mobile.
This was so cool! Review to come. Definitely try to go if you can!
Okay, now that I’m back at my desk I can write more. Bill Shannon’s “Window” is the last of the works shown as part of the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council’s “Sitelines” series (consisting of site-specific dance performances) in its “River to River Festival” for this year. (“River to River” takes place downtown each summer). The two others I was able to see, I blogged about here and here.
I really really liked “Window.” Bill Shannon is a disabled dance / conceptual artist who uses crutches. (If you’re in L.A. right now, he is one of the performers included in the David Michalek “Slow Dancing films” exhibit.) Here he and three other men — one wearing black pants, top and hood, one wearing all white, and one dressed in a business suit — performed break-dance and hip-hop out on Liberty Park Plaza while Shannon, skateboarding on crutches, zoomed around on the streets surrounding the park. At points Shannon would skate into the park and dance, very well mind you, on the crutches.
There were two sets of audiences: the random passersby in the park and on the street who got caught up in all the commotion; and us, those who RSVP’d to the event through lmcc’s website and were escorted into the 8th floor of the high-rise at 140 Broadway, where, amongst the bemused real-estate brokers who regularly inhabit the office, watched the scene down below through the window. A couple of camera people outside filmed the performances by Shannon and the three others and those films were projected live onto four screens inside, where we stood. One screen was set up in such a way that it would reflect on the ceiling, where you got kind of an upside-down version of what was going on outside. The filmmakers also played with the projections a bit so that the colors of the dancers’ clothing would change, or, at points, the dancers would be projected onto a different background; at times the images looked rather 3D. So, you had your choice of watching what was actually going on outside through the window, or the way it was projected onto the screen, as intermediated by the filmmakers.
They also had speakers set up inside, which played a variety of hip hop, techno and pop music. Shannon had headphones bearing a small microphone so he danced to the music and interacted with us through the mike.
I preferred watching what was actually going on through the window, partly because, Liberty Park being so big and crowded, everytime I took my eyes off of Shannon, I lost him. I also found it more interesting seeing how normal everyday besuited business people and tourists, not expecting to see a show — and a rather odd one at that (I didn’t see any speakers down there so assumed they couldn’t hear the music and only saw a bunch of guys rocking out to silence), interacted with him. Of course this being New York, most pretended not to notice him at all, although you could kind of see them spying him out of the corner of their eyes. They didn’t have the roads blocked off and at one point I thought he may be hit by a large white van barrelling down Liberty Street, but the driver thankfully saw the crazy guy bopping around on crutches whilst skateboarding and slowed to a stop. “Whoaaa” Shannon sang over the speakers.
At the beginning, Shannon looked up at us and called out, “How do you put rhythm into a city? How do you make a city come alive?” while clapping his hands above his head and shaking his hips to the percussion like a rock star. There was something at first eery but eventually comforting about watching him rockingly skateboard around what was once a triage unit, the construction site that was once Ground Zero and before that the World Trade Center diagonally behind him.
Celebrity sighting, celebrity sighting! Of course I would have to be looking like a complete dumbass. I’d just been at the street fair and was making a quick run to the drug store a few blocks away. It was the first coldish day of the not-yet-fall and a bit windy out, so I had a runny nose and hair flying out of my ponytail and scattered haphazardly all over my face and head. Hadn’t washed my hair this morning because wasn’t planning a big day and so make that greasy hair scattered all over face and head… Plus, I’d just finished eating some street food bought at the local Italian restaurant’s stand, so likely had Alfredo sauce somewhere on my cheek, and perhaps a mashed pea too… Thank God it wasn’t Marcelo!!!
And dancers — at least the principals — always know when you recognize them. You look at them and they look right back at you, and you try to look away but you can’t help doing a double-take and they lock eyes with you again on the double! So embarrassing when you’re shy and too timid to say hello, and especially at a time when you look like a total dumbass.
Anyway, he has really beautiful eyes. But really kind of frighteningly intense, but in a beautiful way.
Originally uploaded by swan lake samba girl via mobile.
With a little tap performance in front of danskin. Girls were sweet.
It’s that time of half year again 🙂 As of yesterday, it’s six weeks ’til City Center season!!!!! 😀 😀 😀
Also, last night was Martha Graham‘s opening night at the Joyce Theater in Chelsea. I didn’t go, but am eagerly awaiting reviews from those who did. I will be going later this week. I can’t wait! If you like, read Gia’s preview of this foundational American dance company’s comeback.
