pherank
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Posts posted by pherank
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Just noticed that Lopatkina will dance in Little Humpbacked Horse on June 25. Very unusual casting it seems to me. At one point the Princess has to do some pop dancing. She seems to be trying out new things (Midsummer Night's Dream earlier in the year and now this).....
Lopatkina (to her credit) has danced in a number of ballets that people would consider 'un-Lopatkina': Forsythe's In the Middle, Somewhat Elevated and Petit's Le Jeune Homme et la Mort for example. But that just means the dance audience hasn't totally caught up with her. She's even danced in Christian Spuck's Grand Pas De Deux - the footage was on YouTube for a while. And I'll admit it was a little scary to see her attempt some risky bits, but, she did it. And if your not familiar with Grand Pas, it really has to be watched:
[Note this is not footage of Lopatkina, but it IS the best version that's been done]
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There are some performance memories that stay with you -- the details may be gone, but the feeling, the aura created by a truly superb performance, remain. Sylve is responsible for two of mine: an incandescent Diamonds, and a melting, beautiful, Symphony in C, second movement.
Like any performing artist, she has her ups and downs, but when she’s ‘on’, there’s really is nobody quite like her.
Tomasson seems to prefer soloists that have that special spark that can flare up suddenly and memorably. I still remember being really impressed by Sylve in Zanella's Underskin, I think it was. I hadn't really seen her dance much before that and I remember going to some trouble to learn more after that performance. She obviously can dance in many different styles successfuly.
[Edit] This might even be her as the female soloist, all in blue-black, at the beginning of the video. And there's more of her later on:
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SF Ballet fans are very pleased to have Sofiane Sylve in the company these days, and I think she is a good fit for SFB partly due to her unusual qualities (SFB likes them a bit non-typical).
Anyway, I stumbled acroos this interview of Sofiane Sylve (done when she was with NYCB) - the interviewer is non other than Allegra Kent. Sylve's dance history is quite interesting - certainly not the traditional POB French training that some might have assumed...
When you graduated from school, where did you go? I was asked to join the Paris Opéra Ballet School. It’s a big glass building and I just didn’t see myself there. Then I went to Monte Carlo and I saw those girls with Chanel bags and I did not feel I belonged there either. I was about 12. The director told me that girls my age usually do floor barre. I was on pointe already for four years.
It was like putting on the brakes. Yes, so I just found my own way. When I was 14 the director of Ballet Karlsruhe saw me at a competition and said, “I want you for a new piece.” My grandma said, “I can also move to Germany.” So I moved there with her and my dog.
I love your grandmother. She’s quite a lady. She would be in the studio 10 hours a day if I had to be. She took care of the house, and I did school by correspondence and worked for the company. We had 100, 110 shows a year.
Your grandmother gave up babysitting for the other six [brothers and sisters]… You know, I saw her this summer and she said. “I miss all those years we had together.” New York is a little too far for her to fly.
After that company you went to the Dutch National Ballet? Well, in Karlsruhe they did a Balanchine evening.
Pat Neary came along and said, “Honey, what are you doing here? You have to go to a bigger company, a different rep!” We were doing Allegro Brillante, The Four Temperaments and Who Cares?, and I was in three ballets a night because no one else could do them. Pat said, “Listen, I’m going to Amsterdam; why don’t you come and audition?” Wayne Eagling, the director, invited me to join. Then they found out in Germany and made a big fuss saying that I couldn’t leave. I called Wayne, and he said, “Your director is looking for you. He’s mad.” I said, “I know; I just quit.” He said, “Well, just come then. I’ll take you.” I was 16.
And your grandmother? That’s when I started to live by myself. I stayed in Amsterdam 10 years. The rep was very colorful—Balanchine, Forsythe, new choreographers, classics.
How did you feel about those Balanchine ballets? I have some kind of connection with those ballets. Every time I would go onstage I thought, “Maybe he’s watching.” I think Pat was into that because it’s like he’s still alive to her. I heard all the stories from Pat and now from Karin von Aroldingen. There is just something about this man that I think we would have gotten along. And here I am ending up in New York. It’s so funny.
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I remember Aurelie Dupont talking about wanting to dance for ABT, but they weren't interested in her particular proposal - and I didn't get the sense that they were even looking to work something out.
