dirac Posted November 7, 2021 Share Posted November 7, 2021 A review of New York City Ballet and Bill T. Jones by Jennifer Homans in The New Yorker. Quote As I watched the dancers trade vulnerability for perfection, I wondered if there wasn’t a more crucial fact that the long absence was laying bare. Balanchine, it seems, has become orthodox: classical, beautiful, the radical edges zipped up and smoothed. This is not the dancers’ fault, nor is it something anyone can undo. Balanchine made his dances around the personalities of the dancers he had—“these dancers, this music, here, now,” as he liked to say—and today’s dancers have different personalities and values. When they perform his work, they seem mainly interested in the mechanics of symmetry and physical virtuosity—in a kind of crystalline purity, no fragility or spontaneity in sight. They are living in an imagined and conservative past. But what about their now? Link to comment
dirac Posted November 14, 2021 Author Share Posted November 14, 2021 Senior members of Pacific Northwest Ballet talk about the pleasures and pains of returning to the stage. Quote Unlike artists in other forms, who decide for themselves when to stop working, ballet dancers have a limited number of years before their aging bodies and chronic injuries force them into retirement. In that way, they’re a lot like professional athletes, who can’t usually play past age 40. Rausch will hit that milestone this month, and maintaining the necessary physical conditioning to leap and spin across a stage — seemingly without effort — has become increasingly demanding. “I wake up pretty early every day,” she says, “and take a very, very, very hot shower.” Link to comment
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