Andre Yew

I've travelled a bit just to see ballet, too. Last year included trips to DC to see the Royal Ballet's Sleeping Beauty (3 performances), Boston to see Boston Ballet's La fille mal garde (4 or 5 performances), Seattle to catch PNB's opening performances, and a business trip to San Francisco that let me see a mixed rep and Sylvia, as well as a trip for their Stern Grove performance. I also drive quite a bit to Los Angeles and Orange County to see touring groups that come through. That's about a 1.5- to 2-hour one-way drive.

--Andre

I've been watching the Zakharova/Bolle Giselle again recently, and am coming around to it. She is a bit cold in Act 1, but I think she (and the chemistry with Bolle) really comes into her own in Act 2, especially the closing scenes which are just achingly beautiful. Bolle's technique is just incredible: the cleanliness and ease of his dancing (check out those 36 entrechat sixes, along with his pirouettes which were just on that day and how he closes into fifth from so many positions) is pretty amazing. The playing of the orchestra is also very good, and more expressive than I would expect from a ballet orchestra.

The downside of this performance is that the two principals' performances are just head and shoulders above everyone else: the corps are messy, Myrtha is earthbound, and the soloists a bit stiff.

--Andre

For the 4 performances in Orange County, we only had two male principals: Danila Korsuntsev and Igor Kolb. Zelensky was apparently sick according to the Orange County Register, and I'm not sure what happened to Andrian Fadyeev, though he did dance Romeo the last night before they started Swan Lake.

--Andre

I also thought Diana Vishneva and Igor Kolb gave us a very special white swan pas --- dramatic, filled with human emotion, and basically laying out their heart and soul for us to see. Those few minutes alone were worth the price of admission. Of the 4 performances this past weekend, that's the one I'd want to see again, despite flaws in the later acts. Speaking of which, unfortunately, it was very difficult to maintain that level of dancing, and they became merely very good for the rest of it. Her black swan was too hard-edged to be seductive --- perhaps she was trying too hard? She also had technical difficulties that impeded her black swan. Tereshkina's black swan is the pick of the weekend for me.

Alina Somova on Saturday night was kind of bad. Her coltishness and manic quality really doesn't work for this role, and she looked like she was going through the steps with little of the drama the other 3 ballerinas had. She also had technical difficulties, including 32 fouettes that looked very ugly, with the gesturing leg flicking in and out, and not showing the full second position to the side. It reminded me of local ballet school girls or dance competition people cranking out turns.

--Andre

I'm too lazy to rewrite my thoughts from another forum, so I'll just repost it here:

A 3-for-1 tonight: quick summaries of the last three performances of Swan Lake with Lopatkina, Tereshkina, and Somova. Danila Korsuntsev partnered the first two, while Igor Kolb partnered Somova.

After hearing about her Odette/Odile, I had high hopes for Lopatkina. She didn't disappoint as Odette, with a deep performance and an attack that brought out the animalistic nature of her swan: it was like she could barely contain the energy of herself. With nice long lines, pretty feet, and continuous movement, she really brought this role to life. As Odile, it was a bit different: she stayed at one even level, and seemed generically evil. You knew she was bad news, but you weren't sure why. She had basically one expression: an evil grin. Her partner didn't help much as he was pretty flat and expressionless. He's a beautiful danseur noble, but he doesn't get out of himself much.

Tereshkina I found to be the opposite: an even-keeled, some (me) would say boring, Odette, and a memorable Odile. Dangerous, evil, too smart for everyone's good, and very sexy, she manipulated poor Siegfried to do what she wanted and enjoyed every moment of it. She was a classic villain.

Somova tonight was a mixed bag, unfortunately mostly negative. First the positives: she's young, and she's got really nice feet, good flexibility, and potentially nice legs. Unfortunately, she's a bit weak physically , and this came through in many ways. First of all, what I previously liked as her coltishness was really not appropriate for this role. Flying limbs left and right don't work for either Odette or Odile --- one is a queen not a young princess, and the other is a powerful evil person. Her attacks were inconsistent in quality and generally too manic, and I don't know whether that's due to her still developing physicality or her youth and seeming inexperience. I kept thinking I was watching a little girl doing the choreography.

