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Treefrog

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Everything posted by Treefrog

  1. This is way cool! Thanks so much. So .... I'm guessing that one reason a ballet might feel boring is if the theme never really develops? Just keeps getting restated? And obviously, if the choreographer never develops a theme, just throws a lot of stuff together, that's pretty boring too. My piano teacher was just explaining that music speaks by playing around with our expectations. I can see that the same thing probably applies to choreography. More of the same = very predictable = boring. Too much that is different = audience can't develop expectations = confusion. The right balance must set up some expectations, then manipulate them -- perhaps, oh, I don't know, altering a rhythm or a direction or something? I'm really at a disadvantage here, conjecturing in a vacuum. I think I need to go haul out some tapes!
  2. Leigh, someday I hope to get to the point where I can watch epaulement and use of the feet and placement and centeredness and all of that. Right now, it's all kind of a blur (sometimes literally!). I think it must help to be very familiar with some aspect of what you are watching, so you can tuck that away for the moment and concentrate on something else. That's where watching a lot comes in, I suppose. I am formulating a little plan. By now, I am thoroughly familiar with the choreography in the Joffrey Nutcracker. Since I see it several times each season (thank whomever-you-like-to-thank for those $10 parent rush tickets!), next winter I think I'll try to concentrate on watching the dancers and analyze what I see. Since I often get to watch different dancers in a single role, I can compare all the different stuff Leigh was talking about. But here's a choreography question, raised by Leigh's buffet example. Is there anything in ballet akin to the sonata form in music? That is, does one introduce a kinetic theme and then develop it, etc? What makes choreography hold together?
  3. I understand what you are saying, Leigh and Alexandra and Victoria. One of the things I love about this board is that total neophytes (me) can post reviews and not get dumped on. (This is very important, because as far as I can tell there are very few Chicagoans willing to post reviews. If BalletAlerters want to know about dance here, they'll just have to see it through my eyes, untutored as they are. So it's important to feel that my efforts are accepted.) Having said that, I absolutely feel the same as BW. Yes, it's fine to love or not love a dancer, a move, a piece of choreography. I'd llike to understand why a turn looked so pretty, why I felt so peculiarly moved -- or why I couldn't have cared less and wished it was over?
  4. What Dolphingirl forgot to mention about the Auditorium Theatre (in Chicago) is that the rake increases right around the 25th row, so sightlines are much easier than closer up. I like those seats too. With a renovation in progress that will raise the stage by 12", who knows what the sightlines will be like in the future?
  5. Leigh, what you say makes a great deal of sense. I hadn't really separated out the whiz-bang pyrotechnics from the artistry of ballet. In that sense, Mistoffelees' solo is no more balletic than the rest of the choreography in Cats (which, I'm proud to say, I found downright boring for two whole acts). What I wonder, though, is whether some of the folks in that audience aren't "trainable". I am reminded of the slogan of a local restaurant:"Come for the pie, stay for the food", or something like that. If they get lured in by the promise of pyrotechnics, mightn't they come to like the artistry? I'm still such a newbie myself, I'll admit to being wowed by the things people can do with a well-trained body. That's still a primary draw for me. There is something lovely in the movement itself (or combinations). I often don't understand what the ballet is "about". Someday, maybe I will. I agree that program of "ballet for dummies" would be horrible. That's kind of, sort of, what Cats is, and it is boring, boring, boring. I guess I'm wondering how to convince people that they can enjoy ballet on many levels -- "come for the pyrotechnics, stay for the beauty, learn to appreciate the interpretation"?
  6. So here's a question .... Friday night we went to see the musical "Cats". The audience went nuts for Mr. Mistofelees' solo -- the most balletic choreography of the show. They loved his 25 something-or-others -- not fouettés or pirouettes, but something of that nature -- and his Russian splits. Mind you, they were fairly sloppy and absolutely nothing compared to what any of the Joffrey dancers could do. So why is it the audience loved the stuff, but hardly a one of them would consider buying a ticket to the Joffrey and seeing the real thing?
  7. ...not to mention a certain optimism ....
  8. ...not to mention a certain optimism ....
