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PNB Coming to NY City Center in Feb 2016


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For New Yorkers waiting to see Carrie Imler, per Peter Boal in a Q&A this afternoon, she's pregnant, and he thinks due in April. Lindsi Dec is also pregnant and her due date is January.

Some updates on casting from the first two programs of the season:

Prodigal Son:

  • Benjamin Griffiths/Leslie Rausch
  • James Moore/Laura Tisserand
  • Matthew Renko/Emma Love Suddarth

Emergence:

  • Bee Man: Price Suddarth, Matthew Renko, and James Moore
  • Pas de Deux: Laura Tisserand/Batkhurel Bold; Maria Chapman/Karel Cruz
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For New Yorkers waiting to see Carrie Imler, per Peter Boal in a Q&A this afternoon, she's pregnant, and he thinks due in April. Lindsi Dec is also pregnant and her due date is January.

Congratulations to Lindsi Dec and Carrie Imler. I was so hoping to see Imler in NYC this February but since it is not to be I can't think of a more wonderful reason.

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It's wonderful news for Imler and Dec and their husbands :flowers:

In the past few years, Kaori Nakamura, who danced Juliette in PNB's last visit to NYC and has been PNB faculty since she retired, Sarah Ricard Orza, Maria Chapman, Kylee Kitchens, and Rachel Foster have had children, and Baby Imler and Baby Dec-Cruz will have plenty of playmates!

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PNB picked a very tough week to play in New York City. Many NYC balletomanes will be going to Washington DC during that same period to see the Mariinsky's Raymonda. Moreover, Lopatkina and Vishneva will be performing at the Brooklyn Academy of Music during that same time period. Additionally, NYCB will be at the Koch.

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Just a reminder there is a Livestream this evening at 5:30 Pacific Time. Per Facebook PNB will rehearse the Balanchine program. Duration 1.5 hours with a 5 min break somewhere in there.

A friend tuned into the last livestram from R&J and said viewers could submit questions and receive real time answers. You could also see all the questions and answers, not just your own.

Last time i linked from the PNB website but probably faster to go to the PNB Facebook page.

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I haven't heard yet from anyone who was able to tune into the live stream -- anybody here?

Peter Boal gave a short introduction for the program. Rehearsals for this project have been happening in the crevices of the regular schedule - I'm always impressed with how much they're able to get through in a short time, and how long they're able to retain it, considering how many other things they're doing.

They ran parts of the Balanchine rep that they're taking with them to NYC, so no Pite or Dawson. They started with Square Dance, with Benjamin Griffiths and Leta Biasucci in the lead roles. Most of the corrections were small -- a shape here, a floor plan there. Boal is looking for clean and sharp. They can't really dance much bigger in terms of the space (the City Center stage is quite a bit smaller than McCaw Hall – they have the dimensions taped off and there’s plenty of space for dancers to sprawl on the floor “behind the curtain”) so they need to go up instead.

Ben G has been dancing the solo for quite awhile, and it’s been so interesting to see it develop for him. This time out he’s emphasizing the accents more – the phrases are a bit shorter and several of them resolve in stillness. But he’s still got really lovely connectivity in his turns, which makes this virtuoso nature of this section more about the interpretation and less about the technical skills.

Biasucci reminds me of Carrie Imler in this role – she’s got speed and precision enough to begin to play with timing. Stillness is a part of it here as well, in the precipite moments. The last time the company did this work, Imler had such a good time with those accents, and we had a good time watching.

Leslie Rausch and Jerome Tisserand worked through one of the arias from Violin Concerto (the one made for Von Aroldingen and Bonnefous). Rausch has a cool demeanor in roles like this that serves her and the choreography well – it’s a kind of fidelity to the steps that transcends her relationship to her partner. It’s been several years since the company performed this, so it had to be taught from scratch, but it doesn’t really look new to the two of them – it’s familiar territory. Beautiful torque from them both.

