What's your pick tonight in DC, this week in NYC?

[Jack Reed]

A friend of mine, an architect from Vancouver, with some musical sensibility and general culture, lately tells me he's in DC tonight (Monday) and in NYC the rest of the week, through Saturday at least, and wonders if there's anything in ballet he "must" see in either place. ABT is here this week, just his luck, but maybe there's something at the Kennedy Center (where I'm about to check)? Paul Taylor? Merce? I'll check those too, but maybe I'll just send him to the Metropolitan during the week. Thanks in advance for your suggestions.

Edited April 18, 2005 by Jack Reed

[carbro]

Tell your buddy his timing stinks!

NYCB opens next week. The Met is at the Met. City Center is dark.

However, this is New York -- there's always something. Mark Morris will be performing at the Brooklyn Academy of Music -- easily accessible from almost anywhere, including buses provided by BAM to and from central Manhattan locations*. Info here: http://www.markmorrisdancegroup.org/calendar.cfm

At the Joyce, Classical Dance and Music from Cambodia. http://www.joyce.org/cambodia05.html

Edited to add footnote:

*My personal preference is the subway, which gives me practically door-to-block away service. If transportation on the 2, 3, 4 and 5 lines is convenient for your friend, he should know that there is always a small crowd returning to Manhattan afterwards.

Edited April 19, 2005 by carbro

[Jack Reed]

Thanks, carbro, I knew it wouldn't suffice just to check a few web sites of the companies I could think of on my own! I hadn't thought of Mark Morris, and while I don't recognise anything reputedly tops on the program, MM usually looks musically more aware than, say, PM, to me, and the mixed bill might be part of a good beginning for someone a little green to the art of dance anyway.

(I agree about the timing, but that's likely set by his employer, who's probably paying the freight.)

[Helene]

While this might not be the best program for a ballet newcomer who likes contemporary art, according to its website, New York Theater Ballet is performing its Ashton/Tudor/Alston program on April 22-24 at Florence Gould Hall, 55 East 59th Street (bet. Madison and Park Aves). On the other hand, NYTB performs in an intimate venue, not in a barn, and it might be fun to sit close.

Here's the link to the New York Times review from today's "Links":

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/18/arts/dance/18goul.html?

Some Ballet Talkers have reviewed the program on this thread:

http://ballettalk.invisionzone.com/index.p...l=Capriol+Suite

Here's the info from the Brooklyn Academy of Music site re: Mark Morris run:

horeographed by Mark Morris

Somebody’s Coming to See Me Tonight (1995)

Stephen Foster

Rock of Ages (2004) NY Premiere

Franz Schubert

Silhouettes (1999)

Richard Cumming

Rhymes with Silver (1997)

Lou Harrison

Set design by Howard Hodgkin

From Old Seville (2001)

Manuel Requiebros

BAM Howard Gilman Opera House

Apr 19, 21—23 at 7:30pm

If he's interested in music, here's the link to Carnegie Hall for the upcoming weekend:

http://www.carnegiehall.org/jsps/threeDayC...eddate=04212005

[nysusan]

Don't forget the ABT Studio Company gala on Thurs 4/21. It's at the Rose Theatre which is part of the new "Jazz at Lincoln Center" complex in the Time Warner Center. Some of the tickets are really pricey but it looks like there are $50 & $10 seats available as well.

http://www.jazzatlincolncenter.org/prod/se...asp?EventID=590

[Jack Reed]

We thank you all! (Is that BT review of this year's program?) Anybody else?

[Jack Reed]

My friend and I would like to thank you both for your suggestions. (He accepts that his timing was not the best, but it wasn't his own, as I suspected.) Would you like to know what he saw, and how he liked it?

He went to a performance of the Mark Morris Dance Group at BAM, and found it humane and generous in spirit, sometimes humorous, especially Morris's own part in it, though the choreography tended to be "staccato" and lacked the complex patterns of "Balanchine." (I don't know what Balanchine he's seen.) He agreed with my suggestion that patterns may be more visible from a center seat; fearing he'd be too far back in the balcony, he took the right end of the fourth row in the orchestra.

In particular, he thought the first dance, [From Old Seville, for Morris and Lauren Grant], was a good opener and liked its novelty as a "sketch," set in a bar as it is.

He likes to see the sweat and hear the gasping and puffing of performers; to him, this is "reality," in contrast to the transcendant aspects of dance I savor (things a camera can't see, for example). Part of what interests him watching dance is watching "human machines" doing impossible things. (I think he means that dancers seem both human and something else besides.)

He also was "gratified" to see the banter among the dancers in the stage-right wing, and enjoyed seeing Morris watching the performance from there. He grants that partial view means that sometimes you have to imagine there is another couple, say, performing symmetrically to the one you can see, and that a balcony seat would let you see the performance space as an open volume.

His firm has a project in Washington, so he'll be making more visits there, and your advice worked out so well, I think we'll try this again!

[carbro]

Glad your friend got into and out of Brooklyn without a hitch, and especially glad he enjoyed MM.

Tell him to feel free to ask whenever he plans a visit (that is, if you're willing to be the intermediary ). We'll help, if we can.