cubanmiamiboy

I see the whole thing as simple as "You choose a profession, you deal with it". Weight issues were, are and will be an item in ballet, we like it or not, and many times for being too "politically correct" critics reviews are just totally flavorless. I would hate to see my favorite ballerina's-(or singer, or actress or whatever)-feelings hurt, and I'm SURE I would be ballistic would I be the object of the attack, but...that's show business. Old school comedians-(like Letterman)-have at times been forced to apologize in public television about some of their jokes, and I still don't get the WHY of the apology... Actually the freedom to which all this people speak about and criticize public figures-(even the President!)- was one of the things that amused me BIG time when I came to US...and I totally to it.

I agree about the awkwardness of Kirkland in the role. That image of her face looking thru the window at the end-(with that heavy makeup and her face alterations too visible via close-up)-is a little creepy. Her dancing is sublime though...of course. On the other side, I love the divertissements, particularly the shepherd/shepherdess dance to the marzipan's music-(with that lovely little story of the guy scaring the girl disguised as a wolf )-, and the Spanish dance. I also like the Waltz of the flowers. Edited to ask a question: Can someone identify the male dancers from the Waltz of the Flowers ...?

Oops...sorry, Mel. I thought that the OP was asking for the 1892 placement of the female variation, which is why I pointed to the spot after the cavalier's variation. I understand that if Balanchine is the version to be familiar with-(and considering the deleted male variation)-, then it is hard to understand that the celesta music is just the ballerina variation in another classical Pas de deux. Also, considering how abused this music has been thru the times-(commercials, malls, etc...)-then it is even harder to imagine it as just a part of a whole context, like this Pas really is...

He's indeed very charming. When he smiles he lights up the stage..! I was hoping that Almeida would come too to dance in the production...

Thank you Sir...!

Is Belinskaya wearing pointe shoes here...? (As Clara, second girl from left and next to Lydia Rubtsova's Marianna...) http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5a/Nutcracker_-1890.JPG The other known photo. http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_n2Ee9hRROWs/TO9aQdvmhWI/AAAAAAAABno/fJxo_3VLlmQ/s1600/800px-Nutcracker_-Scene_from_Act_I_-Sergei_Legat_as_Nutcracker%252C_Stanislava_Stanislavovna_Belinskaya_as_Clara%252C_%2526_Unidentified_as_a_Gingerbread_Soldier_-1892.JPG

Very lovely indeed...

As Mel said, Balanchine changed the order of the Pas for his version, moving the female variation ahead in the act-(way before the actual Pas), and omitting the male variation, thus just presenting the Adagio and Coda. From the 1892 order... Adagio Prince Coqueluche Variation Sugar Plum Fairy Variation-(with the celesta music) Coda (A separate, better coda here... ) Coda

Mira..I did have a great night. I loved seeing the full house, and the production, if maybe too ambitious for Mamicha's current resources, both economical and human, it was very lovely, particularly the snow scene. I just wish Suarez would take a little liberty and ignore Fedorova's cut of the music during the Grand Adagio... . She used teen girls and boys for the party, and so all the girls were on pointe, but totally credible as girls...(I think this is the right choice...to use young students, but old enough to display technique..). For the first time I was not annoyed by the kids playing mice onstage. They were very cute, because there were a lot of girls, with little tutus, and they were rehearsed to be naughty and annoying around Clara, instead of violent...Clara looked very fed up and wanted to kill them all...! Something I want to note...the Sugar Plum Fairy was danced by Mayara Pineiro, and Prince Coqueluche by charismatic First Soloist Joseph Gatti, from Boston Ballet.About Pineiro, here's some background, from a friend's e-mail I received a while ago... "Here is a video that I think you will enjoy. It is about a girl named Mayara who defected about a year ago when a group of students from the Cuban National Ballet School were performing in Canada. I got the chance to meet her when I was visiting Mamicha last summer. She was actually only 17 when she defected, so technically, she couldn't. She went through a very scary ordeal in the police station in Buffalo, NY, where she almost got sent back to Cuba because she was under age. She then went to live with her aunt and uncle in Orlando, who, in the video appear to be very supportive of her dancing, but actually wanted her to get a job, which didn't allow her time to study ballet anymore. One day, one of Magaly's former boy students (also Cuban, but they didn't know each other before), walked into the store where she was working. It was fate and they started dating, and last summer he brought her to Magaly. She is now living with Mamicha, and just two weeks ago she won the gold medal for her Esmeralda in the Tampa regionals of Youth America Grand Prix." http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z_t5YJVFyqo&feature=related