Both James Moore and Jonathan Porretta will be dancing Prodigal Son in NYC, but we only saw Moore (with Rausch) in this rehearsal. Both Moore and Porretta have come back from injuries this season (Moore with a hip and back combination, and Porretta with a toe) and are coming back to a role they really value. Moore looked astonishing in the part earlier this year – the NYC shows are Porretta’s return. I’m really sorry not to see him in this – as much as I like what Moore does with the part, I’ve missed Porretta’s appetite for movement. The cast uses this rehearsal to reinforce the mechanics of the partnering sequences and bring their movement in to fit the City Center stage. Rausch whips the cape around with such authority I think she’s just tamed the whole thing, and then it flips over on itself when she’s kneeling, trying to hide under it. She covers well, and I think about the sequence in Romeo and Juliette where the two of them realize that someone (us) is watching in the bedchamber scene, and they hide underneath the bedclothes.

The corps have a grand time with the Goons – Steven Loch in particular relishes the chance to play zombies. He’s rolling his eyes like a silent movie actor, but really, they’re all hamming it up, to excellent results.

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I loved the live stream... So wonderful to see Square Dance from that perspective and through a wide angle lens... One really gets the social dance aspect in a way one doesn't from the flatness of a proscenium presentation.

Next time perhaps they could be persuaded to put a wireless mic on Peter Boal, he was difficult to hear and it would have been nice to hear what he was saying to the dancers.

It was eye opening to watch the run up the platform in Prodigal.

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The mic would be a help -- Peter B is doing a very good job at remembering to talk to the audience when he's explaining/describing, but it's partially a real rehearsal and he does address the dancers when he's giving comments. Like many organizations who are relatively new to this technology, they're still learning the ropes.

And yes, the run up the table in Prodigal made us all hold our collective breath. There's a great deal of horseplay in the Maillot Romeo, which the company just finished, including a long ramp that changes level while dancers are on it, so it's a skill they've been dealing with lately, but it's still pretty astonishing for those of us watching.

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I tipped off a few friends via e-mail, and one in the New York area and more keen-eyed than I am, commented

I enjoyed the rehearsal very much!! I started watching in the middle of "Square Dance" and was quite moved by the man's adagio solo. Beautiful company and excellent coaching from Peter Boal.

(I have forwarded some of them the address of sandik's wrap-up just above so they will know who's who. Thanks, sandik.)

I enjoyed it, too, but intermittently: Some of the camera-work was intrusive on Friday, compared to Carla Korbes's farewell performance last Spring. Sometimes a balcony-height camera can help deal with the flattening dance gets on screen, but I liked best that bleacher-high wide-angle view I think Amy Reusch liked too, and I wished for it most of the time when I didn't have it. Whoever was on that camera kept it pretty "quiet" - not moving in or out or left or right - most of the time and also had a good sense of slow, easy panning to follow the main action into a corner of the space, without framing so tightly that the sense of space and the dancers' motion through it was lost.

Very enjoyable, like sitting in the best seat in the house! Better than we sometimes get from the high-priced TV networks.

On the other hand, some of the close-in shots with another camera, when they cut dancers off at the shin (what some of us call "mud shots", because the dancers look like they're shin-deep in it), and especially when they resulted in showing us a headless ballerina, were regrettable. Fewer cameras would have looked better to me (and maybe saved money, too).

The point about the mic on Peter Boal reminded me that at the TSFB open class at the Kennedy Center last Fall, it turned out we could hear Suzanne Farrell better than the dancers could.

... Like many organizations who are relatively new to this technology, they're still learning the ropes.

Point taken! A work in progress means more to look forward to.

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A quick note as I have a plane to catch to the east coast tonight...I sat in the upstairs gallery since I couldn't stay for the entire demo. I couldn't hear Peter too well, so thank you sandik for posting some of his comments. I suspect Jonathon will be the opening night Prodigal Son and am really looking forward to it. James is awesome, but I did catch him a couple of times in the fall already.

