If the shoe fits, should they still wear it?

[Calliope]

There was a discussion over on the links forum, I figured I'd try and transfer it over.

http://www.nypost.com/entertainment/62887.htm

The article on the "genderless, unsexy tutu's" that led NYCB to give an $80,000 budget to make capes and dresses. And though the 4 inch Manolos were donated to the company.... and they only have to wear them for a 5 minute waltz.

Is this excess?

[Mel Johnson]

Unsexy, maybe, but genderless? It would be really interesting to see Jock Soto in a tutu!:eek:

[Juliet]

Oh please, no.

Although, don't I recall hearing of some sort of two-piece black atrocities (maybe not quite bikinis, but close enough...) on the men in a ballet recently? It may have been in Washington, come to think on it.....

[Dale]

Before I go to sleep, the costumes for the Martins ballet are lovely and the opera coats were stunning. The shoes were brilliant and were only worn during the entrance. Considering their short appearance, thank god they were for free. I'm sure someone will add to this before I get the chance Wednesday.

[citibob]

Forget the dancing. Let's sell tickets to a fashion show instead...

[Manhattnik]

If you blinked you missed the shoes. Would that the same could be said about the entire evening, except for the happy surprise of an unannounced visit by Bernadette Peters to sing the final number of Martins' ballet, which made me doubly happy it was finally over.

Aside from the gorgeous dress for Darci Kistler (which made it look as if she actually has a curvy figure), the rest were nice, but not spectacular, except for Yvonne Borree's red-splotched number (what was that around her torso -- surely they weren't wearing corsets on the outside in the thirties?), which was kind of ugly, I thought.

As for the rest, only Wheeldon seemed to have a clue what Rodgers was all about, with his occasionally poignant boy-meets-girl story in Carousel, but he should've bought a few more vowels (at least we now know beyond a shadow of a doubt that a carousel does indeed move in a circle). The kindest thing to say about LaFosse's embarrassment would be a discreet silence (I'll dish the gory details later). The kindest thing to say about Martins' is that, given the elaborate sets, it will probably be the last number on the nights its performed, so once again he will have succeeded in his apparent desire to get audiences out of the State Theater as early as possible. Well, at least this audience.

While it is indeed the season for (forgive me) turkeys, that NYCB could spend so much money and deliver such an oven-busting Butterball is beyond contemptible.

[Manhattnik]

Oh, this is a thread about costumes? I'll go start an NYCB opening-night thread, then.

Tutus are among the sexiest articles of clothing ever devised by humanity. The sexiness in ballet is abstracted and refined many, many removes away from people "doing it," or looking as if they're about to do it, or would like to tear off their clothes (or yours) and do it. In ballet it's presented at a higher plane (thank you, Mr. Balanchine!) than in most art forms (some might say displaced to a fetishistic level, but that's another story), but it's certainly there, and the tutu speaks very eloquently of this artistic calculus.

That a fashion designer, of all people -- someone supposedly well-versed in ways of presenting the human body in our cultural milieu -- can be incapable of performing the simple act of reification necessary to see, indeed be dazzled by, the astounding sexiness of a ballerina in a well-made tutu is just beyond belief.

And, dear dirac, that's what's "dreadful" about an erstwhile designer calling a tutu unsexy. I could look out the window at the sky right now and say that it's fuschia, and would it be "wrong" for me to say it (Remember that Peanuts cartoon where Lucy [or was it Linus?] drove Charlie Brown crazy by colors in the sky which only she could see?) Certainly not reproachable as in shouting "Fire!" in a crowded theater, but wrong in that it wouldn't say much for my powers of observation and ratiocination.

[dirac]

Oh.

[Pamela Moberg]

Manhattnik, brilliant pieces of writing! I am still chuckling...

[Mel Johnson]

However, it does contain my favorite misquote from Mr. Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. relating to "crying 'fire' in a crowded theater." Should there really be a fire in a crowded theater, it might be actionable, or even criminal, not to cry "fire"! The idea of the Great Dissenter was that "FALSELY crying 'fire' in a crowded theater" was not protected free speech. (i.e. there is no fire, but someone panics the audience by calling out that there is!)

[Dale]

Ok, I was trying to think positively last night. I'd agree with Cargill (described in the recent performance section) about the unflatering cut of some of the dresses, although I thought Kowroski's was pretty nice. Maybe it was because I was sitting far away, but the fabric didn't look to cheap to me

On the other hand, the costumes did not look as if they should have cost $80,000. Films have done the jazz era better justice. I suggest the designer go and watch the movie The Cotton Club, some Merchant-Ivory, or at least an Agatha Christie episode of Mystery.

[Mel Johnson]

Ah, but that's the schmatte business for you...;)