Tag: Swan Lake

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Literary Aperitif

Hi guys – I’ve just begun a new Tumblr blog, called Literary Aperitif, pairing two of my loves (other than dance of course): books and booze. I wanted to call the blog something along those lines but didn’t realize there were about 100,000 websites, meetups, blogs, books, book clubs, webzines, and what have you, all with variations of that name… Anyway, I plan for that one to be photo-heavy, minimalist on words (unlike this blog :S)

Sorry once again that I’m so behind here. Part of the reason for that is that I write so many review-style posts, and it really takes a long time (as opposed to posting pics and doing mini photo-based essays, which takes virtually no time at all). And I haven’t had a lot of time since I began working full time plus again. Nevertheless, I maintain fantasies of spending this weekend blogging about: the Mariinsky at the Lincoln Center Festival, the Royal Danish Ballet’s recent visit to NY, the Paris Opera Ballet’s Children of Paradise (streamed live via Emerging Pictures’ Ballet in Cinema series), the Bolshoi’s Swan Lake (ditto), a wrap-up of American Ballet Theater’s Met season, a wrap-up of So You Think You Can Dance thus far (including what’s been said during some of the Friday afternoon over-the-phone press conferences I’ve participated in each week with the eliminated contestants), and the Manhattan Dancesport Championship held in Brooklyn last weekend. Okay, I’m obviously not going to get to it all this weekend – especially when I have more Mariinsky to see tomorrow and Saturday – but I’ll have material for the rest of the summer, if you can bear with me that long 🙂

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Jose Manuel Carreno’s ABT Farewell

 

Thursday night at the Met, Jose Manuel Carreno, a longtime favorite of mine, gave his farewell performance with American Ballet Theater. (He will dance a few more performances with the company as they tour Los Angeles and Japan later this month, and he ended up filling in unexpectedly for an injured dancer in Saturday’s matinee, but Thursday was the night ABT celebrated his illustrious career).

He danced Swan Lake with Julie Kent as Odette and Gillian Murphy as Odile. Of course Odette and Odile are danced by the same ballerina but this was a special performance and so he chose to have not one but two ballerinas he’s often partnered throughout his career as alternating white and black swans.

Above photo is of the white swan pas de deux with Julie Kent. Below is of the black swan pdd with Gillian Murphy. All photos are by Rosalie O’Connor.

 

And below, of his curtain calls.

 

 

The performance was spectacular but not flawless. Jose danced wonderfully. I’ve personally been more moved by his performances in Romeo and Juliet and Manon, but then I’m more a fan of modern ballet choreographers like MacMillan, than classical ballet. I wish he would have danced one of those as his farewell but I totally understand why he chose Swan Lake – it’s only the quintessential ballet after all 🙂

The best part was Act III, with Gillian as the black swan. It was just amazing feat after amazing feat. I swear I’m pretty sure I saw Gillian put a quintuple pirouette in between her fouettes; there were definitely quadruples in there. I wonder sometimes if Natalia Osipova has not substantially raised the bar for this kind of thing. I feel like everyone’s trying so hard to do as many athletically stunning things as they can. I honestly almost screamed when she threw in the quintuple. Can you imagine someone actually screaming in the audience in the middle of the performance? Glad I managed to hold it in 🙂 Suffice it to say Gillian was definitely a thrill, and Odile is her forte. She did have a tiny stumble toward the end, coming out of the fouette sequence, but I’m not one to care about things like that. I personally care more that a dancer takes chances than plays it so safe she fails to move or wow the audience (as I think I’ve said a few hundred times by now on this blog). Then Jose followed her crazy fouettes with a turn sequence of his own, with more multiple pirouettes thrown in. It also seemed that some of their assisted pirouettes went on for, like, five minutes! At the end of the pdd, the applause went on for quite some time.

I should say, every time Jose did any kind of solo, no matter how small – a few turns, a few jumps, anything – the audience went crazy with applause. As they did when his Siegfried first entered the stage. I thought for a minute the orchestra was going to have to stop the story for him to take a bow, but he kept on going with the action, in character.