Perhaps Ms. Dupont just lacks the correct agent.
No doubt there is an unwritten protocol - different for each company. Have fun guessing what it is they want to hear!
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Regarding the choreography, here's a snippet of Laura Capelle's review of the Dutch production in the Financial Times:
As with Wheeldon’s recent Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland for the Royal Ballet, Cinderella’s merits are often more theatrical than choreographic. Meaning and character are layered on top of the steps rather than carved within them, and the ball scene and grand pas de deux for Cinderella and her Prince fail to get under Prokofiev’s skin
http://www.ft.com/in...l#axzz2SjzOo3wK
Hmmm. Well that certainly was a positive review. Obviously some people react well to Wheeldon's approach, and others are disappointed. I do get the feeling that the ballet is a 'spectacle', so I'm sorry I wasn't able to go this year. But there's always next, since it's on the SF Ballet 2014 schedule now too.
One nice thing for the audience is that Cinderella apparently requires a large number of principal dancers to take part (rather than the usual organization of 2 leads, soloist, and corps).
Here's the only bit of video I've stumbled onto regarding Cinderella in performance:
I was just thinking that it's a shame NYC won't be seeing Neumeier's The Little Mermaid as well - both Yuan Yuan Tan and Sarah Van Patten are wonderful as the Mermaid, and Davit Karapetyan is so great as the Sea Witch. -
A big problem I felt – which didn't seem to be the case with the video of the Dutch production – is that the Prokofiev score was played so politely and respectfully that it didn't sound like Prokofiev. There seemed to be none of the agressively melodic, sarcastic, and self-ironic characteristics you usually hear in his music (even in the Richter solo piano version) that might which may have helped bring more depth to the narrative and to the choreography.
An important point that Quiggin raises, is that Cinderella has been seen before - in the Netherlands, and I don't recall that it was described in the same terms. So something has changed. If one of the issues is the manner in which the music is conducted, then there's only a short term problem. It sounds like Wheeldon has taken the "agressively melodic, sarcastic, and self-ironic characteristics you usually hear in [Prokofiev's] music" and moved them to the dancer roles (and the conductor has obligingly dimmed those elements in the music way down).
The Felciano review makes some suggestions for editing the piece, and, if Wheeldon listens to his inner Balanchine, he'll continue to sculpt this ballet into something that is effective from beginning to end. But I'm not sure that Wheeldon is the type to continue to tinker with his works. Can anyone confirm that?
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Thank you so much, pherank! I rarely find myself in agreement with Mr. New York Times Most Important Ballet Critic, but it was an interesting read.
LOL. I think that's why they keep him around - he rubs people the wrong way oftentimes, and it makes people talk. No publicity is bad publicity in the news business. ;)
The Links thread from Monday has 4 reviews of Cinderella as well:
http://balletalert.invisionzone.com/index.php?/topic/37156-monday-may-6/
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Thanks for this info Mussel. Looking forward to this engagement.
Thank you!!!
Best regards from the other coast!
I don't know if you find Alastair Macaulay helpful, or a hindrance, but he's reviewed Wheeldon's Cinderella. The good news? The SF Ballet fairs well. The bad news? He doesn't like Wheeldon's approach. However, it does seem as though the majority of reviews have been quite positive. The stage production itself sounds like it is fascinating to the eye.
Although all three women make the most of their roles, Mr. Wheeldon’s most is too little for dancers of this caliber or for the other two Cinderellas I saw, Maria Kochetkova (Sunday) and Yuan Yuan Tan (Saturday evening). The repeated joke about one stepsister’s halitosis is lousy, anyway; when applied to an important ballerina, it’s doubly irksome. -
I'd like to see a new alternative biography of Balanchine that strips away all of the stories he told and all the stories we tell ourselves about why the ballets are the way they are. Balanchine's reasons were often just to keep working, to keep the company going (per Eliott Carter), and many of the stories we tell serve to fit him into an all-American context.
Hear, hear! I have to agree with what Quiggin is saying above, though I have a feeling that Kathleen O'Connell's suggeston ("a book that examined Balanchine's art in the context of the intellectual, cultural, and political climate in which he worked") will be closer to what Homans is likely to attempt.
