Amour Posted November 16, 2014 Share Posted November 16, 2014 Season 2 of city.ballet. started over 1 week ago. I enjoyed season 2 even more than season 1. At only 5-8 minutes per episode (and only 12 episodes) it's easy to binge watch. There is 1 episode on the corps, 1 on Troy Schumacher starting to choreograph, 1 profile of Ashley, 1 of Sara & 1 of Chase Finlay. There is an episode on romances within the company that focuses on Chase and Lauren Lovette (thank God it wasn't Tiler and Robbie). The episode I liked best was called the Veterans and had interviews with Maria K, Andy Vyette and even Ashley (they showed Wendy but didn't interview her)about what it was like to be in your mid-late 30's and still dancing with NYCB. Anyway, I enjoyed the series very much and would recommend it, especially since it's not a big investment of time. Link to comment
Tapfan Posted November 18, 2014 Share Posted November 18, 2014 I'm not a fan of City Ballet or its AD, but I commend SJP for trying to make the dancers seem less elitist. (Yes, that's important to some of us.) Also, I noticed that both this series and the one on SAB have gone out of their way to show racial diversity, particularly when it comes to FEMALE dancers of color. That is refreshing. (I don't believe they're indifferent to criticism about their lack of diversity). It was particularly nice to briefly see Olivia Boisson, the only black female in City Ballet AND Jasmine Perry who was a student at SAB and is now with Los Angeles Ballet. City Ballet has frequently looked like the Mariinsky of 60 years ago. Link to comment
sandik Posted November 18, 2014 Share Posted November 18, 2014 I binge watched these (which I think is the way to do it, since they are so short) and I think, as Tapfan points out, they do an excellent job of showing the dancers as human beings. They seem less compelling when they are trying to explain the importance of NYCB and the Balanchine legacy. Link to comment
ABT Fan Posted November 24, 2014 Share Posted November 24, 2014 I just watched all of season 2 in one sitting (quite addicting). They're so well done and the dancers all come off so natural and comfortable in their interviews. Each episode felt really personal (and didn't seem the least bit scripted or pretentious). I really enjoyed the one that highlighted Troy Schumacher and his choreography and the one on ballet masters (they're the unsung heroes of ballet companies). This season must have been filmed while Tiler Peck and Robert Fairchild were rehearsing their broadway shows since I didn't see their faces once. Lauren Lovette and Chase Finley are quite adorable together. Link to comment
Razor Posted November 29, 2014 Share Posted November 29, 2014 I'm not a fan of City Ballet or its AD, but I commend SJP for trying to make the dancers seem less elitist. (Yes, that's important to some of us.) Also, I noticed that both this series and the one on SAB have gone out of their way to show racial diversity, particularly when it comes to FEMALE dancers of color. That is refreshing. (I don't believe they're indifferent to criticism about their lack of diversity). It was particularly nice to briefly see Olivia Boisson, the only black female in City Ballet AND Jasmine Perry who was a student at SAB and is now with Los Angeles Ballet. City Ballet has frequently looked like the Mariinsky of 60 years ago. I have to agree with this. Link to comment
DanielBenton Posted November 29, 2014 Share Posted November 29, 2014 Very sad to see the camera shots changing so fast to pander to an audience with the attention span of a gnat. It brings to mind the awful camera work for the NYCB Berlin 1973 filming that Balanchine disowned. Link to comment
sandik Posted November 30, 2014 Share Posted November 30, 2014 Very sad to see the camera shots changing so fast to pander to an audience with the attention span of a gnat. It brings to mind the awful camera work for the NYCB Berlin 1973 filming that Balanchine disowned. I just watched the Berlin footage again a month or so ago, and it is far more eccentric than this aol project. The editing in this online series is indeed very fast (and not conducive to seeing long phrases of choreography) but the camera set-ups themselves are not anywhere near as odd. Link to comment
DanielBenton Posted November 30, 2014 Share Posted November 30, 2014 Sandik, very true about the Berlin filming, but of course the culprit there was a famous film director who was really full of himself. I guess he "got away with it" doing the great Fracci/Bruhn Giselle film so he did it again! Link to comment
angelica Posted November 30, 2014 Share Posted November 30, 2014 Sandik, very true about the Berlin filming, but of course the culprit there was a famous film director who was really full of himself. I guess he "got away with it" doing the great Fracci/Bruhn Giselle film so he did it again! Hi DanielBenton, is that the film where the stage is a circle surrounded by water and trees/leaves? I hated that film! Just when you (me) were engrossed in watching a movement, the camera switched to another angle--over and over again. Who was the famous director? Link to comment
DanielBenton Posted November 30, 2014 Share Posted November 30, 2014 Angelica, yes the very same. The director was Hugo Niebeling (with David Blair, but it is Niebeling's film). To me, Fracci/Bruhn are so iconic in their roles that I can put up with the filmic distractions/distortions (same with much of the Berlin Balanchine filming). Link to comment
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