So, Julie Kent’s white swan: well, I think she is an absolutely beautiful dancer, and she does things that Sara Mearns and Veronika Part and other ballerinas I love as Odette either can’t or don’t do – like the fast tiny fluttering of the feet that really make her look swan-like, or the super quick changes of the feet between her traveling passees that make it look like she is really a swan about to take off in flight. Her legs and feet are super strong and she can attain really surprising speed and precision at certain points. And I was sitting in the back of the orchestra and I could still see that incredible footwork. And yet somehow I’m not nearly as moved by her as by Sara and Veronika. She doesn’t make me feel her pain or take me into her world the way they do. Maybe she’s just not as powerful an actress, although I thought she was very good in Lady of the Camellias. I thought Jose generally partnered Gillian better, which is interesting because she’s a larger ballerina. He lifted Julie high above his head just beautifully, but then there were some moments that the assisted pirouettes that went on forever and a day with Gillian were more problematic with Julie. At one point, Julie veered sharply to one side and I worried she’d fall. But she didn’t.

Still, it was a beautiful performance all in all.

This was my first time seeing David Hallberg as von Rothbart. (You can see him in one of the curtain call photos above, in the purple). He’s a beautiful, beautiful dancer. Seriously, I don’t think any man can dance as beautifully as David Hallberg, and I’ll go to any ballet with him in (with good choreography for him of course), just to see that. But. I like Marcelo Gomes better. I know that’s controversial, and I’ve been thinking a lot about how I’m not really a fan of classical ballet partly because of this (judging by the difference of opinion between myself and my classical ballet-fan friends), but I just don’t like black and white. I prefer sexy, charmingly dangerous von Rothbarts, not pure evil von Rothbarts. And David was evil. The way he masterfully whipped around that purple cape, the way he worked his facial muscles into a hard hard look, the way he approached the queen and each woman at the ball with intention, the way he pointed straight at poor Siegfried when he first arrived with Gillian. He scared the hell out of me. And I guess if you think von Rothbart is pure evil and should be portrayed as such, then there’s no one more perfect than David to dance him. The evil is tempered a bit by David’s beautiful dancing, which made him the second best von Rothbart in my opinion, just because it added a nuance that otherwise wouldn’t have been there. But Marcelo’s v.R.’s sexiness, his irresistible charm, his deviousness, make him so much more deliciously dangerous.

I was a slight bit disappointed in the curtain calls. I think I was spoiled by Julio Bocca’s farewell being my first at ABT. That man was such a prima, his curtain calls went on forever, ending with him in underwear (well, tights), taking his time drinking a beer, then dousing himself with it. Or was it champagne he poured all over himself? (Will have to look back at my old blog post.) Anyway, it was all as if to say, I’ve had a blast here, I’ve worked my arse off, and now I’m so so ready to let loose. This all would have been inappropriate for Jose though, especially since his two daughters came out onstage with him at the end, sharing his bows. So sweet. But yeah, no getting plastered and prancing around in underwear for him. Marcelo, David, and Cory did hoist Jose over their heads, as David and Marcelo did Julio.

A couple ballerinas from the past – Alessandra Ferri, Susan Jaffe – presented him with bouquets. And Julio himself was there as well. He walked out onstage toward Jose doing a hip-shaking little rumba. Almost all the principals were onstage at the end – Paloma Herrera in particular was dressed to the nines, which was sweet since she was one of his main partners. I didn’t see Diana Vishneva or Natalia Osipova or Michele Wiles. I was hoping Carlos Acosta might show, but no such luck.

Jose’s daughters are really beautiful. Afterward some friends and I went to Ed’s Chowder House for drinks and snacks and we were debating whether the older one was his stepdaughter with Lourdes Novoa or biological daughter. Does he have one stepdaughter and two biological daughters or one of each? Anyway, the littlest daughter looks to be a teenager now. She’s really beautiful. But she was just a baby not so long ago. I guess time does go by when you’re not paying attention. The audience didn’t seem to want to say goodbye. Finally, the curtains went down and the lights went on, management making clear it’s over, folks, go home. But people kept standing there kind of dumbfounded.

Well, I’m really going to miss him. I’m going to miss him as Basilio in Don Quixote, I’m going to miss him as both the harem owner and Ali the slave in Le Corsaire (like Marcelo, he’s endearing in every single role he has – how can one be an endearing  harem-owner? I have no idea, but just watch him), I’m going to miss him as Des Grieux in Manon, I’m going to miss him as Albrecht in Giselle (I think he was the only one who still did the Baryshnikovian brisees in his near dance to death scene instead of the entrechats), I’m going to miss his sexy cocky Latin sailor in Robbins’ Fancy Free, I’m going to miss his sexy cocky leading man in Tharp’s Sinatra Suites, and most of all I’m going to miss his Romeo. In most recent years, he’s been the oldest dancer in that role, and somehow the most boyish, the most innocent, the one who’s made me cry the most times at the end in that crypt with his Juliet draped lifelessly over his arms.

