miliosr

The return to basics in the horror genre continues this weekend (dare I call it a "neo-classical" movement in horror?) with the return of Jason Voorhees in the back-to-basics revamp of Friday the 13th. The original film (released in 1980) was a huge success and spawned ten (!) sequels. With each sequel, however, the franchise strayed further and further away from its origins (later entries included trips to Hell, Manhattan and Outer Space) and became more and more strained. But the new Friday, which is a revamp and not a sequel, goes back to the source material contained in the first four films -- young adults fighting for their lives at Camp Crystal Lake! Full review to follow once I've seen it . . .

This news from my little corner of the world (Madison, Wisconsin): Madison Ballet has cancelled its Evening of Romance performances scheduled for this weekend (Valentine's Day weekend) at the Overture Center's Capitol Theater. The troupe has already cancelled its scheduled Pure Ballet performances in April and the next performances won't occur until next December with The Nutcracker. Madison Ballet executive director Valerie Dixon cited declining corporate giving: "We had exhausted all measures to bring in funding to make this event lucrative. Companies are either tightening their purse strings or not giving at all." Times are tough for the arts here in Madison -- Madison Repertory Theatre has suspended its season and the Overture Center has laid off workers.

A must-miss season for me: 01 Belinda Carlisle (pop singer) 02 David Alan Grier (comedian) 03 Jewel (pop singer/girlfriend of contestant # 7) 04 Shawn Johnson (gymnast) 05 Lil' Kim (rapper) 06 Gilles Marini (actor) 07 Ty Murray (rodeo champion/boyfriend of contestant # 3) 08 Nancy O'Dell (Access Hollywood host) 09 Denise Richards (actress/reality TV star/homewrecker) 10 Steve-O (reality TV star) 11 Lawrence Taylor (NFL great) 12 Chuck Wicks (country singer/Julianne Hough's boyfriend) 13 Steve Wozniak (Apple co-founder) Prediction: Contestants 6, 8 and 13 will likely be the first to go. This looks like it will be a rerun of Kristi Yamaguchi's season. Given her fan base, if Shawn Johnson can put one foot in front of the other, she should have this in the bag.

Dowler talks a little bit about the "masterpiece/moneymaker" aspect but he spends more time discussing two other phenomena: 1) Dowler posits that internationalization (which I take to mean as cheap jet travel, the fall of the Iron Curtain and the rise of the Information Age [i.e. blogs, YouTube, etc.]) -- has created a situation where dancers, choreographers, and companies can go pratically anywhere in the world (and audience members can watch them anywhere even if it's via YouTube.) But he believes this global movement has come at a price -- the regional isolation which produced distinctive repertories and company styles has disappeared and, consequently, the regional differences have blurred into one and a certain "international" style now prevails. Dowler's thesis isn't new. Arlene Croce rang the alarm bells in 1996 (!) in a New Yorker article titled "Our Dancers in the Nineties". Even 13 years ago, she was worried about what was happening to the world's major classical ballet companies. (What I would compare the Dowler/Croce thesis to is the phenomenon Terry Teachout has written about regarding opera singing/classical musical playing at the dawn of the recording industry. Listening to the those early recordings today reveals extreme differences (bordering at times on eccentricity) in singing/playing styles between performers depending on region. But as performers and listeners alike began to listen to recordings en masse, the eccentricities disappeared as everyone began to converge around a new "international" mean.) 2) Dowler also thinks the artistic directors of the world's foremost companies have a hand in it because they are in a competition with each other (my words, not his) to have the biggest, brightest, "most international" repertory. That they are increasingly programming the same works (and, by extension, chasing after the same trends) doesn't seem to have occurred to anybody. (In defense of the company directors, Dowler does point out that local choreographers of talent are thin on the ground and, therefore, company directors don't have much recourse when it comes to finding local talent to reinforce a unique company style via an unique repertory.)

So, here is Dowler's take on what constitutes the international repertory: 19th century ballets (in a multitude of stagings): The Nutcracker, The Sleeping Beauty, Swan Lake Ashton: La Fille mal gardee Balanchine: Agon, Apollo, Ballet Imperial, The Four Temperaments, Jewels, Prodigal Son, Symphony in C, Theme and Variations Bournonville: La Sylphide Cranko (if at all): Onegin Forsythe: in the middle somewhat elevated, The Vertiginous Thrill of Exactitude MacMillan: Manon If you throw in Giselle, Balanchine's Serenade, MacMillan's Romeo and Juliet, Robbins' Dances at a Gathering, Tharp's In the Upper Room and something by Wheeldon, then you pretty much have it.

