choriamb

The arms and the placement...thank you, artsong.

Both the choreography and the level of dancing overall tonight (Saturday, 3/26) was so uniformly good that it's hard to single out things for appreciation.

I liked Gibson's Rush as much as I like Possokhov's Classical Symphony: superb command of the classical vocabulary and its possible combinations. My eye never tired of the pure movement, and my eye tires of that easily. (Tisserand looked great; Rausch looked more at ease than I've ever seen her...this has been a season of growth for her).

It was interesting to contrast Rush with Year of the Rabbit, which had a far less sophisticated ballet vocabulary and less nuanced articulation, but was more lovable for its punchier, asymmetrical formations, non-balletic movement, and mimed gestures. (Both had excellent lighting and stage effects.)

[Gibson was such an intelligent stage presence that the absence of characterization (which seems deliberate) in Rush feels odd to me. It skewed my expectations a bit.]

I never saw Rabbit at NYCB, so it was amusing to see certain recognizable Bouderisms, Reichlenisms, and Taylorisms on the women (and a few that could perhaps be hinted more: Bouder's interplay with the corps, Reichlen's strategically averted eyes). Pantastico was explosive in Year of the Dragon...better than Taylor, I suspect.

I thoroughly enjoyed little mortal jump: everyone looked absolutely marvelous!

...and this video marks the first time a non-balletomane (i.e., not me) has posted a ballet-related post on my company's chat system and gushed about the artistry. (After which I saw him and another non-balletomane co-worker at PNB's show containing a Peck work tonight.)

Marketing ain't all evil, folks.

Edited to add: I wonder what would had been Balanchine's reaction to the changes...

My guess? He'd be perfectly sanguine about changing the decor for a PR play: by most accounts, he neither shunned press nor hesitated to recostume ballets (albeit usually by stripping them down). But he would have rejected this production for the same reason that we are: it obscures the story (unlike PNB's take).

Interesting. I was wondering if the announced schedule would hold in its entirety.

Edited to add: It's not to late to bring back Schlagobers!

The people demand Chartreuse!

Just curious when you saw those NYCB performances, choriamb. Since the mid-80's, NYCB's Balanchine has often seemed bland to me, and so, I haven't seen much of it.

The performances occurred in the same year (2012), oddly enough. The first cast was dominated by dancers who had started in the '90s/early '00s. The second cast was dominated by some of the dancers with better stagecraft who began in the mid-to-late '00s.

I would be lying if I say I didn't felt a bit bored. It was nice to see such a super production, and I have now another Balanchine's ballet down in my "Seen" list, but I don't think I would be going again to see it. Maybe I would, but in NYCB with its original setting..to form a complete comparison to what I saw today.

Two cents from the dramatic/ABT/non-pure-dance side of the house here:

I also remember finding Balanchine's MND completely bland when I first saw it at NYCB: partly because I had expected a blow-by-blow narrative and partly because the acting was rather weak. When I saw it a second time (with a few stage animals in the cast), it registered differently: like one of those stage-tastic films from the 50s and 60s with a lot of cross-cutting and flashbacks between modern-day stage players and the historical reality (or myth) which they were acting out.

It really helped to have performers in MND Act I who would suddenly emerge from the mist, unseeing of the other characters, fully immersed in their own drama. It heightened one's sense that the characters lived in different worlds...and that one of those worlds wasn't meant to seem real. (And it seemed that the "fairies" were more real than the lovers.)

I wonder if the scrim flattened that sense of independent worlds.

(Act 2 is its own animal, and I've only seen it totally work once. It requires simpatico partners with technique, musicality, AND stagecraft...those are thin on the ground everywhere.)

...and that article seems to answer the question about ABT's Summer Intensive. (She's apparently seeing it through this summer.)

The names of the dancers and choreographers in my list are much less elevated.

But they all did the hard work of making art, and I wouldn't be the balletomane I am without them:

-- James Sewell's Winter performed by The University of Tennessee Dance Theater showed me that ballet could be funny and human.
-- A routine Chinese variation from The Appalachian Ballet's Nutcracker performed by Claire Barratt showed me what an exciting world an intelligent dancer can create on stage.
-- A solid mid-century Swan Lake as performed by Indianapolis' Ballet Internationale was my first choreographic production with psychological depth.
-- A duet from a small piece called Requiuum at Circle Modern Dance in Knoxville, Tennessee was the first truly moving ballet that I saw.
-- The Four Temperaments as performed at Indiana University by Joseph Morrissey and Sarah Wroth showed me Balanchine-style musicality and mystique (respectively) for the first time.

(I'm also surprised to reallize how much quality modern dance I saw in my early years in Tennessee...and how much it shaped me, too!)

