flipsy

I saw both Saturday night and Monday night's workshops, and it was a thrill .. especially Monday when the dancers had loosened up and were giving their all in a final fling. This was an emotional evening for them; for many, the end of their SAB years. More than a few gave the performances of their young lives. Among them: Tiler Peck as the "Russian Girl" in Serenade, and the first girl sailor in Union Jack. She combines the pep of a 15-year-old with the polish of a performer twice her age. Also performing beyond his years was Giovanni Villalobos, a danseur noble as the waltzing partner in Serenade on Saturday, and a hot-footed hoofer in the sailor's hornpipe on Monday. Troy Schumacher was just as salty and even more acrobatic in the sailor part on Saturday. Both these guys are pros already. William Lin-yee could use a little more refinement, but he showed enormous talent and showmanship as the lecherous sailor in Union Jack, and the "dark angel" guy in Serenade. Lateef Williams did the "dark angel" part with power and compassion on Saturday; another impressive display of maturity in a young dancer. Tombeau de Couperin is a corps ballet, but one that gives individuals a chance to shine. Sokvannara Sar caught my eye as the most expansive of the boys, joyous but at the same time courtly in his partnering. Sar came from Cambodia, where he danced as a child, bringing with him a regal, stylized form in the upper body. To this he has added a powerful turnout and a piercing point of the foot. Somehow it all fit in perfectly with this baroque-romantic-folk hybrid of a ballet. Another standout was Olga Krochik in the Saturday cast; she's a Russian romantic with a steely back and long, driving steps. Adrianna de Svastich contributed a sure-footed, brief variation in the center on Monday. Erika Takakjian was vibrant and "in the music" every time I looked her way. Harlequinade is silly stuff but the little kids made it charming. Emily Cardea was a perfect Polchinelle with an irresistible smile. The boys showed grownup sophistication and style in their partnering. On the whole I found the program deeply moving, the best tribute to Balanchine I've seen to date in this centennial year. Serenade was the right opener. There is no better cast for this ballet than SAB students; it was made for them 70 years ago, and it's still made for them. And the ending of Union Jack, with the dancers saluting as a Balanchine banner unfolds from above, Mr. B. pointing this time not just to his battement tendu but to his next generation of performers, brought me close to tears both times. Thank you, Mr. B., and thank you, kids.

Having recently criticized the programming of NYCB's "European Festival," let me now praise whoever thought up Sunday's satisfying matinee program of Square Dance, La Sonnambula, and Chaconne. The afternoon had variety, but more important it had integrity, even a theme that ran through three otherwise dissimilar Balanchine works. Each of them drew heavily on the formal patterns of courtly dance, in all its incarnations from the ballroom to the barn dance. It was an afternoon of quadrilles and contra lines, grand marches, couples advancing and retiring, passing through, dipping and diving and weaving under arches, trading partners and admiring each others' hotfoot variations. Lincoln Kirstein said ballet is about "how to behave," and here it was, the behavior of the dance, with just enough surprises thrown in by the master to transform it from social ceremony to high art. Peter Boal and Miranda Weese set the tone in the opener. Square Dance is a modest miracle, a baroque social gathering for a dozen elegant dancers, joined by a couple of aristocrats. It was they who raised the dancing to a higher level, Weese with her sparkling footwork and flying exits, Boal with his impeccable graciousness as he takes her hand, and his solo passion in the strange, latter-day variation that precedes the brilliant finale. But they raised the level of the dancing without ever seeming separate from the corps; on the contrary, they seemed serenely thrilled to be there, dancing with each other and with their company. One of my favorite moments: as Boal began his first solo variation, Weese strolled to the sideline and put her arm around Elizabeth Walker, to exchange what looked like some gentle girl talk. It was so realistic that I think it may have actually been a real "moment," but that doesn't matter. What matters is that it completed the illusion of dance as the basis of social life, the place where social differences exist, but don't matter. The opener turned out to be the highlight. Darci Kistler was in rare form for Chaconne, where Megan Fairchild also contributed a perfect star turn in the pas de deux. But some of the others looked overmatched. Nilas Martins looked like a man missing his train in his allegro solo, Steven Hanna needs to practice his air guitar so he can hold it more familiarly in the pas de trois, and Carrie Lee Riggins was way too wild in the pas de cinq. Still, Darci had the elegance and energy to make the occasion come off. La Sonnambula was something of a disappointment to me. The ballroom scenes were fine, but as others have noted this week, the plot didn't seem to be working. Wendy Whelan was ethereal, and her backwards bourrees were awesomely fast, but I never got the sense of the mysterious curse that set this tragedy going. I think this is currently a drama in need of a director, to re-establish the relationships among the characters and the story behind the story.

