nysusan

I agree with abatt and fondoffouettes - way too much Company B & Green Table. I love them both (though I also WAY prefer Taylor's company in Company B) but I don't want to see either of them more than once in a 2 week span.Problem is that even without casting, I want to see as many performances of Monotones as possible. So far I've bought tickets to 4 performances, which he means I'm forced to sit through multiple performances of Co B & GT.

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JMcN, can you tell us how long the program ran and if there was an intermission?

Company B may have been made for Houston Ballet, but Taylor always creates his work on his own company, his own dancers. And then he has someone go to the commissioning company & set it on them. So even though it was commissioned by a ballet company it was created on PTDC dancers, not ballet dancers.

Oh my gosh, Monotones 1 AND 2 Thank you, thank you, thank you ABT!!!!

Although I prefer Taylor's version I wouldn't mind seeing ABT do Company B again, and I'd certainly like to see the Green Table again (especially if they give it to Foster!) but both on the same program, and with a Mark Morris piece rounding out the program? No, definitely not. I'm not any more interested in seeing ABT turn into American Modern Dance Theater in the fall than I was in seeing them turn into Hee Seo Ballet Theater at the Met.

I agree, ABT doesn't really perform the steps in the Paul Taylor style. How could they? Most of his dancers have studied his style for quite some time before they are taken into the company, its really not ballet. And if you read Paul Taylor's writings its clear that he doesn't consider his choreography to be ballet - he makes his dislike of ballet clear. But, as canbelto & others have noted its not just that ABT doesn't do the steps in the Taylor style, their emphasis is totally different from his. The Simkin example from Black Tuesday & Rum & Coca Cola from Company B are good examples. Another one is Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy from Company B. When Cornejo dances it with ABT its all about how high he jumps and how fast he turns but the jitterbug foundation of Taylor's choreography for the piece doesn't come through, Cornejo looks like he has no feel for the idiom. And in ABT's version you completely miss the fact that the Bugle Boy is killed in a hail of machine gun fire at the end of his dance. Its subtle when Taylor's group does it, its nonexistent with ABT.

Are you talking about the national dances in the 3rd act of Swan Lake? Cause those are character dances, which are often part of a ballet (also see the Mazurka in Raymonda), but they are not ballet, they are character dances (except in the Bolshoi's version where Grigorovich puts them on point and turns them into kind of a mash up of character & ballet). Also, the Prince's Mother, Bathilde in Giselle - those are character roles, they dancers portraying them are not dancing ballet. In these two cases they aren't even dancing, they are walking & acting.

The Boston Globe is reporting that both Jeffrey Cirio and Whitney Jensen are leaving, though Jensen hasn't made public where she is heading. She would be a wonderful addition to ABT's roster - medium size, great technician, lovely presence on stage. Just sayin... https://www.bostonglobe.com/arts/theater-dance/2015/06/30/dancers-jeffrey-cirio-whitney-jensen-leaving-boston-ballet/zBIevCnXDg1TKc6j5MXI7I/story.html

Congrats to all, especially Scott, Forster and Abrera! Copeland's promotion is already "Breaking News" on the Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/01/arts/dance/misty-copeland-is-promoted-to-principal-dancer-at-american-ballet-theater.html?action=Click&contentCollection=BreakingNews&contentID=36778831&pgtype=article

I know this is blasphemy, but I really LOVED today's Boylston/Simkin Swan Lake. I thought they each individually gave performances of great technical accomplishment, great eloquence and great emotional impact. It was both beautiful and moving. And they have wonderful chemistry, I love this partnership

I think it has been a foregone conclusion for several years now that Gorak will be made principal at ABT - it's just a question of when. As long as he keeps getting new opportunities I am happy to see them let him develop without rushing him.

You are correct. She did not do pique turns in a circle, or at all. She fell out of her fouettes and switched to turns from fifth

Posted Today, 10:18 AM nysusan, on 26 Jun 2015 - 09:50 AM, said: I saw the matinee and evening performances so I can't swear that it was Teuscher and not Paris but I'm pretty sure that I noticed it first at the matinee and then again in the evening performance. The part I'm talking about is at 8:21 - 8:26 here: I'm so glad this was taped, Xiomara was lovely and Herman and Erica were both just AMAZING.

