Tag: Publishing / Media

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Of Pretzels and Pashminas

“When, in today’s ballet, you see a man express his feelings for his lady by hurling her into the air, catching her upside down, and wrapping her around his neck like a pashmina, you are seeing the legacy of the Bolshoi.”

— this from Joan Acocella in her latest New Yorker article, analyzing Morphoses (whose NY season just wrapped up) and trying to place Christopher Wheeldon in the pantheon of choreographers.

I burst out laughing when I read this quote because that’s a perfect (albeit hyperbolized) description of my favorite partnering moves in my favorite of all dance scenes, the balcony pas de deux from Kenneth MacMillan’s Romeo and Juliet — the scene that made me fall in love with ballet. (See Julio Bocca and Alessandra Ferri go at it here.) Acocella says MacMillan is a disciple of the Bolshoi style with its sweeping expressivity, its Romanticism, its high-theater dramatics.

But:

When, on the other hand, you see a woman in a leotard merely hold the man’s hand as she flashes her legs out in eighty-two fabulous, clean ballet steps, and then, in a change of heart, fall into his arms and do something hair-raisingly sexy, like a front-facing split, you are seeing a child of “Agon.”

“Agon” being one of George Balanchine’s masterpieces, Balanchine style being the antithesis of Bolshoi / MacMillan (aka “the pashmina”).

Acocella goes on to say Wheeldon’s choreography contains a bit of both styles. I hadn’t really seen that though. I saw him as more a follower of Balanchine with everything abstract, subtle, understated, and focused on steps, on movement rather than on creating character or bringing about an emotional response in the audience. Which is probably why I’m not an enormous fan of Wheeldon, though I do value seeing his work from time to time. On the other hand, I can’t imagine ever tiring of a pashmina.

The article is very interesting, as all of Acocella’s writings are. She always makes me see something I hadn’t before, makes me reconsider, want to see a piece again. Here, she finds in some of Wheeldon’s original, intricate partnering (which people have, aptly I think, referred to as pretzel pas de deux) something actually rather unsettling, even sinister in a way. I hadn’t thought of those twisty, undefined shapes that his dancers make with each other that way before. I always spent my time at a Wheeldon dance playing the inkblot test, trying desperately to figure out what exactly the odd, contorted shapes evoke. But maybe they’re not meant to evoke a specific image at all, yet still charge you with feeling, the same as a pashmina but in a less over-the-top way, without the drama. I will look at the partnering in his ballets anew now. (I couldn’t find a video of such a pdd, but here’s a Wheeldon sampling for comparison to the MacMillan.)

In any event, I dearly hope Mr. Ratmansky brings some of the Bolshoi with him to ABT. And I hope Mr. Wheeldon can let loose some more of his inner pashmina 😀 What is life without passion?…

Seriously, here is the full Acocella.

And, while on the subject of the New Yorker, for people interested in books and art and the artistic life and all, here is an interesting article by Malcolm Gladwell, on the different types of artistic genius and how each is cultivated, which I think could just as easily be titled, “Why This Country Will Never Produce a Cezanne”… Interestingly, Gladwell seems to locate young novelist Jonathan Safran Foer’s genius in the fact that he was a “best-seller” in his twenties rather than the critical acclaim he received. We’re so accustomed to equating success with money in this country, which is part of Gladwell’s point about the Cezanne issue.

Oh, one last thing: I’d written earlier about Acocella interviewing Ratmansky as part of the New Yorker festival. I was extremely sick that weekend and unable to attend, but Evan was there; here is her report. And here is reportage from Lori Ortiz on Explore Dance.

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Waterboard Thrill Ride

Sorry for the posting hiatus! It’s been a long time since I’ve gone half a week without blogging… There’s just nothing much going on in New York right now, and I’m trying to get a couple of writing projects done before the fall is officially underway.