A balletomane at a modern dance performance sometimes feels as though he's watching tennis with the net down; the absence of a standard vocabulary makes it hard to judge if the dancers know what they're doing. At other times, it looks like ballet in bare feet, and you wonder what the point is. But neither was the case last weekend at Symphony Space, where Zvidance put on a program of recent and new works, all new to these eyes. This is a company with a style of its own, and dancers who have the technique to show it off. Israeli-American choreographer Zvi Gotheiner, who looks like a small-college football player, has a vocabulary of muscular, down-to-earth moves, and a senior dancer who models them to perfection. Elisa King is the antithesis of a ballerina, with a low center of gravity, muscular thighs and powerful haunches. She looks like she could run the marathon backwards, which is practically what Gotheiner asks her to do in the signature piece of the evening, "Lapse." King, followed by most of the company, spends much of the time circling the stage in a brisk backwards trot, occasionally turning to run forward at the same pace. The effect is of a magic circle that mirrors Scott Killian's driving, repetitive sound score. I must confess that I spent most of my time watching the runners, and ignoring the expressive solos and duets that were going on in the center; I was so taken with King's steady, even pace and seemingly limitless fuel supply. This is a dancer with a perfect balance of energy and equilibrium. She showed the latter to breathtaking effect in another piece, an excerpt from "Interiors," choreographed for a woman, a potted plant, and a glass water jug. In one repeated move, King revolves away from the plant, passing the jug behind her back as she moves so that it remains in the same place, the water barely rippling. The other excerpt from "Interiors" was made for a man, a woman, and a chair. Todd Allen and Ying Ying Shiau wrapped themselves around it and each other in every imaginable way, and wound up standing on the chair in a calm, affectionate embrace. This seems to be the essence of Gotheiner's choreography. Most of it is done in pairs, usually but not always a male and female. The interaction is close, with lots of wreathing and writhing of limbs around the partner. It's erotic but not exclusively or essentially so; it has as much to do with boxing or wrestling as sex. This are people involved with each other in complex ways, and their issues do not seem to be resolved by the artist. Who knows? It might have something to do with the choreographer's middle eastern roots, in a place where relationships and enmities are thousands of years old and still unresolved. In any case, it's satisfying, real stuff. The one mistake on the program, in my opinion, was a premiere called "Easy For You To Say." This featured dancers vocalizing, shutting each other up, and exchanging cryptic spoken comments amid a Shostakovitch score. They didn't have much to say, which I guess was the point, since it ended with one dancer summarizing the script as "Words, words, words, words." My advice: stick to dancing.

Balanchine is 100, and he has a new muse. Wendy Whelan stopped the show last night when NYCB opened the spring season of its Balanchine Centennial, as she and partner Charles Askegard took two roaring curtain calls after the second movement of Symphony in C. At 35, Whelan has emerged as the most articulate interpreter of Balanchine's choreography. Last night, her penchee was spectacular and her final swoon luxuriously romantic, but you could say that about others who have done the role. What's different, I think, is the subtlety and clarity of her changes in level, shape, and direction, especially the last. Whelan knows how to make herself visible from all angles, like a cut diamond, with tiny shifts of the shoulder or hip. What she accomplishes is pure Balanchine -- making us see the music, but on a deeper level, in all its complexity and trickiness. This is wonderful news for those of us who feared that Balanchine's work would decay in the hands of those who never knew him. Whelan knows him. Symphony in C saved what was otherwise an odd program for opening night. The opener was Walpurgisnacht and the centerpiece was La Valse, two spooky ballets that would seem better suited for Halloween than spring. We were also treated to introductory remarks by a French consular official, and a guest appearance by two two dancers from the Paris Opera Ballet. The explanation: this was an evening of French music, the opening of a European Music festival, celebrating Balanchine's love and appreciation of same. That's nice. But it seems to me that a vast category like "European Music" is hardly the thing to get excited about on opening night of the Balanchine centennial! How about Balanchine? Dividing the spring season into three music festivals (American and Russian to follow) may have something to do with Balanchine's musical influences, but it seems to me to add a distracting layer of gimmickry to what ought to be a pure look at a master's work. The Movado Watch company is sponsoring this festival; but whose idea was it? Back to Symphony in C: Jenifer Ringer was smooth and generous as always in the first movement, while demi-soloist Teresa Reichlen almost stole the show from her with her long-legged leaps. Ashley Bouder and Benjamin Millepied put on the fireworks in the leaping third movement, though Bouder's off-beat phrasing at times got a bit too precious. Ana Sophia Scheller, a recent refugee from ABT, made a sparkling debut in an otherwise ragged corps. An elegant Jennifer Tinsley and Arch Higgins kept up with the zippy pace of the finale, conducted by Andrea Quinn.

