bcash

I guess I'll point out the elephant in the room: WHAT French tradition in classical ballet? It started with Marie Taglioni but the POB performs a vague reconstruction by Lacotte. Their Giselle is heavily based on the standard Petipa version that ... pretty much every company performs. Their Coppelia ... do they even perform that anymore? Their Fille mal gardee is by Ashton. The rest of their "classics" are by Nureyev, who was hardly French in training, background, or aesthetics.

The works created on the POB in the 20th century include a lot by Bejart and Petit. They are hardly classical. In fact I wouldn't even call Bejart "ballet" in terms of the fifth position standard. George Balanchine created one notable work on the POB, which was the Palais de Cristal (later Symphony in C). Serge Lifar's ballets are certainly not what you'd consider 5th position classical, either.

The only thing about French ballet that's special is their training and their famous company hierarchy. Their upright backs and necks, their straight 90 degree arabesques, their aristocratic and slightly stiff port de bras. But that is their training, their school. Their company repertoire has no great founding father, it's a mishmash of different choreographers.

And that's why I can't help but feel this whole "uproar" against Millepied's vision is somewhat hysterical. Nureyev was certainly a far lesser choreographer than Balanchine. And some of the contemporary theatrical spectacles commissioned in recent years really didn't stand the test of time. So what's wrong with Millepied introducing some of the finest ballet choreography from the second half of the 20th century and some of the most thoughtful of the early 21st to POB? I don't see any "tradition" harmed by that.

It's that time of year when they announce the Janice Levin award. IMHO the top candidates this year would be Ashley Hod, Unity Phelan, and Joseph Gordon. My bet would be Joseph Gordon, and that a promotion to soloist would come soon after. A look at the male soloist ranks seems to show some room for a promotion or two. Russell Janzen and Taylor Stanley presumably are on their way to the top. Catazaro has had a lot of injury and down time since his promotion to soloist. He probably needs some time to stabilize before he can be considered for further promotion. I believe that if Sean Suozzi, Craig Hall, or Antonio Carmena were going to be promoted it would have happened by now. None of them is getting major new roles. Besides Joseph Gordon, I could also see Devin Alberda getting a promotion to soloist. Others at the junior level who seem to be getting attention are Cameron Dieck, Peter Walker, Harrison Coll, and Preston Chamblee. Some of these are still very young, however. Harrison Ball's star seemed like it was rising a year or so back, but I haven't seen a lot of him lately.

I wonder what people think of Sebastian Villarini-Velez. I really enjoy his musicality and movement quality. An example would be the brief moment in the video for Rodeo on the NYCB youtube channel, where the 4th movement was shown and discussed. I thought he stood out the most out of all the men on stage in that section.

Did Mathieu Ganio perform in La Bayadere? He is the senior most male etoile and he's only 31. I can understand male etoiles like Herve Moreau and Karl Paquette, who are on the other side of 35, opting out of it but Ganio not doing it (if, in fact, he didn't) would be perplexing.

Well, all anyone in the company with eyes to see has to do is look at the casting of Millepied's manifesto, Clear, Loud, Bright, Forward, to see which way the wind is blowing in terms of casting. If I were a pure classical dancer like, say, Fabien Revillion and I saw who was getting cast over me and what kinds of semi-classical and non-classical choreographers Millepied was programming (Bausch, de Keersmaeker, McGregor, Wheeldon), I might consider touching up my resume and sending it off to Tamara Rojo in London or Kevin McKenzie in New York -- state pension or no state pension.

I just got to watch the video of the broadcast of the night when CLBF, Opus 19, and Theme and Variations were performed. I thought CLBF was a very accomplished piece of work, with many brilliant passages that demonstrated both formal craft and emotional complexity. It's much more enjoyable than some of the other high-profile working choreographers' recent works and invites re-watching. More importantly I thought all the young dancers did admirably well, the dancing was fluid, musical, crisp and nuanced. A number of them showed great stage presence. If it's indicative of the quality of the dancers coming up through the ranks then I feel POB devotees should have great confidence in the company's future.