  9. Gerald Arpino is the founder and artistic director of The Joffrey Ballet of Chicago. He was Robert Joffrey's partner in founding the original Joffrey Ballet, of which he was the associate director. According to the Joffrey website, he has choreographed about a third of the company's repertoire. Nope, I don't sit near him -- but I do have a very clear view of him. He has his own box seat, I'm up in the balcony.
  10. Gerald Arpino is the founder and artistic director of The Joffrey Ballet of Chicago. He was Robert Joffrey's partner in founding the original Joffrey Ballet, of which he was the associate director. According to the Joffrey website, he has choreographed about a third of the company's repertoire. Nope, I don't sit near him -- but I do have a very clear view of him. He has his own box seat, I'm up in the balcony.
  11. Well, thank you, Claudia! I do assure you, I am a newbie. If you don't count the 10 or so times I've seen Nutcracker (all in the last four years!), I've been to the ballet maybe 15 times in my whole life. So, I suppose it's a little presumptuous of me to write reviews. But I figure I can represent the Great Masses. I couldn't for the life of me tell you if Dancer A was technically proficient. I just know what takes my breath away.
  12. I've also noticed that Mr. Arpino claps (or, indeed, shouts "Bravo" or, I hope, its proper form -- I haven't noticed). Although I often agree with him, I also have the impression that he is cheerleading -- stirring up the audience to respond. It works admirably. The volume rises noticeably. Who can fault him? But it seems kind of ...deceptive? I was fortunate to learn my bravo/brava/bravi from my daughters' violin teacher. When one of them would finish a piece she would clap and exclaim, "Brava! Brava!" One day when I got roped into playing a piano accompaniment, she changed to "Bravi! Bravi tutti!" (Knowing what I now know, I suppose it should have been "Brave! Brave tutte!")
  13. I've also noticed that Mr. Arpino claps (or, indeed, shouts "Bravo" or, I hope, its proper form -- I haven't noticed). Although I often agree with him, I also have the impression that he is cheerleading -- stirring up the audience to respond. It works admirably. The volume rises noticeably. Who can fault him? But it seems kind of ...deceptive? I was fortunate to learn my bravo/brava/bravi from my daughters' violin teacher. When one of them would finish a piece she would clap and exclaim, "Brava! Brava!" One day when I got roped into playing a piano accompaniment, she changed to "Bravi! Bravi tutti!" (Knowing what I now know, I suppose it should have been "Brave! Brave tutte!")
  14. Yes, I agree, it was a delight! I saw the same performance as Casloan, but I am a ballet newbie and this was the first time I'd seen any of these pieces. "Kettentanz" was beautiful. Casloan is right, the simplicity of the opening "Gitana galop" belies what is to come. Valerie Robin turned in a stunning solo, the essential move of which I can't possibly describe as I don't know the right terminology. It was a sort of backward bourée, seemingly propelled by these gorgeous, impossibly graceful arm motions. She truly floated. I also enjoyed seeing Calvin Kitten and Masayushi Onuki dancing side by side; I'd seen both as Fritz/Snow Prince, but it was fun to compare their jumps. Lilac Garden paired edgy staging with edgy music. From the opening tableaux depicting Caroline and her fiancé staring off in different directions, everything felt formal and distant. Even the rendezvous between Caroline and her lover lacked passion. It was a curious juxtaposition -- the movements all were the "right" ones to indicate longing, but the underlying emotion was missing. Since this feeling permeated the performance, I don't think it was just sub-par acting ability. It seemed more like a comment on Victorian habits and mores. It all felt a little Edward Gorey-ish. Rodeo was wonderful, as laid back and folksy as Lilac Garden was distant and formal. Taryn Kashock played the Cowgirl. She's tiny, but she exuded spunk -- until the cowhands leave her behind, when she exuded first annoyance, and then despair. She recouped admirably at the dance, coming into her own as partner to the Champion Roper (Willy Shives, whose tap dancing captured her, and our, attention). The entire company was fresh and full of energy, and just plain looked as if they were having a great time dancing!
