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New York City Ballet 2022-2023 season

California

By California
in New York City Ballet

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matilda

matilda

Posted
Posted

I hope they keep the Martins Sleeping Beauty in rep, if anything. It's a lot more enjoyable than Ratmansky's (not that that version would ever come to NYCB). 

It's hard to draw a conclusion about the new Peck ballet from that video but for me the ballet seems worth checking out because: 1) Copland music 2) Peck's previous success with Copland music in "Rodeo" 3) use of pointe shoes as opposed to sneakers, as evidenced by Instagram rehearsal pics and 4) it seems to have good casting with Nadon, Huxley, Kikta, Stanley, Miller, and others. 

On another note, there are lots of half-price winter season tickets for subscribers, and a few shows featured as part of the Art Series have $38 tickets for every seat in the theater. 

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cobweb

cobweb

Posted
Posted
23 minutes ago, Rock said:

Isn't that Miriam Miller?

Definitely looks like Miriam Miller to me. I will probably see this piece out of curiosity, but the trailer left me cold. So dull I could barely watch the minute of it! Hopefully, presumably, there's more to it than all this posing. 

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abatt

abatt

Posted
Posted
23 minutes ago, cobweb said:

 So dull I could barely watch the minute of it! Hopefully, presumably, there's more to it than all this posing. 

Exactly.  A teaser should show you the most thrilling one minute of the new work.  Did they go out of their way to show the dullest one minute, or is the entire ballet like this? 

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Drew

Drew

Posted
Posted (edited)

I've only read about the Ratmansky Swan Lake -- and seen some video -- but I'm puzzled by the enthusiasm for bringing it to NYCB -- perhaps those who have seen it can say more. My issue is that I can't picture their dancers and, honestly, don't want to picture them, adapting to an aesthetic based on capturing nineteenth-century norms of ballet dancing and pantomime (at least as Ratmansky interprets those norms and as necessarily adapted in some ways). He may be giving up on enforcing his approach as strictly as he used to--something he said in an interview a few years ago, alluding to the amount of rehearsal time that his approach requires, suggests that he is less insistent on it than he used to be...But still, wasn't the whole premise of that production a return to Petipa/Ivanov as very much nineteenth-century choreographers?

Personally, I have mixed feelings about NYCB dancing a full length Swan Lake, even if I accept that they need box office, and I respected Martins for bringing a major 20th-century artist to design his version and trying to bridge tradition with the company's neo-classical aesthetic. I didn't love Martins' production--I didn't even much like it in some sections--but I still kind of respected what I thought he was trying to do. It made sense to me at THIS company.

I do love and admire Ratmansky's work: I am hugely thrilled and just plain relieved he will continue to have New York as a base of operations, even if my own traveling days have been curtailed. And while I've always been an outlier on Concerto DSCH (even on repeated viewing I find it frantic and the playful competition moments don't speak to me) and while I also have a lot good to say about his work for ABT (which I think people dismiss too quickly), still I remember my pleasure in seeing Russian Seasons for the first time and then...Namouna!!! I was overwhelmed with delight....And he has gone on, as everyone has written, to do more great work with the company. So yay! Even if I'm not voting for his Swan Lake at NYCB. (At a different company, well....that would be different.)

Plus a big yes to this:

10 hours ago, abatt said:

NYCB has been hiring a lot of modern dance choreographers who have limited knowledge and understanding of ballet.   [...]  Even if you don't care for some of Ratmansky's works, at least they will utilize the ballet idiom in a sophisticated manner.   

 

 

Edited by Drew
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vipa

vipa

Posted
Posted
1 hour ago, abatt said:

Exactly.  A teaser should show you the most thrilling one minute of the new work.  Did they go out of their way to show the dullest one minute, or is the entire ballet like this? 

Good grief - I can only imagine this is some marketing person's idea of eye catching, and hope it doesn't really represent the ballet! I plan to go once to check it out.

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BalanchineFan

BalanchineFan

Posted
Posted (edited)
On 1/6/2023 at 6:08 PM, abatt said:

 is the entire ballet like this? 

Well, the new Peck will certainly NOT be performed on concrete outdoors, so no, the entire ballet can’t be like this. 🤔 I’m guessing they’ll also ditch the long overcoats. 

I’m looking forward to seeing it. I’ve been loving Gilbert Bolden (and the rest of the cast, WOW!) for some time and I really enjoy Justin Peck’s vision. I loved what he did with Rodeo, particularly since beforehand I couldn’t understand why anyone would want to revisit that music, and he then blew that idea out of the water (the male ensemble in the opening gets the heart racing, the group adagio section melts you in your seat) . I’m glad he’s working with women on pointe again. I also love Aaron Copeland’s music. I find Peck to be a major talent and I want to see as much of his development as I can. 

I remember reading the reviews when Vienna Waltzes premiered and many  were disappointed in it. [Perhaps it was another ballet] They wanted another of whichever Balanchine ballet was THEIR favorite (particularly in the press) and weren’t really up for what Balanchine happened to be exploring. With certain choreographers I’m along for the whole ride. I may complain at times, but I love, LOVE being there. 