Well, I still have memories. And YouTube videos 🙂

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Bolshoi’s SWAN LAKE Upcoming in Cinemas Nationwide

The Bolshoi’s version of Swan Lake is about to hit movie houses nationwide as part of Emerging Pictures’ Ballet in Cinema series. This broadcast stars Mariya Aleksandrova and Ruslan Skvortsov. Haven’t ever seen either dancer so I’m excited. Plus, the versions all have their subtle differences, particularly in the various endings, so I find them all interesting to watch. This is a high definition broadcast but it’s recorded (performance was September 2010), not live. So the showtimes and dates vary. In Manhattan, the showing is taking place this Sunday, the 19th, at the Manhattan Big Cinemas. Visit the Emerging Pictures website to find a location near you.

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Photos from ABT’s Opening Night Gala

Here are some photos from American Ballet Theater’s opening night gala on May 16th, which I wrote about here. Above, Marcelo Gomes and Diana Vishneva in Manon excerpt, my favorite of the night. All photos by Gene Schiavone.

Jose Carreno (in yellow) and cast of Majisimo (including Lorena Feijoo, Lorna Feijoo, Joan Boada, Nelson Madrigal, Reynaris Reyes, Xiomara Reyes, and Paloma Herrera).

Above, Julie Kent in Lady of the Camellias excerpt. Below, with Cory Stearns in LofC.

Paloma Herrera, Alexandre Hammoudi, and cast in Swan Lake, from Act II pas de deux.

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American Ballet Theater Spring 2011 Opening Night Gala

Last night was ABT’s Spring 2011 opening night gala. Dreary, rainy night … but what else is new for New York these days?

Once inside, I really enjoyed the show though. (I’m hoping to receive photos soon, which I’ll post). The program began with a short preview of Ratmansky’s The Bright Stream, which I’m excited to see next week. Seems to have a lot of humor, some bravura dancing, a cute storyline.

 

(Photo: The Bolshoi’s production of Bright Stream; Natalia Osipova is jete-ing).

Then, there were introductions by Rachel Moore, executive director of ABT, wearing a beautiful green dress, and Kevin McKenzie (AD), followed by Caroline Kennedy, who introduced the students of the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis School of American Ballet as they danced a world premiere, Karelia March, by Raymond Lukens. The program says the students are Level 7, which must be the highest level, because some of those dancers looked like ABT principals. I’m not kidding, I swear. They really amazed me. That school is doing incredible things!

Next was Balanchine’s Tchaikovsky Pas de Deux, danced by David Hallberg and Gillian Murphy. Everytime I see David dance I think he must be the most perfect male dancer in the world. Gillian was stunning too.

Then came the Grand Pas de Deux from Ratmansky’s new Nutcracker, danced by Marcelo Gomes and Veronika Part. (No, they’re not performing that ballet during the Met season, but there seemed to be a few excerpts in the program from ballets they’re not performing). I missed seeing this couple – overall still my favorite – when the company premiered Ratmansky’s version in December. They were so sweet. Veronika danced with such wonderment in her eyes, such joy. And Marcelo was her perfect, adoring cavalier, all eyes on her. I don’t have kids, but I’d think they’re the perfect wedding couple to wow very young audiences.

Then came Majisimo, a classical ballet piece with Spanish flourishes created by Georges Garcia for the Ballet Nacional de Cuba in 1965 and set to Jules Massenet’s Le Cid. This piece was mainly meant to highlight Jose Manuel Carreno, who of course retires from ABT later this season. But it was really a dance for eight couples, and he danced only the male part of one of them – there were very few solos. He danced with Paloma Herrera. Xiomara Reyes was paired with Reyneris Reyes, guesting from Miami City Ballet. The other couples were comprised of Cuban dancers guesting from other companies as well: Lorena Feijoo and Joan Boada from San Francisco Ballet, and Lorna Feijoo and Nelson Madrigal from Boston Ballet. The dancers were spectacular, but I didn’t think that much of the choreography, which reminded me of a more bland version of an ensemble scene from Don Quixote. Jose had a series of turning jumps, and a really beautiful multiple pirouette that wowed the audience – drawing those turns out are what he’s most known for. And Xiomara really took my breath away with this crazy fast series of traveling turns in a diagonal down the stage. I’ve never seen her dance like that!