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LeClercq sounds like a hoot. Honestly of all of them, she'd probably make the best dinner guest.
I'm with you, Jayne. And Le Clercq was known to love dinner parties with friends. It's a shame we both missed out. ;)
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Maybe I lasted longer because my dedication went deeper. My dedication, like Balanchine's, goes very, very deep.
--Alexandra Danilova
I offer a little suspense because you never know if I will appear or not. Nor do I.
--Allegra Kent
I’m still a little bit of an original, even if it is not an enormous original. A good friend of mine tells me that there is a monument in Paris that makes him think of me. lt is a small carousel in the Jardin des Tuileries, across from the Palais-Royal. Through that tiny carousel, which is pink with beautiful little horses, like a Philippine shell, you can see at the end of the Champs-Elysées the big Arc de Triomphe. My friend says I am really like that little carousel. One can only be what one can be.
--Violette Verdy
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But it was Balanchine who got Mejia and Tallchief together (in Chicago for the Chicago City Ballet).
And got Mejia out of town.
Well absolutely!!!
Respectfully, pherank, it seems to me you're setting up a sort of "North American" strawman, standing over biographical subjects like a nanny with a wooden spoon, ready to pounce when they get out of line and indifferent to nuance. It is true I don't think artists have a Get Out of Comment Free card to brandish when it comes to personal conduct, but it's also true that private lives get awfully messy sometimes even when the intentions of everyone involved are good.
This makes me sound rather clever and devious - thank you!
I'm not sure that the Vogue article gives us much guidance as to what Homans' approach will be, because Homans had other themes to develop here, but if she does decide to treat in detail of Balanchine's private life I'm sure she can be trusted to be honest and fair to all concerned even if I don't end up agreeing with her on this matter or other.
I think I mentioned earlier in the thread that I'm not a Homans 'hater', as some seem to be, so I am at least hopeful of a decent biography emerging from this. I'm glad there's someone in the world working on a ballet history book.
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What I find distasteful about Balanchine's treatment of LeClercq wasn't that they eventually grew apart and divorced, but that Balanchine, usually such a private man, chose to make his courtship and falling out with Farrell so public. While he was married he (without Farrell's permission) chose to "announce" his engagement in the press to Farrell, and then threw a hissy fit when things didn't work out as planned. The whole thing (including the quickie divorce from LeClercq) happened with Farrell and Balanchine talking to the presses in a way that must have been humiliating for LeClercq. It was just a very poor moment for a man who considered himself tactful and discreet.
One tends to become a different person where love is concerned. ;)
There's little doubt that love, or at least love gone bad, turned Balanchine into a worse person any number of times. But the news is filled with reports of people doing terrible things because their love relationship went wrong.
RE: Balanchine's treatment of Farrell and Mejia - it reminds me of the incident where Serge Lifar literally barred Balanchine and Danilova from entering the POB so as to maintain his power over the French dance establishment (he wasn't about to let Balanchine appear as an alternative). I'm pretty sure that was one of Balanchine's most humiliating and maddening moments, aside from his 'secret' dismissal from the Ballet Russes in favor of Massine. So some 30 years later, Balanchine in a fit of rage has both Farrell and Mejia banned, locked out, of the NYCB/SAB buildings. He did of course eventually come around with regards to working with Farrell, but he couldn't bare to deal with Mejia in person. But it was Balanchine who got Mejia and Tallchief together (in Chicago for the Chicago City Ballet). And given the way that men, and I suppose artists, tend to think, Balanchine must have felt that was a far more important gesture to Paul Mejia, than making 'nice'.
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An interesting description of Mazzeo and Villanoba's final performances from Toba Singer:
"Symphony in Three Movements coincided with a special evening for San Francisco Ballet’s principal dancer Pierre François Vilanoba: his sudden retirement from the company. Villanoba, who is French, is a 15-year company veteran, and while his retirement was expected, that plan was fast-tracked by an injury during a performance a week earlier, and news of this, his last performance, spread mostly by word of mouth. Nonetheless, a shank of retired SFB dancers, as well as stalwart company members not scheduled to dance in this matinee, mobilized to offer support and participate in the moving if silent farewell at the close of the program.
