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Amy Reusch

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Everything posted by Amy Reusch

  1. Thank you Ilya, I was truly at a loss at the walking-without-wings point... I was not seated close and was off on the side, which may have interfered with my understanding of what was happening. I guess fluttering the hands would be like an attempt to fly. Also, the lighting probably looked very different from where I sat, certainly Airs was not too dim... but I know from times of watching the same producton (not this one) from several different seats in the house, that light bounces back at the audience very differently depending on the angle one sits from the stage, so won't disagree with those who perhaps sat in better seats. I have a poor memory, but, I remember thinking Gurn was doing a much better job as suitor of Effie, and wondered why James didn't even notice she had entered the room... it didn't seem like he was being drawn away from his preoccupying thoughts of the sylph, but that he was simply unaware, which was weird considering the commotion of her entrance. Also, the mother seemed such a bit part, I didn't understand why she was given such a large distinction in the bows... perhaps the part is made more of in other productions? One other thing I remember being different... the placement of the chair by the fire and the disappearing under the scarf... I remember the lighting singling out James & the fire more in the opening, and almost that the chair was more center.. not necesarily center stage, but not so far to stage right (perhaps this perception was influenced by my obscured view from hosue left?). The way Cornejo tautly stretched the shawl over the chair was very suspicious. I remember it being much more surprising that the sylph wasn't there when the shawl was snatched away... that we fully expected her to be revealed at that moment (and I don't think this was just because I was a child at the time). I notice Effie make something of there being the scarf on the chair under the shawl, but it didn't really make strong theatrical sense. I'm wondering if in the earlier production, one "saw" a body under the folds of the shawl, which when the shawl was snatched away was revealed to be the scarf James had presented Effie earlier? Also, one moment amongst the sylphs struck me as awkward... where the two are dancing with the corps, but perhaps each principal on quarter mark, when it finishes, they come together again, but there's this kind of awkward moment when she sort of scoots back over to him so they both can be center... it was like the choreographer had two images mind and never quite figured out how to make the transition between the two... felt very disjunct and sheepish. A question for anyone who remembers the 1970s ABT setting... were there huge spiderwebs stretched across the stage? There was a nice dark spiderweb hard set in this current production, but I remember something white and silk-ish... (or am I remembering some other production?). My childhood memories were that Madge's world was much more haunting ... Thank you. Jared Matthews and Gemma Bond are certainly names worth remembering.
  2. How different are the various Madges? Is there much room for improvisation? Our Gurn was very danseur noble when he wasn't trying to indicate that James was a flake. I didn't mind a little levity, but perhaps "tragically has lost his mind" is better than "flakey lunatic"? He isn't supposed to be Alain in Fille after all.
  3. I am very jealous. I did so very much want to see Hallberg dance James. Alas for cast changes. But it was nice to see Cornejo. You make a good case for different costumes.
  4. And I very much liked seeing Airs beforehand too... I was worried about there being a modern dance piece, programing wise... It must be very tricky to pick something to put on the bill with La Sylphide. Boston Ballet put Serenade, and I didn't like that (the programming, not the ballet, of course!). I wished Serenade had come on after Sylphide as sort of an encore. But Airs was nice... different enough but lyrical enough to set the mind up for it. I couldn't identify the dancers (not familiar enough to be able to do that), but some were excellent. I felt the men were very effective at sensing the lines, except in some of the partnering... it seemed as if there hadn't been enough rehearsal of the lifts or that they were very different from how they had been trained.. there would be this momentary glitch of effort hoisting the girls up that broke the dynamics... but otherwise the men carried the line up into the air beautifully... made consider how balletic Paul Taylor's choreography was and wonder why some people are against ballet dancers being asked to add modern pieces to their repertoire. One tall blond female just didn't seem to get it though... one could imagine her thinking "what?! What? I'm making the shape! What do you want? God I hate this stuff" without ever getting the sense of how the choreography was drawing lines out through space... It was a fascinating study in how closely one could do attempt the steps and shapes but still not succeed in dancing the choreography. On the other hand, one of the shorter dark haired dancers was so apt in the piece that one would think she came to ABT out of Taylor's company. What pieces have other companies put on the bill with La Sylphide?
