sandik

Was mousing around and found this site http://lcweb2.loc.gov/cocoon/ihas/html/dun...unham-home.html at the Library of Congress, including some video clips!

In a nutshell.

Don't know if everyone can look at the LA Times, but this is an excellent obit of Ms Dunham. http://www.latimes.com/news/obituaries/la-...home-obituaries

Chicago in February is not really my first choice, but it doesn't look like the company is coming anywhere on the West coast with this or any program, so I'm thinking long underwear.

In another thread, I think it was Treefrog who reported Also, I just received a mailing announcing a program change for next season, in response to the warm reception of this season's Cool Vibrations program. Instead of Founder's Gold (Fanfarita, Gamelan, Sea Shadow, Suite Saint Saëns), we'll get Light Rain , a compendium of short works with a pizazz factor (my words, not theirs). Included will be Light Rain, White Widow, a Pilobolus piece, Arpino's Valentine, and a couple of other short works. I'm sorry to see the earlier works replaced on this program -- I thought part of the attraction of this anniversary season was seeing the company honor their roots. I've been thinking about coming to Chicago in February to see the Presages/Green Table/Cotillion program, but now i'm wondering if that's going to be changed as well.

I'm so sorry to hear this, although Ms Dunham has been physically limited recently, she was still a moral force in the community. She broke many barriers, stood up for the right stuff, and made wonderful dances!

Oregon Ballet Theater runs a program in the early autumn where they take class and rehearse in a tent in a downtown park -- it's quite popular, and a very lovely beginning to the season.

Chocolate is an excellent source of antioxidants. Indeed. I have a little bit every day, much more pleasant than my multi-vitamins! I'm intrigued by a potato and leek souffle -- I shall have to look for this.

This is getting mysteriouser and mysteriouser. Did you notice, towards the end of the article, they quoted Francis Timlin from criticaldance.com, in a series of quotes including Allen Ulrich, formerly of the San Francisco Examiner and Dance Magazine. I think it's very interesting that they included commentary from the electronic community.

I don't know about "only one" but they didn't make an announcement about this until fairly recently, and I only got the "official" press release last week, so don't feel too remiss. I'm not sure, but I think that the company realized that the single night program they produced last year (a farewell tribute to Russell and Stowell) sold quite well, and that they might repeat the pattern. I'm certainly not complaining. It's a juicy program!

Thanks for the link -- I'll scamper on over and listen. Last I heard they should be posting casting on the website around the 23rd or 24th. But I always check too.

That was my impression from the first chapter. New York Times film critic A.O. Scott calls it Love it, love it. Here's the review. Yes, but this is quite good too "Meanwhile the albino monk, whose name is Silas and who may be the first character in the history of motion pictures to speak Latin into a cellphone,"

Well. so tell us what you thought here.

Oh this has potential -- dangerous, but potential!

I think Alexandra has her finger on the right point -- we don't see much in the way of "gala" performances here, but like all of us, I've seen many mixed rep shows, which is essentially what a gala is. You can certainly combine all kinds of styles and types of dance on a single program, but you need to pay attention to the development and flow of the whole thing. In a way, it's like a set from a club DJ, who mixes and samples from many different sources, but has an eye and ear on the overall affect.

When do they usually announce dates/rep for their autumn City Center programming?

I saw this when I was in Portland a couple of weeks ago for their spring program. A big chunk of the interview runs in the printed program, along with the swanky photos. Pacific Northwest Ballet did a similar kind of "get to know the dancers" campaign several years ago (I think it was around 2000-2001) -- the bios in the program had more general questions (something along the lines of "what's your passion") and with each program they would focus on a specific dancer, including comments from the artistic directors, but it didn't get as far as bus advertising. That would have been quite something!

I've only seen this with Pacific Northwest Ballet, so don't have the reference of the original cast. In my opinion, it's pretty well made, reflects the dynamism of its score (to me, it sounds a bit like train travel) and has several nice show-off roles for the cast. In this work, Martins seems to share an interest in twisty dancing with William Forsythe, though it doesn't include his post-modern theatrical experimentation. I don't like it extravagently, but I don't dislike it.