 

(Photo: Jose Carreno dancing with Polina Semionova in Diana e Acteon)

After intermission came two pas de deux from Swan Lake. A Twitter follower asked me why they needed to perform two scenes from the same ballet. I think that ABT, same as everyone else, is just trying to benefit from the Black Swan craze. They should have had Sarah Lane dance one of the pdd though! 😀 Anyway, first pas de deux – White Swan- was Paloma Herrera and Alexandre Hammoudi, which was good. But the second – the Black Swan – I found surprisingly magnificent! It was danced by Michele Wiles and Cory Stearns. There have been so many guest stars from Europe lately gracing ABT’s stage, I’d forgotten how perfect an Odile Michele Wiles is. And Cory really impressed me as well. Whatever he may lack in dance ability (I can’t imagine he’ll ever be a David Hallberg or Marcelo Gomes), he more than makes up for in acting and stage presence. He’s really good at bringing you into the world of the ballet and creating a character you can sympathize with.

Sandwiched in between the two SLs was Jessica Lang’s Splendid Isolation III, danced by Irina Dvorovenko and Maxim Beloserkovsky. I joked on Twitter that Max earned the hot guy of the night award for that, but seriously – he did! Irina was really beautiful as well. And her party dress, which she came out in for the final stage bow, was, as usual, gorgeous. She has such impeccable fashion taste, imo.

 

Following that was the highlight of the night, for me – Diana Vishneva and Marcelo Gomes in the Act I pdd from Manon. Such a perfectly choreographed pas de deux – beautifully romantic and full of love / lust but with so many breathtaking but capriciously executed, dangerous-looking lifts you sense something out of control. As beautiful as it is, this story isn’t going to have a happy ending. I am liking Diana Vishneva more and more. I’ve always thought she was a great dancer but she always seemed to play too much to the audience for the story ballets. She didn’t take me into the world of the character as much as I want an actor to. But the last two seasons she’s been doing just that: really developing the character and dancing to her partner – Marcelo here and in Lady of the Camellias last season, which is the first time she really blew me away – instead of the audience. This – the Manon pdd – was the audience favorite last night as well. The two got a storm of whoots and bravos at their curtain call, and practically had a standing ovation the audience was so loud in their applause. “So beautiful,” exclaimed the woman beside me. “Okay, we can go home now,” she joked.

 

(Couldn’t find a photo of Diana and Marcelo, but here is Diana dancing Manon with Manuel Legris. With all photos I post now, I’m linking to the original site via a click on the photo.)

Here are Marcelo and Diana in Lady of the Camellias:

 

Then, Alina Cojocaru, one of the European guest artists this season, danced the Rose Adagio from Sleeping Beauty. I’m not a huge fan of this ballet in general, but she was lovely. Patrick Ogle replaced Sascha Radetsky as one of the cavaliers.

Second to last was the Act II pdd from Lady of the Camellias danced by Julie Kent and Cory Stearns. Again, Cory did a very good acting job – and physically he fits the character perfectly, as Julie does hers, but I think some of those lifts are so difficult-looking… I just worry about the dancers. Isn’t that how Roberto Bolle got hurt last season – performing this role?

And the evening ended with another ensemble excerpt from Ratmansky’s Bright Stream. People who stood out most to me were Daniil Simkin and, again, Xiomara Reyes. I really am excited to see this ballet.

Tonight Don Quixote begins and runs through the beginning of next week. I’m excited to see Alina Cojocaru dance with Jose Carreno on Friday night, and Russian ballerina Polina Semionova guesting in the Saturday matinee with David Hallberg.

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Jose Carreno in “Swan Lake” on Dancing With the Stars

Did you guys see it last night? I don’t know who choreographed but it’s obviously a version created for fans of Black Swan the movie, showing both black and white swans vying for Prince Siegfried’s attention, and shortened for the allotted time. Lorena Feijoo from San Francisco Ballet and her sister, Lorna, from Boston Ballet, danced the white and black swan. Interesting that they didn’t have Jose in tights. I hate it when male ballet dancers don’t wear tights. You can’t see the movement at all; it just doesn’t look like ballet. Still, I think our Jose looked better than Jose Martinez in pants.

Also, regarding yet more Black Swan controversy: E! is now positing that because Sarah Lane and Isabella Boylston are both in ABT, Lane’s statements to Dance Magazine about the amount of dancing she did for the film were motivated by sympathy for Boylston. This is becoming just a little absurdist.