I can’t believe it’s already been six years. This anniversary is particularly haunting for me because it’s the first year since that the date has fallen on a Tuesday, as it did in 2001. I’ll never forget that entire week, or even some events the week preceding. I remember on Wednesday the 5th, a friend and I went to hear Salman Rushdie read from his then new novel, Fury, at the Barnes & Noble at Union Square. My friend whispered to me that there were likely a bunch of secret agents dressed in plainclothes hovering about, and I laughed and told her not to be ridiculous, the fatwa was over, fundamentalism was totally passe.
I remember taking a four-day end of summer mini jaunt to Nantucket, and just returning to work on Monday, the 10th. It was a completely nothing day as I spent hours just trying to re-orient myself, go through mail and phone messages, and get myself psyched up for an upcoming oral argument, and my entire fall caseload. I kept telling myself I’d get it together the following day. I set my alarm for early Tuesday morning, but, not being a morning person, didn’t get the early start I’d planned. I was living in Hoboken, New Jersey then, just across the Hudson river from lower Manhattan and I remember cursing myself silently as I walked to the WTC-bound PATH train for being a lazy-ass and hitting that snooze button. Of course it was a blessed thing for me that I did since if I’d gotten up at my planned time, I would have been passing through the WTC concourse about the moment the first plane hit. (My mom cried to me on the phone she’s never been so thankful for my habitual morning tardiness.) Instead I watched everything from across that river.
I remember waking up the next few mornings and thinking it was all a horrible nightmare and I was so crazy to have dreamed it up. I only had to open the window and take a breath to realize it wasn’t. My cat even knew something was up; she kept peering out the window all spooked. I watched TV — CBS, the only station not dependent on the radar from the north tower — constantly for the next week. We were forbidden from entering our office for the next month, until the City had time to test our building’s structure and thoroughly HEPA all the floors. When we were finally allowed access, we had go through about a 45-minute National Guard checkpoint, only to be stricken with headaches and sore throats after about three hours inside. At our office meeting on that first day back, my boss went to address us and burst out crying. She supplied us with surgical masks and each room a HEPA cleaner, and arranged for a group therapist to give us a few sessions, but nothing seemed to help all that much. I did a lot of working from home for the next six weeks.
But that week, I remember my friend Judy, who lived on the upper east side, inviting me to come up and hang out. We were both so depressed; it was better to be with a good friend at such a time. I’d stayed briefly with Jude when I first moved to NY before going to law school, so we went out for drinks at our favorite haunt, Martel’s. There were people laughing and screaming and having themselves a blast. I couldn’t believe it; I was mortified. It was as if what had happened downtown had no effect on uptown in the least.
I remember the only place I felt at all better for the next two weeks was at Union Square, amongst the speakers, protesters, and all of that beautiful public art. It was good just to be around people who were talking about the obvious rather than living in ignorance, and to feel a part of something again.
I remember being scared to take the PATH or Lincoln Tunnel bus into Manhattan for weeks. I remember riding the subway or a city bus and being afraid of people because of the way they looked. I hated myself for that.
My friend, Kathy, lost her father that day. She didn’t even know until several days later, as he was a carpenter and had only been assigned a job on a top floor of one of the towers early that very morning. I guess I should consider myself lucky that I didn’t personally know anyone who died. Although, I still after all this time have this feeling of dread that one day I’m going to find out a long lost friend was in one of those buildings.
Yesterday I went to the Merce Cunningham exhibit at the New York Performing Arts Library at Lincoln Center. At noon there was a short, live, four-person performance of solos and duets right in the lobby. All dancers — two male, two female — wore blue unitards and the music sounded somewhat like the ocean. At times the dancers looked a bit like they were swimming. Of course it was abstract, but that’s what I got out of it.
I then headed into the exhibit, which was really pretty cool. I’m embarrassed to admit it, but this was my first experience with Cunningham (aside from the time Winger Tony Schultz and I saw him in the audience, wheelchair-bound, at another modern dance performance). Embarrassing to admit since he’s only one of the founding fathers of dance in this country! The exhibit was pretty comprehensive and very entertaining. They had videos of several of his works, all performed in the last ten years, but some choreographed far earlier. Cunningham himself danced mainly in the 40s and 50s. He is still choreographing, but of course no longer dancing.