Because of Vilanoba’ shoulder injury, he danced in the first half only of Symphony in Three Movements, and Vito Mazzeo, a principal dancer who believed he had danced his last performance with San Francisco Ballet just a few nights earlier, substituted for Vilanoba in the second half of the piece. Both partnered Vanessa Zahorian."
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If Homans had gone into it in more detail he probably would have looked worse. Le Clercq was hurt and humiliated, sometimes in public. (Not to mention the earlier on-and-off Diana Adams complications.) Not his finest hour.
I don't disagree with what you are saying - but Homans doesn't give any details - so I just thought that was one of the weak points in her article.
Balanchine did not approach marriage in the same way that the average North American did, or does. Hardly a shock to me that his marriages were a failure. I've been feeling that this self-destruct tendency was built in to his "love" relationships - Balanchine relied upon 'new love', change and transformation to fuel his artistic impulse. Does that make him a good Christian? Perhaps not. (Would he care?) But I don't find it very interesting to judge a person according to the surrounding national culture's moral standards. It's more interesting to try to figure out that individual's 'localized' value system, and learn where it all might have come from, and what kind of influence they had on others. Balanchine lived his life like, well, a theatre person. A Russian theatre person. So many of whom seem to have married multiple times and had multiple divorces. And, had lovers on the side. I always thought it was interesting that Balanchine did not think much of the 'free love'/youth movement period of the 1960s when it would seem that these things might appeal to him. But his values were, I think, quite an interesting and unusual mix. And that's one of the reasons why he's endlessly fascinating - so many different facets to his life and personality.
And, since the larger issue in this thread is how Homans treats the subject of Balanchine, or for that matter, the people associated with him, I have to wonder if the Vogue article is a good indication of how things are going to go. But we will of course have to just wait and see.
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-sigh- It would have been so neat to see that video - but "the uploader has not made this video available in your country."
Oh, well.
Thanks, pherank, for writing down some of the things Wheeldon has said.
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Hi Diane, I went searching, and I may have a fix for you here -
(look for the link near the video that reads, "Are you located outside the U.S.? Click here to watch video.")
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I posted this elsewhere, in a Massine thread, but here's a complete performance with Freddie Franklin and Alexandra Danilova:
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One of the upsides of looking for potential is that in many ways, it doesn't matter whether a dancer wins one of the official competition awards: if someone on the panel likes a dancer and offers that dancer a scholarship to its summer program, that has nothing to do with anyone else on the judging panel or whether that person wins the prize.
That is what I was wondering. It certainly sounds better if the judges are looking for potential over time, and not just a performance without any noticeable mistakes.
So there must be times when a particular dancer at YAGP is given competing offers, and the others hope most of all to be noticed, and remembered, by the powers that be.
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Christopher Wheeldon - Becoming a Choreographer
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Don't forget that "In Balanchine's Classroom" is still in the works and NEEDS OUR SUPPORT!!! It's by Connie Hochman and has been endorsed by many of Mr. B's colleagues. Check out Dance on Film. I'll try to post better links soon.
This is a Kickstarter campaign?
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They're neutral in a way, but this is a small world we work in, and people have multiple affiliations.
I'm neutral in a way too, until I open my big mouth. ;)
I was impressed to see Sergei Filin in one of the shots (sitting behind the English ballet school director, I believe it was), but I doubt the Bolshoi recruits much that way for school or company.
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If you look at the judges panel, that should give a good idea of who is recruiting, but maybe more for their summer programs, given the age ranges, or their schools, not directly into a company.
So the judging panel isn't at all 'neutral'? It's made up of recruiters from the interested schools/companies? That is kind of disappointing, though I guess I shouldn't be surprised.
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I don't believe this interview with Masha has been linked to before:
Maria Kochetkova - Magic Doesn't Just Happen (she talks about her career and training over the years)
It's not often that we get to hear a dancer or choreographer talk for almost 15 minutes straight, so it's a really interesting interview.
Inefficiencies of the Mariinsky Website
in Kirov-Mariinsky Ballet
Posted
Thanks for finding that video Lidewij - I'm not too good at searching though the Cyrillic titles. ;)
It is interesting to note the choreographic differences between the two versions - the Russians don't bother trying to emulate the Western pop dance moves, but rather, insert their own non-classical bits. I'll let you be the judge of which produces better comic effect.