That's right, Ari. So you do have a last chance to see them on tour ..

Miami City Ballet made one of its too-rare and too-brief forays into the New York area last weekend, performing Friday and Saturday at the Tilles Center of Long Island University. Program one was a bracing tribute to Balanchine -- Ballo della Regina, Stravinsky Violin Concerto, and "Rubies." Program #2 was Villella's Neighborhood Ballroom. Both got enthusiastic receptions from near-capacity houses, and the dancers earned their bows. Ballo was sharp, especially Mikhail Ilyin in the male lead, and a focused, energetic corps. Jeanette Delgado also made an impact with a bouncy fourth variation. In Stravinsky Violin Concerto, Jennifer Kronenberg blew us away in the second pas de deux. She got the "agonistic" feel of the part, particularly in that vivid move where her partner (Carlos Guerra) crushes her legs inward. Kronenberg came right back with another vivid, sexy pas with Renato Penteado in "Rubies." Andrea Spiridonakos was the other scarlet lady, who knocked us back in our seats with her high kicks en face. Neighborhood Ballroom, which I'd never seen before, was something of a revelation. I wasn't too hopeful about a ballet based on social dances -- partly because I know that many ballet dancers can't do a lindy or a mambo -- and when they have to, they look like they learned it in a ballet studio, stiff and upright. Not these people! I never saw anyone shimmy as fast as Iliana Lopez in the mambo finale. The whole company seems to be made up of people who have danced all their lives, in every style, for the love of it. Real dancers!

I saw Peter Boal & company today (Sunday matinee) and had a lot to say but found that most of it had already been said by E Johnson. I agree that Wendy Whelan was the highlight of the show -- I don't think I've ever seen her dance so freely and easily, even though she was bending every line in her body like a disappearing pretzel. She looked happy to be dancing, which may be just how she felt or may be another example of her consummate professionalism -- the dance called for a a free and easy, happy rapport between the two partners, and Boal supplied the other side with his usual geniality and grace. He got a great laugh when he made his second entrace in a miniskirt by Versace, but then proceeded to make that skirt flip and fly almost as freely as Wendy's. Suozzi's dancing was an eye-opener; he's much more than a corps de ballet guy. I especially liked one moment in "Mopey" when he did a double tour, then fell down and bumped off stage on his butt. As noted by others, the Twyla Tharp piece was pure Baryshnikov and though PB danced it well you couild see that it wasn't his style. A note on the choreography: by interspersing classical movements with bumps & grinds, mugging, etc, Tharp seems intent on competing with or drawing attention AWAY from Pergolesi's music, which contained no such rerferences, at least to these ears. What a difference from Balanchine!

I got a big kick out of "Double Feature," though I'll agree in retrospect that Stroman's ballet vocabulary is limited. I thought it gave some excellent dancers a chance to expand their own vocabularies -- i.e. with dramatic and comic acting. Tom Gold and Maria Kowroski I thought took full advantage. City Ballet has been accused of lacking theatrical personality, dancing like zombies, but that certainly wasn't true here. I think it's a notable addition to the repertory, and I hope they don't drop it. Worth noting, maybe, is the reaction of the stranger behind me at the sold-out Sunday performance. It was the first time she's been to the ballet in years, she said, and she loved it. She used to go all the time but she got tired of Balanchine's stuff. This was new and exciting! (I don't agree.. I'm not at all tired of Balanchine. But judging from the sold-out house, she's hardly alone.)