Jump to content
This Site Uses Cookies. If You Want to Disable Cookies, Please See Your Browser Documentation. ×

Swan Lake 02/20


Recommended Posts

1 hour ago, nanushka said:

Well, science is not based on single anecdotal cases. There's simply no way one could diagnose Peck's condition with any degree of certainty based on the currently public information alone.

Yes. I hurt a disc in my lower back (I'm a dancer) and a surgeon told me 25 years ago that I'd be back for surgery. Not yet.

Link to comment

I had a similar injury at her age and saw a wonderful PT who said that the results were even among those who had surgery and those who had meds and good PT. I followed the latter route. It's now over 30 years later. I still have full range of motion in my neck. My sister, who chose surgery at the same age for the same problem (inherited), had to get a second surgery because the first one failed, and has been living with severe pain, loss of range of motion, pain meds (I'm not on any), and gets  injections of various kinds every few weeks. She lives from injection to injection. All this is to say that you never know which is the best route, and as a dancer, I'd go the conservative, non-surgical route first. It seems more and more, curiously since the 2008 economic crash, that the AMA is stating that the same results can be had with non-surgical interventions for many conditions (I specifically remember knee issues and blocked arteries) as with the previously de rigeur surgical recommendations. Certainly, non-surgical is the less expensive option. 

Link to comment

I have treated patients post op after those surgeries. They're grueling...and the recovery part is just long and hard.  Many people are able to live many years avoiding the surgery, but there's a point in which is either surgery or days without not even able to get out of bed.

Her experience addd to the list of those dancers who have dealt with horrible injuries, and still had kept fighting  with all their means to keep doing what they love the most. From the top of my head I remembered the biographies of Villella and his knees, Farrell and her hip and Alonso with her detached retina and blindness. They all were so resilient....

Edited by cubanmiamiboy
Link to comment
9 hours ago, nubka said:

Well, apparently I'm wrong on all counts.  Thanks for setting me straight...

You may have been wrong, you may not have been wrong. It's just impossible to know, without seeing those MRIs, talking to those doctors, getting a lot more details about exactly what Peck has experienced, etc. etc. There's a vast range of possibilities within any one named injury (different bodies, different details, different degrees, all sorts of particularities), making it impossible to say with any certainty what will or won't happen to her, what she should or shouldn't do. It can be useful to hear about other individuals' experiences with similar injuries (and I have my own story of multiple herniated discs I could share), but ultimately they are of limited diagnostic value.

Link to comment

NYCB's official Instagram just posted a photo in the latest story of a rehearsal schedule from today, and "TSCH PAS" with Woodward and Huxley is listed. Could they possibly be inserting Tschaikovsky Pas de Deux into Swan Lake, per the original score? Maybe in place of the Pas de Quatre? Can't imagine why else they would be rehearsing it since it isn't programmed either this season or in spring...

Link to comment
5 hours ago, JuliaJ said:

NYCB's official Instagram just posted a photo in the latest story of a rehearsal schedule from today, and "TSCH PAS" with Woodward and Huxley is listed. Could they possibly be inserting Tschaikovsky Pas de Deux into Swan Lake, per the original score? Maybe in place of the Pas de Quatre? Can't imagine why else they would be rehearsing it since it isn't programmed either this season or in spring...

I have to think they're rehearsing for something else. The story, as I understand it, is that the ballerina for the first performances of Swan Lake, at Bolshoi, didn't like Tchaikovsky's score and was substituting music by other composers. Somehow word got back to Tchaikovsky and he wrote the music we know as Tchaikovsky Pas de Deux to appease her, but she didn't like that either. That score was found in a Moscow library in the early 50s. Balanchine bought the rights and choreographed the PdD.  

That Bolshoi version flopped and Tchaikovsky went to his grave thinking it was the fault of his score. Petipa started over for the version that has come down to us and it was a great success.

Excuse the lack of documentation, but I'm away from home at the moment.  Please correct me if I'm wrong on this.

Link to comment
7 minutes ago, California said:

I have to think they're rehearsing for something else.

At the moment, there are only two ballets listed for the All Balanchine II program in the 2020 Spring seasonDonizetti Variations and Tschaikovsky Piano Concerto No. 2. That's not a full program, so maybe they're looking to add something else to the mix, perhaps something to go with the Haieff, which doesn't appear to have been scheduled for the Spring.

Link to comment
26 minutes ago, Leah said:

The music has still been used in other productions. I don’t see why they wouldn’t use Tshai Pas here in place of the Pas de Quatre. Certainly NYCB isn’t trying to replicate Petipa.