  5. I saw the Wednesday evening performance and was thrilled. Osipova's floating quality was perfect... She truly has it down... those back sweeping cabrioles (?) in the first scene seemed as if she were being manipulated by the Foy Brothers... without warning she just swept up & back, no discernible effort... so like floating... And I was so happy with the Bruhn staging after seeing Boston Ballet's a few years ago. This is much more the ballet I remember seeing 40 years ago as a child... the setting was so beautiful. Unlike Macaulay, I liked the light tartans and the even the beautiful empire dresses (followed the "if we can't see a dancer's legs, make the costume gorgeous" rule). How annoying not to have the program handy... Who was the handsome Gurn? (I kind of agreed with Madge, Effie deserved him rather than James). He had very noble stage presence, something I was missing in Cornejo's carriage, though I loved his flights, of course, he just didn't seem like the laird of the keep... and the walking was so preoccupied with whether his feet technically pointed..? picky picky picky I get when the dancers are world class! And Effie was gorgeous and perfectly cast... (Who was this? I'd love to see her in any acting role, Tudor, Sleeping Beauty? R&J?)... so nice to see a dancer who can act. Gurn was a hoot whenever he described James running about the woods like a lunatic... very effective. Karl Barbee as Madge was thoroughly enjoyable too. Say, what was that circle he draws on the floor with his staff in Act one? Very curiously intentional, but I didn't quite follow. Also, was he spooling out spiders at the beginning of the 2nd act? I do miss that wonderful pas de trois in the Paris Opera version, where the Sylph is unseen by Effie, is that in none of the Bournonville descendent versions? The scarf was far closer to what I remembered from my childhood and missed in the Boston production, but still not quite as airy as I remembered... almost, but not quite. I suppose there was some special material back then that Bruhn insisted on? Now, though I adored Osipova, and the ABT staging I did have some gripes with the 2nd Act drama scenes. My companion came away not quite getting why the Sylph died... I don't know where the problem lay but that's kind of the crux of the whole ballet, isn't it? I couldn't tell when the Sylph stole the ring that she had done so, and I was looking for it.... I'm not sure whether this was due to Cornejo's reaction or what... I didn't like the lighting of the ending... perhaps it was my view from one of the side boxes, but it was odd seeing James lying there on the wide flat stage... I think I wanted everything to shrink down to just him & Madge? It was weak instead of the powerful moment it should have been. I think McKensie should fine those two sylphs with the noisy pointe shoes... for what reason would they need hard shoes in this ballet? Totally blows the moment to hear them land clank clank... what is going on there? ( That was my only fault of Gurn as well, that he missed some finesse in the landing of those Bournonville style grand jetes... but I have faith he can learn) Back to the ending... I didn't quite get why Osipova flutters her wrists rather than trembling her fingers as immortality leaves her... is it from the Bolshoi coaching? Is it so that it reads in that huge theater? And the Now Suddenly I'm Blind! scene seemed to lack sense... Surely the ladies of the romantic era were very familiar with the symptoms of fainting... how ones vision starts to swirl with shadows... one didn't get the sense her vision was signaling loss of consciousness to the Sylph but that suddenly Osipova was clumsy with blindness... lose wings=instant blindness... it wasn't a lightheaded dizzy blindness it was a "someone turned the lights off now where am I" blindness. Other picky-picky things about our new legend? (I hope she inspires a whole new trend in ballerinas!!) the little wind up for easy little turns... doesn't seem appropriate for the effortless sylph quality, and it's not like she was launching into triple Petipa fouettes here.. it was incongruous... Oh, and I guess the whole hand consciousness thing... one would want them light and without melodramatic affect but she seemed to use her fingers from that school of ballerinas who appear to have had their knuckles rapped once too many times by a nun... a little too limp & lifeless in the first act... could have just saved this for after the scarf. OK, no more picky-picky... But Osipova! But oh Osipova! One gets a sense of what seeing Nijinsky must have been like! Seemed a great loss that there were any empty seats... I wish everyone could have seen this performance. I could have clapped ovation another 15 minutes, but my hands had gone numb.
  6. Thank you! (and now I know my spouse wasn't inventing new universes).
  7. My husband asked me to find out how much one was expected to tip the person who shows you to your seat.... i've never heard of this, but then I've never been to the ballet outside the US... Is there a tradition of tipping the ushers? (Was there ever?) So looking forward to taking 10-year-old daughter to see POB do La Fille Mal Gardee on Saturday 6/27! Thanks, Amy
  8. Well, there are choreographers who prefer to ignore the music or not be constrained by it.... so I suppose describing a choreographer as musical/not musical isn't always a case of personal affinity... and there are choreographers who prefer not to be too obviously musical. I've found myself disagreeing with friends about musicality itself... with some friends thinking dancers who are precisely on the beat as being musical, where as I find dancers who play with leading/chasing the beat to be more musically sensitive and therefore more "musical"... And then there are choreographers whose work reflects the complex structure of the music while others reflect the force of it; which one then is more musical? The one who choreographs like a composer or the one who choreographs like a groupie? I need to get reading glasses so I can stop accidentally paraphrasing others more eloquent.
  9. Pretty interesting! Thanks for posting. So much turn-out in the feet... And cane still in use. I wonder if any ballet masters today still use a cane...
