So did anyone here participate in yesterday’s live chat? I thought it was a tremendous success, especially since it was the first time the Guggenheim had done it. At one point, there were 364 participants, which the Works & Process people noted was a larger audience than could fit inside the Guggenheim’s actual auditorium. It was fun to see some familiar names from the past – several Winger bloggers, old Winger message board members, and some new dance Twitterers. One commenter (chatterer?) said, it was nice to be able to “talk” throughout the performance, as well as snack! I agree!
If you missed it, the program is archived here in its 90 minute entirety – so have a look. Peter Boal, Doug Fullington, and Marian Smith from Pacific Northwest Ballet talked about where they found the original sources for Giselle – the choreography and the music, and how they reconstructed it. Boal noted this is the first time an American company has attempted to mount a production of the work as it was originally done in 1841. I found the music section most interesting – the music sounds exactly like the action or the words the characters would speak – as well as of course the dancing. One thing I found fascinating was how the original choreography called for dancing that was much faster, though much closer to the ground. So lots of small jumps instead of high leaps. But some of this crazy fast choreography (that one dancer even had a hard time doing) illustrates that there was once another kind of virtuosity than we’re familiar with today. The longer, higher leaps we see so much of today are, Boal said, the Bolshoi’s influence.
All four dancers were excellent. I’d seen Carla Korbes, James Moore, and of course Seth Orza before, but never Carrie Imler, and she really amazed me. She was one of the few who could actually pull off all those insanely fast steps. I must see more of her.
The full production will take place in Seattle in June. How nice would it be if PNB could live-stream that too?
Super cool! The Guggenheim has just announced it is going to live-stream its upcoming January 9th Works & Process program, Giselle Revisited, a discussion with Pacific Northwest Ballet artistic director Peter Boal and others from PNB about the company’s new production of Giselle. Of course excerpts will be performed, by principal dancers Carla Korbes, Carrie Imler, SLSG fave Seth Orza, and soloist James Moore (who I also remember liking the last time PNB performed here).
The discussion / performance will be live-streamed direct from the Guggenheim beginning at 7:30 p.m. on Sunday, January 9th, at this web channel: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/worksandprocess. The Winger‘s Candice Thompson will lead an online discussion, so people watching via the live-stream will be able to chat with each other in real time.
Click on the link below to see the full press release.
On Sunday afternoon, principal ballerina Yvonne Borree gave her farewell performance at New York City Ballet. I always find farewell performances so sad, especially for the ballerinas, for some reason. And Yvonne just doesn’t seem old enough to retire! At all.
Anyway, it was a really lovely program and she looked beautiful. She danced the third, “Andante,” movement in Balanchine’s Brahms-Schoenberg Quartet. She was partnered by Benjamin Millepied, a very good partner for her, as she looks very comfortable dancing with him, and when they first took the stage, the audience really went wild with applause — and really wouldn’t let up! That’s uncommon for NYCB fans – even with a farewell performance; they usually save their applause until the very end. And the applause wasn’t just clapping; people were really whooting and screaming and calling out “Yvonne, Yvonne!” I think I am not the only one who will miss her. At the end of each section, she got more applause and at the end of Brahms, she and Millepied got three curtain calls. She deserved it. And he did too — I think Natalie Portman is giving him some acting lessons because he’s really doing much better, not just dancing (he’s always been a good dancer) but really projecting as well.
Then came Wheeldon’s new Estancia, which grew on me. I think the dancers found the humor in it — or maybe they did before and I was paying too much attention to the choreography to notice, but it seemed they really vamped it up, with Tyler Angle failing hilariously miserably at taming Andrew Veyette’s “horse,” letting Veyette get away after Tiler Peck roped him all up nicely, then Tyler being felled and rolling around the floor, nearly sweeping Tiler off her feet (in a bad way). It was really cute. And the dancing is really marvelous.
Then, the performance ended with Yvonne doing a pas de deux with Jared Angle — another good partner for her (for everyone really) – Balanchine’s Duo Concertant, which I love.
I love how the couple interacts with the onstage violinist and pianist, with the music, and with each other, and yet it is at times a very abstract ballet with lots of angular shapes. And the end is gorgeous but bittersweet, as the stage darkens and the spotlight begins to highlight only her, her head, then various parts of her body, ending with her arm, in the air, reaching upward and outward. It almost made me cry.
And of course the applause went on and on, and all of her partners (besides Nikolaj Hubbe unfortunately) came out onstage to give her a bouquet. Damian Woetzel and Peter Boal got the most whoots.
