sandik

Oooh, fun -- scampering off to look.

I try to keep track of this kind of stuff locally, particularly the number of times an artist has done a particular role.

Oh, that is a lovely image -- especially her right hand. About a million years ago I took a mime course where we spent quite a bit on time on our hands. That gently cupped shape was called the 'blessing' hand, and I've always thought it was very evocative.

Unnaceptable. Productions to look at: Sir Peter Wright's and Mme. Alicia Alonso's. I'm afraid I have to disagree. Not with the references to Wright and Alonso, but to the caveat about reworked Nutcrackers. I love what I know of the original choreography, but I don't have the same protective feeling about it that I do about other works from the classical canon like Sleeping Beauty and Swan Lake. Over time, Nut has become as much a 'holiday show' as a ballet, filling a large and varied footprint for many dance companies, and I have appreciated many different productions of it. I know that as a critic I don't treat it in the same way I do other performances, and my expectations of a new production are quite different. In some ways, Nut reminds me of alternate staging of Shakespeare, where you see Midsummer Night's Dream as a 50s sock-hop or Macbeth as a Western -- it's elastic enough to embrace a wide variety of alternatives.

Good for them -- I remember both of them from their time here and was so sorry when they left. She really caught my eye in a rehearsal for Sleeping Beauty (when the company was first having the work set). She really treated the style with respect. And he was a great asset to the outreach programs the company was setting up, alongside his performing work.

Several years ago a local company did a fundraiser called "Dancers on the Radio" They made their goals, if I remember correctly.

So stats for a ballerina's FDZ--Fouette Deviation Zone? It's getting close to August, isn't it? (the traditional "silly season" in journalism) Bring on the stats!

I asked Peter Boal about that choice at a recent post-show discussion and he gave several reasons for taking Jardi. He feels that the company looks good in the work, and that it "extends the idea of what we can do." As Helene described earlier, Boal has been programming more contemporary work (though Jardi was indeed acquired by Kent Stowell and Francia Russell). It has been a significant interest of his for quite some time, and his repertory choices really reflect that. Aside for the aesthetic issues, money is also a factor -- Jardi has a small cast, and recorded music. Russell and Stowell didn't like to tour the company unless everyone could go, and that usually included musicians (they hauled all their kid performers to London when they did that Midsummer at Sadlers Wells) Boal is more willing to compromise if it means that a portion of the company will be out and about more often.

I'm not quite the right Sandi, but I saw this presentation too. It was very informal and presented in a studio with live dancers in warmups. As the other Sandi says, it was fascinating. sandik did a write up on this for DanceView Times (a snippet and info can be seen here). I'm always pleased when someone reads my stuff, but I'm afraid you've got things mixed here. The review you link to is of a reconstruction by the fabulous Doug F of the Jardin Anime section of Corsaire. He set it, with assistance from Maynard Stewart, on the kids at the school and they performed it as part of their end-of-year workshop a few years ago. It was wonderful, and a generous portion of a style that we rarely see anymore, but it's not the studio program that the company presented last autumn. I didn't review it, though I have notes in my files, and although the company videotaped it, the recording isn't for public consumption. I'm thrilled to know that Doug might be preparing another program -- he's a thoughtful and knowledgeable scholar and I'm always very happy to think of him as a colleague!

Are you looking at a distinction between whore and courtesan? Certainly lots of courtesans -- Manon, essentially. Marguerite and Armand, and ballet versions of Madame Butterfly, depending on your interpretation. Well, Tudor made "Crossgartered" in the early 30s, but I'm pretty sure it's lost to the world now.

Rush and Robbins looks good, but I'm going to make a big effort to get to the April rep with the Forsythe (I missed it this year) and the Kudelka premiere. I don't always love his work, but Almost Mozart (for OBT a couple years ago) is wonderful, and perhaps he'll pull something similar off!

Have you noticed that everyone on the west coast is doing Swan Lake next year? Is it something in the stars?

As a working writer today I have to say "ouch!"