If I wanted to give her the benefit of the doubt for her white swan, I couldn't for her black swan. There was little characterization, and her physical weakness is just not appropriate for this role, which is supposed to be a very strong woman who knows what she wants and how to get it. She is miscast in this role. She appears to be a natural turner (and of the 3, she was the only one who threw in doubles in her 32 fouettes, which is all but necessary for anyone dancing Odile today), but her fouettes were ugly. U-G-L-Y. I couldn't believe my eyes, because she was committing the same mistake that girls at my local ballet school do: she flicked her gesturing leg in too quickly instead of showing the position in 2nd to the side. This led to a pretty manic-looking set of 32 fouettes bouncing up and down. I have to wonder why she's a soloist. In ensemble pieces, the corps around her as well as the other soloists looked stronger than she did, both in technique and physical strength.

Of the two men, I found Korsuntsev to be pretty flat both nights, but he could perhaps be playing the strong, silent danseur noble. Kolb tonight was far more expressive, and impressive in technique. I especially liked his big jumps, and his very expressive arabesques.

Jesters for both nights were really good. We had Andrei Ivanov and Grigory Popov. Both had good technique, and pulled off many tricks. Both also had good comic timing and expressiveness from the stage. Ivanov was a bit over-the-top and played to the crowd. His turns were just that bit better than Popov. Popov however had that bit more ballon in his jumps. Both were good --- these are nitpicks.

The pas de trois in the beginning has been consistently good, but my favorite set was tonight's: Ekaterina Osmolkina, Irina Golub, and Anton Korsakov. Nice sparkling technique, good ballon from all three, and just really joyous dancing, though I wish Korsakov would smile more than once.

The character dances were handled well, too. And finally the corps: wow. I don't know what more to say than that. They danced together and expressively. I can't get over how big the whole company dances, but somehow there's still a unity of movement and style that doesn't make them look like they're going every which way when people are all trying to dance big. And big doesn't mean just jumps, but every gesture is big and reads very well. The heads and shoulders are turned just a little bit more, their hands will make that extra motion, and they cover just that much more ground. I love how the company uses their eyes, too --- their lines just never stop and never stop moving.

I'm very happy so far, and I'm looking forward to tomorrow's performance with Diana Vishneva and Andrian Fadyeev.

--Andre

I saw Obraztsova and Fadeev last night too, and surprised myself by really liking the production, probably because I was expecting some kind of typically bad Soviet choreography, eg. Spartacus. I thought there was plenty of dancing, and it was surprisingly classical in content and structure. It was great to see lots of mime, which is one of the Kirov's great strengths. The acting, though perhaps over-the-top by some standards, is kind of that classic Russian over-the-topness, which is always great to see because they're the only ones who can pull it off, and the whole company was doing it instead of an odd person standing out in a non-Russian company. My only complaint was that Act 3 was a bit too long, and spent too much time on unncessary plot points.

Obraztsova is a revelation! She can dance and act, and she's so fresh-faced that she's perfect for this role. Fadeev is a perfect match for her in his abilities and temperament as well. I also enjoyed Yana Selina as Juliet's friend, especially since I'd only seen her dance the White Pussycat in Sleeping Beauty --- she's got an amazing jump. It was also nice to see the unified, more expressive style of this company, something we don't get to see in American companies.

--Andre

I saw the Friday show and both Saturday shows of opening weekend. I agree that Maria Chapman was pretty spectacular in In the middle: her ending series of poses on Saturday night totally distracted me from the famous pas. I thought the first cast brought out the competitive aspect of In the middle more, too, but seeing Maria and Carla compare their feet in the beginning, both with such beautiful feet, was pretty cool! Bold was a pleasant surprise too. After seeing In the middle, my personal theory is that it's a view of the ballet world recast so that experienced/jaded ballet watchers would know what it's like for complete beginners to see ballet for the first time: all the beauty, weirdness, and other unexplainable things amplified to 11.

Nakamura and Postelwaite were also my favorite couple in T&V: they matched very nicely both physically and in style. They also had the least technical problems with the choreography.

Fancy Free needs personality instead of just technique to work, but I thought Jeffrey Stanton was the only male dancer who brought any, though Jonathan Porretta's double tours en l'air landing in splits on the floor was pretty darn impressive. The women were much better than the men in this respect. In general, it seems like the women in this company are stronger than the men, both in terms of performance quality as well as technique.