Do you remember a specific company/production that used that music in the full-length Swan Lake? I've seen a lot of Swan Lakes and have never heard that used. But,  I suppose, anything is possible...

 

Link to comment

I can't imagine, going into a 5-performance weekend, that they'd only have one couple rehearsing it today if it were going to be added to the ballet. And it would be a noteworthy enough change to the production that I'd expect some announcement of it (or at the very least a cast listing) to have been made before now. I think it almost certainly must be for something else. But we'll know soon enough.

Link to comment

Intermezzo.

Act I scene I ought to be the ugliest thing I have ever witnessed, Swan Lake wise. What on earth was PM thinking..?!? This is almost an insult to the Imperial past of this work, and I can't imagine anybody, including Balanchine himself, who would had approved of such monstrosity of a production. Choreography wise is just another try out at a Balanchinesque act, which is very similar to what one can see in John Clifford's choreos for his defunct L.A ballet. They definitely try and try, but the result is just that...a pseudo Balanchine try out. To me the whole "garden" scene could had been done sans corps, as a mere group of abstract variations, because that's what it basically looked like.

And I thought the Soviet jesters were annoying!! This hyperactive guy in that horrendous costume and bathing cap was just the tip of the iceberg. And the nerve to sort of simulate the second male variation from T&V..!!😠

More thoughts to come ...I need to recover.

Edited by cubanmiamiboy
Link to comment
1 hour ago, cubanmiamiboy said:

This is almost an insult to the Imperial past of this work, and I can't imagine anybody, including Balanchine himself, who would had approved of such monstrosity of a production.

Almost an insult? No, it's pretty much a full-on repudiation of the work's Imperial roots. It's worse than ugly: it looks like it was done on the cheap. 

Link to comment
14 hours ago, California said:

Do you remember a specific company/production that used that music in the full-length Swan Lake? I've seen a lot of Swan Lakes and have never heard that used. But,  I suppose, anything is possible...

 

 

Deleted

Edited by Rosa
Link to comment
15 hours ago, California said:

Do you remember a specific company/production that used that music in the full-length Swan Lake? I've seen a lot of Swan Lakes and have never heard that used. But,  I suppose, anything is possible...

 

Erik Bruhn's production for National Ballet of Canada used it for the Black Swan pdd.

Link to comment

I feel so sorry for ticket buyers who come to this production expecting a full-on Swan Lake with beautiful sets, gorgeous costumes, and good storytelling. I imagine they are so disappointed and certainly are not likely to return to NYC Ballet for another show of any program.

Link to comment

Oh...and those doors in the drawing room act !-( because I saw no ballroom). Is that how guests get into a place when the court is there....by pushing and slamming wide open the doors ...? I felt sorry for the two footmen that are placed on the wall right where the external doors on each side end up after being pushed several times. They have to wait for the damn doors to hit their face before diligently close them while the dancing is going on. 

And why was the queen seated in a 1980 tv/entertainment/bookshelf module...?

Edited by cubanmiamiboy
Link to comment
3 hours ago, Leah said:

There have to be some discussions going on, not least because it seems like they are trying to phase out Martins altogether. But it’s probably going to be very expensive to do a whole new full length production, and the lack of promotions make me think that money is probably scarce nowadays.

There are other reasons to hold off on promotions. Balance, getting top heavy, sometimes dancers look promising and then they get promoted and level out. Sometimes promotions work, sometimes not so well

Link to comment
1 hour ago, nanushka said:

But how was the dancing last night?

I was quite shocked to the whole lackluster of the production in act I scene I to really appreciate the dancing to its fullest. But I noticed something. What is being told as "speed" sometimes translates better in this production as "rushed"...what is meant to be "streamlined" looks in fact naked and pointless. I'm talking about the garden scene particularly. The pas de trois was there...but it was as if it wasn't.  The costumes didn't give an idea of who they are and why are they there. In some productions they are three villagers, in some others is Benno with two courtesans. Here it was just three dancers trying to dance and jump as fast and high as they could. The whole feeling of the dancing comes out pretty much as what we see in Nureyev or Grigorovitch choreos...fill, fill, fill with steps every bar of music as much as you possibly can.

We had Mearns last night. The whole of her performance was of an overall coldness. I didn't notice any rapport at all with her Siegfried, Gillaume Cote. The Love Duet was anything but lovable. Very technical and all, bit there was no love there. Her Odile was also cold. I don't think I saw her smile at all during the whole ballet. She did single fouettes and after the 26th she started traveling and losing control and she stopped at 28, finishing the rest of the music with chainee turns.

Link to comment
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...