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PNB Giselle Works&Process presentation


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WORKS & PROCESS, THE PERFORMING ARTS PROGRAM AT THE GUGGENHEIM, TO LIVE STREAM PACIFIC NORTHWEST BALLET – GISELLE REVISITED ON SUNDAY, JANUARY 9, 7:30PM

For over 25 years and in over 300 productions, Works & Process has offered audiences unprecedented access to our generation’s leading creators and performers. Each 80-minute performance uniquely combines artistic creation and stimulating conversation and takes place in the Guggenheim’s intimate Frank Lloyd Wright-designed 285-seat Peter B. Lewis Theater. With performances often sold out, Works & Process on Sunday, January 9, 7:30 pm, for the first time, will live stream the sold out performance Pacific Northwest Ballet – Giselle Revisited. In this program Pacific Northwest Ballet dancers will perform excerpts from Peter Boal’s new staging of Giselle, prior to the production’s June 2011 premiere at McCaw Hall in Seattle. Giselle, widely acknowledged as the greatest ballet of the Romantic era, will feature reconstructed choreography utilizing Stepanov notation circa 1899-1903 and French sources from the 1840s and 1860s. Artistic Director Peter Boal will discuss the production with dance scholars Doug Fullington and Marian Smith. Excerpts will be performed by PNB dancers Carrie Imler, Carla Körbes, James Moore, and Seth Orza.

The Winger’s Candice Thompson will moderate the real-time online chat. The video will be automatically archived and can be shared and viewed in social networks.

To see the performance live online visit http://www.ustream.tv/channel/worksandprocess

PANEL

Peter Boal

Doug Fullington

Marian Smith

PERFORMERS

Carrie Imler, Principal

Carla Körbes, Principal

James Moore, Soloist

Seth Orza, Principal

More About the Production

The sources utilized for PNB’s Giselle include a repetiteur believed to have been prepared in Paris, circa 1842, to assist in the staging of Giselle in St. Petersburg that year. The repetiteur includes detailed information relating to the action of the ballet and how it relates to the score by French composer Adolphe Adam. Another primary French source is a complete notation of Giselle likely made in 1860s Paris by Henri Justamant. This elaborate notation recently surfaced in a private collection in Germany and has now been published. The other important source is a choreographic notation made in St. Petersburg, circa 1899-1903. This notation was made using the Stepanov notation system developed in St. Petersburg in the early 1890s. The production represents French choreographer Marius Petipa’s version of Giselle that was based on the original Paris production, choreographed by Jean Coralli and Jules Perrot. The Stepanov notation of Giselle was used in the West for historic stagings by Paris Opéra Ballet and the Vic-Wells Ballet (now the Royal Ballet). The notation is now housed at the Harvard Theatre Collection.

In collaboration with Peter Boal, who will oversee the entire staging, Marian Smith will focus on the French sources and their use for the action of the ballet, and Doug Fullington will reconstruct choreography using the Stepanov notations. This production marks the first time an American ballet company will base a production on Stepanov notation as well as the first use in modern times of the rare French sources for Giselle.

Pacific Northwest Ballet, one of the largest and most highly regarded ballet companies in the United States, was founded in 1972. In July 2005, Peter Boal became Artistic Director, succeeding Kent Stowell and Francia Russell, Co-Artistic Directors since 1977. The Company of forty-six dancers presents more than 100 performances each year of full-length and mixed repertory ballets at Marion Oliver McCaw Hall and on tour. The Company has toured to Europe, Australia, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Canada and throughout the United States, with celebrated appearances at Jacob’s Pillow and in New York City and Washington, DC. Under the direction of Mr. Boal, PNB has continued to expand and diversify its repertory to include works by Ulysses Dove, Jiri Kylian, Susan Marshall, Benjamin Millepied, Mark Morris, Victor Quijada, Susan Stroman, Twyla Tharp, Christopher Wheeldon and others. Founded in 1974, Pacific Northwest Ballet School, under the direction of Francia Russell since 1977 and now under Mr. Boal's direction, is nationally recognized as setting the standard for ballet training and offers a complete professional curriculum to over 950 students. PNB and PNBS also provide comprehensive dance education to the greater Seattle area and reach over 10,000 adults and children each year through DanceChance, Discover Dance and other outreach programs and activities.