I thought Misty's first lakeside scene was a mixed bag. There were aspects that I liked - I liked her musicality and thought her upper body was lovely, she used her arms, her back and her head and even her hands to great effect and gave us a very eloquent, passionate Odette. The main problem for me was that I disliked the line of her legs intensely. This has never bothered me about her dancing before, but the white swan attitudes & arabesques are so iconic and it just never looked to me that either of her legs were straight. Her standing leg never looked straight, and her working leg never looked like it opened out into a full arabesque (as opposed to an attitude or bent knee arabesque). I don't know if it was because of her hyperextended knees, or bulky calves or the combination of the 2 but I thought it really diminished the beauty of those iconic white swan images. So at this point I was giving her a B, maybe even a B+, I liked her but didn't love her in the role. Then, on to the 2nd act. As noted by others her Odile characterization was pretty one note - just a glaring angry look. I didn't find that too surprising or disappointing, I didn't expect her to have a fully realized characterization of either role at her 3rd ever performance of it. Characterization aside, her technique at the start of the Black Swan was fine and she took one beautiful, long balance. Then came the fouettes and that's where it all started to unravel. I had heard that her fouettes were terrible, that they traveled badly to the side so when she was about 5-6 in I was pleasantly surprised. They were not the most controlled fouettes and they did travel forward & to the side but not too much and I felt they were completely within acceptable bounds. Then after 10 or 12 ( I really don't think she did 16 - maybe 16 revolutions because she did some doubles but certainly not 16 fouettes) she fell out of one and started doing those single pirouettes, which continued to veer torward and to the side. Let me say that I do not and cannot believe that this was an "artistic choice" - this was a mess. And I really think that excusing her by pointing to Plisteskaya and several NYCB ballerinas is off the mark. That's like comparing apples to watermelons - it is not remotely the same thing. In Plisetskaya's case, as has been pointed out upthread - we had a major, major star ballerina who had proven her ability to knock off those fouettes many times in Don Q and who made it known that she didn't like them in SL and wasn't going to do them. When you are one of the greatest dancer of your (or any) age you can make those kind of artistic choices. In the case of NYCB, they make it very clear that they do the 19th century classics "their way", which includes changing steps & tempos. According to their own website "Peter Martins’ staging of Swan Lake infuses the preeminent story ballet with New York City Ballet’s signature musicality, speed, and sharpness of attack" Theirs is not a version that follows Petipa/Ivanov faithfully, while it preserves most of the iconic moments there is as much Balanchine and Martins in it as Petipa/Ivanov. And Martins has gone on record publicly saying that he doesn't carewhether or not his O/Os do the fouettes. It is one thing to skip half of the fouettes when your artistic director gives you leave to make that choice. It is a completely different story when you are dancing in a production where you are expected to do them. Does anyone think that McKenzie has ever said to any of his ballerinas - "its ok if you can't do all the fouettes, just throw in something else"? If he had, do you think we'd see Julie Kent doing them every year, or Part or even Hee Seo? I have been going to ABT since the mid sixties. Now I did take a pretty long break from them in the 80s so I can't swear that no ABT O/O has eversimply bailed out of the fouettees but I've never seen one do it. And I've seen every dancer who has danced the role with ABT for the last 10 years. Some have struggled with them, and few actually did 32 fouettes but they gave it their best shot and got in 27 or 28. The problem was usually that they couldn't do them fast enough to get 32 in, but they did them - generally in tempo and finishing with the music. What Misty did was unprecedented at ABT, and I am just not ok with it. If she doesn't have to do the fouettes, why should any ABT ballerina have to do them? I am officially off the Misty bandwagon. I was so disappointed that I dashed out the minute the curtain came down. I didn't see the bows so I don't know if there was any announcement of Anderson or Wilkinson, there was nothing in the program. One of my friends who watched the bows said Makarova came out and gave her a big hug. I'm guessing he mistook Anderson for Makarova! And speaking of ABT dancers not being able to perform the steps, I could swear that the pdt variation Devon Teuscher performed usually ends with an entrechat six. What I saw her do was jump, hit her feet together once and come down.Just another in a long line of disappointments at ABT this season.

Thank you. They didn't look like piques to me but I wasn't sure how to describe them. They certainly weren't stationary, they traveled downstage & towards house left. I was very disappointed in her choice, and in ABT's choice to allow it.

