54 replies to this topic

[TutuMaker]

Suzanne Farrell Ballet Performance


Noticed this today while making plans to visit D.C. in the near future.  

Not only Balanchine but Bejart too!

[carbro]

Thanks, TutuMaker!  This gives a lot of folks something to look forward to.  You included, it seems!  

I know that Farrell's company was never intended to be a Balanchine museum, but that's what draws me to it (and the excellent dancing of those works).  I'm disappointed that in quantity, the Bejart overshadows the Balanchine, and I'm not so crazy about the Balanchine they are doing.

[TutuMaker]

I will continue with my mantra...West Coast, West Coast, West Coast...

[Jacqueline]

I second your mantra, Tutumaker.

Saw them a few years ago at Royce Hall (in which Peter Boal guested in Apollo --aah!)   Would love to see them come back (and this time I'll get better seats than the third row!)

[Jack Reed]

Years ago, having read that Balanchine had said of Bejart's Rite of Spring, "You can't do it, but it's the best one," I took advantage of an opportunity to see Bejart's company perform it, and I remember having a pretty good time with it, so I'm looking forward to seeing it some more.  (There are a lot of men in it, as I recall, and it will be interesting to see how Farrell meets this challenge.  I think she will meet it; she seldoms misses her chosen target, and then not by much.  The recent Don Quixote, for example.)  

I say, "pretty good," because I remember being a little underwhelmed by Part II, when the women join the cast, because having watched so much Balanchine, I tended to expect things to rise to a still-higher plane when women danced, and that didn't seem to happen.  Maybe men are M. Bejart's forte.  But I think it's a very good choice.  (Salome preceded Rite on that program, and remember thinking it was pretty silly.)

No, Farrell's company isn't a Balanchine museum, carbro, more of a garden, full of living organisms which restore us when we visit; it's the life in the dances that draws me, too.  From what little I've seen of it since 1986, NYCB runs the museum, an extensive mechanical exhibit apparently, although some of your own remarks give me hope that some of the mechanisms are coming back to life there.  (Farrell's own results show that, in the right hands, ahem, it doesn't take much to achieve that.)

Another thing comes to me as I anticipate this program: What sequence?  According to the formula which has been in use at the aforementioned museum, the pas de deux will come in the middle, because there are opening ballets and closing ballets and pas de deux in the middle, like in those Chinese restaurants where you order something from column A and something from column B; but according to Balanchine's own practice, in my experience and according to Suki Schorer, for example, "His tactic for exposing the audience to work they might tend to reject was to arrange the program with the 'hard' piece in the middle, [and] people stayed to see the last ballet." (Suki Schorer on Balanchine Technique, p. 12.  Obviously, there is more to Balanchine technique than how to dance!)  

So, any bets?  I'm betting the pas de deux will open the program, so people will say, "How sweet!  Loved it!"  Then Monumentum/Movements, which, incidentally, has some lead-them-down-the-path strategy of its own built into its musical progression, and Rite for a rousing finale, with another boy-girl bit at the end of it.

As it happens, Monumentum/Movements is among my favorites, and is of a branch of Balanchine's repertory we don't see so much these days, the "leotard" ballets.  Okay, it's not Agon, I suppose.

As to the West Coast, a little chanting into the ears of whoever out there hires companies in to their theatres might help.  Or letters to editors, or something.  

Does this seem a long post about very little?  I think, between the lines, I'm saying I'm really keen to see this program.

[GWTW]

It looks like KC showcases ballet over the Thanksgiving weekend. Last year, they had the Joffrey Ballet. I think that's an excellent way to draw people to the ballet (or to DC), as there's usually very little else on over that weekend.

[Juliet]

So, everyone buy tickets (they are considerably less costly than some other companies'...) and we can see.....

Bejart's R & J pdd was done some years ago by Ms. Farrell's company.  On the occasions I saw, it, I did not care for it.  The dancing was fine, the choreography I found jarring in some parts (Juliet bent over backward in imitation of a card table....).  Perhaps I will change my tune, but at least I can look forward to Movements and Rite of Spring, which I have not seen.  I would definitely say that Bejart's muse is the male dancer, rather than the female.

[GWTW]

Quote

So, everyone buy tickets (they are considerably less costly than some other companies'...) and we can see.....

I would come to DC for Thanksgiving again this year, but it's not the right time to chance being 2 and a half hours away from my ob/gyn.  

[carbro]

Well, that was subtle, GWTW!  Congratulations!  I hope you're bearing up okay in this heat!

[GWTW]

Luckily   I spend most of my time in an air-conditioned office. Sorry to derail the thread, but I really am very happy.

Now please proceed to discuss how everyone is going to go to DC to see Suzanne Farrell, even though 2/3 of the programme is Bejart.  

[Farrell Fan]

GWTW, on Jul 28 2005, 05:54 PM, said:

Now please proceed to discuss how everyone is going to go to DC to see Suzanne Farrell, even though 2/3 of the programme is Bejart. 

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I have a hunch there will be more to this program than is currently listed on the Kennedy Center website.

[Jack Reed]

That looks a good hunch when you consider that the total running time of the ballets announced so far is only about 63 minutes.

[lampwick]

But there's only a two week total rehearsal period

[Juliet]

She can do it.  She pulled Don Q together in 4 weeks of rehearsal and one at KenCen.  This woman is highly organized!!!  
I agree that there might be something else on the program...we can hope!

[Dale]

It looks as if Monumentum/Movements is out and Duo Concertante and La Source is in:

http://www.kennedy-c...ent&event=BGBSG