One of the twisty things about this discussion is that "sport" is not a consistent entity. There are huge factional arguments about the distinctions between quantifiable competition (the "higher, farther, faster" contingent) and the qualifiable competition (with "style" points) There are still people who believe that the only true Olympic sports are those that can be measured absolutely, that the only role for a judge is to make sure that the rules have been followed. As someone who lives outside the sports world, I often forget these factions and think of the whole thing as a unified world, but it is not.

Mel, this is such a nice tribute. It's "Teacher Appreciation Week" at my son's school, so they've all been writing notes to teachers that they've enjoyed, and this made me think of that process.

I was in the audience Friday as well, glad to see the company again, but sad in advance that they're not scheduled to perform next year. Everything was new to me except Gloria, but all the work seemed very familiar -- I could think of analogs in the repertory to most everything they danced. Cargo was probably the most powerful of the new work -- he seems to be tapping the same mysterious vein that he did in Polka (to the Harrison Grand Duo). He's created a specific population here, with a set of beliefs and practices. I could easily have told stories about that tribe and their world after seeing the dance. (Interestingly, with the exception of lyrics sheets for things like Dido, I don't remember MM using program notes before. I think I would have had the same visceral reaction to the dance without the details, but I don't know that I would have thought of cargo cults without the note) Some people give Morris grief for the literal nature of his dances, but that's never bothered me. Whether it's the mimetic stuff in Somebody's Coming to See Me Tonight (going back to Bedtime, or further back to Songs That Tell a Story) or the musical analog (especially the rhythmic correlation) I think he uses a powerful tool in a skillful and subtle fashion. In Somebody's Coming he points up the sweetness of Foster's songs without becoming gooey or hokey. Perhaps it's his folkdancing background, but he treats these works with respect. I wish I'd been able to see Rock of Ages more than once -- I have a feeling that I'm only skimming the surface of the work, and that there are structural things going on that I'm missing. On a first viewing I'm just catching the top layer. I love Gloria, and I was so glad to see it on this program, especially since it will be awhile before the company comes back to Seattle. In the back of my mind, the original cast kept making appearances, dancing alongside their current colleagues, which made a full stage even fuller. I was sorry not to see Julie Worden this time around, but Joe Bowie was dancing especially well -- he just keeps getting more lush.

I can't say anything specific about the current administration, but in general, there is a very nice description of the competing elements in Joseph Mazo's "Dance is a Contact Sport." It was written before Balanchine's death, but I've always thought it was a good outline of program building. As far as your specific questions are concerned I assume that serious consideration is given to audience preferences, seasonal demands, tie-ins with things like the Diamond Project, etc., etc. But how do they factor in the things we've been talking about: need for rehearsal and coaching time, dangers of over-working certain dancers, alternate casts, allowance for injuries, etc. The shortest answer is "yes." There are some general rules of thumb in scheduling, and more specific needs depending on the company. Some of the parameters (amount of rehearsal time, timing of breaks) are spelled out in the dancer's contracts (union or otherwise) -- others are institutional, and still others are particular to the season, the work, the goals of the individual (and of the company for the individual) -- programming/scheduling is probably the most complicated thing that any institution does.

I hadn't thought of it that way, but it makes a great deal of sense (and puts their participation in a better light to me, which I appreciate)

I think in many ways this is an apples and oranges argument -- the performance schedule of NYCB, with its intense, multi-week, multi-program format, is so different than the single program format at companies like Miami and PNB -- I don't think these kinds of comparisons can be especially valid.

