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Reviews of ABT Giselle 2015


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abatt - I noticed that Macauley mentioned Skylar in his review of the two retirement performances:

"It’s heartening therefore to report on the exceptional luster shown by the young Skylar Brandt in the peasant pas de deux on Saturday and Wednesday afternoons. She and her partner, Arron Scott, were new to this piece on Saturday; his innocence and skill (double air turns to the right and the left) are perfect for it. Ms. Brandt, beautiful in features, feet and technical execution, has an elegance that, amid the village scene of “Giselle,” startles."

My question is this - he mentions Scott's "double air turns to the right and the left" as if this skill is something special. Double tours to both sides are a pretty basic requisite for a male dancer. I realize that most men have a stronger side, but they should be able to tour and pirouette both ways. Why the mention?

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I happen to agree with Gottlieb's assessment of Mearns generally and in La Valse especially, though it certainly could have been -- and should have been -- more tactfully put. Too often Gottlieb sounds as if he's disparaging a dancer's moral fiber rather than offering a critique of the performance he saw them give.

I don't understand why Mearns' interpretation of La Valse is considered bad or wrong, even though it allegedly diverges from the way LeClerq did it. Mearns arrives as a wild party girl looking for fun and adventure, and she gets more than she bargained for when she is enticed by the death figure. Why does she have to come in as an innocent type from the start? In a way, Mearns' version makes more sense because she is easily corrupted.

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A very interesting question -- my theory (your mileage may vary) is that in dance we are subliminally aware most of the time that the "text" of the work is pretty fragile, and we're loathe to bring new interpretations or readings to it, lest we lose the original. Materials that depend on word of mouth to stay alive are much more easily lost than anything that's documented in a more immutable medium.

An example that isn't from the NYCB rep would be the new version of La Sylphide that Nikolais Hubbe has created at the Royal Danish. If we were talking about a Shakespeare play or a Brahms symphony, people would have a lively discussion about the different choices made, but they wouldn't approach it in the same skeptical, worried fashion that we saw a bit of here on BA in the discussion of the work, because in the back of our heads we wouldn't be worrying about the identity of the work itself -- the text isn't exclusively resident in the performance, but in some other place.

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Furthermore, most Shakespeare we see performed has had huge chunks of text removed, and we tend not to worry about it, because we feel certain that the passages could be re-inserted at any time. (I mean, many of us still have our university copy of William Shakespeare: The Complete Works standing on a bookshelf. Those texts are preserved in untold numbers of copies.) But when a ballet production removes a variation or a waltz or a national dance, there is a real risk of it being lost forever.

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I don't understand why Mearns' interpretation of La Valse is considered bad or wrong, even though it allegedly diverges from the way LeClerq did it. Mearns arrives as a wild party girl looking for fun and adventure, and she gets more than she bargained for when she is enticed by the death figure. Why does she have to come in as an innocent type from the start? In a way, Mearns' version makes more sense because she is easily corrupted.

Interesting point, but then it’s not so surprising - not as dramatic - when a wild partier meets a tragic end. Still, was the role really played as an innocent originally? Nancy Reynolds refers to LeClerq's “angular sophistication and doomed half-innocence” (the former sounds like LeClerq as she's been described in just about any role, granted, but the latter not), and says that when it was revived McBride “brought to it an other-worldly, almost vampire-like characterization, with a quality of sophistication Leland also found.” Mazzo and Farrell, she says “played the role more as an innocent young girl.” Reynolds also quotes LeClerq as saying Balanchine (typically) “didn’t say anything about acting or reacting at all.”

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My reservations about Mearns' approach to La Valse have less to do with its fidelity to a predefined text than its lack of texture and pacing. In the performance I saw she had it dialed up to eleven from her first entrance and consequently left herself with nowhere to go dramatically. I have similar reservations about her approach to Davidsbündlertänze; her Clara is at the extremes of grief from the get-go. Is her approach "wrong" or "invalid"? Not necessarily, but I at least don't find it theatrically satisfying. Obviously, this is something about which reasonable people may disagree.

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I stand corrected. John Rockwell is the music critic whom the NYT decided could also be a dance critic. I mean, really, what's the difference, right?

I'd somehow morphed Macauley and Rockwell into the same person. I'd actually thought recently that my morphed persona was becoming a much better dance critic because he was at least talking more about dance history than music history. But I still stand by my belief that Macauley, like Rockwell, doesn't spend enough time reviewing the dancers themselves. And I agree that he can be quite mean-spirited.

Edited to add that I liked Jack Anderson.

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I stand corrected. John Rockwell is the music critic whom the NYT decided could also be a dance critic. I mean, really, what's the difference, right?

I'd somehow morphed Macauley and Rockwell into the same person. I'd actually thought recently that my morphed persona was becoming a much better dance critic because he was at least talking more about dance history than music history. But I still stand by my belief that Macauley, like Rockwell, doesn't spend enough time reviewing the dancers themselves. And I agree that he can be quite mean-spirited.

Macaulay directly followed Rockwell, as you may remember, and to me it was like day following night. Rockwell's knowledge of ballet and ballet history never seemed very deep. As much as I like Gottlieb, Macaulay is the critic currently writing who most helps me see the steps and better understand the ballet. I also read his cracks as attempts at wit, not mean-spiritedness, although that doesn't excuse them.

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Isn't La Valse supposed to be similar in tone to Cotillon and Liebeslieder, Balanchine's other glove ballets? In Cotillon and La Valse there's a lightness to them that contrasts with the presence of Death as one of the dancers thus the turn of events as Ravel's music becomes more frenetic and almost devours itself.

I haven't seen Mearns in La Valse but it sounds as if she's giving away the ending at the beginning, as Kathleen O'Connell suggests. There's a clip of Lauren King and Antonio Carmena at the City Ballet website that seems to capture the right ambience.

http://www.nycballet.com/ballets/l/la-valse.aspx

I remember Rockwell claiming there was no change to the sound at Carnegie Hall after the big mid-80s remodel and gently chastizing the other critics on the Times who did.

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