YouOverThere

My Kennedy Center mid-term grades: McIntyre Your Flesh Shall Be a Great Poem: C- This one was set to music that was reminiscent of what you'd here in the coffee shop of a bookstore. Not much for the dancers to work with. (Admission: I only saw the second half of this one due to the frustratingly slow line at the box office - only 2 agents working, and inexperienced ones at that - when they had 4 shows starting at the same time. One agent spent at least 10 minutes with a single customer). Wheeldon Bound To: A+ Beautiful and totally full of emotion. Dawson Anima Animus: A- Good overall, but there were a few rough spots, such as when a second man was required to help with some of the lifts but there wasn't much for that dancer to do in the build-up to the lift Liang The Infinite Ocean: A I'll always give Edwaard Liang an 'A'. Marston Snowblind: B I might grade this one better after I see it again. There was some good stuff in it, but I couldn't make sense of the story. Peck Hurry Up, We're Dreaming: C+ Set to apparently his favorite rock songs (none of which did much for me), with no apparent program. Not particularly original. If you find yourself in DC but with only enough money to attend one performance, I recommend Program A.

It's hard to judge since none of us know what was offered and what was asked for. If Brooklyn Mack is as good as a lot of people seem to think, it may have been inevitable that he would outgrow the WB.

I think that many of assumed when they brought Julie Kent in there was a plan and that the board had the expectation of funding to implement the plan. Now it isn't clear that it wasn't a spur of the moment idea to bring in a famous AD and change direction. I do have a concern that despite Julie Kent's claim to the contrary that she's running the WB as ABT South. Even her commissioned choreography has largely had some sort of ABT, or at least New York City, connection. She has even commissioned another work by Ethan Stiefel.

If ticket sales are down substantially, maybe it isn't what the audience wants. It's what I want, but I represent about 0.02 percent of the ticket purchases. My impression during the Webre years was that the WB audience had only a limited overlap with the audiences for ABT, NYCB, etc., so whether they took surveys to find out whether there was a demand for different programming I don't know. That Webre received a year's salary as severance pay is interesting.

The article (as I interpret it) depicts Mack's reasons for leaving as career growth rather than salary. Of course, if it really was about money it wouldn't be surprising if he wouldn't have come out and said that. I could be wrong, but I doubt if the 2 dancers who left for BalletMet are getting paid more. While the free rent surprised me, Julie Kent's salary didn't. Salaries in DC tend to be high (except for mine ). The National Symphony Orchestra is the 6th highest paying orchestra in the US, paying more than the Cleveland and Philadelphia Orchestras despite being well below those orchestras in terms of quality. The NSO concertmaster pulls in $378k. I don't know what the current music director is making, but his predecessor was pulling in $2.7 MILLION despite his lack of conducting fundamentals.

An article in the Oct. 22 Washington Post implies that Mack left primarily because Julie Kent wouldn't give him as much time off to do guest performances as Septime Webre did. Mack apparently also felt that he was pressed into substituting for injured dancers too often.

The Kennedy Center hosted Companhia de Danca Deborah Colker in a presentation of Ms. Colker's most recent production, Dog Without Feathers, which apparently based on a poem by a Brazilian poet about a primitive tribe who is living in an increasingly arid region. I had mixed impressions of this production. Ms. Colker has managed to incorporate primitive tribal dance ideas into her choreography. At the start, I thought "WOW! This is going to be really interesting." But eventually I found it to be too lacking in variety, so I got bored. It didn't help that the musical accompaniment was minimalist in the extreme. And LOUD!!! WAY TOO LOUD!!! Loud as in I felt like I was physically being beaten by sound. So loud that I watched the last 2/3 on the TV screen in the lobby. The dancing was for the most part accompanied by a video displayed on basically the entire rear wall; a video of dancers acting like members of a stone age tribe living in a dry river bed. Given the scale of the video compared to the dancers, the video became the central focus and it was hard to watch the dancing. I didn't pick up what was the underlying message of the program. Were we supposed sympathetic toward some tribe that is trying to endure in incredibly harsh conditions? Were we supposed to be outraged that they have been left to fend for themselves in an impossible environment? Were we supposed to admire their stoic persistence? Were we supposed to ponder that our ancestors of a few thousand years ago might have been just like this tribe? Or was is an objective depiction of a group of people without taking any stance? Maybe if I had paid attention to the occasional recitations of parts of the poem that were shouted into my ear, but they came across as pseudo-profound, perhaps a loss of meaning in the translation from Portuguese to English.

Lots of inexpensive tickets left for the Kennedy Center performances (so far, I only have a ticket for Friday).

I mistakenly identified Alexandros Poppajohn as a member of the studio company when he actually is an apprentice. I saw him again in the Sunday evening finale, and he clearly showed that he should be a full member of a ballet company. But the WB is only carrying 9 men as full members (as opposed to 15 women - 16 if Katherine Barkman is added). This leads to the question of whether the roster was configured due to the slate of woman-dominated ballets (Serenade, Les Sylphides, Sleeping Beauty) on the schedule or whether programming decisions were influenced by the larger number of women.