  10. May be... but it's "private"... not accessible anymore.
  11. A friend passed this on a few weeks ago, from John & Carol Gaston: Subject: 100th anniversary of the Ballets Russes. As most of us know a number of U.S. ballet companies are celebrating Diaghilev's Ballets Russes this year. ...[snipped...] One-hundred years ago this Tuesday, May 19th @ 1:30 p.m. Central Daylight Time (8:30 p.m. Paris time), Diaghilev's Russian Ballet performed for the first time in public @ the Theatre du Chatelet to the social, artistic, and intellectual elite of Paris. From that day forward began the rise of ballet as a twentieth-century art form. Many great ballet figures, too numerous to name, were directly or indirectly affected by Diaghilev and his Ballets Russes. A new book has just been published on the subject, Joy Melville's _Diaghilev and Friends_ (London: Haus Publishing, 2009), available from amazon.com. Ms. Melville is a British journalist, but she pieces together most of the writings about the company published from the early 1930s onward. It is a good overview with few errors in it. I recommend it as a good primer for your students who might be interested in this period. I remember that in the early 1960s at TCU David Preston re-staged Diaghilev's production of Rimsky-Korsakov's opera, "Le Coq d'Or, with the original dancing as conceived by Diaghilev and Mikhail Fokine, the first such staging of the opera since the Ballets Russes danced it. That staging was my introduction to Diaghilev's Ballets Russes. What was yours? So, I suggest at 1:30 p.m., Tuesday, May 19th, each of us pause (perhaps raise a glass as shall I) and think what we owe to Marius Petipa, Lev Ivanov, Serge Diaghilev, Mikhail Fokine, and George Balanchine all because of Diaghilev on that night in Paris a century ago as the curtain rose. Then, perhaps, we should contemplate what our lives would have been like had not Diaghilev resurrected the art of ballet, and the ballet as an art form had never come into our lives. Sincerely, John and Carol Gaston. P.S. Indirectly, we are all heirs of the Ballets Russes, and our lives are the better for it, are they not?
  12. My memory is poor and so are my note taking skills, so please keep in mind I may not be wholly accurate in my account. Please correct any gross errors if you find them. I will not be offended. Thank Heavens Lynn Garafola has had such a long and productive career with so many significant achievements, and that the Wadsworth had that trick step on the way up to the stage, or I would have missed the opening of her wonderful lecture. I would have missed her opening story of James Joyce & Marcel Proust meeting and their discussion of various topics avoiding discussing each other’s work which it turned neither had read…not at some salon’s soiree, but rather during intermission at the Ballets Russes. I’ve come to dread power point lectures, but Garafola’s reminded me that Powerpoint is only a tool and that in the right hands it enriches a lecture. I also enjoyed those moments when a nude was accidentally flashed on screen and quickly removed with the comment “oh, we’re not there yet” or something like… it was like when a ballet composer cunningly deploys the crash of cymbals in time to wake up the dozing audience for an important bit. But there was nothing dull about this lecture. She included some lovely images, Sargent’s portrait of Nijinsky; Picasso’s quick sketch of Diaghilev; and a photo of a luggage caravan of donkeys in Peru with Diaghilev incongruously perched atop the last one wearing his top hat. . She also spoke at length defending Nijinksa and showed a very nice clip of Oakland Ballet peformng Les Biches back in the 1980s, staged with the assistance of Irina Nijinsky (sp?). She said something about Nijinska claiming her Les Noces was the first pure choreography without an accompanying story… but I thought Fokine’s Les Sylphides held that distinction… Garafola also gave background on Les Noces explaining why for the bride and groom, the wedding was a journey into the unknown rather than a joyous celebration…something I’d always sort of wondered about… She pointed out that there was too little interest in the company’s productions of Giselle and Swan Lake for them to stay in the repertoire… surprising when one considers what mainstays of ballet companies they are now. To me, “Swan Lake” is almost synonymous with “Russian Ballet”, even if it wasn’t set in Russia. Alas there was no time for questions, they allowed only one, as the museum had a movie scheduled for immediately after the lecture. I had so many questions, it’s probably just as well Dr. Garafola was spared them. One was about the credit dispute over which Diaghilev left working for the Maryinski. I was wondering if there was something of a problem with giving credit where credit was due, considering the situation with Ivanov and Petipa. Another question was how many “spare” ballets, like Les Noces, existed in the Ballets Russes repertoire. Balanchine made many of such works but I don’t believe any were costumed sparingly when they were produced by Diaghilev. Another was about Massine’s theatrical style… his ballets seem so much more like “ballet theatre” than say Balanchine’s . Was this part of Diaghilev’s influence, or coincidence. I thought it interesting when she noted that one of Massine’s first two ballets, Liturgy, was never staged and wondered what the back story on that was. Lincoln Kirstein was so very influenced by Diaghilev, almost as if he considered Diaghilev a role model… but he did not long seem to pursue the collaborative style of Diaghilev. Perhaps he appreciated Balanchine’s genius enough not to burden him with collaborators from outside the ballet world? I wanted to ask about Nijinksy rejoining the company for the American tours