miliosr

When Golding was with ABT (mid-00s), things were still flush in terms of the male principals. There was really no spot for him to move into at the top. Thank you for writing this. Stearns and Whiteside are holding things together on the taller side of things given Gomes' departure, Hallberg's reduced workload, Bolle's near absence and Lendorf's chronic injuries.

Former ABT soloist and current ballet master Carlos Lopez has a cute 'over the years' post on his Instagram feed showing just how much Aran Bell has grown: https://www.instagram.com/p/Bj_Q60rgDFU/?taken-by=carloslopeznewyork

This caught my eye (from the article): "The RDB looks much like Het Nationale Ballet in Amsterdam or The San Francisco Ballet, excellent but not artistically distinct, regional ensembles." We so often think of the Royal Danish Ballet (RDB) as being one of the Big 7 - ABT, Bolshoi, Mariinsky, Paris Opera Ballet, New York City Ballet, Royal Ballet - that we may have failed to notice the RDB moving into another peer group. And: "Choosing technique over content, foreign-trained over Danish-trained dancers, and an international standard repertory over national heritage is not visionary or a sign of particularly inspired outlook." I've often complained on this board about the "international standard repertory" and the herd mentality of the people running these companies. But one thing I will say in Nikolaj Hubbe's defense is that there only so many Bournonville surviving pieces to go around. In the absence of a choreographer trained in Bournonville's method and making new pieces derived from said method, the non-Bournonville repertory has to come from somewhere.

The small number of responses to this thread may be the answer to your original question. In any event, I would break up your original question ('Is Bournonville Still Alive?') into a number of sub-questions: Are the Bournonville steps being maintained in an historically accurate manner? Are the current Bournonville productions faithful to his original intentions? Are the school and the company reinforcing one another in terms of maintaining the Bournonville method and style? (In other words, is the school producing enough dancers schooled in Bournonville's method and is the company producing the Bournonville works regularly enough that the schooling is maintained?)

Reviving this thread to add this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GtcqcoU3ifM

danceviewtimes review of a recent Sokolow Theatre/Dance Ensemble performance: http://www.danceviewtimes.com/2018/06/lest-we-forget.html As usual, no Times review. But hey, they found space to write about City Ballet's graduation ceremony!

After the second night's program, Joyce Director of Programming Aaron Mattocks hosted a discussion with Artistic Director Colin Connor, company member and Rehearsal Director Logan Frances Krueger, and guest artist and reconstructor Kristen Foote. Much of the discussion centered about being a heritage company and the importance of preserving these works. (The discussion also referenced a recent op-ed Foote wrote for Dance Magazine: https://www.dancemagazine.com/jose-limon-2566803172.html ) Connor spoke at length about the importance of maintaining the structure and spirit of the works while refreshing them in terms of various changes to lighting, costumes, etc. So, the company revamped the lighting for Missa Brevis and miked the stage for The Unsung so that the footfalls now resound throughout the theater. The most tantalizing tidbit came from Connor when he mentioned a potential revamp of The Traitor. Inspired by the McCarthy hearings of the 1950s but recast by Limon in allegorical terms as the Jesus and Judas story, the current production is like an El Greco painting from the 16th century sprung to life. Connor hinted that the new production will take place in the 1950s on the docks of New York. Like I said -- tantalizing! There were questions from the audience and the one I remember dealt with the making of The Unsung. Connor discussed how Limon, under the auspices of the US Department of the Interior, went to visit various Native American tribes and became transfixed by their religious rituals, which incorporated dancing, This during a period when Limon's own health was in decline and his wife Pauline would die in 1971. (If I had the opportunity to write a dance book, I would write it about this period in Limon's life, when he took on a herculean workload even though he was dying.) As for the company itself, I thought it was in good enough shape given the turnover in 2015. If I had a quibble it would be that some of the company members aren't getting full value out of Humphrey-Limon 'fall-recovery-suspension'. Some of the falls could be deeper and the recoveries could be more powerful. But, these are things that should come with time.