--Andre

You should see both as they are very different companies. Hubbard is probably the best proponent of Kylian in the Americas, and they dance a lot of the more well-known popular modern stuff. It's a very energetic group of dancers who really love to move.

Shen Wei is very different, and it's a love-it or hate-it kind of thing. The company exists to dance Shen Wei's choreography, and his style is more post-modern. Perhaps because of his background as a painter, there are more set scenes or tableau-like settings, but it's by no means static. His choreography always projects a sense of otherworldliness as they seem to create a space that's quite unlike anything else you've seen. The one time I saw them, I really loved them --- it was probably the only time I've actually given a standing ovation --- but most people around me didn't like it.

--Andre

I think excitement, innovation, art, whatever you want to call it in dance is not happening in ballet, and I see more of it in modern dance, and, of all things, hip-hop and other street-derived dances. When a classical ballet really works, it's an experience like no other. But it's a double-edged sword: it's easy to become ossified and complacent with what has been passed down because when it works, it works very well. A lot of newer, non-ballet dance forms are interesting because the dancers and dancemakers are still exploring the art form and finding new forms of expression within the art form.

Hans, Lewis Segal has been the dance critic for the LA Times for a very long time now, and there are many people in LA who wish he would retire. I find his writing often to be thoughtful, thought-provoking, though not always agreeable. I'm glad the LA Times still has a decent dance critic around who isn't afraid to take a stand. Before everyone piles on the scrum, doesn't anyone remember his article on Ballet Pacifica's implosion earlier this year? The article's not online anymore, but here're a few choice quotations:

If a reigning star at American Ballet Theatre — recently (if unofficially) crowned one of the kings of dance — can't inspire enough support to launch even a midsize ballet company in Southern California, who can?

...

And rather than repeating them and clucking sadly yet again, how about considering a radical proposal? How about forbidding anyone to start yet another new local penniless ballet company until we've doubled our dance audience through a host of development strategies?

Let's use whatever capital the dance community can generate to subsidize free tickets for every teenager; to get dance each week on KCET-TV (perhaps something modeled on the "Eye on Dance" series that ran on two PBS stations in New York); to open a dance space where local artists can afford to present themselves; to offer every kind of in-school program, including ballet classes.

...

He also won hearts (and respect) by becoming perhaps the only artistic director in Anglo American ballet not to commission a world premiere from Christopher Wheeldon (emerging as the Wal-Mart of choreography)

I don't remember which AD he's referring to in that last sentence.

--Andre

"The problematic "Sleeping Beauty" that the Kirov Ballet danced at the Music Center last season credited 19th century master choreographer Marius Petipa, but it dates from 1952.” Wrong, Mr. Segal and on two counts. Firstly the re-creation was based on period archive material and secondly the educated audience (yes there are levels of education need to fully appreciate ballet as there are in baseball to fully appreciate that game) and most critics admired what was a highly successful attempt to re-instate historical accuracy to the production.

The Kirov performed the Sergeyev version of SB in LA.

--Andre

Nunez is fantastic. Misa Kuranaga of Boston Ballet also has the Ashtonian style as she demonstrated in her performances of Lise in Boston's Fille this past spring.

--Andre

I forgot to add that I thought the orchestra played very, very nicely. I love how they bring out the motoric rhythms in some of the dances (eg. the peasant pas).

--Andre

BTW, if you're interested in seeing Kylian's work, I would not use ABT's performances of Kylian as a guide: when I saw them a couple of years ago do Sechs Tanze and Petit Mort, I found them completely unidiomatic, and in dire need of way more rehearsal hours. NDT of course is very good, and for a much more energetic take on the rep, NDT2 is very much worth seeing. In the US, Hubbard does a good job with Kylian.

--Andre

I've been watching this in parts for a couple days, and it's not working for me. Zakharova is too glamourous and distant, and compared to the rest of the cast, she stands out too much in terms of technique and style. But maybe that's why Albrecht is willing to leave his royal life for her. I'm also not very impressed with the dancing of the La Scala troupe --- they're a bit messy and stiff.

--Andre

Paul,

You're probably thinking of Manuel Legris's Spectre: really spectre(sic)cular port de bras, but perhaps a bit effeminate and role-specific.

--Andre

I think it depends on what you notice. Certainly men's port de bras are appear more straightforward and not as elaborate in baroque detail as women's, perhaps to make them look stronger and more masculine, which may make them more invisible, but I think they're still very consciously made and placed in order to complement the lines that men and their partners make.