canbelto, I'm glad I'm not the only one who likes the couples in the Waltz of the Flowers-(Vainonen's tribute to the original "Grand Ballabile" idea...?). The other thing that I find very sweet on his choreography is the Pas de Trois that substitutes the Mazipan's divertissement. About his "revision" of the Sugar Plum Fairy PDD, well...I must say that I always find every attempt to do so as a complete breakage/change of the story line-(from Baryshnikov to Grigorovitch to Vainonen) ...let's leave the kingdom of Sweets as it was conceived...this is the whole idea of the ballet...! But well...I don't have to repeat here again how do I feel about this Pas...it is rooted deep inside...

I know...! . Well, not only am I trading the Russians for the Floridians, but also I just realized that the Hubbard Street Dance troupe from Chicago-(which I had been planning to see)-is also performing tonight...but you know...Ivanov call is more urgent...

Yes!! OMG, Mira...thank God you wrote this! I've been looking at the wrong date in my watch for like 5 days now...(another early Alzheimer moment, I know...). I even brought the clothes and everything to change and go after work...and even told my mother to meet me at the theater... Now I have to call her and tell her. Now, tomorrow I had already planned to attend the Saint Petersburg Classic Russian Ballet , which basically follows Vainonen's staging-(which I like in certain sections...) But...I'll stick with Mamicha/Fedorova instead...

Tonight I officially start my own Nutcrackthon...! My first production is from Florida Classical Ballet, which takes place at the charming Olympia Theater downtown. This is a small troupe just created by Miss Magaly Suarez. Miss Suarez is an experienced ex Cuban National Ballet's teacher and regisseur, and until recently the main head and brain behind the creation and development of the Cuban Classical Ballet of Miami. After departing her own way she founded this company, which is a mixed of students of her own school and guests Principals from different companies. According to the website, Joseph Gatti, from Boston Ballet, will guest tonight. Suarez danced in the Alonso-after-Fedorova production back in the days, and her staging of the Nutcracker honors her recollections. Will report back.

Not her best role, but as the Nutcracker season has officially started, here's Viengsay's offering of the Sugar Plum Fairy. Prince Coqueluche is Yoel Carreno. Enjoy! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8AIcQ3fSeZQ Edited to add: A little note. Just noticed the beautiful bourrees of the last flower to leave the stage on the right-(in pink).

The film's poster was hanging a while ago in the "coming soon" wall of my neighborhood's cinema for like two days. Then it disappeared and it is not currently showing...

It's been popping in my list too...

Clips # 4,5 and 6

Aah..how do I wish I could watch this ballet again...! Lissette: Annette Delgado Colin: Danny Hernandez Alain: Yanier Gomez () Enjoy! Clips # 1,2 and 3