New season announced: https://www.gramilano.com/2018/05/la-scala-ballet-season-2018-2019-announced/ I would be most interested in seeing the Yvette Chauvire version of Giselle and Roberto Bolle in Cranko's Onegin and Bejart's Bolero.

In honor of Vic Damone, who passed away in February at the age of 89, I spent part of Memorial Day listening to the full Rhino Records soundtrack from Hit the Deck (1955). With Damone's passing this year and Debbie Reynold's passing last year, only Jane Powell and Russ Tamblyn remain of the major players in the movie. While Hit the Deck -- the movie -- isn't A-grade M-G-M, the movie score sure is beautifully sung, particularly by Powell, Damone and Tony Martin. Kudos to Rhino for releasing a full soundtrack (with many previously unreleased tracks) in 2000.

The fourth and final work on the bill was Limon's Missa Brevis, set to Zoltan Kodaly's Missa Brevis in Tempore Belli ("Short Mass in a Time of War"). Inspired by the Limon company's tour of Poland in 1957 and premiered in 1958, Missa was Limon's first attempt at large scale composition. The work has always been a mainstay of the repertory, and I saw it in 2009 and 2011 in a production staged and directed by Carla Maxwell and Sarah Stackhouse. (It was also given during the company's two-week Limon festival in NYC in 2015 as well.) The current production, however, is a new one staged by former company member Kristen Foote (2000-17), who appeared in it as well as a guest artist. (She was assisted by veteran Limon dancer and reconstructor Clay Taliaferro.) Enjoyment of Missa depends in part on how receptive you are to dances set to religiously-themed music. (Arlene Croce, for instance, hated the whole genre and hated Missa.) But if you can get over that particular hurdle, Missa is a glorious work packed with movement invention and functions as a primer on both the Limon style and technique. Even though the current Limon company is a very young one and many of its current members have never danced in Missa before, there was no evident drop in performance level from the performances I saw in 2009 and 2011. Missa Brevis in live performance remains a feast of movement irrespective of how sympathetic the viewer is to the storyline of an outsider (the old Limon role, danced here by Mark Willis) set apart from a community. If I had a quibble with the performance, it was in relation to the music. In 2009 and 2011, the Limon company performed the work with an organist and a live choir, which made for an overwhelming experience. In 2018, the company danced to a tape, which was both too loud and scratchy in parts. The overall effect, while still powerful, did not rise to the same level as the unfettered 2009 and 2011 performances. That being said, the new "contemporary" works by Colin Connor and (especially) Rosie Herrera can't help but look slight and enervated next to the full-blooded Missa. Weirdly, the new works appear more dated than Missa -- even though Missa is celebrating its 60th anniversary this year. Up next: FInal thoughts

The Sokolow company is hanging on as best it can given its insufficient means. Nagrin, though, I fear is lost. 2017 was the 100th year of his birth. Were there any performances of his work to mark the occasion? Even the Limon company, which had performed various works of his while Carla Maxwell was director, performed nothing during its 2017 NYC season. We'll see about McKayle. The Limon company dedicated its recent NYC season to him but that's entirely different from keeping his works in active repertory.

Limon did this under Carla Maxwell and, I have to say, the old dances worked a whole lot better in the context of the repertory than the new commissions did. During Maxwell's directorship, I was able to see works from the modern dance canon by Jiri Kylian, Lar Lubovitch, Donald McKayle and Anna Sokolow. (Maxwell also programmed the solos of Daniel Nagrin.)