I’ve only been coming to New York City Ballet regularly for about the past three or four years and I feel I didn’t get to see enough of her. My favorite performances of hers are the delicate, ethereal sleepwalker in Balanchine’s La Sonnambula, which I think she danced with Sebastien Marcovici, and in that ballroom-esque ballet with the art deco mirror of Peter Martins that I love but no one shares my feelings about … 🙁 Can’t think of what it’s called right now but she was always Nilas Martins’s partner. I loved it. And now, my other favorite of hers is Duo Concertant, which I’d never seen her dance before.
Apparently, she’ll still be around. According to Oberon, she’ll stay at NYCB’s School of American Ballet and teach.
Tuesday night, the Pacific Northwest Ballet opened its 5-day run at the Joyce. This was my first time seeing this company, and it has a reputation as one of the most prestigious in the U.S. Helmed by Peter Boal, a former dancer with New York City Ballet, the company is already familiar to many NYCB fans, but not yet to me.
I really wish they could have brought the whole company and danced at City Center, a more suitable stage for ballet. The Joyce is small and known for modern dance and so they could only bring a small portion of the company. And, the small stage limited their choice of choreography and prevented the dancers from dancing full-out. So I felt it lacked a certain balletic grandeur, although I still greatly enjoyed the evening.
For one thing, I was thrilled to finally be able to see Brazilian ballerina Carla Korbes dance, after being introduced to her on the Winger. She had a part in just about every ballet and she did not disappoint — she has great charisma and dances with great dramatic intention.
I was also happy to be able to see Seth Orza again 😀 (Everyone who’s read this blog for a while knows how downright devastated I was when he left NYCB…) He’s so sharp and precise, and so strong — I think he definitely needs to be promoted to principal (he’s now a soloist, as he was when he left NYCB).
So, there were four pieces on the program: Opus 111 by Twyla Tharp, Fur Alina by Edwaard Liang, Mopey by Marco Goecke (my favorite, and pictured above, James Moore dancing), and 3 Movements by Benjamin Millepied.
I’ll start with my favorite — Mopey, by Goecke, danced very intensely by Moore.
I’d always been curious about this young German choreographer ever since this little exchange (the “Evan M.” being Evan McKie, a principal with Stuttgart Ballet).
Anyway, Mopey is hard to describe — basically just a solo for a man who by turns twists and contorts his body into awkward shapes, bounces up and down, makes muscle-man poses, waves his arms about gracefully, appears to be possessed and struggling to control his limbs — his fingers bent and curved down somewhat grotesquely, almost monster-like. It was short but really engrossing. Here’s a YouTube clip of a dancer from Stuttgart dancing an excerpt from the piece. Unlike in the clip, which is danced only to one piece of music, Moore danced first to silence, then to Bach, then to pop punk by The Cramps.
I also liked Millepied’s 3 Movements, pictured below (dancers are James Moore and Lucien Postlewaite).
All photos by Angela Sterling, by the way.
It was abstract but I thought I detected a bit of a men versus women showdown (I think this is a recurring theme of his — at least in his recent works). It was set to rather unsettling Steve Reich music and filled with original movement, the way the groups of men and women would go at each other at times, almost like they were from separate clans. But the costumes were contemporary: almost casual work attire for the men and little flirty dresses for the women. Costumes were designed by Millepied’s girlfriend, Isabella Boylston, corps dancer at ABT.
I also liked Fur Alina by Liang. It was a man woman pas de deux danced by Carla Korbes and Karel Cruz and it seemed to be the somber story of two lovers slowly deciding to part. It was set to Arvo Part (who it seems, understandably, is becoming the most used composer for contemporary ballet these days — at least for these despairing pas de deux).
Oddly, the Tharp was my least favorite (below: dancers in front are Korbes and Batkhurel Bold).
I’ve never seen Opus 111 before and this one (set to Brahms) didn’t seem to have any of Tharp’s signature comical character roles or her theme of ballet versus other kind of dance (fill in the blank: American social — like in Deuce Coupe, Scottish folk, hip hoppy aerobics — like in Upper Room) or her crazy, almost death-defying lifts. It was pretty and lyrical and the dancers lightly flew around the stage, at times coupling off. But sweet as it was, it just seemed to lack something. Might have been the small stage though and they just couldn’t dance it full-out?… Sir Alastair saw something more in it though.
I hope the company comes to NY again — to City Center.
