Andre Yew

I'll be there on Friday night. It would be wonderful if Peter Boal were dancing. --Andre

I saw Vishneva performing Nikiya on Sunday at the Kodak Theatre at the 7PM show, and loved her performance. It was an emotionally complex characterization with Vishneva pretty much inhabiting the role. Irina Golub opposite her as Gamzatti was perfect as the spoiled princess you love to hate, and their showdown was filled with great tension. Leonid Sarafanov was a weak partner as Solor --- many of the lifts looked shakey, and I think at least one was aborted. But in his solo parts, he was astounding in his lightness and effortlessness. He had the cleanest double-tours I've ever seen. The corps were great. Vishneva was the highlight for me however. I saw Jewels the next week at OCPAC on Sunday. Emeralds was light and frothy, almost like a sweet overture to the rest of the piece. Arms of the leading ballerinas, Daria Sukhorukova and Sofia Gumerova, were especially magical. In a last minute casting change, Vishneva, partnered by an attentive Andrian Fadeyev, danced Rubies, and amazed me with her complete transformation from last week's super-serious role to Rubies' flirtatious abandon. Her grand battements were easily lobbed up to her head in any direction, and her extreme extensions were used everywhere with ease and strength. The corps was amazing again, especially the ending of Rubies which resembled exploding fireworks. Lopatkina danced the lead in Diamonds with Danila Korsuntsev, and gave a warm and human reassertion of this act's distilled Petipa classicism. The corps was impressive in their unity of attack. It was the first time I've seen Vishneva dance, and I'm absolutely floored. The Kirov corps was revelatory in seeing what a good corps can do. Now ballet-savvy friends tell me I have to see POB if I liked the Kirov. Sigh ... --Andre

Hi Alexandra, I saw them in Royce Hall at UCLA, and loved them. Definitely a dance highlight of this year, if not of all my dance-seeing time. Their commitment and technical ability impressed me most, as well as their courage to put relatively challenging work on stage. I wrote more about it on Criticaldance: George Piper Dances presents the Ballet Boyz - Royce Hall, Los Angeles Hope it's OK to post a link there here. edit: (in light of Alexandra's clarification below ...) In summary, I liked Forsythe's Steptext the most, with its contrasts (movement style, sound vs. silence, order vs. disorder) providing a lot of interest, though like Alexandra, I found its dance-rehearsal scenario a bit self-conscious. Wheeldon's Mesmerics was physically beautiful and very well-polished, building up the vocabulary piece by piece before putting it all together effectively for the finale. Torsion looked like one of those difficult things that don't make me envy the people doing them, but you know someone has to do them. My analogy was like watching the great pyramids being built --- you're awed by the effort and difficulty, and by the result, but you probably wouldn't want to do it. The show was also challenging, and engaging with GPD being wonderful exponents of whichever choreographer is lucky enough to have them represent their work. I got to ask Christopher Wheeldon at the San Francisco Ballet performances in LA about future work he's doing with GPD (as well as trying to put in a good word about GPD), and he said that they're going to work on something new next year. Hooray! Here's to looking forward to their continued collaboration. --Andre

Another subtext I've heard is that the princess admires the bluebird, and wants to be like him. The bluebird (perhaps nefariously --- can't trust those bluebirds! ) slowly transforms the princess into a bird without her knowledge. Apparently, this is visible in the pdd, with the princess getting more bird choreography until her complete transformation at the end. --Andre