22 replies to this topic

[Ambonnay]

The YAGP NYC Gala is March 26, 2010.  Tickets are currently on sale:

http://www.nycitycen...anceNumber=5237

[Ambonnay]

I didn't know there were two galas.  Could you clarify (not for purposes of my buying a ticket, as I already have a ticket for March 26 and cannot attend March 27) what happens at each gala and which dancers are likely to attend which gala(s)?

[carbro]

The "Legends" Gala is all established leading dancers.  "Stars of Tomorrow" includes some of those performers with YAGP medalists, most of whom, we can assume, are headed to professional careers.

The pros who appear in both galas do not dance the same number in both.

[Ceeszi]

Oh - the YAGP Stars of Today Meet Stars of Tomorrow Gala!  I love this gala, but I cannot take the screaming kids and the rude audience, of which I had both in abundance tonight.  The screaming kids were all way up in the balcony and the rude audience was right behind me - four people who thought that they were watching this on television in their living room.  Finally, someone politley told them to shut the **** up and they were behaved for the rest of the night, except for one of the men who greeted the end of every performance with WOO WOO BRAVO! right in my ear!

A real test of patience!

I'm not sure who the Master of Ceremonies was this year - I walked in during his opening monologue.  I could not pay attention because someone was in my seat when the lights went down and the usher abandoned me and told me to settle this on my own (?!)  My only complaint about the Master of Ceremonies was that he should have waited for the applause to die down before announcing the next dancer.  This only happened in the First Act.  (In Act II, I could hear him fine.)  

The first act was, as always, very charming - except for the screamers in the balcony.  The young man dancing with the broom was very good ad I enjoyed the young woman who danced to Pisces - I am wondering if that was the same young woman from last year..  I am sure that a list will be posted somewhere with the names of all the dancers from Act I.  I will focus my review on Act II.

*The first couple was Mathilde Froustey and Mathias Heyman from the Paris Opera Ballet.  They were the only couple to come out twice.  Their first number was the Act II Pas de deux from Giselle and then they came out later in the act for Donizetti.  I saw her dance at the Stars of the 21st Century Gala in 2006 (she also did Giselle in that gala with Emmanuel Thibault), but this was the first time that I saw him.  I thought that they were wonderful.  I have to say that I preferred them in the second number.  If the announcememnt was not made that Donizetti was choreographed by Manuel Legris, I would have assumed that this came right from the 19th century repertoire.  She is a lovely ballerina - I remember being impressed with her four years ago and he was samshing in his solo numbers.

There were three dances tonight that were very similar in nature to each other:

*The first was ABT principal Michele Wiles with Wang Yi from the Tulsa Ballet in, "In the Moment".
*The second was Isabella Boylston and Blaine Hoven from ABT in Sognato
*The third was Yevgenia Obraztsova and Yuri Smekalov from the Mariinsky in Parting

These three dances were very similar in their mood and lighting.  The theme of each of the dances seemed to be lovers flirting and then spurning each other.  Wiles and Yi used a live singer, Aurora Barnes.  They used a chair as did Obraztsova and Smekalov.  Boylston and Hoven used the music of Schubert.  This is the first time that I have seen Wiles dance in something contemporary.  And I did not realize that Boylston was so flexible!  Of the three dances, I preferred the last one, if only to see Obraztsova dance - she got a huge round of applause.  Smekalov also did the choreography for this number.

*Joaquin De Luz from NYCB danced twice.  First he did "Five Variations on a Theme" by Bach and then he came out with Tiler Peck to dance Stars and Strpes. De Luz was great in his solo number and Stars and Stripes is always a crowd pleaser.  He stumbled a little bit on his last set of turns in the second dance, but give the guy a break - that was a lot of dancing!

*Ballroom dancers Anna Melnikova and Slavik Kryklyvyy danced to Jive.  They were very entertaining and they really got the kids in the balcony screaming.  At the end, I thought that they were going to do an encore, but they were just staying in character as they took their bows.

*Joseph Gorak of ABT danced to Nocture, with music by Chopin.  This was a very good solo number for Gorak.  Usually, I don't care for the male solo numbers in these galas, but Gorak, De Luz and Pronk all delivered exciting dances.

*Rubinald Pronk's from Morphoses danced to "L'effleure".  He was supposed to dance this with Shirley Esseboom from the Nederlands Dans Theater, but we were told that she "got stuck in traffic".  Pronk is super-flexible and moved to every beat of Vivaldi's music.  I'm not sure why he danced with the red ball in his mouth (??).

*Polina Semionova and Marcelo Gomes danced to the Manon Pas de deux bedroom scene.  What a treat to be able to see Semionova dance live.  She got a huge round of applause when her name was announced that the audience did not even hear that she was dancing with Marcelo the Great.  This was the only dance of the night that made me cry.  Every move that was made was a total act of love.  Semionova reminded me a little of Vishneva.

