Have you seen that Eddie Izzard special where he talks about how nobody knows the lyrics to the Twelve Days of Christmas? Ten pygmies...farming...

The choreography was done by artistic director of ABT, Kevin McKenzie and as usual with the “after Petipa and Ivanov” tag.  Unfortunately, I had some issues with what seemed to be an incessant need to pummel the audience with perspicuous dance, meaning the art of subtlety was completely lost throughout the entire ballet.  He resorted to having the corps de ballet do the undulating swan arms at every available moment, as if to remind us that they were in fact swans (something we might never have guessed when attending Swan Lake) and the expressivity of the characters seemed to be on par with that philosophy.  I found Corella to be almost luminously bright with that megawatt smile of his (I don’t know that I’ve ever seen someone so happy to receive a crossbow) and I didn’t feel that Murphy was the subtlest of dancers either.  Perhaps it’s the sort of “reach for the balcony” mentality that McKenzie prefers to see in dancers that encourages a Corella con brio or a Murphy a la mode and I suppose this means I prefer more tempered portrayals.  Even the miming McKenzie includes I felt was far too obvious and even excessive, like when Odette initially met Siegfried and told him of her plight with Von Rothbart, the gestures were straightforward and literal, rather than blending with any kind of dance language.  The nature of ballet reveals problems when the story isn’t told through the steps.

One addition I found interesting was the prologue (clearly filmed ahead of time so I’d be curious if ABT includes a similar prologue in live performances), where we see Von Rothbart transform into a man and lure Odette into a hollow tree and transform her into a swan.  While it is yet another statement of the obvious, I enjoyed it because no other production gives any thought to Odette’s origins and for this particular one, we are made to understand that she was a woman before she was a swan, which can change how we view her understanding and desire for love, and in this case her willingness to die for it (which is perhaps more human than animal).  The other bonus with this prologue is that because we see Von Rothbart seduce Odette as a man, he becomes a sexualized character…and with Marcelo Gomes as Von Rothbart in his human form, he becomes a sexy sexualized character indeed.  It was actually weird, after the onslaught of odd but villainous Von Rothbarts I’ve been watching to find one attractive and I kept wondering to myself if that was inappropriate.  However, great art makes us ask ourselves questions and considering how his solo during the ball seduces many of the attendees and that he even flirts with the Queen a bit, we are most definitely allowed to ogle.  It’s quite the virtuosic solo and my favorite moment is when he stands on relevé in fifth, slowly lifting one leg halfway to arabesque, then extending it fully which has a sort of mysterious quality that then bewitches the audience too.  Observe, Sexy Von Rothbart:

Given the scope of Gomes’s acting abilities, I almost feel like there needs to be a Swan Lake where he can perform both Von Rothbart and Siegfried…after all, duality is one of the central themes of every Swan Lake, so why not explore more types, in new imaginations?  Why should Odette/Odile or in ABT’s production, the weird, algae-ridden, fake abs demon-satyr Von Rothbart (a horrific costume) and Sexy Von Rothbart be the only dual roles?  I suppose there could be some logistical issues with trying to stage a Swan Lake where the same dancer has to be both Siegfried and Von Rothbart because they both appear at the same time in the ball and there’s the question of how a Siegfried/Von Rothbart role could be rationalized…but it’s ballet; ideas first, logic later.

Von Rothbart stole the show for me, despite Murphy’s athletic prowess.  Sure, she threw in triple pirouettes into her fouetté series (and in fact, of all seven Swan Lake DVDs I watched, she was the only dancer to do anything more than single fouettés, which is another detail I felt made this performance so American) but given how sinisterly seductive Sexy Von Rothbart was, the perfect prelude to an even more sinisterly seductive Odile may have hindered her because that Odile just never came to fruition.  Still, I would hate for anyone to get the sense that Gillian Murphy is just fouttés because she does have other wonderful qualities and I think she’s very expressive with her feet and has beautiful arms, among other things.  Her partnership with Corella is a bit of an odd one because she is quite tall and he looked as though he were hiding behind her in some of the partnering.  I wasn’t so devastated at the end of the ballet so I can’t say that I felt the chemistry between them, though it’s possible I was distracted by the dramatic leaps of death at the end (which looked fun too), which were of course followed by the image of Siegfried and Odette in the afterlife…and in case you didn’t get that Swan Lake is about duality; black and white, night and day…McKenzie has that image of the happy couple in the middle of a giant rising sun.