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Aesha Ash’s “Black Swan Diaries”

 

In my last post, on NYCB’s Swan Lake, I railed against what I saw as race-based casting, which led to a good discussion on race in ballet thanks to some very smart commenters! Marie mentioned the ballerina who’d been with NYCB and it made me nuts that I’d momentarily forgotten her name. So, I did an internet search and found her – Aesha Ash – via Eva Yaa Asantewaa. It turns out she’s just started her own blog, Black Swan Diaries. She has some really good posts up already, about dancing Arabian in NYCB’s Nutcracker, and about touring Brazil, amongst other things. So another addition to your blog reading!

Photo above from here.

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Sara Mearns Was Gorgeous in Swan Lake, But Overall Production Was Lacking

 

Last week was Sara Mearns week for me (well, for many New York ballet fans, I suspect). On Tuesday night, she made her debut as the Siren in NYCB’s Prodigal Son. (I’m still awaiting photos and will post as soon as I receive them!) Sean Suozzi danced the lead role. He did very well, but she just always stands out to me whatever she is in – particularly the story ballets. She was the best, most tantalizing, sinister, seductive, all around captivating Siren I’ve ever seen. The way she whipped that cape in between her legs, wrapping it around each one, the way she’d bend her knees slowly into a second-position plie while on point, basically squatting over the son’s head in a suggestive but also sinister manner, the way she’d raise her hand behind her head with the wrist bent and the fingers splayed to indicate her triumph over the son’s will, even just the way she’d walk out onstage on pointe, tiptoeing all around him – everything, every movement was in service of the character and was an integral part of the character’s story. I often feel like I’m seeing steps with other dancers. Just steps. The pas de deux between the son and the siren contains some of Balanchine’s oddest-looking choreography- especially those lifts – ‘here, stand on my knees, wrap your legs around my neck and let me carry you around like that,’ etc. I imagine it would feel very odd and foreign doing some of that, which of course was the point. It’s supposed to look warped and off-kilter. Everyone has mastered those steps, but to me, Mearns makes it the most deliciously warped. I love her.

Then, on Friday night, the company premiered their Swan Lake (Peter Martins version), and she danced the lead. (Photo above by Paul Kolnik, from Playbill Arts.)

In sum, I loved her; I wasn’t in love with the production. I went with several friends, two of whom don’t regularly go to the ballet, and that seemed to be the consensus. Everyone was excited to see Mearns dance again, but not to see that production. She was wonderful for all the same reasons I’ve written about before – she’s like a Veronika Part to me; she does such a full job of developing character, she brings you so fully into her world, you feel all of her pain with her. But of course she’s also an excellent dancer. She has a way of arching her back so, of working her arms and hands so, of extending her leg so high in arabesque, of extending her line so beautifully and making such full shapes – it’s a cliche, but her adagio / White Swan is just breathtaking. It almost makes you want to cry, and one of my friends did!

But she excels in the Black Swan / allegro role as well – not so much because she can do athletic feats like Gillian Murphy or Natalia Osipova (there were “just” a bizillion fouettes during the pas de deux, not a bizillion fouettes divided by multiple pirouettes and wild swan-like port de bras thrown into it all) but because she can do that all perfectly fine while still making it all about the character. When she does a series of lifts with Jared Angle where she spreads her legs into a straddle split in the air above his head, it’s just so wicked! And even at the beginning of the Black Swan, when she makes her entrance and presents her hand to the queen – it’s clear she’s up to no good. But she also doesn’t overdo it. She’s conniving and sinister but with a sweet face.

But the rest of the production: Jared’s an excellent partner, that’s clear. Mearns was way off her center of gravity in much of the White Swan partnering, and he securely held her balance, freeing her up to make those gorgeous shapes, and to act it all out the way she so brilliantly does. But in his own dancing, he just, like practically all dancers these days, goes for the cliche. It all looks so fake. I don’t believe he’s in love with her, or that he’s ever longing for what he doesn’t have, and that he’s devastated when she leaves him in the end. It’s all her sorrow and longing alone. So the performance was so unbalanced. I wish so much I could see her dance this with Marcelo Gomes, who really brings Prince Siegfried’s internal conflicts to life like no one else.

