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Christopher Wheeldon & 'Morphoses'


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I don't know if anyone else feels this way, but I think Morphoses is positioning itself to remind us of the early days of NYCB at City Center:

The company, which has become a guest Resident Company of New York City Center, will perform to live music each evening, including performances with full orchestra. Leading dancers from major U.S. and European ballet companies will be participating in this debut New York season, including Ashley Bouder, Darcey Bussell, Jonathan Cope, Gonzalo Garcia, Nehemiah Kish, Maria Kowroski, Michael Nunn, Oxana Panchenko, William Trevitt, Wendy Whelan, Anastasia Yatsenko and others.. . . .

The company will be based at both New York City Center and at Sadler’s Wells Theatre in London. Morphoses will be performing at the Vail International Dance Festival in August and at Sadler’s Wells in September.

“I am thrilled that City Center has put its confidence in Morphoses. It just goes to show that this kind of support for a brand new company furthers City Center’s reputation as a organization with the future of dance on its mind,” said Wheeldon.

In the late 40'2 and early 50's, Balanchine frequently used dancers(and choreographers) from other companies. Wheeldon's earlier comments about creative collaborations, his commitment to a contemporary point of view and what we've seen to this point of his dancer-focussed work (to me, at least) are very reminiscent of the beginnings of NYCB.

I am personally very excited about Morphoses. While I love being able to see Balanchine's work at the State Theater, Mr. B's company is becoming more and more a distortion of its former self, and, as we've all talked about, crawling with clicques, stultified by nepotism and weighted down by the mediocre choreography and choices of the "mercurial" Ballet-Master-in-Chief.

I wouldn't be surprised if the combination of those factors, plus the competition from Morphoses (for dancers, ticket dollars and philanthropic dollars) AND the current scandal catalyzes either a positive Renaissance or a downturn at the State Theater. I hope it's the former. You can never have too much great ballet

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The Worldwide Company Debut of Morphoses The Wheeldon Company was last Friday. It was simply splendid! All eight pieces were choreographed by Wheeldon.

It opened with Polyphonia, not my favorite but still beautifully done. Maybe it is the music that does not soothe my soul (Gyorgy Ligeti is the composer, and the music is dissonant to my ear). Thiswas followed by Vicissitude with Maria Kowroski and Tyler angle (music by Schubert), a New Wheeldon "work in progress" with Aesha Ash, Wendy Whelan, Gonzalo Garcia, and Craig Hall; and then Prokofiev Pas de Deux with Helene Bouchet and Thiago Bordin.

My favorites were Dance of the Hours and After the Rain. In Dance of the Hours, the principals were Letizia Biuliani and Gonzalo Garcia, and there were 8 dancers from Colorado Ballet. The music was by Amilcare Ponchielli. Colorado Ballet dancers were Casey Dalton, SHelby Dyer, Crystal Hartford, Makino Hayashi, Chloe McKenna, Asuka Sasaki, Caitlin Valentine, and Alyssa Velasques, and they danced with inspiration and heart.

After the Rain (composer Arvo Part) was my favorite. The dancers were Wendy Whelan and Craig Hall, Teresa Reichlen and Edwaard Liang, and Maria Kowroski and Adrian Danching-Waring. Wendy Whelan was simply lovely. I have read reviews that criticized her movement a bit harshly and have never seen her dance. Perhaps she needed Wheeldon's choreography to express herself best.

It doesn't happen very often to me, but sometimes I get transported to another place during a ballet, and that happened with Wendy and Craig in After the Rain.

There are no permanent members of the company, but the premiere met and exceeded my expectations.

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Thank you so very much, fandango, for such a thorough review. And congratulations to Morphoses on its debut.

. . . a New Wheeldon "work in progress" with Aesha Ash, . . .
:tiphat:
There are no permanent members of the company, but the premiere met and exceeded my expectations.
Oh, but wouldn't it be fine if . . . :tomato:
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The Worldwide Company Debut of Morphoses The Wheeldon Company was last Friday. It was simply splendid! All eight pieces were choreographed by Wheeldon.

According to the Macauley review, the Schubert pas de deux was choreographed by Edwaard Liang. Was there an error in the program, fandango?

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The Schubert was choreographed by Edwaard Liang. He came out during the bows and gave and got kisses!

It was a magical evening. The GR Ford Theater is a beautiful setting, with stars seemingly a planned part of the backdrop.

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Thanks for your review, fandango! I was also interested to read Macaulay's review in the Times yesterday. I hadn't realized the Prokofiev Pas de Deux was choreographed on Hélène Bouchet and Thiago Bordin--both of whom I've seen dance before. It's a shame we won't get to see them dance it at City Center--but I'm really looking forward to the performance now!

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Which, as you can hear in the American Masters biography of Balanchine, from The Master's own lips, as SereNAYD.

Wrong, of course. :)

Soon after I started posting on this board, I asked about Serenahd vs. Serenade. The consensus at that time, as I remember, was that it was Serenahd. But I still don't know why.

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And the object of this epiphany was...?

It just sounds ever so much more elegant and pretentious. So what if my American Heritage Dictionary says the accent is on the second syllable?

lol yes it sounds more elegant and pretentious :clapping:

But both are correct. MOrphoses is in the singular and MorPHOses is in the plural (this is where the accent goes even if the word has a prefix (meta-, epi- etc))

I would have guessed the plural number to be more appropriate.

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Actually, the singular is "morphosis" and the plural "morphoses", but I don't know that I've seen, much less heard the words used since I took a course in developmental physiology more than forty years ago.

Isn't all this a little :clapping: ???? I say, start a new topic on a Greek language board and get back to discussing dance.

Please!!

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