  15. Cliff -- I see you are from Chicago, so I can help you out here. Subscription tickets to the Joffrey can easily be exchanged at the Auditorium box office, free of charge. I just did it for last week's performance. Since the Auditorium is so large, we had no trouble getting comparable seats on a different day. If you are a plan-ahead type, you can also use the envelope/order form that comes with the tickets to send them back to the Joffrey offices for exchange. I don't know if there is a fee for this. As others have noted, if you cancel you cannot get a refund -- but you CAN donate the tickets back to the company and count it as a charitable contribution. Or you can give them to your friends, students at the nearest ballet school, acquaintances from Ballet Alert ....;)
  16. This is a bit off-topic, but it does involve cats and dancing ... If you have not already seen the humor circulating on the internet about "What CATS would be like if the performers were true-to-life", I'll be happy to private-message you a copy. Here are just a few of the changes: --Sometimes the cast would perform, but sometimes not -- depending on their mood. --In the middle of a performance various cast members would curl up and go to sleep, even in the middle of a song. -- For no apparent reason, cast members would randomly run to the lobby, and then back to the stage at top speed. They would then continue as if nothing had happened. And my personal favorite .... --A special audience member would find a headless bird in his/her seat after the intermission.
  17. I saw it too! Wouldn't it be Kittentanz? Hey! Let's include anything danced by the Joffrey's Calvin Kitten!
  18. Awwwww -- say it ain't so! Well, think of it this way: I can still admire Kashock's pinpoint timing because the flashes were so regular I imagined they were controlled by a timer.
  19. CAUGHT was fabulous! We, too, saw Taryn Kashock, and were mesmerized by the way the strobe caught her in mid-air, every time. Timing has to be perfect in this piece, and it was. (If you don't know this piece, the dancer starts out moving around the stage from one spotlight to another. Eventually, the stage goes black, and then is lit by a flashing strobe. The effect is to catch the dancer in stop-action, sort of like a flickering old-time movie or flip book.) Our party (two adults, two kids) agreed that this one piece was worth the price of admission. Which was good, because the others left us slightly underwhelmed. No, that's not quite right. We enjoyed STRANGE PRISONERS, with Suzanne Lopez, Sam Franke, and Patrick Simonello as the three leads. Simonello wowed us more than the others. The shadow effect was pretty cool, especially the opening poses in which the shadows of the three dancers are superimposed -- one doesn't even know the other two dancers are there until multiple sets of arms emerge in different poses. Sometimes, the technical effects were distracting, as when I wondered how a shadow could get larger and larger as the dancer approached the screen, then simply disappear as s/he apparently dived into the screen! ASTARTE didn't work for us. It certainly isn't the shocker it was when it first opened, although it is explicit enough that I wanted to tell my 14-year-old that no, that's not what it's REALLY like. The film images were distracting; maybe they worked better before audiences became accustomed to seeing real-time video accompany live action events (at a sports event, for example). I kept checking the video and comparing it to what was happening on stage, and found it unsettling that the two didn't match. "Did they do that already? Are they going to do that?" I wondered. It was not a good sign that I started thinking about soccer line-ups for the weekend's game in the middle of the piece. The fault was not the dancers' (Trinity Hamilton and Domingo Rubio), but the concept. Incidentally, this was the only piece danced to live music, provided by Platinum Lynx, billed as "The Joffrey Ballet of Chicago Band." (Side note: is it a measure of inflation that the current band is Platinum Lynx, while the original score was composed by Chrome Syrcus?) We did appreciate the band's apparently spontaneous diversion into "White Rabbit" during the intermission. It seemed highly appropriate, given that during it's down-and-out days the Auditorium Theatre -- now brilliantly restored to it's turn-of-the-century opulence -- was Chicago's premiere rock venue. BIRTHDAY VARIATIONS was, frankly, a little boring. I agree that Variation #6, with Heather Aagard, was the winner of the lot. My daughter observed that the piece didn't fit under the "Multimedia Magic" umbrella, as it featured no special technological effects. We are looking forward to this week's presentation of "Masterworks". Thanks to all of you who posted about this program when it was presented in DC earlier this year. (Look for this thread on the Joffrey Ballet part of the board.)
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