The other major issue I have with this production is the costumes – the costumes and the sets. I always forget about them until I see the ballet again, and, especially when I go with friends. My friends Friday night really found it hard to look beyond those costumes. For some reason, I kept thinking of the Flinstones, my friend, Marie, called them Jackson Pollack on speed or something to that effect (I haven’t read her review yet but will after I finish this post), and the others we went with just couldn’t stop talking about the brash colors. I remember my friend in the fashion industry saying of the Romeo and Juliet costumes (Per Kirkeby designed sets and costumes for both Martins productions) that the colors needed to be muted; these brash, bright, almost neon colors made the characters look like cartoons. Same with the Swan Lake costumes. Cartoonish is NOT what you want to go for in serious ballets like this.

Also, the RACISM. This is another thing I hate to admit I often forget about until I see the ballet again with a friend, and the friend is horrified at the fact that a black man is playing the evil character. Must von Rothbart always be danced by Albert Evans or Henry Seth? Are we not living in the year 2011? I mean, this is a huge reason why young people are so turned off from the ballet. And none of the very educated critics ever seem to be calling Martins on this. What’s up with that? Seriously? I think once you go to the ballet a lot you begin to forget about these things, you become immune to them. Which is horrible. But really, asking your audience to associate black men with evil is a horrible insult to that – probably very educated – audience.

Another problem here: Faycal Karoui (the conductor) was seriously on speed. He was flying through the first half. The poor dancers couldn’t even express the story. They really had to rush falling in love. If I’d never have seen this ballet before (and there were probably some such people there due to the Natalie Portman film), I don’t know if I would have gotten much out of the White Swan pas de deux. And that’s kind of an important part of this ballet…

All other dancers did well – I particularly liked Ana Sophia Scheller and Anthony Huxley (filling in for Sean Suozzi as Benno) in the first act Pas de Trois, and, in the second act, Abi Stafford and Joaquin DeLuz in the Divertissement Pas de Quatre, and Antonio Carmena in the Neapolitan Dance – but everyone did very well (those were just the ones who stood out to me). Oh and I loved Daniel Ulbricht throughout as the Jester. With his immense skill at jumps and turns – and combo jumping turns – and his comical sensibilities, he is perfect for such a role, as he is for Puck in Midsummer Night’s Dream – my favorite roles for him.

But I have to say, I was floored when none of the other dancers came out and took bows at the end of the production. Why? Whose idea was that? Only Mearns and Angle and Evans took bows. I realize the dancers are all very hard-working and probably needed to get home to get sleep for the next day’s matinee. But this severely cut Mearns’s bow and curtain calls short. It reduced the celebratory aspect of a production well done. Worse, it also really makes it look like none of the other dancers cared about Mearns, and about the production. It made it look like the company is not really a company of dancers who all work together and support each other. I’ve honestly never seen such a thing before. I’ve seen it where dancers who only dance during the first act will take their bows and curtain calls after the first act and not at the end of the whole, but the dancers who danced in the last act always come out for their bows at the end. Anyway, it really stood out to me. What did other people think?

Here is my friend Marie’s write-up.

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NYCB Swan Lake Casting Is Up & There’s an Added Performance!

 

New York City Ballet has decided to add an additional performance of Swan Lake to its SL run. The added performance will now take place Friday, February 11th, at 8 p.m. It will star Sara Mearns – yes!!!!!!! and will replace that evening’s scheduled performance of mixed repertoire. The company decided to reschedule for the additional performance because of overwhelming demand this year: all of the regularly scheduled performances are virtually sold out at this point. Mearns will also be dancing the first regularly scheduled performance, the Sunday February 13th matinee. During both performances, her Siegfried will be Jared Angle. Casting hasn’t yet been announced for the rest of the run but you know I will post it here the second it is! There will be nine SL performances total, continuing through February 26th.

Go here to buy tickets.

Above photo taken from here.

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This Week at New York City Ballet

I hope everyone had a nice holiday weekend, and happy belated Martin Luther King Day!

Tonight begins the Winter season at NYCB. Highlights for the season will be a world premiere by Susan Stroman on January 28th, and Peter Martins’ Swan Lake in February. I highly recommend seeing Sara Mearns as Odette / Odile (White Swan / Black Swan), especially if you are a new dance-goer in search of a good Swan Lake after seeing the Black Swan film. The Martins production is very modern, and very accessible to contemporary audiences, and Mearns is a beautiful dancer who manages to excel at both roles. Her swan queen is very human, with great emotional depth. She has a way, like ABT’s Veronika Part, of making you feel like you’re inside her character’s world, going through everything right along with her. She’s not just a great ballerina, but a compelling actress, in other words. And her black swan is a thrill. Here’s what I wrote about her last year. I’m not sure yet which days she’ll dance, but casting should be announced very soon. All of the ballerinas will be good (and I’ll need to see Ashley Bouder’s this year!), but try hard not to miss Mearns.