Edited by BalanchineFan
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Buddy

Buddy

Posted
Posted (edited)

I’d like to mention this. From Gia Kourlas at the New York Times.

“At City Ballet, Alexei Ratmansky Can Let His Imagination Run Wild” 

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/06/arts/dance/alexei-ratmansky-city-ballet.html

(thanks to Ian Macmillan at BalletcoForum)

I think that the article can be included here for its informational value. Extended discussion of her opinions might be best at the Writings on Ballet forum.

To summarise, I believe that she feels that he’d have a great amount of artistic freedom and access to dancers who could thrive with this at New York City Ballet. I think that it’s an interesting premise.

I will offer a more general opinion. For me, Alexei Ratmansky has really great ability, probably genius.

I like parts of his works very much. I do like most of such works as Concerto DSCH and Russian Seasons which tend to capsulise and focus his creativity. I think that New York City Ballet is a  place where  this sort of thing could really develop (as Gia Kourlas suggests).

It’s possible that at New York City Ballet he could become a new Balanchine, or something close to it, and what better a place is there ?

Added: This is a quote from the article that I like very much.

"What happens when a dancer goes to the limits for such a choreographer? In a behind-the-scenes video about Ratmansky’s “Concerto DSCH,” the principal Sara Mearns describes a lift in which she is held above her partner with one leg extended to the side. “He said, ‘You need to look up to the sky like it’s the heavens, and then I want you to actually close your eyes,’” she says. “So I do, and it’s amazing and so magical.”

"He didn’t just guide her body, he led her spirit."

 

 

Edited by Buddy
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vipa

vipa

Posted
Posted

In general I would say that NYCB has more of a tradition of encouraging individuality and imagination in their dancers than ABT. At ABT sometimes I feel the coaching of some roles (Odette for example), seems to get very specific, particularly with musical phrasing. 

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Buddy

Buddy

Posted
Posted

Thanks, Vipa. This is an interesting area of discussion that I would like to respond to at another time.

I’ve posted some thoughts elsewhere about Alexei Ratmansky joining the New York City Ballet that I’d like to include here. I think that ithey touch on some rather interesting possibilities, but because they do center around Gia Kourlas’ article and her opinions, rather than her factual accounts, it might best belong at the “Writings on Ballet” topic.

https://balletalert.invisionzone.com/topic/47319-gia-kourlas-—-alexei-ratmansky-joins-nyc-ballet/#comment-444085

 

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BalanchineFan

BalanchineFan

Posted
Posted (edited)

The new teaser for Justin Peck's Copland Dance Episodes. 

 

Spoiler

I've watched it again and again. Looks like a relationship here, a whiff of Scenes from a Marriage. Also Miller and Bolden showing new sides of themselves. I like them together. And her sliding into him on pointe!

 

Edited by BalanchineFan
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BalanchineFan

BalanchineFan

Posted
Posted (edited)
10 hours ago, uptowner said:

https://podcast.nycballet.com/episode-76-new-combinations-copland-dance-episodes

The City Ballet Podcast has an episode out today where Wendy Whelan discusses the experience of working on the new Peck piece. 

Thank you for posting this @uptowner! I don't always keep track of the podcasts. This is a total GEM! I just love Wendy and hearing her, Craig Hall, Craig Baldwin and Chun Wai Chan talk about this project is just fascinating. Like Copland, my mother also studied with Nadia Boulanger in Paris!

"Drain your bladder. It's 80 minutes with no intermission. You're not going to want to miss anything." Good to know.

Edited by BalanchineFan
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Balletwannabe

Balletwannabe

Posted
Posted
10 minutes ago, BalanchineFan said:

Thank you for posting this @uptowner! I don't always keep track of the podcasts. This is a total GEM! I just love Wendy and hearing her, Craig Hall, Craig Baldwin and Chun Wai Chan talk about this project is just fascinating. Like Copland, my mother also studied with Nadia Boulanger in Paris!

"Drain your bladder. It's 80 minutes with no intermission. You're not going to want to miss anything." Good to know.

Ok, so I'll come dehydrated; that's the only way I'm making it for 80mins.  

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BalanchineFan

BalanchineFan

Posted
Posted (edited)
30 minutes ago, abatt said:

There are very few choreographers who could sustain interest continuously for 80 minutes.  This should be interesting. 

According to the podcast the music is Rodeo, Appalachian Spring, Billy the Kid and Fanfare for the Common Man. It's Copland's best known music. Have you listened to the podcast, yet?

A NY theatrical producer once told me that 97 minutes was the longest he would go without an intermission. I was in a show about that length. John Patrick Shanley's play Doubt is even shorter, IIRC, which I appreciated. Brevity is underused.

Edited by BalanchineFan
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Olga

Olga

Posted
Posted
31 minutes ago, abatt said:

There are very few choreographers who could sustain interest continuously for 80 minutes.  This should be interesting. 

I guess Peck’d taking that BS about him being Robbins successor seriously 😂😱 (Goldberg)

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