Roberto Bolle has really wonderful lines and his port de bras enhances this. I think the shepherd's solo in Ashton's Daphnis and Chloe where he's dancing with a staff really shows the lines men make in a very elemental and pure way by stripping away everything but the basic shape. At the same time he shows how even if the arms are forced straight to the sides (the shepherd carries the staff on his shoulders with his arms wrapped around it pointing to the sides --- think cruciform) can be very expressive, like in the step whose name I don't know that looks like a temps de fleche to the back. The oppositional shapes that he makes with his upper body and arms in relation to which leg is in attitude back is really expressive.

On the other hand, the boys in the corps of Ashton's Fille as well as the flute boy have very elaborate, exaggerated epaulement, both enhanced by their hats, that show how fancier upper body movement can work for men, too.

--Andre

A number of story ballet-oriented companies have learned to dance Balanchine well, so why can't NYCB learn to dance story ballets well?

I love the Prokoviev R&J score, too --- it's so inventive, thematically as well as technically, and runs the full gamut of emotions. My favorite staging of it so far is Cranko's -- the Macmillan has wonderful moments but is diffuse and episodic in whole.

--Andre

I'm never sure what ballets are supposed to be about, but the important thing for me is that the dancer makes the choreography work for that moment. Pujol does this in her solo, and the POB in general for Emeralds. If it turns out to look different than NYCB, Kirov, or MCB, so be it: the world got a bit richer because someone's just added to it another valid interpretation of a masterpiece.

BTW, did anyone else notice that the POB dancers are very grounded for ballet dancers? Notice, for example, Thibault's solo in the pas de trois: all the preparations for the big jumps have this very grounded, powerful quality. Perhaps they're not using some secret butt muscle.

--Andre

I loved the smiles and interactions in Emeralds. The pas de trois was especially nice because of this, and the ballet takes on a completely different, better feel. It was interesting comparing this to the old NYCB video where everyone seemed to be frowning.

--Andre

Buddy,

If you want to blow your mind, try to catch a performance of the Kirov's Jewels with Diana in Rubies, and Uliana in Diamonds. You can certainly sit through Emeralds for that.

--Andre

"In the OCPAC announcement for the (mid July) 2007 ABT season, they mentioned that ABT is performing a new "full-lenght favorite direct from it's premiere at the Met".I hope it is Sleeping Beauty."

I think Diana's comments just about confirm it. Art076 had the same idea, too, based on the fact that ABT and the Royal Ballet shared Sylvia in the same way, and that we'll be seeing the beloved Farmer designs from RB's recent SB production back with ABT next season.

I think the Kirov is touring with just Swan Lake and R&J next season, and it would be unusual for Malakhov to dance with them.

--Andre

Racing events, if I'm not mistaken go left, counter-clockwise.

Sorry for the off-topic post, but only some racing events go CCW (eg. NASCAR and IRL oval races).

--Andre

I've seen her in many ballets, and she is always amazing, even when she's having an off night. Memorable ones include the first time I ever saw her, which was Nikiya in La Bayadere: amazing range of movement and contrast of speeds as well as an emotional complexity in her character. She's also done the only perfect Rose Adagio I've ever seen. It looked almost too easy. Her Rubies is fantastic, too. She has an incredible stage presence. When she comes out, it's almost like someone turned on some extra lights.

--Andre

To the Left (Counter-Clockwise) seems more logical to me, (since most individuals are right-handed) following the rotation you would be creating by throwing a ball side-arm for instance.

This may be getting too much into technique, but in dance, the plie and legs create the torque for turning. The arms can help, but dancers can turn well without using their arms, so they're not strictly necessary. I've noticed too that ice skaters don't spot their turns, whereas it's essential for a dance turn. Perhaps all of this accounts for the difference in directions? BTW, have you ever noticed too that the vast majority of assisted turns also only go in one direction?

--Andre

Most people turn better to the right (I believe he's a right turner, too, isn't he?), and it's good to be reminded that even Angel is human. I don't think it's too uncommon for dancers to select the side they turn to, especially for solos. Choreographers and stagers often make changes to accommodate dancers' strengths, too. Last month, it was interesting to see on which side of the stage each Bluebird started his solo for the Royal Ballet performances of Sleeping Beauty.

--Andre