I finally managed to watch the entire thing on YouTube. I would agree that the documentary is marvelously entertaining for reasons which have nothing to do with Chris Wheeldon's finished ballet, Misericordes. All honors go to the Ballet Boyz for not producing a glorified fan video about Wheeldon. A few more reflections: 1) The best part of the documentary is the scene where the Boyz lay into Chris Wheeldon -- in a humorous way -- for wasting so much time on an ill-advised attempt to make a ballet based on Hamlet. (He subsequently reverts back to semi-abstract territory with Misericordes.) The scene is funny but there is an undercurrent of tension there when Wheeldon rather tartly explains that he can't give the Boys any credit for his dance in the official program. 2) Nicolai Tsiskaridze borders on the ridiculous with his petulant behavior although it is kind of funny to see Chris Wheeldon become progressively more annoyed as Tsiskaridze busts out all his diva mannerisms. No surprise he has a framed portrait of Vivien Leigh as Scarlett O'Hara in his living room! 3) Alexei Ratmansky enthuses about how Misericordes shows off the dancers' personalities better than the standard Bolshoi repertory does. I had the opposite reaction -- the dance looked like the standard, one-size-fits-all Chris Wheedon production superimposed on the dancers. I didn't get any sense of the dancers' personalities or of a lingering trace of Hamlet or of anything, really. The dance showed off the awe-inspiring musculature and flexibility of the Bolshoi dancers well enough but I couldn't help thinking that it was little more than a novelty in the greater history of the Bolshoi. Wherever the way forward for the Bolshoi lies I don't think it will be found in the abstract contortionism of Chris Wheeldon.

Well, if anyone on this board knows Ed Watson, tell him I've got a neurotic character for him to play! My Last Sigh of the Moor ballet would only work in a smaller space so a staging in one of the rooms at the Alhambra would be perfect. It seems like the Corella Ballet has played everywhere else in Spain so maybe they could debut it there. If Angel Corella is looking for new ballets for his company, then he should consider hiring someone to stage Washington Irving's Tales of the Alhambra.

Alastair Macaulay's review of Jose Limon: The Making Of an Artist: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/29/theater/...amp;ref=theater

And the survey says . . . Latin Lovers (1953) w/ Lana Turner, Ricardo Montablan and Louis Calhern. So, this would be at the end of Montablan's tenure w/ M-G-M and just before Turner hit her career peak w/ Peyton Place (for which she received an Academy Award nomination!) and Imitation of Life and her tabloid peak (w/ the Stompanato murder).

I only saw part of the Montablan/Turner film but there's a scene at a polo match. Can that be Madame X?

So, I was reading in the New York Times yesterday that the unemployment rate in Spain had hit 14% (!) This got me to wondering how the Corella ballet is faring w/ fundraising, attendance at performances, etc. Any info from our correspondents on the ground in Spain?

Really? Juicy!

One thing that impresses me about her is how she has managed to stay current in the face of changing tastes and trends. For someone who Newsweek famously proclaimed would disappear at the end of the 1980s, she has managed to adapt her music to different trends in popular music which have come and gone over the last 20 years (house, the Atlanta "sound", Broadway, techno, ABBA, Justin Timberlake) without losing her core "sound". She reminds me somewhat of the Rolling Stones -- they absorbed all kinds of stylistic influences (psychedelia, glam, funk, reggae, disco, New Wave) into their core, blues-based sound during the 60s, 70s and 80s before inspiration flagged and they became more of a touring phenomenon than a recording one.

I can't believe there has been no mention of Ricardo Montablan's death at age 88 -- get with it people! Talk about a long and varied career. Films in Mexico to M-G-M to Broadway to film/television work in the 1960s to two Planet of the Apes movies to his car commercials ("rich, Corinthian leather") to Mr. Rourke on Fantasy Island to Khan on Star Trek: Wrath of Khan to Zach Powers on the Dynasty spinoff The Colbys to the Spy Kids movies -- I get tired just thinking about all that! And his wife was Loretta Young's sister!! I was in a restaurant this week and one of his films was playing on the big screen. It was a film with Lana Turner (chuckle) but I couldn't place the film. Turner looked like she was in her Peyton Place/Imitation of Life phase -- that hard, laquered look we all know and love!!!

In case you didn't read the New York Times today, there was an article ("A Mayor's Lie Throws a City Into Turmoil") in which the reporter quotes Christopher Stowell at the very end. The article discusses the scandal surrounding the new mayor -- whether he did/did not have sex with an underage intern and then induced said intern to lie about the whole thing.

For those of you in the New York area, Making Books Sing will present Jose Limon: The Making Of an Artist, a musical for kids based on Limon's unfinished memoir. The musical will, "recount his family's immigration to the United States from Mexico . . . and his struggle to become a dancer and choreographer." Dates and locations: Lovinger Theatre @ Lehman College, The Bronx 01/23, 01/26-01/27, 01/29-01/30 Symphony Space, Manhattan 01/31-02/03 Goldstein Theatre @ Kingsborough Community College, Brooklyn 02/05-02/06, 02/09-02/13

I'm glad the Academy nominated Heath Ledger for his intense portrayal of The Joker in The Dark Knight. Without him, The Dark Knight would have been a decent superhero movie but not a minor masterpiece of the genre.