So what about all that feminine mystique business I had postulated about initially, wondering why women in particular love this ballet so much?  After much thoughtful deliberation…I have no idea.  All the various productions of Swan Lake are so different, trying to figure this all out would be like trying to survey every person on Earth and figuring out why they liked their favorite flavors (I’m a mint chocolate chip myself).  I would be buried in work for eternity and watching seven Swan Lakes was enough for me as it is.  Or maybe I found this whole experience so exhausting it doesn’t matter to me which Swan Lake anyone likes anymore, as long as they like one (or more) of them.  If you’re interested in discussing that further, you may as well head on over to The Ballet Bag, and enter their contest to win exclusive Black Swan movie posters while you’re at it!  Only a few days remain to enter, so check it out here!

First, a little anecdote.  I was in a bit of a foul mood yesterday…but lock yourself out of your apartment, lose your key and not so happy you will be!  Normally I’m a very careful person and I don’t make mistakes but when I do they tend to be of the catastrophic variety.  You know the saying: “go big or go home” and that’s what I manage to do…except I couldn’t go home because I lost my key in the taxi, which of course dropped me off within feet of my doorstep.  Irony tastes like crap, and I’ve been mentally vomiting on myself since (which will probably continue until I fix this mess).  So of course because I’m one of those people that has to beat myself up I didn’t sleep well and was quite tired after a restless night at a friend’s house.  Not to mention I had to do the whole “walk of shame” wearing the same clothes from the day before as my landlord let my roommate and I in with the spare key.  The whole condition was exacerbated by the fact that I had to leave my contacts in overnight thus irritating my eyes, and also because I didn’t have time for a shower before heading to Capitol Hill for Men in Dance.  I don’t even remember how I got there—all I remember is zombie-walking to the bus stop messy-haired and red demon eyed, then somehow managing to appear in front of the Broadway Performance hall.

The show featured a great variety of dance styles, beginning with a preshow where a group of men danced outside, in the lobby, on the stairs leading to the theatre and eventually on one corner of the stage.  As they explored these spaces, sometimes they danced at you…not for you, at you (I almost tripped over one going up the stairs).  The preshow also included a small tap ensemble, clad in black, white and shades of grey pedestrian clothing, executing complicated footwork with such ease I wanted to believe that I too, could do such a thing…but that’s the mark of great hoofers; they make it look insanely easy.  In this sense, I often feel tap is the most deceiving dance form.

Following the preshow came Cypher, a male pas de trois that consisted of a number of dizzying turns and leaps…perhaps, too many.  Here’s the thing about bravura steps…when you have a lot of pirouettes and leaps it’s one of two things; it’s a variation/coda or the piece is being overpowered by an excess of such movements.  When it comes to a modern ballet, I don’t look for specific turns or jumps but what is the effect of a turn or jump?  Does it emphasize a musical phrase or show visual contrast in levels?  I wasn’t feeling much of a sense of purpose, other than to show off…which is an entirely legitimate choice but I felt that the pirouettes and leaps actually detracted from some of the more interesting choreography.  There were wonderful moments of texture—smooth classical lines as well as smaller staccato movements, set to a compelling score entitled Trilobita, which I assume translates into trilobite (and you know I’m a huge fossil geek).  It’s a fine line any time you put in a coupe jeté followed my multiple pirouettes because it can get competition dance-y very quickly.

Following that was an interesting piece with a group of young men performing a…running(?) dance, with a lot of acrobatic maneuvers and tiny jogging shorts.  It was one of those pieces with no music, which tends to freak me out but what’s interesting is that without music, dancers have to tap into a sort of mass, innate, biological rhythm that we often lose touch with.  I imagine it’s the same “force” that informs a school of fish to change directions at the exact same time or a flock of geese to fly in a V.   Speaking of mysterious forces, then came Wade Madsen’s pas de deux, Breath of Light.  This piece was stunning—an intimate duet for two men that really investigated the connection between two people.  There was of course close contact in the partnering but there were also moments where one dancer would run his hand along the contours of his partner’s body without touching him, making tangible the energy that can be felt radiating from another person.

After that sensual pas de deux, came the most amazing pas de quatre…linked to Jules Perrot’s famous divertissement for the four legendary ballerinas, Carlotta Grisi, Lucille Grahn, Marie Taglioni and Fanny Cerrito.  Using Cesare Pugni’s same score, choreographer Eva Stone made the piece in the image of four modern women with contemporary choreography and set to out to do the same for four men, but decided to keep the women’s choreography and simply had men perform it.  Under the title Me Over You, the new pas de quatre had four men with diva attitudes trying to outshine one another on stage in a myriad of movement styles, from balletic to modern and even gestures of vulgarity (“the finger” if you must know).  The result was a comedic dance that drew raucous laughter from the audience and squees of glee from those who could tell that Stone even quoted a bit of Perrot’s Pas de Quatre.