Millepied's choice would not be this controversial if he chose more French choreographers. But you can see that his choice is Balanchine, Robbins, his own, Justin Peck, which are all very NYCB-ish. And for the promotion competition, the majority of the dancers chose Robbins or Balanchine and the imposed pieces were Robbins. I don't understand the point of making a NYCB Paris branch here.

I'm not an expert on the subject, but are there many French choreographers working in the neo-classcial tradition with similar international profile and status as Wheeldon/Ratmansky? If not, and BM wanted to introduce more high-caliber neo-classical works into the rep, then he didn't have that many choices.

I'll admit that even as someone who prefers the American/English neo-classical tradition, the amount of woks by anglo choreographers seems surprisingly high. On a second thought though, none of the choreographers are new to POB. Balanchine created works for the POB himself and is, after all, the overarching figure of 20th century ballet. The works presented this season, like Theme and Variations, is probably much more "purely classical" in its language than all those full-lengths reworked by Nureyev. Robbins the POB already danced under Lefevre, and perhaps BM thought the inner theater and emotional depth of his choreography would be closer to the French neo-classical tradition, if there is one. Opus 19/The Dreamer and Goldberg Variations I feel are both great vehicles for the POB dancers. Mcgregor I never really liked and consider his works as contemporary dance en pointe, but he too, was invited to create works for the company by Lefevre. Wheeldon again is a choreographer working with the classical vocabulary whose ballets could arguably better showcase the dancers classical training than many "contemporary spectacles" the company danced in in the past.

This is a clip from the 2009 Mariinsky Ballet Festival. Giselle with Vishneva and Gomes. You can see Marcelo doing entrechat six at around 3:15.

http://video.sina.com.cn/v/b/27010908-1304236471.html

Monday, July 5 performance

Romeo -- Gomes

Juliet -- Kent

Mercutio -- Cornejo

Benvolio -- C Lopez

Marcelo technically paired Kent well. However, in Acts I and II (except for the Act I balcony scene and the Act II chapel scene), I found Marcelo's Romeo to be too forward, flamboyant at times, and impetuous. During those portions, the positive qualities in Marcelo that make him a good bravado-type lead left me thinking that his Romeo lacked a soulfulness and an inner reserve. During those portions, he seemed more into himself (or conforming to his notions of himself) than anything, or he could have been playing Basilio in Don Quixote.

You are right. Soulfulness, inner reserve and maybe a touch of pathos are essential qualities of Shakespear's Romeo. The approach of Gomes to the role you described seems the same as Corella's, which is why I don't understand why some people see Corella as the best Romeo. But then the MacMillan production in general did away with the underlying sense of pathos and dark premonition of Shakespear's original work.

I think Nureyev's version might be more faithful to Shakespear's R&J in this respect. Rumor has it that the literary critics reacted better to Nureyev's production than dance critics did initially.

During the intermission yesterday I heard 2 guys sitting near me dissing Alina's balances. They said that if any ballerina had toe boxes as big as hers they could hold long, steady balances too. It made my blood boil.

RB dancers do seem to prefer those big toe boxes. They look particularly unflattering on Rojo.

Darcey Bussell and Zoltan Solymosi's version was lovely, with every step "arriving with the beat".

I have seen the pas (on video) danced by Assylmuratova and Zaklinsky, and I applaud their efforts to take on such alien choreography. While the dancing is beautiful, the overall impression is marred by (mostly) Altynai's inability to unite dance and gesture as one thing. The presentational style for which she was trained is in many ways the opposite of Tudor. She seems to understand this intellectually, but at the time of filming was not able to successfully meld the movements.

I have not seen the video of McKerrow and Gardner, but have seen them perform the pas llive several times. It is one of her best pieces, and she has even evoked echoes of Kirkland -- quite high praise. In general, Amanda has not been one of my favorite dancers, but my assumption (again, sight unseen) is that her videoed rendition is much more authentic than Altynai's. Of course, she has the advantage of working in Tudor's own company.

Completely agree with your assessment. I watched the Mckerrow Gardner video first and Assylmuratova video later. I always thought the Russian's version was a bit "off".

I'm surprised no one has mentioned Mathieu Ganio. Too cute and such a classically elegant dancer.

Mathieu Ganio Proust Ballet

Ganio on Flickr