That was Hammoudi as purple VR. And in my book a soloist doesnt get to choose to substitute piques for fouettes. I have never seen that done at ABT. Never.

That's why I'm spending most of this week watching the RB. There was a time when nothing would have kept me from ABT's SL week. Despite the fact that I don't like their staging, the casts they could field made most performances unmissable. Now they're mostly meh...

This may be true, but on the other hand I am one who thinks she deserves to be a principal at least as much as Boylston & Seo do. Mind you, I don't think any of them are at that level, I think Boylston & Seo are both talented dancers who need much more work (on different aspects of their dancing) and should still be soloists. Obviously, the powers that be at ABT disagree with me. Just as obviously, for whatever their reasons, ABT management doesn't think Lane or Abrera are principal material. Given those realities I do not think promoting Copeland is a crime. IMO she still needs work, but as ABT has no problem promoting unfinished dancers to principal status and she sells out performances - both of her scheduled NY debuts were 100% sell outs - I don't have a problem with it.

Her Juliet this past Saturday matinee was also a complete sell out. In fact, both have been sold out for quite some time now

Actually, Amour could have been talking about either one, since the difference in both is very clear comparing the Ferri and Cuthbertson videos to what we saw from ABT.

I'm not sure if we're all talking about the same lift. What I think Amour is referring to is the lift at 6:15 in this video. Two of the three ABT's Juliets I saw this season had their downstage arm on Romeo's shoulder for balance, here you can see that Ferri is not holding onto him, and at the end of the lift she stretches both arms behind her, which Copeland & Seo did not do. I don't remember this particular moment from the Obraztsova/Cornejo performance. Amour, is that the lift you were referring to? Amazing how dizzyingly in love and abandoned Ferri & Eagling look here, this may be my favorite video of the balcony scene, ever. I don't see any pretty poses like I saw with Seo - just a whirlwind of beauty & emotion

Many, many people do not like Hee Seo. Kevin McKenzie and/or the ABT board like Hee Seo, so we are forced to see her, often. There is no doubt that many people at the Thursday night performance left after the first intermission. Some friends of mine skipped the performance entirely, simply writing off the money they spent on the tickets - one of them said that he gave his ticket to "a beggar", but just looking at the theater it was obvious that many people left after each intermission, and the audience reaction to her dancing was very muted, as opposed to their reaction to Gomes, which was very demonstrative,If she was "not marvelous" and "has several points to improve on", then why is she a principal dancer, let alone one who gets many opening nights and so many performances? The thing is, she has a beautiful body and poses prettily. Unfortunately there is no energy, no arc to her poses and the transition between them, the actual dancing goes nowhere. Her dance at the Capulet ball was lovely. Problem is, it was so inexpressive that she could have been dancing Manon, or the Thais pas de deux, There was no articulation of Juliet's personality in her dancing. She acted, she attempted to express emotion facially, but her dancing was blank. This Juliet was an empty suit. Blech.

I will be pleasantly surprised if I find that Seo is a lovely Juliet, if she doesn't fall on her butt and if we don't see her typical bland performance. But I will eat my hat if I walk out of tonight's performance thinking that I've just witnessed a great Juliet - one that has been beautifully danced, wonderfully acted, full of nuance - like last nights, like that legendary first Osipova/Hallberg R&J or like most Vishneva/Gomes Giselles & R&Js. I'm glad that she's improving and maybe I should be grateful that I'm being forced to see her in one of her better roles (I have already been forced to see her Nikyia this season, which was extremely mediocre), but really, I don't pay $100 to see a nice performance by a newly minted house ballerina - and ABT is forcing us into that position all to often this season. If I had a cheaper ticket I would just stay home. If there was something else I wanted to see that didn't conflict with my Ailey or RB tickets I would make a big deal at the box and insist on an exchange. But there is nothing left to exchange for except more Hee Seo

Amen to that. I have 4 expensive subscription seats that I typically turn into tickets for myself to 12-15 performances a year. This year with ABT using such a limited roster of ballerinas I ran into a situation where there just weren't enough alternate performance I wanted to see when faced with a cast substitution I didn't like. I will definitely cut my subscription buy for next season, and the reason is the now unavoidable Hee Seo.