My recommendations for this week are:

January 18 (tonight), opening night, early 7:30 curtain
It’s a mixed rep program including Walpurgisnacht Ballet, Duo Concertant, Valse-Fantaisie, and one of Balanchine’s most revered works, The Four Temperaments.

Thursday night, January 20th, 8 p.m.
Another night of mixed rep: Mozartiana, Concerto DSCH, and Cortege Hongrois. The special things about this evening are that it’s another in the excellent See the Music series, and Millepied is dancing Ratmansky’s DSCH (one of my favorites of Ratmansky’s). Plus, will be interesting to see if there’s any kind of crowd increase for Millepied now after all the fanfare. Also SLSG favorite Tyler Angle is debuting in Mozartiana.

Friday night, January 21st 8 p.m.
Sara Mearns will debut in Concerto DSCH. Also showing are Robbins’ well-loved Dances at a Gathering, and Walpurgisnacht again.

Saturday, January 22nd, all day.
It’s an all-day celebration of George Balanchine, in honor of his birthday. In addition to the regular matinee and evening performances (all Balanchine of course), there’s a movie at 10:30 a.m., a studio talk in the afternoon, and a performance by students at the School of American Ballet at 6 p.m. The movie, studio talk and performance by SAB students are all free but require tickets. Everything takes place in the Koch Theater at Lincoln Center. For more info on the Saturday events, click on the link below.

Continue reading “This Week at New York City Ballet”

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My Take on BLACK SWAN

 

I saw it over the weekend. Overall, I thought it was hilarious. Totally campy and just plain funny. Way too silly to be scary though. And I think Aronofksy was going for both. So, to me, it failed to that extent. But it may have just been me. Maybe I just have a dark sense of humor, because I went with two friends – one a ballet fan of the Gelsey Kirkland era, the other not. They both loved it and were on the edge of their seats throughout, although they also laughed quite a bit (particularly Gelsey Kirkland friend). Gelsey Kirkland friend said it reminded him of Dancing on My Grave. I must read that! I don’t know why I haven’t yet…

Anyway, so if you don’t know the story, it’s about this young ballerina who dances with a New York City ballet company housed in the Koch Theater. The artistic director (played by Vincent Cassel) is basically Peter Martins but with brown hair and a French accent.  Peter Martins guy tells the company that they are doing a new production of Swan Lake and to attract new audiences, they are going to cast a brand new ballerina, a new face. The old prima, Winona Ryder, is approaching menopause anyway. Never mind that she looks the same age she did in Reality Bites, at least to me. Apparently this company doesn’t have a system of principals and corps members because no one has any idea who the new face is going to be.

Peter Martins guy soon reveals that he favors Nina (Portman), but thinks she can only do the White Swan. He thinks she’ll have trouble with the Black Swan (he never uses the names Odette and Odile, which I know annoyed some ballet fans on Twitter, but I think it would have alienated non-ballet audiences had he used those names). He tries to seduce her (literally) in the name of getting her into the character of the Black Swan, which of course in the film is characterized as a sinister, conniving slut. But maybe he goes too far and unleashes the inner beast in Nina. She suddenly seems hell-bent on destroying herself (and she’s had problems in the past with self-mutilation and, it’s hinted at, anorexia). Or, maybe it’s that a new dancer from San Francisco (Mila Kunis) is trying to destroy her in order to take her place as the lead. My biggest problem with the movie is that it’s billed as a thriller but we never really find out the answer to that question. At the end, you’re still left wondering WFT was that about??? I mean, you’re left wondering that with many David Lynch films too, but with those, if you think long and hard enough, you can piece it all together. This, I don’t think so. I think it was just meant to be scary, sexy, creepy, gory camp.

For serious ballet fans, you have to suspend disbelief. Natalie Portman I thought did an excellent acting job, and her dancing is very very good for someone with very little training. I know Sarah Lane was supposedly her double, but you never really see any stunning dancing. The camera mostly focuses on Portman’s arms – and Benjamin Millepied did say he focused on the port de bras when training her and Kunis because you just can’t teach someone with no training to go on pointe and do the fouettes and pirouettes and all. So, you simply have to suspend disbelief that someone at Nina’s level would land the lead in the first place. And if you’re looking for thrilling dancing – the fouettes, the lightening-speed chaine turns, a beautiful pas de deux, etc., you’re not going to get it.