I had the chance to see Oregon Ballet Theater in their spring program last week and wanted to make a few comments. I've seen the company off and on for several years and they seem to be making very steady progress in both technique and interpretation. Christopher Stowell has made some good repertory and casting choices, and these were the strongest performances I've seen from this group. This show was a part of a Mozart festival including several Portland music, theater and dance ensembles -- as a programming “gimmick,” the single composer program can feel limiting, but Stowell managed to avoid that glitch by choosing a wide variety of styles. I imagine that he would have seriously considered Balanchine's “Divertimento 15” even if his mother wasn't available to stage it, but the ballet works extremely well as an opener. I know that the duets and variations can feel very exposed for the performers, but both casts I saw seemed confident and nuanced. Yuka Iino was especially fleet in the 6th variation, and to my eye there seemed to be a number of clear Petipa references (though I could be hallucinating a bit since she's scheduled to dance O/O in their upcoming “Swan Lake”) Stowell worked with James Kudelka several times when he was still dancing with San Francisco Ballet, and said that the choreographer was his first thought when he was planning this lineup. “Almost Mozart” is Kudelka's first commission since leaving the artistic directorship of the National Ballet of Canada -- I don't know if this means that we'll see more of his work in the States, but this is a very powerful ballet whatever the circumstances. Stowell said that Kudelka was a bit miffed that the commission came with a pre-determined composer, which may be why he chose to use music very sparingly, and, for a ballet work, quite radically. He's working mostly with funeral music (excerpts from the Mauerische Trauermusik and the Piano Concerto #23) with a very direct emotional impact -- we know this is serious business by the end of the overture. Most of the dancing, a painstaking distillation of classical technique, happens in silence, with the rhythm and dynamic of the work coming directly from the movement rather than in combination with the score. The music is played in between the sections of dance, which had its awkward moments (sometimes the orchestra got overwhelmed by applause) I found myself listening very carefully to these entreacts, trying to identify any connections between the score and the dancing that followed. I don't think Kudelka was using any significantly post-modern structures (replicating harmonic or rhythmic patterns, reorganizing or re-ordering materials) but there were certainly evocative and emotional connections. The work opens with a male duet that's all about testing how much you can do without really breaking your connection. The men are joined by a woman for a series of three trios, in each one she struggles to maintain her autonomy while they both help her extend her physical reach and seem to contain her. In a repeating theme the two men reach over her, hands clasped so that their arms are a circle. They “catch” her and release her, in a sequence that looks remarkably like double dutch jump rope. She climbs on them like a playground toy, spins around in the circle of their arms, and at the end of each trio, manages to separate the two men, breaking their hold on her and leaving her independent. The duet that follows is nominally more traditional since it's a man and a woman, but it stretches conventions as well (sometimes literally -- there is a strong push and pull structure involved) Kudelka tests our ability to sit still -- his use of sustained timing is intense, with a single develope taking up an entire phrase. The couple work more directly with the music, but their phrasing often extends beyond the shorter rhythmic patterns to make longer statements. The ballet ends with a solo that recapitulates some of the material from the earlier sections but the closing image, with a woman turning on pointe, arms wrapping and unwrapping around her torso, the flapping making a normally smooth turn into a syncopated action as the curtain comes down. The whole thing was beautiful, controlled and austere, with random wild moments, like the closing image, giving it an ominous feel. I saw this work twice and my second chance at it was richer than the first -- if I'd been able to see it again, I'm sure there would have been even more in it to learn. Stowell closes the program with Lar Lubovitch's "Concerto Six Twenty-Two," an ensemble work that reflects the cheerful nature of Mozart's Clarinet Concerto. OBT did a remarkably good job in what is essentially a modern dance work -- so often, when classically trained dancers perform the more weighted and swinging material in some modern dances they can't release their weight into the floor enough to get the dynamics right, but that wasn't the case here. The Lubovitch work is primarily known for its central duet, performed by two men, that is often pointed to as an example of two men dancing together in a supportive and tender fashion. It's the strongest section of the whole work -- it's flanked by two large group movements that are mostly about floor patterns and look very much like some of Paul Taylor's sunnier pieces. The duet is more challenging, both kinetically in its male/male partnering and in its emotional variations -- it's not just a “happy happy dancing” work. I saw Jon Drake and Ronnie Underwood in both performances and they've obviously worked hard to make the logistics of their partnering fluid -- they get far beyond the “hey, it's two guys” factor to a more direct kind of dancing with each other. (tangentially, I thought it was interesting that there was two significant male duets on this program, and even more interesting that no one made much of a fuss about it) Stowell seems to be working carefully to develop the company -- I'm not there often enough to know if these performances were the standard or a happy end of the run, but either way, they were excellent, and worth every minute of the 7+ hours I spent on the train to get there!