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The preview tonight was wonderful, and I wish it had been twice as long.

Carla Korbes, Seth Orza, James Moore, and Carrie Imler danced and mimed beautifully in studio conditions. I don't want to post spoilers. I'll say only that the performance highlight among many, many high points was Carrie Imler's Mother's Mime.

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.....and to add a bit of a pun....

Among the other many high points was closest to the floor (i.e., the lowest point of the body); namely, Carrie Imler's feet doing moves no modern ballerina ought to be able to do.

Add to that the powerful drama ever present in Carla Korbes dancing, Seth Orza's strength and use of space, and Jim Moore's commitment, and I think one will conclude that the illustrative dance demonstrations alone were worth the price of admission. Bottom line, I learned a lot -- especially about mime......thanks Doug!

Don't miss it if you can possibly tune in.

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Sorry if my question sounds sort of silly, but being sort of like in the middle ages about computerized stuff and the like...do I have to sign up any special account on that website, or download a program or have any special device or do anything to watch Giselle...?

Thanks!

All you have to do is go to their website at 7:30 and it will begin streaming by itself. I happened to have the site up so I wouldn't forget tonight, and discovered the stream from the 3 pm event when I turned my speakers on to stream something else.

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I can see it... although it's not streaming but showing some note "recorded live". It's a little maddening because the notation isn't visible. It takes a while before it occurs to the camera operator to close down the iris.. and then we can sort of see it, but the resolution isn't enough to make sense of it... Still worth a listen.

Just lovely! Worth watching even in low resolution! Would like to know if the live streaming comes through in higher resolution.

Particularly liked seeing the bits about what was originally notated... Myrtha's coupé jeté manage makes such musical sense with the small jetés.

Who is the very sensitive accompanist?

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Sorry if my question sounds sort of silly, but being sort of like in the middle ages about computerized stuff and the like...do I have to sign up any special account on that website, or download a program or have any special device or do anything to watch Giselle...?

Thanks!

All you have to do is go to their website at 7:30 and it will begin streaming by itself. I happened to have the site up so I wouldn't forget tonight, and discovered the stream from the 3 pm event when I turned my speakers on to stream something else.

Beautiful! Will be watching...thanks!! :thumbsup:

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Love the Bournanville flavor - speed, direction changes - in the variations. Some of that seems to have been lost along the way.

Just gorgeous, which is why I wish the dancers had more time to work through their discomfort to do the original before the version decision was made. Although Imler makes it look soooooo easy...

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Who were those BEAUTIFUL ballerinas...?!?! Now, THOSE were really GREAT LOOKING female dancers..! :wub::wub::wub:

Love seeing Berthe's mime being given the importance it deserves. Alonso has retained it almost in a carbon copy of what I saw in the broadcast, all the way from her staging of the ballet-(with the help of A. Dolin and Mary Skeaping)-in 1948. It can be seen better in her 1964 DVD. On the other side, none of the productions I have on DVD has it, either Russians or from the West.

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Who were those BEAUTIFUL ballerinas...?!?! Now, THOSE were really GREAT LOOKING female dancers..! :wub::wub::wub:

Giselle was Carla Korbes, who grew up in Brazil and was chosen by Peter Boal very young -- 14, I think -- to dance Terpsichore in a performance of "Apollo" that Boal did in Brazil. He convinced her parents (through a translator) to allow her to attend SAB. She moved away from her family to NYC and learned English from scratch.

She danced for NYCB, but many of us thought she was underused and under-appreciated by Peter Martins. For us in Seattle, it has been a privilege to see her dance since she came joined PNB in Boal's first season. Her Albrecht, Seth Orza, also came from NYCB, a few years after Korbes. His wife, Sarah Ricard Orza, who wasn't in the program, joined the company, too, which makes us even luckier. She's a beautiful dancer.

Carrie Imler mimed Berta and danced Peasant Pas de Deux (with James Moore) and Myrtha. She's one of the finest dancers I've ever seen in any genre. She was trained at Central Pennsylvania Youth Ballet and later at Pacific Northwest Ballet School. Happily she was in the NYC tour to City Center in 1996, and she got a shout out (end of p. 2) from Anna Kisselgoff. She makes time slow down in the most difficult virtuoso passages.