I will break my promise of having done my final bow here-(hasn't Cher done the same for quite few years now with her "Farewell Tour"...? ). As I was writing a PM, I thought that I could share the thought, so here it goes. I think that my experience with Cunningham is just a reflection of what's going on within the arts world in general, and here I will link this to that old discussion on the "death of ballet". I'm a firm believer in the "waves theory"-(if there's one, for which this is something that just popped off of my head as I'm writing). Trends in arts are born, conditioned by a historical framework, novelty and usually by some opposition to a certain pre-established past. We can see how right now the main trend in fashion by designers is to "create"-(or "recreate"?)-a "vintage" feeling in their designs. Hollywood starlets are more and more adopting the look of the actresses of the past, like Veronica Lake, Lyz Taylor, Audrey Hepburn or Grace Kelly in their clothes and hair styles for the red carpet, and the Christian Dior's "New Look" has experienced a total reborn/revamping in Galliano's designs. Nothing is "really new", and the newest thing seems to be about looking at the past instead of trying to create something original. Last week I went to the Art Basel, the biggest art event of the US, which takes place in Miami Beach. I wandered for 4 hours looking at art installations, paintings, sculptures and everything in between. I didn't see that many original stuff among the THOUSANDS of works exposed. I kept looking at the paintings and thinking..."Oh..this looks like suprematism"...or "this is a Basquiat-inspired painting'...and on and on and on... And then ballet...what's the most exciting thing happening to ballet at the moment, IN MY OPINION...? The XIX Century warhorses reconstructions. Here we're REALLY looking at the past and trying to be saved by it, for which we KNOW that this is a secure spot. The warhorses have endured centuries, and I have the feeling that they will keep carrying the bulk of the work. There was a time when Duncan came over and danced barefoot...it was new, it was fresh and it hadn't been done too seriously before. Peope were ecstatic...until many decades later, when there was nothing else that could be drained from it. She came at the right time in the right place, and had the right audience. There's also the fact of getting to be part of a given creation process...of being THERE at the time and witnessed and LIVE its development. Simon's excitement when recounting his experiences tells a lot about this. To me the exposure to such alien body of work resulted in confusion and misunderstanding. It is not part of my past, nor of my culture, which is the totally opposite of Simon's case. The times that I was faced toMalevich "Black Square" and Duchamp's "Fountain" I both laughed and looked with reverence. If I had been part of the public that witnessed the pieces when they were created, I would probably had had heated arguments in their defense. Now I looked at them with just curiosity. There was a time when discarding ballet shoes for a free style type of dancing was the "it" thing...I don't think it is any longer. On Saturday night I kept thinking..."If right now it was 1954 and I was an 18 YO New Yorker, I probably would be sitting on the floor and cheering wildly to this..." But it is 2010..and I just wish I could have the opportunity to watch Vikharev's Beauty reconstruction. Finally, I would like to quote a phrase that Mme. Alonso likes to repeat. She always says that "great dance masterpieces never die...they only sleep. It just takes someone with the passion and the means to awaken them..." If this is the case with the body of work of Cunningham, then it is just a matter of waiting for another wave, when people will look at the past and rediscover this dormant pieces, and then revive them and present them back to where they belong...the stage.

...only if yo're willing to listen to a 40 minutes Power Point presentation on "Giselle" that I did a while ago for a college class...

Thanks to the Irine Fokine's preserved Nutcracker, the memories of its choreography being passed to her-(and to Alicia Alonso)- by Mme.Fedorova are still alive and reproduced. Thanks to Fedorova-(who danced in the original production)-, as one of two links, we Cubans have the SPF PDD just as it was staged by her for the Denham's company in 1940 and later on taught to her young student Alicia Alonso. The other link used by Alonso to create her version was that of Markova, who taught her the Pas as she had danced it in its very first incarnation outside Russia in 1934 at the Vic-Wells via Sergueev's staging. Both versions were identical. RIP, Irine Fokine.