The videos were my favorite part of the exhibit. They had several screens mounted on the wall, you took a chair hooked up to earphones and selected the music from whichever screen you wished to concentrate on. I actually found all screens mesmerizing and it was hard to focus on only one at a time. Funny thing, though, you really didn’t need to. The music (oftentimes sounds — of waterfalls, birds, people talking, etc.) seemed not to matter at all; you could have selected any soundtrack and watched any one of the screens. This, to me, marked Cunningham the complete opposite of Mark Morris, whose choreography is his rendition of that particular musical piece in motion. Also in contrast to how I personally felt watching Morris’s Mozart Pieces on PBS, Cunningham’s choreography was so engaging, I actually didn’t care what the sound was like.
My favorite video was called “How to Pass, Kick, Fall and Run” which was accompanied not by music but by Cunningham and another man, named David Vaughn, reading bits of text to the audience. At times their voices would overlap so you couldn’t even really make out the words, at times you could and the text was very humorous, and at times you just couldn’t pay attention to the text because the moving bodies were just so mesmerizing, even though they weren’t doing anything tremendously virtuostic. One passage, read by Vaughn, told of a man who gave a lecture on how to attend a lecture. He instructed attendees to listen, which they couldn’t do if they were taking notes. One woman was taking notes. The man next to her told her she was not supposed to take notes. She quickly read over her notes and said to the man, “that’s right. I’m not supposed to take notes; I’ve got that written right here.” The audience laughed like crazy. Throughout the reading of the text, the dancers, wearing colorful sweaters over plain black leotards, would jump, hold each other and bounce, kick playfully, scamper across the stage, then do slower prettier arabesques, sometimes with an awkwardly bent standing leg. The movements kind of did and didn’t correspond to the text. If you watched it a couple of times, it did, in a way. For example, at one point Vaughn began a brief vignette in which two women went to a women’s business meeting, and at that point two female dancers would wrap arms around each other and hop on one leg around in a circle, then let go of each other and both hopped toward the front of the stage. Kind of goofy-looking, but then a man emerged and they began a complicated, serious, lift sequence with him. Is a business meeting silly, serious, or both at times? I don’t know. But I found the process of watching the piece a few times and arriving at different conclusions each time rather fun and invigorating. It was also cool to recognize one of the dancers, Holley Farmer, who was in the David Michalek films.
Then, they had tons of pictures of the company performing, from 1945 up through the present, another film showing an interview with Cunningham, numerous costumes some of which were quite colorful and interesting-looking to put it mildly (one was a leotard with aluminum cans taped to the legs! — wish I would have seen that piece!), a bunch of musical scores and choreographer’s notes (the latter of which looked like heiroglyphics to me and made me wonder how in the world choreographers notate a work to preserve it), and some posters by such great artists as Jasper Johns and Andy Warhol promoting the company on tour and at home.
Top pic is of Carolyn Brown dancing with Cunningham himself in the company’s early days, which was interesting to me since I’d recently seen her speak about her new memoir about dancing with Merce, at Jacob’s Pillow (in that picture that I linked to above, from the previous blog entry, she is the woman in the white dress). It was quite a long time ago that she had danced with him and, wow, was she was a striking beauty back then.
Anyway, for people in NYC, I urge you to check it out. It’s a real history lesson, a fun informative trip through time, since Cunningham is such a foundational figure in dance in this country. It closes on October 13th, so you still have some time.
I recently bought a new camera with more pixels, a more powerful zoom, and motion control (so as to take better photos of all the lovely ballroom dancing I will soon be viewing, like tomorrow!) Hopefully, the pics will be better than before (the picture in this entry is better than previous ones, right!). But I’m having trouble uploading from my new software to my Plogger. Spent a good deal of the day trying to figure it out to no avail. It has no problem uploading the pics from my former camera software (which it seems is incompatible with the new camera). Argh, I HATE technology — just can’t figure things out! So, for the time being anyway, I’m using my Flickr account to upload new pictures. I created a link down at the bottom of the blogroll to my Flickr page, which is likely where I’ll end up putting the pictures from the dance competition I’m about to head off to… Have to go pack!
Oh, and my TAC headache seems to be officially over, for now anyway. Yay! Thank you so much, you guys for your concern 🙂 I really appreciate it 🙂
Merce cunningham dancers @ library
Originally uploaded by swan lake samba girl via mobile.
Crappy cell phone pic of merce cunningham dance company yesterday in the library lobby. Short but intriguing.