I reviewed this program, but as is often the case, had more thoughts than there was space in the paper. In no particular order Fancy Free Very interesting seeing the different casts' interpretation of the teasing section at the beginning (stealing the first girl's handbag and mocking her) -- the fuse can go at several different places here. When Poretta and Spell leave to follow the first girl, their crouching lope off stage makes them look like Groucho Marx. Herd and Nadeau play the duet more overtly sexy, more knowing. By the time his hand makes it to her breast it seems very logical. Stanton was the most rhythmically accurate in the Robbins solo -- everyone else seemed to be acting out their nerves and rushing the clapping and slapping. And since the orchestra stayed on top of the actual rhythm, there were some awkward pauses. Seth Orza came the closest to an actual rhumba -- for some reason none of them keep their knees together, so that the quick changes of level and direction don't have the thrilling suddenness that they're meant to have. Orza was willing to shift his pelvis in an arc at the beginning, so that there was an actually swoop. Poretta does a very fearless version of the Harold Lang role -- you don't see the mechanics of the splits, and he rebounds off the floor just slightly so the audience invariably winces. He's like all the Katzenjammer Kids put together. In the same part Kiyon Gaines is all about the action -- he practically vibrates during every stillness. Orza really leaned into Miranda Weese at the end of the first section, when he's trying to chat her up outside the bar -- there was a nice balance with the tilt of the streetlight. In the Night The Orza's made a very nice debut in the first duet yesterday (Sunday), but I was still happiest with Pantastico and Wevers. They made lovely work out of the long phrasing Arianna Lallone is back from her injury and physical therapy, and just as queenly as I remember her from the last time she danced the second duet. Stanko Milov is a good partner for her length, particularly in the mirroring sections. A few people during Q&A sections said they felt this section was not as powerful as the others in the work, but I disagree. It's certainly very subtle, but there's so much subtext here you could be untangling it for days. And yes, Laura Gilbreath -- I can see her (and Carrie Imler, for that matter) calling her husband "Mr. __." Imler has a part of herself in this role that is very womanly, not youthful. Sometimes she reminds me of an Edith Wharton doyenne. Nice contrast between Louise Nadeau and Kaori Nakamura in the third duet -- Nadeau is more erratically volitile, I think, while Nakamura has a clearer agenda. One place I think I see this is in the capitulation at the end. Nadeau's decisions are all immediate -- when she's crossing I don't know that she realizes she's going to kneel, and when she's knelt I don't know that she anticipates bowing her head -- it all seems spontaneous to me. Nakamura, on the other side, seems to make a choice anticipating what the elements of that decision entail, and then follows it through. but your mileage may vary. The Concert Jodie Thomas has really stepped up this year -- she often gets the avian parts (Canary in Sleeping Beauty, Butterfly in Midsummer) or the small and perky, because she's, well, smaller and quicker than some of them. But she's got excellent comic timing (her nurse in R&J was great) and as the Angry Woman here she's a knockout. The glasses make her look like Harold Lloyd, but it's her timing that clinches the deal. It's a tossup for me between Lallone and Imler for the Wife -- Lallone is more regal, and Imler more deeply middle-class (like the wife in that Britcom Keeping Up Appearances that insisted her name was pronounced Boo-kay rather than Bucket, as it was spelled) Either way, you have great sympathy for the husband when he comes out wielding a knife. And speaking of the knife -- I know I'm a slow learner, but I just saw the relationship between that and the chorus line of assassins in Paul Taylor's Sacre du Printemps/The Rehearsal! During the fake Sylphides ensemble, as the Wife comes downstage center between those lines of corps dancers, I realized that Carrie Imler is meant to dance Myrtha. I don't know that it will ever happen, repertory here being what it is, but she'd be fabulous as the queen of the underworld.

Alison Basford has been dealing with major injuries for the past two years. She discussed this in an interview on the PNB Unleashed Website. (PNB Unleashed Interview with Alison Basford) Oh thanks! I'd missed that one.

Ah, you've made me very curious to see this production -- I've had similar questions about the balance of power in this ballet. I've always heard that Karsavina was an extremely intelligent dancer, and I wondered about her interpretation of the Young Girl. To answer the question for this section, though, I think the most stunning ballet event I've been to this year was the "Balanchine's Petipa" lecture-demonstration at PNB last autumn. Doug Fullington (who appears on this site from time to time) did a wonderful job pairing excerpts from the Balanchine repertory with materials from Petipa that Balanchine knew from his youth in Russia and that seem to be influential to his development. I don't have the program details at hand, but it was a revelatory experience for me.

Actually, I do have to write a book That's probably why I'm posting so much! Ah, what I've heard called "displacement activity!" My commiserations!