For the 2017-18 season, Colin Connor commissioned three short duets from Adam Barruch, Rosie Herrera and Yin Yue. I saw the Herrera duet, Querida Herida, as part of Program A. Opening up the second half of the program and set to pop songs by Los Javaloyas and Jose Feliciano, Querida Herida starts with Brenna Monroe-Cook and Jacqueline Bulnes embracing tightly in a sphere of light. My first thought was that Herrera might try to explore how much dance is possible within a highly limited space. But the dancers quickly part and the action shifts. Wearing long black dresses with red zippers, Monroe-Cook and Bulnes start unzipping the zippers to reveal spangly fabric (beneath Monroe-Cook's dress) and nude underwear (beneath Bulnes' dress). After this mildly diverting interlude, Monroe-Cook and Bulnes exit stage left and two red elastic strips (simulating the red zippers) appear at the back of the stage. Angela Falk appears as "the zipper" and moves back-and-forth as if opening and closing the zipper. (In reality, it's a device to kill time while Monroe-Cook and Bulnes are making a costume change offstage.) Once the "zipper" inanity comes to a merciful close, Monroe Cook and Bulnes return and the dance takes a more serious turn as the two women engage in a power contest of sorts. Bulnes emerges as the victor and, after 10 minutes, the dance concludes. All I can say about this piece is that it should have been killed during its out-of-town tryout. Problem one is that it didn't know what it wanted to be. The three different sections didn't cohere at all. Problem two is that the middle "zipper" section was ridiculous and served no purpose other than to cover for a costume change. The third, final and most serious problem is that Querida Herida just looks ridiculous in the context of the rest of the repertory. Next to the heavy duty Limon pieces, Querida Herida is a trifle (and a poorly constructed trifle at that.) The comparison is all the more unflattering because Limon's dances are models of composition and structure. The one thing of note about Querida Herida is that designer Bradon McDonald did the costumes (as he did for the dances by the other two choreographers.) Before he became a member of the Mark Morris troupe and long before he became a Project Runway contestant, McDonald was a late-90s member of the Limon company. So, nice to see that he still has an association with the company. Too bad his costumes couldn't have been in service to a better dance. Up next: Missa Brevis

There was a brief pause between The Unsung and the next work on the program, Colin Connor's The Body Is a House Without Walls. Billed as a "professional" premiere (which I took to mean that Connor had staged it originally at the college level when he was a professor of dance), The Body Is a House Without Walls is a vehicle for six women in the Limon company. It begins with Brenna Monroe-Cook lying still in a red dress. The other five women (in white) gather around her and one of them (Logan Frances Krueger) cuts off the red dress with a pair of scissors to reveal Monroe-Cook also wearing white. At first, I thought that the dance was heading to the same territory explored by Yoko Ono in Cut Piece. Instead, it evolves into a lyrical work involving the six women "welcoming" Monroe-Cook into some kind of after life. There are numerous duets between the women and there are even female-female lifts. (This represents an evolution in the Limon Company aesthetic which often had male-male duets (i.e. Between Limon and Lucas Hoving) but was much sparser in terms of female-female duets.) Having brought Monroe-Cook into this afterlife, the dance then concludes. The best thing The Body Is a House Without Walls has going for it is its length. It is no longer than 10 minutes and does not betray its theme by overstaying its welcome. (Colin Connor may have remembered Doris Humphrey's admonishment: "All dances are too long.") The other thing it has going for it is that it is steeped in the Limon technique. Connor danced with the company in decades past and so he has a close familiarity with the technique. This helps to create a technical unity between The Body is a House Without Walls and The Unsung even though they are thematically different. The weakness of The Body Is a House Without Walls is that it seems slight coming after the high gear The Unsung. (This is the same problem that Susanne Linke's all-female Extreme Beauty had back in 2004 when it had to follow The Unsung.) Still, Colin Connor fills a need with this piece by showing that the Limon Company has a continuing commitment to programming new work, even though that work appears washed out next to the heroic Limon style. The Body Is a House Without Walls led into an intermission. More to come on the remainder of the program . . .