*The last number was Sarah Lamb and Sergei Polunin from the Royal Ballet in the Diana and Acteon Pas de deux.  I saw Sarah Lamb dance Princess Florine in Sleeping Beuaty a few years ago when the Royal came to Washington DC.  She is a lovely ballerina.  This is the first time that I saw Polunin dance.  Except for a little glitch at the end - Lamb was getting ready to turn and he seeemd to stop her too early - this dance was fantastic.  And Polunin pulled off the prerequisite for this Pas de deux - the move which I call the "karate kick wheelbarrow".

All in all - a great gala and I will be back tomorrow night for the Vasiliev gala.  I hope the screamers are not there!  

[balletmor]

Any word on a list of winners??

[Marga]

You'll have more luck finding out names of winners at the YAGP thread on Ballet Talk for Dancers. Here is a link to a post with the main winners:

YAGP winners

Also, have you been to the YAGP site - YAGP.org? Here is the page with all the scholarship winners:
YAGP scholarship winners

[nysusan]

Marga, on Mar 27 2010, 02:54 PM, said:

You'll have more luck finding out names of winners at the YAGP thread on Ballet Talk for Dancers. Here is a link to a post with the main winners:

YAGP winners

Also, have you been to the YAGP site - YAGP.org? Here is the page with all the scholarship winners:
YAGP scholarship winners

Hi Marga,

The link to BT for dancers isn't working for me and I haven't been able to find the YAGP thread. What forum is it in?

[Marga]

That's funny. It works fine for me.   The YAGP thread is in BT4D's Cross Talk.

[vrsfanatic]

http://dancers.invis...showtopic=46057

Here is the link to the BT4D thread on YAGP 2010.

[abatt]

Ceeszi, on Mar 27 2010, 01:06 AM, said:

Oh - the YAGP Stars of Today Meet Stars of Tomorrow Gala!  I love this gala, but I cannot take the screaming kids and the rude audience, of which I had both in abundance tonight.  The screaming kids were all way up in the balcony and the rude audience was right behind me - four people who thought that they were watching this on television in their living room.  Finally, someone politley told them to shut the **** up and they were behaved for the rest of the night, except for one of the men who greeted the end of every performance with WOO WOO BRAVO! right in my ear!

To give you an idea of how clueless the YAGP audience was, they started clapping to the beat of the music of Giselle during the mournful Act II variation that was performed.

[Ambonnay]

One problem I had was City Center seating people during the short breaks between individual performances. The breaks were not long enough for this to happen, and there was disturbance of people around the people being seated.  I understand this practice is not uncommon at City Center.

[abatt]

Ambonnay, on Mar 29 2010, 11:30 AM, said:

One problem I had was City Center seating people during the short breaks between individual performances. The breaks were not long enough for this to happen, and there was disturbance of people around the people being seated.  I understand this practice is not uncommon at City Center.

It is a common practice at City Center, but the YAGP gala is the worst in terms of that problem.  At least the house management wasn't as bad as last year.  You may recall that last year the lights were suddenly turned out completely without warning at the beginning of the performance.  People who were still walking to their seats were screaming in fear of falling in the complete darkness.  Fortunately, within about 3 minutes, the lights came back on.

[carbro]

Ambonnay, on Mar 29 2010, 11:30 AM, said:

One problem I had was City Center seating people during the short breaks between individual performances. The breaks were not long enough for this to happen, and there was disturbance of people around the people being seated.  I understand this practice is not uncommon at City Center.

There is no set house policy at City Center.  Late seating policy is determined by the presenter.  Some allow seating between numbers, some only during intermission.  Apparently, during ABT's 2008 fall season, the house was told "after 10 minutes."  That worked for the first program, where the first big applause break occurred 10 minutes in, but during a subsequent performance, 10 minutes after curtain up, dancers were busily dancing away, and the seating was disruptive.  We asked an ABT representative about the disruption in the latter performance and it took her a moment to realize what was behind this failure of common sense.

[Ambonnay]

Reminder that the YAGP NYC Gala for 2011 already has tickets available for purchase, on the City Center website.  

[Ambonnay]

There is now more info on the 2011 gala:

"Featuring the stars of:
Jose Manuel Carreno (American Ballet Theatre)
Thomas Forster (American Ballet Theatre)
Ivan Vasiliev (Bolshoi Ballet)
Rubinald Pronk (Dutch National Ballet)
Gallim Dance
Yekaterina Kondaurova (Mariinsky Ballet)  
Tiler Peck (New York City Ballet)
Tyler Angle (New York City Ballet)
Daniel Ulbricht (New York City Ballet)
Yuan Yuan Tan (San Francisco Ballet)
Anthony Spaulding (San Francisco Ballet)
Roderick George (Theater Basel)
And WORLD PREMIERES by ABT’s Marcelo Gomes and NYCB’s Benjamin Millepied"  (I wonder whether this refers to Gomes as choreographer?)

http://yagp.org/gala...2011_index.html