Anyway, this post is about a piece of installation art that I didn’t actually get to see, but just read about via Claudia’s latest Culturist post. Apparently, artist Steve Powers had a small exhibit, called Waterboard Thrill Ride, out on the Coney Island boardwalk, among all the amusement rides and hot dog and cotton candy stalls. Like a peep show, you put a dollar into a slot and peeked through a small window covered with bars to see a couple of hooded “interrogator” robots perform waterboard torture to a robot dressed in orange prisoner garb, in imitation of a Guantanamo Bay detainee. The interrogators pour water onto the prisoner’s head for a number of seconds while his body convulses and he yells out things like, “I think I’m dying.” On the outer wall of the exhibit is a cartoon of Sponge Bob having water poured onto his head saying, “it don’t Gitmo better.” Powers said he created the installation in part to make people aware of the controversial form of torture currently used by our military. The writer of this NYTimes article went out to Coney Island on the day the installation premiered and describes onlooker response.

Most annoying thing to me is that it only seemed to be up — by design not because of public response — for one week, from August 6-15. On the 15th, apparently Powers and a couple of lawyer friends subjected themselves to waterboard torture conducted by actual trained officers, in front of the exhibit. This is just the kind of thing I would love to have seen — both in terms of the art itself, how it makes its presentation, how it questions, how it fits within its surroundings — particularly these surroundings — and how the public reacts. It’s now moved to the Park Avenue Armory on the upper east-side, a private museum and collection of antiques that you need an appointment to visit. Seems kind of ridiculous to have a public art exhibit in a private collection, but apparently it is to be part of a larger exhibition at the Armory called Democracy in America, sponsored by the public art fund Creative Time, which will take place September 21-27. Go here for deets. Unfortunately, I likely won’t be in town that week. So, looks like I’m going to miss out. But if anyone goes, or if anyone saw it on Coney Island, please give your thoughts!

How I managed to miss the exhibit while it was here is another issue, for which I’m royally pissed at myself. I have GOT to stop relying on blogs and websites for all my info; I must return to good old fashion newspapers and magazines… And I mean hard copy. You don’t always see everything on the website; you’ve got to make sure you click on every heading, every subheading, every little box. It’s just not the same as flipping through actual, physical pages.

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Schuyler Reads My Blog and Wants to Be a Dancer!

 

A little over a year ago I attended a panel discussion hosted by Media Bistro on authors who got book deals from their blogs. After being introduced to the panelists, I looked up all the blogs on the internet, and was particularly taken with this one, by author Robert Rummel-Hudson. It was about his daughter, Schuyler, who was born with an extremely rare neurological condition known as bilateral perisylvian polymicrogyria, which makes it impossible to move certain facial muscles, resulting in the inability to speak. The blog, and the resulting memoir, follow Schuyler’s journey learning to speak through other means, and the lessons she teaches Rummel-Hudson along the way about being a father.

Well, the memoir just came out and last Wednesday Media Bistro threw a book party for Mr. Rummel-Hudson. Ariel and I went and I finally got to meet him. I’d commented on his blog a few times, so he knew of my blog, and has been reading it a bit as well. Well, he told me on Wednesday that Schuyler really enjoys all the pictures I post of dancers, and she’ll often go dancing about the house, imitating their poses. As for right now, she wants to become a dancer herself 😀 I swear, this almost made me cry! I bought his book, which he signed, saying, “thank you for giving Schuyler some dancer dreams.” Aw!!!

Anyway, here are a couple of pictures. I didn’t want to scare anyone with a flash so they’re grainy.

This is Rob in the background (in the brown suit) signing books and chatting with people, and Ariel is in the foreground boozing it up. Haha, just kidding, she only had one glass of red wine and only because of me :S

And here’s Ariel again at a restaurant we went to afterward, called Banc Cafe, which we both loved. Her mom sweetly treated us, albeit from afar. Because Ariel had recently been sick, and, since Ariel now lives in NY far from her family in Alabama, her mother felt badly not being able to comfort her with some good home-cooked meals, so she directed Ariel to take herself and me out for a great dinner. And great it was! This is obviously the dessert portion — Ariel is having apple pie and I an enormous chocolate mountain thingy and chocolate martini. Thank you Mrs. Davis!!! Lovely lovely night 🙂

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Movmnt Magazine Dance Blogger Party

 

Sorry I’m so late in getting this up! Last Monday evening, David Benaym, Editor-In-Chief and co-founder (with Danny Tidwell) of Movmnt Magazine hosted a dance blogger party at his office’s downtown NY headquarters. From left to right in picture above: Tony Schultz from The Winger, Doug Fox from Great Dance, Dea Soares Berrios, a friend of mine and The Winger’s, from Brazil who writes the personal blog Dea Nos Eua about her experiences moving to the U.S., her husband Al Berrios behind her, Taylor Gordon from The Winger and Off Center, me, Evan from Dancing Perfectly Free, David Benaym, and Brian Gibbs from The Winger.