Begging the question if this is actually the NYC premiere of this work (rg?), I got this press release and wondered if anyone in New York might be going. Hourglass Group in association with Yamaha Pianos, Bluetooth SIG and Other Minds presents ANTHEIL'S LEGACY, a tribute to composer George Antheil (1900-1959) curated by Charles Amirkhanian. Featuring the NYC premiere of Antheil's groundbreaking 1924 composition "Ballet Mecanique" performed by the fully automated ensemble created by LEMUR: League of Electronic Musical Urban Robots and programmed by Paul D. Lehrman of the Ballet Mecanique Project. The score will accompany the recently restored eponymous film created by Fernand Leger and Dudley Murphy. Preceding Ballet Mecanique will be live performances by composer-musicians working in the spirit of George Antheil: Paul Lehrman, Lukas Ligeti, Kathleen Supove, Luke Taylor and Harris Wulfson. Following the screening will be an Afterparty with the artists featuring "Radio Wonderland" by Joshua Fried: Live commercial radio is processed in the laptop, controlled by an actual steering wheel, old shoes hit with sticks, knobs, buttons, pedals and sliders, all LIVE. Saturday, June 7th, 2008. 8pm Benefit performance of FREQUENCY HOPPING 9:30pm Antheil's Legacy concert. 10.30pm+ Afterparty with Joshua Fried's RADIO WONDERLAND 3LD Art & Technology Center. 80 Greenwich Street at Rector (1/R/W to Rector, 4,5 to Wall). Tickets range from $25-$100. Event features a Bluetooth SIG sponsored raffle of cool Bluetooth enabled devices. Info/tix www.hourglassgroup.org/antheilslegacy.html or (212) 352-3101.

If you have the time, you might want to look at Deborah Jowitt (Dancebeat and The Dance in Mind) and Marcia Siegel (Watching the Dance Go By and At the Vanising Point) from the same period. They are often writing about the same works (though Jowitt spends/spent more time with downtown dance) and the multiple perspectives are very rich.

Mark Morris Dance Group September 25-27 8pm, September 28 3pm: "Romeo & Juliet, On Motifs of Shakespeare" We should carpool.

I still have my copy of the tape around here somewhere -- I do wish there was another version, though. The book is lovely, isn't it?

Oh, I was there Friday night, and am humming still. When I first saw this I was gobsmacked by how he was able to take such simple material and make such profound art with it, and I feel the same way now. From the opening when the intermeshing lines shift from single time to doubletime and my heart accelerates at the same pace, to the finish with that beautiful suspension before they end, running in a circle. And all the great stuff in the middle!

Well, both the Ailey and the Limon companies have always performed work by other choreographers. Indeed, when Limon first split off, Doris Humphrey was listed as the artistic director, and they premiered several of her important works (though, to be fair, she wasn't in a position to maintain her own group at the time). In both cases, though, there were significant ties between the artists with the name over the door, and the other choreographers whose work was presented. The best example I have currently is Repertory Dance Theater -- indeed, they were first founded (with Ford money) for the purpose of being a poly-choreographer rep company. I haven't seen them in several years, but when I did, they were doing an excellent job with multiple styles. Theirs was the first Limon I saw, the first Sokolow, and some of the first Humphrey. They also did a great 'history of modern dance' program with Duncan, Shawn and St Denis excerpts. I know that the Graham company was hesitant to license the work to anyone else for many years, but that has shifted recently, with several reconstructions in colleges. And I agree that we need more than academic performances for this repertory, but I'm not sure who that will be.

I meant to respond to this earlier. This could be quite an epic, as it seems I'm seeing new dances with chairs all the time!We could even expaaaaand it to include famous sitters in ballet: Lizzie Borden's mother at the end of Fall River Legend? The kids in Nutcracker Act 2? Coppelia (can't remember if she's sitting, actually...)? The King and Queen in so many ballets? And isn't there a character in The Concert who sits without a chair (now that's deep). I'm not sure if this is the image you remember, but here's Louise Nadeau "sitting" by holding onto the piano (even though there's a chair next to her in this photograph, she's not sitting in it) PNB in The Concert And absolutely, in "Everyone's Dances with Chairs" there should be a pair of thrones, a la Sleeping Beauty, upstage center. We need the gaudiest thrones we can find -- nominations?

Interestingly, the Pacific Northwest Ballet school is performing Cortege in their year-end show.