Square Dance - I am not as familiar with this ballet as the rest of you. Oh dear, it is a really hard ballet and for every single dancer! From upstairs I could really see how tight the spacing was with the floor marked for the City Center stage. I thought Leta was phenomenal, her demeanor is so charming and really is the cherry on top of her incredible technique. Her and Ben make a great pair. And I love the section where all the girls do the gargouillades - I absolutely love that step! Oh, and the guys triple pirouette in unison. Tough stuff, IMO.

I was glad to see Lesley in SVC. No one mentioned it in the R&J thread, but she did not dance the second weekend. At Thursday's aftertalk Peter B said Noe and James were in the Friday Eyes on Dance matinee because someone had a back issue (didn't say whether Lesley or Jerome). I went out of town and missed second Sat eve but a friend emailed me and said Noe danced with Jerome and it was her dream cast. At the aftertalk Peter said Lesley had tweaked her back. With so many lady principals out - Carrie, Lindsi, Rachel (still injured?), and Maria retired, it seems they would need to depend on Lesley for the NYC tour. I noticed the casting was not updated on the PNB website but on Facebook it said Sunday matinee was to be Noe/Jerome and Sunday evening was to be Noe/James. Nice that Jerome was still able to perform his schedule over the weekend! Oh and I did see Lesley and Jerome first Sat matinee, and I was really impressed by her range in her acting and emotion. Hopefully she will have opportunities next time around.

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Re-reading sandik's wrap-up above at the end about the boys reminds me to mention that this production restores the "dance" - verging on a fist-fight at times - of the two boys in Scene Two (while the Prodigal and the Siren "converse" in the background) which Balanchine took out for the taping in Nashville in the late '70's; it's pretty loosely constructed, and I think I see why he did; the ballet is a little tighter without it, but as he was reported to have said, time is slower on television than in the theater - which I agree with - and he wanted it to move along. But we didn't get it in the theater any more after that, and some sequences looked to me here like they may have suffered from being out of performance.

But "Ben G," in Bart Cook's role, I believe, in Square Dance was the hit of this event for me; I only wish the close-in shots had been left out, so we could have seen all of him all the time. But, even so.

It's "Aria I" from Stravinsky Violin Concerto we got, and it's apt casting: Karin von Aroldingen was a "cool customer" among Balanchine's ballerinas, not "relating" to her partner much either in SVC or as the Siren in Prodigal (except there to dominate and intimidate him - I guess that's one kind of relationship), as you can see in the videos from those days (or in anything else I can remember), and Rausch and the role fit. (Not that she gives it here the weight von Aroldingen did, but this was a rehearsal.)

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Announced cast changes so far:

Opening Night: Prodigal Son - Lesley Rausch for Laura Tisserand

Saturday Night: Kisses - Sara Pasch and Kylee Kitchens for Laura Tisserand, Angelica Generosa for Elle Macy

Opening night: Ben and Leta so bright and sharp as SD leads. Awesome to see Jonathon Poretta in Prodigal Son again. Lesley and Jerome received bravos after their pdd and at the final bows. SVC was very well rehearsed, very nuanced and detailed. Very impressive after a (10+ yr?) hiatus at PNB.

Saturday night Kisses - Leta was a force of nature in her solo. She slipped a little on the floor and did not miss one beat! Angelica also gave a very detailed solo, incredible phrasing, sustains, balances followed by very quick movements. Angelica also danced all three pieces last night, she's a superwoman! Maggie Mullin also an incredible solo in Vertiginous. James Moore - amazingly fluid Bee Man solo.

Everyone around my seat was raving about the show. especially Emergence. I love seeing PNB on this stage and in this venue!

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Seconding seattle_dancer's note: Maggie Mullin was absolutely fantastic in Vertiginous Thrill of Exactitude. Also worth a mention: Leah Merchant (I think?) in Emergence. Just incredible.

The only blot on the program: the City Center stage just seemed too small. Get this company to the Koch!

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