Thanks for that link, kfw...I just realized about your post... In any case, here's a fragment of the article... MIAMIOn the opening night of the latest Merce Cunningham Dance Company performance which runs through tomorrow at Miamis Adrienne Arsht Center the doors to the theater opened and everyone gasped. There was a problem. Our tickets featured seat assignments, but a kind of foreign body had taken over the auditoriums rows of chairs. This sculptural impediment was the work of Brooklyn-based, Florida-born artist Daniel Arsham, who began collaborating with Cunningham on sets in 2007 when he was 24 and the late choreographer was 84. For this performance, Arsham had installed a mountain of white platonic solids, a mound of convex shapes that towered above the people filtering into the hall. Peering up into the balconies, one could spot individual polygonal forms peeking out from shadowy seats, as if creeping toward the mass in the center of the room. Standing room only, one of the ushers said ominously as we filed onto the stage, bare except for a series of carpeted runways on which we were not allowed to step. These pathways connected three rectangular performance areas marked off with tape, one slightly submerged, one at ground level, and one slightly elevated. Everyone began wandering around, vying for a good spot, whatever that might mean in this alien setting where cubes stole your seats and front and back were seemingly reversed. Audience members began hassling the already anxious, surly ushers (who continuously had to drag people away from what would become the path of the dancers) trying to pry out of them the location from which the performers would emerge. Such queries were silenced as the musicians of Sonic Combine a trio that worked with Cunningham collaborator Robert Rauschenberg from the peripheries of the stage, armed with some very strange-looking instruments, began to play atonal music. A sound technician blasted these disorienting sounds from speakers hidden all throughout the stage and its wings our stomping ground for the duration of the performance around which we had been invited to continuously stroll during the 30-minute show. Well said, bart...

Great post, Simon . At the very end of the story, I understand that my inability to get most modern works comes from my narrow exposure to them. I also believe that the ultimate goal of a dancing company is, more than fulfilling the artistic needs of choreographers, to provide pleasure to a given audience. Obviously, this was greatly achieved during the course of Cunningham's company's life, so don't mind my bitterness. I was just aggravated about the seating situation.

Here're a couple of clips of Frometa-(pre-CNB departure)- and Valdes in a TPDD rehearsal. Enjoy them while there're still up...! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pIX9m1_YqsA&feature=related http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A5NDSpbCNOM&feature=related

...it is just about how this response is formulated. I've read innumerable criticisms on this board about Giselle, Chopiniana, Grand Pas de Quatre and the like, with such open, fearless epithets that would put my OP into shame. They're all valid, for which this is EVERYONE'S PERSONAL TASTE. Then there aare other types of defense...some of which I definitely put aside, as they don't offer too much of a valid reasoning... I will now say what I never said originally. When me and my mother got into the theater, we were told that the auditorium wasn't going to be used, so we had to go up on the stage, where all backdrops had been removed and no seats were in sight. Soon enough we were informed via speakers that "seating is PROHIBITED during the entire performance, and that the audience is encouraged to walk around the performers while the dancing is going on..." I immediately asked to speak to someone in charge, and demanded a seat for my mother. I was told that that would not be possible, for which it would go "against the concept and wish of the AD". I then said that I had read the whole reference page on the website and that nothing of that had been posted. I also said that I had paid already for both of us, and so he had two options...either he would provide me with a chair for my mom, who had a knee replacement, or the theater would had to give me my money back. He disappeared and later on came back with a chair for her which he reluctantly placed in a corner, far from the performers with a totally blocked view by the standing viewers. Some time after the performance started, I was back with her, for which I had already had enough of it and was bored to death. We saw an elderly couple trying to understand this situation, and then leaving giving their incapacity to stand up for 45 minutes. An elderly guy in front of us couldn't keep on and started to go down the floor in all fours, and had to be helped for which he almost fell off, and then they couldn't even get him up. The whole thing was embarrassing, and comments about it were heard all over once the audience was leaving the auditorium. Thank God I had the power and right to speak out and demand some reasoning. I have too many bad memories of being prohibited to seat when I was a teen and certain political figure came over to my town and gave a 4 hours speech to which we all students were forced to attend... So forget about the ear plugs and just make sure that you and your companion are physically able to seat on the floor and also that you wear something comfortable that makes this possible. Now, it is officially done. I take my final bows. Au revoir!.