Because ABT's repertory was never driven by one man in life (and by his memory in death.) Balanchine looms so large at the New York City Ballet that the custodianship of his surviving works takes on an almost religious dimension in terms of how true the surviving company is remaining to the "true faith". Hence the ongoing discussion about the adequacy of the stagers. With ABT, the repertory has been so eclectic over the years that bad or inaccurate stagings in one area (i.e. the much-maligned Kirkland Sleeping Beauty) need not impact stagers and stagings in other areas (Tudor, Tharp, Ashton, MacMillan).

Totally agree with this. Too, the post-Baryshnikov regime change followed by the danger of collapse more or less cleared the decks: I imagine that naturally progressing into the company's staff probably appeared neither financially possible nor desirable. And I guess we've also found one unexpected virtue in having a larger roster of guest stars rather than home-grown types for many years...less family drama!

One of the interesting things going on right now at ABT is the potential for the Ratmansky and Ashton repertories to reinforce one another, Ratmansky himself has talked about this and how he sees a certain kinship between what he is doing and the Ashton works in repertory. For those who like to criticize ABT for not having a unifying creative force at its core, one may start to emerge between the Ratmansky-Ashton linkage. Can't say if it will happen but it might.

Yeah, as they've been adding/reviving at least one Ashton work a year for a while, it seems a deliberate strategy.

The coaching question is interesting. In terms of resolving both the Ashton/MacMillan coaching position left by Parkinson and the traditional Petipa technique coaching position that Kolpakova fills, I think Murphy makes more sense than anyone...that is, if she has the desire and the gift for it. (She's great in the American short works, too.)

I'm a little surprised Gomes and Vishneva aren't mentioned more as potential future artistic directors, given their artistic stature and experience putting together shows (it's the experience that counts, not the quality). But not too much, given the whole white, US-born male thing.

Congrats to both Kent and Barbee. Given Leon's comment in The Washington Post article that they're seen as a package deal, I think they'll both get their money's worth in artistic power...and a better pace of life for family time.

I rather think McKenzie will be understanding: he studied in Washington and left ABT to begin his administrative career there, too. And ABT doesn't lack teaching artists with a command of its rep from recent generations (Salstein, Stiefel, Beloserkovsky, Gomes, Murphy) to step into their places.

Thank you for the reminder, Helene: she'll be in my thoughts too.

So I guess this means that McKenzie has determined that Gorak isn't getting another crack at Romeo this season.

Given that Lendorf hasn't returned yet, perhaps McKenzie's keeping Gorak's schedule open in case a replacement becomes necessary late in the season for Swan Lake, etc.? (Although I do hope that Lendorf returns...I really want to see him live.)

I'm curious about how the new Ratmansky work is affecting casting, too: each of the five movements of the Bernstein piece is named after a (male) speaker in the Symposium. If the dance was originally intended as a showpiece for the older and younger male dancers of the company--which wouldn't have been a bad idea before Lendorf and Hallberg got injured--some of the up-and-comers may be building that. (He's already serving the company's women in Firebird and The Golden Cockerel.)

I bet Hoven will be good in Sylvia: Aminta suits his strengths like a glove.

I attended the dress rehearsal in Seattle: Moore is good in Prodigal Son...the most convincing I've seen since Angel Corella.

[ Begin unconstructive "different strokes for different folks" tangent ] For what it's worth, in the dress rehearsal of Square Dance that I saw, Biasucci actually seemed to be the dancer who was most conscientious about looking at her stage companions. I also--subjectively, of course--don't think Biasucci mugs. I suspect that she has simply been taught, seemingly like other CPYB dancers, that it's preferable to project too much than to project too little, particularly when one is nervous or playing an unfamiliar house. If that's a fault, she can console herself that it's one ascribed to Mearns, Bouder, and Peck too. [ End unconstructive tangent ]

It was interesting to read how differently Cargill, Witchel, and Macaulay interpreted Rausch's performance. When I was watching the dress rehearsal, I too was surprised and pleased by the common thread that she brought to the Siren and the Aroldingen role in Stravinsky Violin Concerto. (In the latter, her interpretation was actually closer to the video of Aroldingen than any that I've seen live: most of the ballerinas at NYCB play it as an emotionless game of line/form...and in that vein she managed some lovely suspension near the beginning of the pas.) However, in both pieces her projection became less pronounced and head less subtly articulated the further away she was from her partner: it made one lose hold of the idea in both pieces that the movements of her body directly control the movements of her partner...which made the pieces go slack at times. (As she participated in both works for the rehearsal, I wasn't sure whether she was marking a bit when away from her partner in order to preserve herself for direct interactions.) I rather wonder if that accounted for the differences in critical opinion and perception of heat.

What a wonderful description of Sylve...and a wonderful link, too!

Do report back on Saturday's Bourree Fantasque: I've always been curious about that piece!

I don't think criticizing dancers is taboo...it's just that ADs are so powerful from the dancer's perspective (often complete hire/fire/promote power in a competitive industry) that there would be absolutely no NEED for them to call out folks publicly. They say "jump," a dancer jumps.