Your observation, sandik, is an excellent one. I've seen the Limon company perform this work in 2006, 2007 and 2008. If you were to put any of these performances side-by-side with the performance from the Three Modern Dance Classics DVD, it would be immediately apparent (as you note) that the technical facility of the current male Limon dancers is superior to what Limon and Lucas Hoving were capable of in the 1950s. BUT, as you also correctly note, these technical advances may have come at a price. Watching the Limon company today, there is a certain "lightness" to the dancers. (This is not a surprise given the kind of cross-disciplinary training these dancers received at Limon feeder schools like Juilliard, SUNY-Purchase and the Boston Conservatory.) As the dancers have trended more toward the international mean (lean and light), the sense of weightedness in the suspensions, falls and rebounds which powers the Limon repertory and gives it its Expressive force has lessed ever so slightly. The effect of these competing trends is that the dances look more "fluid" but they are also less Expressive.

You are right about Gomes carbro. The time to revive this work at ABT is NOW since the artistic staff would be able to cast this from strength. Alas, they appear to be besotted with staging every here today/gone tomorrow trend that comes along rather than buckling down and reviving masterworks from their own past.

I'll be the contrarian . . . 1) Hubbe had better watch his back because I can hear the sound of long knives sharpening after reading some of the comments he made. 2) When he cited Balanchine, Petipa and Bournonville as the Holy Trinity my immediate thought was, "Really? Then why do you program little to no Bournonville?" 3) If you wrote down all of his ideas for programming on a sheet of paper but didn't mention the company name, I would think I was reading Peter Boal's 2009-10 programming for Pacific Northwest Ballet. And so, the homogenization of the international ballet repertory continues apace . . .

The phenomenon of which you speak bart -- accomodating a chamber-sized work like The Moor's Pavane to a too large stage by darkening a portion of the stage -- is, unfortunately, not an uncommon one with this work. One of the paradoxes of The Moor's Pavane entering the international ballet repertory is that it is most often seen on opera house-sized stages which are not conducive to seeing the work the way it is meant to be seen -- a large part of the audience is too far away to appreciate the subtleties and the enormity of the stages dwarfs the four members of the pavane. Probably the ideal performance space for a work like this is the Joyce Theater (although City Center would most likely work as well.) I had hoped that ABT would revive The Moor's Pavane for its Fall season at City Center (and the 100th anniversary of Limon's birth) but, alas, it was not to be. (Not a complaint -- their focus rightly should have been toward going all in for Antony Tudor.) Still, I would love to see a Moor's Pavane with Alex Hammoudi as The Moor, Michelle Wiles as The Moor's Wife, Cory Stearns as The Moor's Friend and Gillian Murphy as the Friend's Wife. I would also love to see Jose Manuel Carreno as The Moor. Sigh -- one can wish can't one?

June Christy made 18 records for Capitol Records between 1954 and 1965. They're all interesting to one extent or another but here are my picks: Something Cool (mono) (1954/55) -- Her first full-lengther for Capitol and her masterpiece. The title track, in which Christy brings a Blanche Dubois character to life so vividly, is simply extraordinary. But the entire album is of a very high standard. Duet (1955) -- As the title implies, this is a "duet" between Christy and her mentor, Stan Kenton. Not for the feint of heart as the latent harshness in Christy's voice and Kenton's furious pounding on the piano combine to create what the writer Will Friedwald described as "the scariest vocal record ever made." Gone for the Day (1957) -- As mentioned above, Christy had a certain harshness to her voice. Not here, however, as Christy's loose meditation on pastoral themes sees the harshness disappear and features some of her loveliest singing. Ballads for Night People (1959) -- A full-length "after hours" collection full of standards ("Bewitched", "My Ship") and obscurities -- this is my favorite. Something Cool (stereo) (1960) -- The original mono version of Something Cool had sold so well for Capitol that, in 1960, the record label had Christy re-record it note-for-note in stereo. But, between 1954 and 1960, Christy's voice had changed and had become deeper and huskier. So, while the songs and the song order are the same on the rerecording, the finished results aren't, as Christy was a different singer by 1960.

Mel is correct, Amy. The Moor's Pavane isn't a true pavane. It was Limon's theatricalized version of one.

Are there any admirers of the 50s/60s jazz/pop/cabaret singer June Christy out there?

I look forward to reading your comments, papeetepatrick, about the other two dances contained on the Three Modern Dance Classics DVD. I didn't love (or even much like) The Traitor when I first saw it on the DVD. BUT, I had the opportunity to see this work in Philadelphia in December 2007 (the Limon company reconstructed it after 20 years of being out-of-repertory) and seeing it in performance changed my opinions of it. Strangely enough, what benefits the televised version of The Moor's Pavane -- the claustrophobic setting -- works against the televised version of The Traitor. To make sense of The Traitor, the viewer must see the entire stage picture. Only then will Limon's spatial intentions come into focus and, as a result, the narrative will become more intelligible. Funny thing about the Moorish arches in the DVD version of The Moor's Pavane -- that is the set for The Traitor! The film crew utilized the arches for both pieces!! (The arches are meant to convey Old Jerusalem in The Traitor but -- fortuitously -- they call up images of Moorish Cordoba or Seville in the DVD Pavane.)