James Moore was Hilarion. I love him in this role. I was disappointed that there wasn't a reference to the scope of Hilarion's role in Act II in this production, but they couldn't perform the entire ballet in a relatively short presentation.

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...Don't miss it if you can possibly tune in.

I'm not familiar with this site, having visited it for the first time today, thanks to this thread - and what a start! - but it looks like this video will be available for a time: If you use the link in the first post, you will currently find two thumbnails down the page, either of which start the video if you click on it.

Thanks, Helene, and thanks for the identifications.

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A few years ago, when Fullington reconstructed the Jardin Anime from Corsaire I thought that the whole thing felt a bit Danish, and then Alexandra reminded me that Petipa and Bournonville were both French trained -- it's all water from the same well.

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[i'm not familiar with this site, having visited it for the first time today, thanks to this thread - and what a start! - but it looks like this video will be available for a time: If you use the link in the first post, you will currently find two thumbnails down the page, either of which start the video if you double-click on it.

Thanks, Helene, and thanks for the identifications.

That would be great -- I've got a couple of friends who had to miss the program.

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A marvelous experience. Tahnks, rg and Helene, for making us aware of it. It was good to be there with other Balletalertniks.

How wonderful that the artisitic leadership of PNB has the desire to work on this level of detail and is willing to commit financial resources to do so. you don't often find an artistic team as articulate and thoughtful as this, or so full of enthusiasm about engaging the audience in what they are trying to do.

Regarding the Bournonville look (to feet, anyway), Doug Fullington did mention that the strength of 19th century dancers were in the area of speed and lightness (rather than, for example, elevation). I also liked his attitude towards reconstruction in general -- that "authenticity" must allow for the different technique of dancers today, as well as what makes their bodies "comfortable."

I was astonished to learn from Marion Smith that Giselle, in the original concept, was about "half and half" dance and mime/dramatic action, prior to the addition of the peasant pas de deux. Smith's examples of the way in which music actually "expresses characterization" -- and even duplicates specific important words -- at key dramatic points was very valuable and will change the way I experience the ballet in the future.

Best for me: the expansion and the great clarity of Berthe's pantomime, the excellent Hilarion, and the dance demonstrations from the peasant pas de deux.. I agree that it would have been nice to see more of Hilarion from Act II, had there been time.

Worst for me: the frustrations about the image quality.. I watched the show on 2 computers -- my deskstop and a small notebook. In both cases, the quality of the transmission left much to be desired. I was wondering if anyone else had this problem. My only experience with streaming is with conferences that do not require clarity of image to the extent that dance does.

I was impressed by Imler especially, and wanted to see more of her, but her rapid footwork as Myrthe came across as blurred on my screen. This was especially the case when I went full-screen. Lighting did not help, tending to make the women's skirts seem opaque, even bloated, distorting line. The blurring factor even made it difficult to follow arms and epaulement. Switching to small screen improved the resolution, but then you had the distraction of the "discussion" column to the right of the screen. (See below.)

On the whole, this was a thrilling experience, reminding me that ballet has a strong intellectual component, if its practitioners allow themselves the time to express it. By the way, I was not counting viewers during the performance, but noted that 342 were watching online during the curtain calls. Thanks also to the Guggenheim.

Off Topic: The non-stop chatter of some of the viewers during the program was astonishing. Apparently they can watch a challenging program AND engage in vapid commentary at the same time.

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Worst for me: the frustrations of the image quality..I watched the show on 2 computers -- my deskstop and a small notebook. In both cases, the image quality of the transmission left much to be desired. I was wondering if anyone else had this problem. I was very impressed by Imler especially, but there was a blurry effect to the way her rapid footwork as Myrthe came across on my screen. This was especially the case when I went full-screen/ Lighting did not help. In both screens the women's dresses seemed opaque and bloated, hiding line.

I know what you mean, but the quality was no worse than what I've seen before during streaming events. Of course most of those have been jazz sets from clubs, so the visual component was less important.

By the way, I was not counting viewers during the performance, but noted that 342 were watching online during the curtain calls.

The most I noted during the afternoon was 61. Both figures strike me as amazingly low.

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