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NYCB at the Kennedy Center


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Have no idea if it was for comic effect. I didn't find it comical. I found it alarming insofar as exposing the dancers to injury for no apparent reason.

I don't think that the choreographed falls for women (in the 'Gnome' solo for Mearns, then the 'Bydlo' female pas de quatre) are for comic effect. The four women seem to be in mourning-angst mode...Dark Elegies. On Wed night they seemed controlled and, from 2nd tier, the hands slapping the stage not particularly loud.

This sort of thing underscores why Ramansky is not a great favorite of mine: he seems to like to put women in unpretty and 'messy' positions in his contemporary works. Going along with the 'unpretty women' leitmotif, I could not stand looking at the female dancers' bare muscular legs. Since when has it become ok for female ballet dancers to dance on pointe without tights? To me, it shows lack of basic grooming, untidiness, etc. (I saw a Kitri in DQ dance all but the Dream Scene and PDD without tights once and she looked dirty...in the lack-of-grooming sense. Yuk.)

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Everywhere was fun to watch but became monotonous despite the fast patterns, complex lifts etc. Shaving 15 minutes off Everywhere [42 minutes] would give it focus. 3 of the 4 pieces would benefit from editing [an Oscar category in film]. Act 2 of Balanchine's Nutcracker is 41, Paquita Grand Pas 40, Rubies 19, Tchaikovsky Pas de Deux 9.

Everyone seems to agree that Everywhere needs trimming, but those are eye-opening comparisons, thank you.

Natalia, I'm not sure why you relate bare, muscular female legs to a lack of grooming, but I agree they don't flatter ballet dancers. On the one hand, they're impressive reminders of all the hard work the dancers have put in. On the other hand, "hard" doesn't fit the aesthetic.

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The Kirov was already going tightless in ballets like Le Corsaire and Don Quixote in the 1980s. A couple of years ago Alastair Macaulay brought up the issue in a piece on nudity in dance, pointing out how making all of a dancer's musculature visible fundamentally alters our perceptions. I don't like it on women or men, but I find bare midriffs at least as objectionable. I don't care to count dancers' ribs any more than I care to see the throbbing muscles on their legs.

On the other hand, "hard" doesn't fit the aesthetic.

Exactly.

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The Kirov was already going tightless in ballets like Le Corsaire and Don Quixote in the 1980s. A couple of years ago Alastair Macaulay brought up the issue in a piece on nudity in dance, pointing out how making all of a dancer's musculature visible fundamentally alters our perceptions. I don't like it on women or men, but I find bare midriffs at least as objectionable. I don't care to count dancers' ribs any more than I care to see the throbbing muscles on their legs.

Exactly.

It's a changeable thing -- I'm old enough to remember fishnet stockings with pointe shoes. I always thought they were an odd texture.

There are some works (like Kylian's Petit Mort for just one example) where the contrast between the shiny costume and the matte exposed flesh is indeed part of the aesthetic. In the end, I think the choreographer gets to choose.

(the quote function is behaving oddly for me, but I don't have time to troubleshoot -- apologies for mis-attributions in the quote)

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It's a changeable thing -- I'm old enough to remember fishnet stockings with pointe shoes. I always thought they were an odd texture.

There are some works (like Kylian's Petit Mort for just one example) where the contrast between the shiny costume and the matte exposed flesh is indeed part of the aesthetic. In the end, I think the choreographer gets to choose.

(the quote function is behaving oddly for me, but I don't have time to troubleshoot -- apologies for mis-attributions in the quote)

Is Petit Mort performed on point? I thought that it was a modern dance with women wearing slippers or barefooted. My complaint is about bare legged women in point shoes, in classical ballet. Very dirty and the antithesis of the elegant aesthetics of the art of ballet. Modern dance is 'anything goes'!

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Per this post in Faye Arthurs' always enlightening blog "Thoughts from the Paint" it appears that a stomach bug wreaked havoc on the casting for NYCB's recent run at the Kennedy Center. Silver lining? Some dancers got to try on new roles, albeit under what can only be charitably described as less-than-ideal circumstances ...

I was dancing Balanchine’s Symphony in C all week. It closed an iconic Balanchine triple bill which began with Serenade followed by Agon. On opening night my regular partner Devin Alberda succumbed to illness right before the show, so I rehearsed with a brand new partner—the very game David Prottas—during Agon since David had to perform in Serenade as well. Poor David, who had never danced in Bizet (the dancer shorthand for Symphony in C) before, was flying blind that first show. But he did a great job of jumping right in. We ended up together for the entire week because by the time Devin recovered someone else was out, so he ended up changing spots too. It was quite the juggling act.

Later in the post, Arthurs runs through some of the reasons why a senior corps dancer like Prottas might never have danced the role before. She also points out something that I can't believe I haven't noticed in 30+ years of watching Symphony in C: the height of the corps dancers in each of the ballet's sections relative to the heights of the principals. It's details like these that make her blog such a worthwhile read.

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Later in the post, Arthurs runs through some of the reasons why a senior corps dancer like Prottas might never have danced the role before. She also points out something that I can't believe I haven't noticed in 30+ years of watching Symphony in C: the height of the corps dancers in each of the ballet's sections relative to the heights of the principals. It's details like these that make her blog such a worthwhile read.

Yes, I noticed that the corps in the 2nd movement, which has principals that are usually tall, has the smallest dancers. Conversely, the third movement, which is often led by smallish jumpers, has tall corps.

And thank you for reminding me about Arthurs blog. I've got to remember to check in with that regularly.

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