It was a great time! David (pronounced Du-VEED) is extremely animated, and being from France, has a serious accent. People were having all kinds of funny mis-understandings 😀 We had some good discussions about dance and the internet, which companies are the best at using it (NYCBallet and Alvin Ailey, both of whom have YouTube channels), which are the worst (unfortunately my favorite American Ballet Theater was the sad winner in that category), which issues people are afraid to discuss in the blogosphere (dancer eating disorders being a big one), how most bloggers’ personas are so different from the writer’s actual personality (as well as pictures; we all agreed Schultz’s Winger headshot looks nothing like him!), and how we keep in touch with each other on a daily basis through our blogs though we’ve rarely met in person: at one point, David remarked how worried he was about Jolene. We asked why and he said, “Did you see? She said she would not come because she was very very sick and would soon go to hospital.” “Nooooo,” we all — and I mean all — sang out in unison, “that’s Ariel!” (who’s better now, by the way). Then he said, “Ohhh, well then who is Jolene?” Again, we all said in unison, “she’s the one who lives in San Francisco…” — I find it sweet that we all keep up with each other so well via our blogs; we really are a tight community. And finally, we talked about whether bloggers (particularly the snarky ones 🙂 ) should be anonymous (we’re all dying, for example, to know who Danciti is, though some thought anonymity was fine). I know I’m forgetting tons of stuff; we decided through Al’s suggestion, that the next time, we would take minutes or record.

 

At the end, David gave us little gift bags containing issues of the latest magazine as well as a few back copies, a pair of Movmnt socks (hehe, like they give you on VirginAtlantic for overseas flights), and a copy of his and Danny’s book, “Moving Still.” Since I helped to organize the event, I received a special copy, containing all of the featured dancers’ — including Tidwell’s — autographs 🙂 Even though I don’t agree with David about everything (for example, he thought about 10 posts a week on The Winger was good, otherwise it’s too overwhelming; I think, seriously, the more posts per day the better — my ideal number would be a Gawker-sized 30+ per weekday, although I realize this is never going to happen without a salaried, full-time blogger staff; there needs to be a Nick Denton of dance…) but I have a great deal of admiration for someone who has such an entrepreneurial spirit, who’s such a risk-taker and doesn’t think twice about creating his own path. He not only started his own magazine and wrote two books — his own novel (only available in French) as well as “Moving Still,” but he founded his own publishing companies to produce all of these things.

If you’re near a Barnes & Noble that carries it (one thing I learned from David is that you have to pay a bookstore shitloads of money just to carry your mag, even though they get a big profit from sales anyway?..), the latest issue is available. It includes an article by Taylor about dancer injuries, and two profiles from dancer Matt Murphy on composer Nico Muhly and “Center Stage 2” star Kenny Wormald, amongst other good things of course! Or you can visit their website.

Also, if you’re a dance blogger and near NYC and you want to be included on our email list, send me an email (found on my contact page). I don’t always organize these things but I seem to be the current “maintainer of email addresses.”

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Norman Mailer

Norman Mailer died today of renal failure. He was 84 years old. Here’s a good write-up on his life and work from MSNBC, and here’s the NYTimes obit. He was an incredibly prolific author and won several Pulitzers. He is quoted as having despaired that today’s young writers aren’t even trying to write serious novels anymore; they’re not inspired by the great writing of, for example, Hemingway, the way he was and instead all just want to write screenplays, supposedly because writing movies pays well. I think the problem is not with the writers; it’s more that it’s near impossible to get a literary novel published these days. Agents and editors only want something that has the potential to sell very well. I wonder if that was so to the same extent in his younger days.