The only scenario where a dancer might have a (slight and still ill-advised) ability to ignore an AD would be if he were an internationally-renowned star. Even the POB concours is largely shaped by the AD. And union activity is invariably focused around protecting the larger group than saving an individual.

I remember reading, a few years ago, something that surprised me: when asked who their favorite SFB dancers were, most of the young girls (all studying ballet in the Bay Area) said, "Sofiane!" and "Vanessa!". And I wondered then what they knew that I didn't (well, probably a lot). They did know something about what it took to actually try to dance ballet, in a technical and physical sense, while I had to look at things from an aesthetic point of view. I just assumed they would all be Kochetkova (or Tan) fans, primarily, since Masha is a much more public figure. But opinions seemed more informed than that.

Wow, that's interesting about the kids!

It's funny. When I saw SFB as a full company for the first time on tour in NYC, I was shocked by how exciting Zahorian was in Classical Symphony--really the most kinetically exciting dancer of the night. Given the reviews I'd read, I'd received the impression that she was clean but rather workmanlike. (That said, I've never seen her in a dramatic role or a classical tutu variation that requires heavy lifting in the stagecraft department...that's what ultimately matters to me, too.)

(I've been a fan of Sylve since her NYCB days.)

That IS interesting. I have to guess that Froustey wasn't feeling confident enough - and she apparently has had a foot issue, so I can understand going with just two performances. But no Chung? And three performances with Sofiane?!!!

Good for her - I think she has been coaching Froustey and Di Lanno, so it's interesting that she is now the one appearing with Do Lanno in Swan Lake.

In the videos I've seen of Sylve showing her coaching/teaching, my impression was that she looked like a natural, and was a very commanding presence, just like on stage. When I first heard the surprise news that Dupont would become the next POB A.D., I had the thought, "What about Sylve as the next A.D. at SFB when Helgi finally retires?" She appreciates both classical and contemporary ballet equally. Just a thought...

I'll second everything in this post: I'd love to see her both as O/O...and as the next AD!

You always feel a special respect for dancers who maintain their technique and stamina at such a high level for their entire career. (Thinking of Lopatkina's O/O run here.)

I don't object to Balanchine at POB per se. It's that Balanchine is the one 20th century choreographer who seems in no danger of being lost (for many excellent reasons). However, if the POB doesn't perform Petit, Bejart, Lifar, Nureyev, Bart, etc., they're in active danger of slipping away. And I would miss them.

And, in general, while the canon of 20th century neoclassical and abstract works is relatively healthy, one rarely sees 20th century dramatic works onstage anywhere. The POB is one of the few companies that serves up that repertory.

(I think that's useful for other reasons. Balanchine does indeed hone technique and musicality. But when it comes to stagecraft in his works, you better arrive prepared...as some of the post-Robbins generations at NYCB have illustrated.)

Well, obviously, it is now time to congratulate Aurélie Dupont on her appointment as Artistic Director of the Paris Opera Ballet. I believe that she is now the 3rd female A.D. of the POB.

Bon courage et bonne chance!

Agreed: congrats to Dupont!

I think she may be the fourth--after Verdy, Rosella Hightower, and Lefèvre--not a bad record, by any means!

At this point, NYCB's principal roster of principal women is solid: the problem is not the dancers, it's how they are cast.

That's on Martins, not the dancers.

Rows B - F are the cheapest orchestra seats because there is no rise in the floor, but if you're tall you might be fine.

I also like to sit close for the same reasons as you. For this production you will miss out on some interesting lighting on the floor and the white moving panels block a lot of the starry nighttime sky toward the end, not anything major. But due to the acting and emotional nuances and a lot of details, if you only see one show I would sit close.

An alternative to those orchestra seats are Gallery. You can't tell on the seating chart, but they are raised, like stadium seating. Row H or J and below are Lower Gallery and are cheaper, however the angle to center more severe. I personally like J - M as you are above the stage but close enough to see faces well. For this production I only recommend Gallery 5, or audience left. You will miss a bit of the beginning of the funeral procession, in the upstage right corner, but will have a clear shot of major action that happens stage left.

Happy to answer more questions if you have them. Are you coming from NYC? I think I usually see you post in those forums.

Thank you for all of your help, seattle_dancer: Gallery 5 sounds like my spot, too!

(I'm an itinerant Web/mobile site designer, hence the coastal hopscotching. I mostly work in NYC, but have recently returned to Seattle for my second project in two years. It's been fascinating to revisit PNB...the last time I was here before then was a decade ago!)

Hi, y'all--

If a Ballettalk-er were rather tall, likes to see faces, temporarily impecunious, and wanted to catch PNB's R+J, where would you suggest that he sit?

(I've heard that the sets for this production are spare but bulky, so I wanted to check on sightlines before I bought a cheap seat in orchestra.)

Thanks!

Ben

I fluctuate between wishing that Abrera and Trenary had time to prep for the Met (for their sakes) and being glad that Detroit is getting well-polished interpretations (because they deserve no less and I like it when ABT tours within the US).