MCB Program II. Miami, Fort Lauderdale, West Palm Beach.

[cubanmiamiboy]

Just got the e-mail:

MCB Program II. January 8 - 10

Sanford and Dolores Ziff Ballet Opera House,Arsht Center for the Performing Arts, Miami.

Program II features:

Divertimento No. 15 (Choreographer: Balanchine/Composer: Mozart)

No Balanchine ballet can be explained completely by its score, and Divertimento No. 15, in keeping, contains a touch of mystery: the five principal women are partnered by only three men. This turns Divertimento No. 15 into a subtle study in asymmetry.

Valse Fantaisie (1953) (Choreographer: Balanchine/Composer: Glinka)

One man and three women is an odd arrangement for a ballet, but Balanchine's brilliance led him to place the man among three equally compelling women, rather than opposite one or torn between two.

"The Golden Section" (Choreographer: Tharp/Composer: Byrne)

Seen for the first time on MCB's main stage, this Twyla Tharp classic is pure energy as 13 dancers in gold costumes sail and soar through the air of the stage's golden, glowing light.

Slaughter on Tenth Avenue (Choreographer: Balanchine/Composer: Rodgers)

Taken from a hit Broadway musical, this is a story of gangsters, strippers and an attempted murder plot revealed just in time. Fast-paced, with tap dancing and talking parts, this is wildly entertaining dance.

Will report back...

[Jack Reed]

It's another good program, and I intend to see it in Ft. Lauderdale, but the blurbs aren't so good, IMHO: "No Balanchine ballet can be explained completely" would be more like it; there's the mystery of the matter. Though the structural description is well worth providing, I don't find any mystery in the choreographer's efficient and resourceful numerology (having his three men alternately partner his five women in a series of as many little pas de deux in the "Andante").

Having just seen MCB show it here in October, I suspect the 1953 Valse Fantaisie is a more brilliant ballet than the 1967 one (made to be part of a short suite) because Balanchine chose a cast entirely of principal dancers, Diana Adams, Melissa Hayden, and Tanaquil LeClerq, no less, and Nicholas Magallanes, to make it with, while the later one has only two principals, and a little corps of four girls. (Not that a lesser dance doesn't respond to fine dancers; I can still see some of the lighter-than-air rendition Judith Fugate and Daniel Duell gave of it one evening in around 1980!)

Emilienne wrote about this here (Post #15):

http://ballettalk.invisionzone.com/index.p...st&p=257737

Slaughter on Tenth Avenue is as much a story of dancers' rivalry -- in this case even the old (false) rivalry between ballet and tap -- as it is of gangsters, but that's nothing. WHO WAS IT WHO GAVE AWAY THE ENDING? Yikes! Talk about spoiling people's fun! Yeah, it can be wildly entertaining, depending some on casting, including the "Gangster" role; just try to forget what you just read about how it ends, and it'll be even more so.

[Jack Reed]

I'd just like to alert anyone looking here for comments on this program also to check this thread in another forum, where we are (so far!) concentrating on the ballets themselves, rather than on these current performances:

http://ballettalk.invisionzone.com/index.php?showtopic=31030

[carbro]

Thanks for pointing out the duplication, Jack.

To prevent confusion, I'll invite comments on the thread you linked and close this one.