after having been cast out. I have no doubt the American producers demanded his presence, but still wanted to hear more about how that went. And also, how it was that Nijinska was allowed in to work with the company when her brother was not. It seems there are stories not told there. Happily, I overheard one audience member catch Garafola on her way out... asking what made one piece "modern dance" and another "ballet"... I held my breath! (It's a bit like asking someone, in passing, for their definition of "art")... she gave him a considered answer despite her host's rush, and rather than saying "pointe shoes", mentioned that "Les Biches" was the first piece they had done on pointe after a long while... that if the dancers prepared for the performance by taking a classical ballet warm-up class that it was a ballet.... (I'm not sure I heard that a'right... knowing many excellent modern dancers who preferred to warm up for distinctly modern pieces by taking a ballet class)... and something about the difference in point of view... that ballet expresses an institutional point of view, but Modern Dance expresses an individual point of view... I'm not sure I heard that right either, as she wasn't speaking directly to me... I think she said "personal point of view"... but I might have mis-heard. Now I want to read her book, Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes, to learn more of how he managed the troupe. It was interesting that the direction of the troupe changed when it went from being a summer touring expedition to a year round company. I hadn’t realized that London had become such a home to the company, that it had a 3 month long run of Sleeping Beauty there… and it hadn’t occurred to me, though it should have, that after the revolution the desire to mount that ballet would have had something to do with nostalgia for imperial Russia. Having heard stories of his fundraising efforts, it hadn’t occurred to me before that of course his funding resources at home disappeared with the revolution. It also now is more meaningful when I think of how strongly Sleeping Beauty has been associated with the Royal Ballet. She mentioned that the production had been a financial disaster and that the company had lost it’s costumes. She said that, however, the Wadsworth had acquired them. I would have liked to have heard the story of how came about. The exhibit is only up a few more weeks. Until Midsummer’s Night, I believe. I encourage everyone to come. And I apologize, the last time I dashed through so quickly that I didn’t spot the famous Nijinsky faune original and wondered if it were on loan to Boston. It’s not, it’s at the Wadsworth. It’s so much larger in my memory than in real life, but it is there. It is not brightly lit, no doubt to preserve it, but one might not even notice the gold worked into the image, and I feel something magical is lessened with out it. I didn't quite catch the docent's tour, but was a little disturbed to hear her going on about Josephine Baker being the very first black ballerina... I have lots of respect for Josephine Baker's talent and believe she was certainly a star, but "ballerina" is misused there, even loosely; I thought that was a bit of a disservice to Raven Wilkenson, and after some rather odd pronunciations, I continued on to the next gallery to watch the ballet projections. They were showing Andris Liepa's film of Firebird, which was done with the consent of the Fokine Estate.... but I thought I heard at it's NY premiere some dissent that it is not very authentic? Is that true? Or was it minor complaints about the staging? If you go, don’t miss a trip over to the Wadsworth’s regular costume gallery, where in addition to some more costume sketches there are several examples of Ballets Russes inspired evening wear.
  13. And what does it mean to regional companies who've been shuttled to unpopular dates to make room for touring for-profit Broadway shows... What does it signal for places like SPAC? I think a Broadway producer is an odd choice for the NEA, even if he did produce Angels in America... Well, at least he'll have a different idea of how much performing artists should be paid per hour, no?...
  14. Is there a public backstage tour of the Paris Opera? Obviously one wouldn't get to go everywhere those cameras did, but still... is there a tour? I've heard mention of some such thing from time to time, but don't know they still are given.
  15. There are some wonderful Life Magazine photos of leClercq in Metamorphosis http://images.google.com/hosted/life/l?img...sa%3DG%26um%3D1 http://images.google.com/hosted/life/l?q=m...4ad5973b12a0dd0
  16. Thank you!!! That's not quite the average tour! Loved the fish!
  17. I don't understand. The dancers aren't supplied with shoes from the company? Or do they try things on in the store and then tell them what to order? It still seems strange to me. I understand coming in to buy leotards, etc... but shoes? Is it a different system and the dancers are expected to supply their own shoes?
  18. I understand a memorial service is being held tomorrow (March 30th) at Symphony Space. Does anyone know what time? I have 9:00am, but don't know if my calendar invented that or I heard it.... [Ooops... I can't keep my weeks straight any more... it's NEXT Monday].
  19. Glad to know it wasn't just me! Thanks.
  20. I seem to be having trouble with today's links updates... When I click on them, I get sent to a Ballettalk error page instead of the articles.... but if I click on older links on the same thread, those links still work... I notice when I view the link before clicking on it, that the new links seem to send me to Ballettalk instead of outside... Could someone check to see if they have the same trouble? Thanks
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