I attended Program A of the Limon Dance Company's recent week of performances at the Joyce, which consisted of Jose Limon's Missa Brevis and The Unsung as well as Artistic Director Colin Connor's The Body Is a House Without Walls and Rosie Herrera's Querida Herida. Since the two week 70th anniversary celebration in 2015, Colin Connor has replaced Carla Maxwell as AD and the company has seen major turnover in its ranks. Of the current 14 company members, only 4 participated in the 2015 festival. So I was curious to see what this new iteration of the company would look like under Connor's direction. The first piece on Program A was Limon's The Unsung from 1970. This was Limon's tribute to legendary Native American chieftains. One of its most striking aspects is the absence of music. There is a score of sorts, though, provided courtesy of the dancers rhythmic footfalls and audible breathing. Despite its theme, The Unsung has no explicit storyline. Instead, it consists of an opening group section followed by seven linked solos in which the men of the company embody 7 different chieftains. Limon intended The Unsung to be a tribute. But he also wanted to create a showcase for the extraordinary group of male dancers that had gathered around him in the late-60s. It remains true to both of those goals in 2018. The men of Limon, both in the opening group section and in their individual solos, harness a tremendous power which carries the work forward without a moment's flagging. Two things struck me about The Unsung since the last time I saw it. FIrst, there is ample use of non-dance locomotion (i.e. Walking), which shows that Limon was more receptive to late-60s trends in modern dance than he is often given credit for. Second, Limon, who has no reputation for being interested in the "air," makes striking use of it here, especially in the 'Tecumseh' variation with Jesse Obremski. I haven't seen The Unsung since the very first time I saw a Limon Dance Company program in 2004 (!) I thought it was a masterwork then and, seeing the latest iteration of the company perform it last week, I remain convinced that it remains a masterwork. Colin Connor's staging reveals that the Limon men have lost none of the work's power even though many of them were performing it for the first time. More to come . . .

I've followed Florimond Lorieux's Instagram feed since he decamped from the Paris Opera Ballet to the Boston Ballet. My general takeway from his postings has been that he has had some 'up' moments in Boston and some 'down' moments there. Curiously, some of his most enthusiastic postings about life in the US were were in regard to his visits to NYC (i.e. taking class with Willy Burman). That being said, his return to POB may be nothing more than homesickness for Paris and sensing a bit of opportunity within the current ranks of male dancers.

American Repertory Ballet performed Gerald Arpino's Sea Shadows in April: https://www.broadwayworld.com/new-jersey/article/American-Repertory-Ballet-Makes-A-Splash-With-Gerald-Arpinos-SEA-SHADOW-To-Be-Performed-At-McCarter-Theatre-20180413 More companies performing Arpino ballets in 2018: http://www.arpinofoundation.org/news-performances.html

He was wearing a blue shirt when I saw him this morning . . .

I will say that he's much more handsome up close than he is in photos. And he's the most turned-out ballet dancer I've ever seen in my life.

That's me -- citizen paparazzo (minus the camera). Empty handed.

Writing this as I sit on the train to leave Penn Station . . . I've been in New York the past three days to see the Limon company at the Joyce. As I walking back from breakfast this morning around 8:30AM, who should come charging out of his residence right in front of me and depart in a waiting car? David Hallberg. Here's the kicker: One of the building's superintendents was working outside and called out to him, "Flying off to the wild blue yonder again?" Hallberg shot him a wry look before the car sped away. Make of it what you will. You know you love me . . . XOXO . . . Gossip Girl!!!

Carrie Seidman's review in the Sarasota Herald-Tribune contains a photo of the wigs: http://www.heraldtribune.com/news/20180428/dance-review-farewell-to-season---and-two-beloved-dancers The wigs really do look ridiculous. As to the question of, "Can there really be that many dancers of a certain age in search of a vehicle?," the answer would be 'Yes'. That's why (at least in part) John Cranko's Onegin, Kenneth MacMillan's Manon and John Neumeier's La Dame au camelias are so popular with dancers "of a certain age."

In her original review of The Leaves Are Fading (at the time of its premiere), Arlene Croce was favorable towards it but thought that it was too long. Revisiting the piece in the mid-80s, Croce wrote that, "he [Antony Tudor] had misjudged the audience's ability to concentrate on intricacies of partnering and other small differences in so many consecutive or simultaneous pas de deux."

My understanding is that the dancers at the Opera are guaranteed a sabbatical year. Further leave after one year may be at the discretion of the director (as appears to have happened here.)

Florimond Lorieux has announced on his Instagram feed that he's returning to the Paris Opera Ballet after two years as a soloist at Boston Ballet. He can't be too worried about the malaise!