When we were all walking out, I did hear a couple people say now they wanted to see Swan Lake. Of course I hope it renews interest in the ballet, but it does worry me a bit that people will be disappointed, because the film makes it seem like the black swan pas de deux is a sex scene. The Peter Martins character keeps yelling at Nina to “seduce me, seduce me!” During a break he rhetorically asks Millepied (playing the role of Siegfried) if he would ever sleep with Nina (except he termed it differently). No one in the audience laughed but me. What am I the only New Yorker who reads the tabloids??? But in the ballet, the ballerina seduces both Siegfried and the audience with her allegro dancing, with her athletics. It’s more dance than theater; the seduction is in the dancing not the acting.

The whole thing had a Valley of the Dolls feel to it. Barbara Hershey is Portman’s mother, and she seems a bit off herself. You sometimes wonder if the mother (who never made it out of the corps, and who left ballet to have Nina) is trying to sabotage her daughter as well. There are some really funny (though I’m not sure if they were meant to be) screaming screeching cat-fight scenes between the two of them. But I think the funniest are between Winona Ryder as the aging ballet star forced into retirement and Nina, particularly those involving discussions of how to get ahead in the ballet company (guess; not by great dancing)… I miss Winona Ryder. I miss movies like Heathers…

Anyway, I still don’t know how to feel about this movie. I’m happy that it’s put ballet on people’s minds again, but how misleading is it to what an actual ballet performance is all about? What do you guys think? It seems to have received fairly good reviews from the film critics.

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AN ERA ENDS: DARCI KISTLER GIVES HER LAST PERFORMANCE WITH NYCB

 

Yesterday afternoon marked the end of an era as Darci Kistler, the last dancer to be hired, trained, and made into a star by George Balanchine, gave her last performance with New York City Ballet, where she’s danced for the past 30 years. Kistler, originally from Riverside, California, began studying at Balanchine’s School of American Ballet in 1976, was hired to dance with the company in 1980, and was made into a principal in 1982, at 17 years of age. She remains the youngest principal ever at NYCB.

It was a huge event, needless to say — practically every critic and blogger was there, longtime donor patrons were greeting each other right and left (and there was a party for them afterward). The house was completely packed, and the plaza was filled with people asking if anyone had a ticket for sale.

The program consisted of Balanchine’s Monumentum Pro Gesualdo and Movements for Piano and Orchestra, the Titania / Bottom pas de deux from his Midsummer Night’s Dream, his Danses Concertantes, and the beautiful final act of Peter Martins’s Swan Lake (which almost made me cry, and I don’t think I’m the only one).

 

Monumentum Pro Gesualdo and Movements for Piano and Orchestra is an abstract leotard ballet in two parts that Balanchine set to Stravinsky. I always prefer the second part, which its flirtatiousness, its angular lines and sharp shapes, to the more lyrical first part. Darci danced that second part with Sebastien Marcovici, and the first part with Charles Askegard. I’d only ever seen Maria Kowroski in the female lead in this ballet and it was interesting seeing another body in the role. Kistler danced it more smoothly lyrical and her edges were more rounded, but she played it up really well, really “acted” it, like she was really responding to Marcovici’s movement and he to hers, as if they were in conversation.

That Titania / Bottom pas de deux is one of my favorite parts of Balanchine’s Midsummer Night and I’m glad she chose it. She was sweetly hilarious as she fell head over heels for Henry Seth’s ‘donkey persona’ after both had spells cast on them by the mischievous Puck.

Danses Concertantes was the only ballet she didn’t dance; it was danced well by Megan Fairchild and Andrew Veyette.

 

And the program ended with the last act of Martins’s version of Swan Lake. The Martins is one of the only versions of this ballet I know of that doesn’t have some kind of happy ending, and it was really fitting here, this being the most bittersweet of farewells. In Martins’s version, Odette and Prince Siegfried can’t be together because he has been unfaithful to her with Odile. So the ballet ends with her bourreing backward, away from his outstretched arms, into her flock of swans, who envelop her. Jared Angle’s Siegfried continues reaching out toward her, in sorrowful outstretched lunges, but he’s unable to reclaim her. She literally retreats into the wings, and metaphorically returns to her ethereal, otherworldly place. So poetic, and so fitting for a prima ballerina retirement. And so sad…

 

All photos by Paul Kolnik. (Bottom photo I scanned from an earlier program)