The WB has revealed the 3 choreographers for Three World Premieres: Dana Genshaft, Ethan Steifel, and Trey McIntyre.

Sarah Kaufman, in her review of TWB Welcomes for the Washington Post, reported that the WB stated that they "were unable to reach an agreement with him". I guess that, unlike the National Symphony Orchestra, the WB doesn't have unlimited financial resources.

My (as usual unsophisticated) impressions after attending both TWB Welcomes programs (the 2nd performance of each): - Stella Abrera is a goddess. - Katherine Barkman and Rolando Sarabia danced the black swan pas de deux like they were experienced partners. Hopefully, Sarabia can manage to stay healthy, because on those few times that I've seen him dance he has been very, very good (IMH, and possibly incorrect, O, clearly the best male in the WB). - Maki Onuki was very good in Serenade, worthy of dancing with Marcelo Gomes. The other 2 prominent women, Brittany Stone and Kateryna Derechyna, were solid, but the lack of depth, with Francesca Dugarte and Venus Villa having left, showed a bit. - EunWon Lee seemed uncharacteristically tentative in the black swan pas de deux, dancing below the level that she has shown in the past, to the point where she alternated on the first 16 fouettes before gaining confidence and going all in on the last 16. - Andile Ndlovu was dynamic (and great fun) in his turn in Tarantella (and he wasn't even originally scheduled to dance it). - There were some puzzling pairings, in particular Stella Abrera and Tamas Krizsa seemed poorly matched in a pas de deux from Seven Sonatas. Eunwon Lee, who is tall for a female dancer, was paired with Connor Walsh, who is not tall for a male dancer. Katherine Barkman, who is a principal dancer, was paired in Tarantella with a member of the studio company (Alexandros Poppajohn, who showed that he was capable of handling the role - I wonder why he hasn't been promoted). - Attendance hasn't been great. I was able to purchase $25 tickets the day of the performance for both shows. The balcony has been mostly empty. - Will we ever see Stella Abrera and Marcelo Gomes paired again?

I was just looking at the casting for the season-opening TWB Welcomes, which is the program (actually, 2 programs) with guest dancers Stella Abrera, Katherine Barkman, Marcelo Gomes, and Connor Walsh. With one exception, the guests are sprinkled in individually with WB dancers, the exception being the Saturday matinee when Abrera and Gomes are paired in the Seven Sonatas pas de deux. I imagine everyone in the DC area already knows this, but traffic getting to the Kennedy Center might be a little more congested than usual during the weekend because the Memorial Bridge will be closed.

Venus Villa is also absent from the roster (appeared to be no. 3 in the pecking order).

The program for this year's Chamber Dance Project production mentioned that both Francesca Dugarte and Jonathan Jordan will be dancing with BalletMet in the upcoming season (Jordan's wife, Sona Kharatian, wasn't involved with the Chamber Dance Project, so I haven't heard what her status will be). This will test the WB's depth; if the WB had (public) ranks, they both would probably at least have been soloists (Jordan might have been a principal). A few years ago, 3 dancers (including a married couple) left the Colorado Ballet for BalletMet. It doesn't seem to have worked out that well, as 2 of them only stayed with BalletMet for a year.

Judging by the ticket prices, I don't think that the Kennedy Center thought that NBC would be as big a draw as it's turned out to be (they might have underestimated the interest in the Cuban arts groups in general, given that several programs scheduled for the smallish Terrace Theater sold out well in advance and probably should have been in the somewhat larger Eisenhower Theater). I think that the WP reviewer's comment about the dancing at times being a bit mechanical is not unjustified (my accomplice would probably disagree). That being said, it seems that she has developed a pattern of looking for things to criticize about ballet performances while looking for things to praise about modern dance performances.

By far the best staging of Don Quixote that I've seen. Also, the best costumes. Grettel Morejon totally nailed the fouettes. If they were having a 3rd performance, I'd watch it again.

I was reminded that this is also the 3rd production of Don Quixote at the Kennedy Center in 5 years.

I would have preferred a schedule of 3 x Don Quixote and 4 x Giselle. With the 2 vs. 5 schedule, there will probably be people who miss out on Don Quixote and lots of empty seats for Giselle. Giselle has about reached saturation level in DC; I got a little bored watching the Washington Ballet's rendition last Friday at the Wolf Trap (admittedly, they seemed a little rusty).

Don Quixote fans need to get tickets NOW if they don't have them already. Both performances are virtually sold out.

The WB is only slightly smaller than the Colorado Ballet, and the Colorado Ballet has put on some quite credible performances of Sleeping Beauty. The small theater might be an issue, however.

The problem with Serenade is that it's been performed so often here. Both the NYCB and Suzanne Farrell have performed it in the last few years.

Do we need to be concerned that finances played a role? It's my understanding that when a company rents choreography they get the use of it for 3-5 years.

This season was the final one for Sharon Wehner (her 21st season). She was the last remaining dancer who had a significant role in the company when I first started watching.

Programming Serenade 2 seasons in a row seems a little unimaginative.