The first piece after intermission was a nice solo…modern, lyrical, with interesting points of origin and alighting.  The standout of the afternoon however, was an excerpt from artistic director of Whim W’Him, Olivier Wevers’s new work Monster, which debuted at the festival (Whim W’him will perform the full version of Monster in January).  Monster embodied the anguish felt by homosexuals over the disenfranchisement that comes from being a part of a marginalized population.  The performance was dedicated to the teens that committed suicide because of bullying based on their sexual orientation (although the piece was obviously created and rehearsed before—that kind of dance doesn’t happen overnight…usually).  I’m so pleased to see that such a topic is so forthrightly observed in Seattle’s dance community.  I think this subject matter is often avoided because some people in the dance community feel that evasion of it is the best way to combat so called “negative” stereotypes about male dancers while others are so beyond acceptance that it’s completely a non-issue.  There’s not as much open dialogue about the “middle” and I think that’s whom this dance is for.  Not everyone can grow up in a liberal city like Seattle or New York and those who don’t tend to suffer the most.  I certainly had my share (if not the brunt) of it growing up so I could relate to the piece a lot.  For example, normally in a promenade in ballet, the danseuse is in a position like an attitude or arabesque—something expansive that really fills a space but Monster had these low promenades in a tucked, almost fetal position, trying to make the body look as small as possible as if shrinking away from society.  The truth is, sometimes diminishing (and inadvertently belittling) oneself was the only way to avoid being hurt by others.  At other times there were these huge, sprawled out extensions that expressed the impossibility of trying to contain one’s own spirit.  Both dancers (PNB company members) were sublime, and I really enjoyed watching Lucien Postlewaite in this performance.  I remember seeing him in Balanchine’s Square Dance earlier this year and Monster is such a departure from that it’s great to see such versatility in a performer.  Random note, I’d like to ask him what it feels like to have super strong, obedient legs…does it feel as awesome as it looks?

At any rate, I think it’s noteworthy that Wevers and Postlewaite are actually married, and because this is Seattle it’s not gossip but casual information.  It’s interesting because the sexuality of dancers is as I said, often not discussed because most people in the dance community don’t care one way or another.  Unfortunately it’s jerks outside of the dance community that exploit stereotypes and make fun of dancers, both professional and aspiring.  For that reason, I think some dancers also avoid discussing it for fear that public interest in their personal lives will supersede their professional ones…it’s all very “Anderson Cooper” if you will, who is believed/known to be gay and is sometimes harshly viewed by the gay community for not publically discussing his personal life.  The resentment is perhaps understandable—people want role models but at the same time nobody should be required to discuss something so personal and in that sense I think people who take that route represent an ideal, of the way society should be.  On the other hand, society isn’t there yet and we do need role models and for that we can look to Marcelo Gomes who did publically “come out” and it hasn’t affected his career at all—in fact, he’s often crowned “the most in demand partner in the world.”  So young friends who are gay and struggling with confidence, look to the likes of these gentlemen and know that your success is possible, regardless of stupid people around you.

The penultimate piece was a solo by former New York City Ballet principal, who apparently came out of retirement (though the end of the piece seemed like a farewell to the stage) to dance an Agon-esque solo choreographed by Donald Byrd.  There was something oddly Agon-y about the solo, and perhaps because Boal has danced Agon what, eighty-five million times?  I likened it to a “West Coast Agon” though, Seattle-fied with jeans and a t-shirt (a comment from the peanut gallery noted that the only thing missing was the Birkenstocks).  Then came the final dance of the evening; sharp, modern, percussive and with a clear beginning, middle and end.  Lots of changes of direction, reversals and athletic lifts that made for a high-energy conclusion of the afternoon.

So what started out as a crappy day (for me) improved vastly by concert’s end.  The festival goes for two weeks and will showcase a different set of works for this upcoming weekend and if this past weekend was any indication, attendance is highly recommended.  Let me just say the audience simply enjoyed watching men dance…because men don’t dance enough (obviously the world would be a better place if they did).  If you are a man (or boy!) in dance and people give you a hard time for it, know that you are or will be loved, so hang in there.  If ignoramuses give you a really hard time…well that calls for a swift kick to the shins.  What do you think the REAL purpose of frappes at barre is?

Cinema, Aspirins and Vultures
Two intrepid travellers sell aspirin in rural Brazil in the 1940s.
12 Aug 18:30
15 Aug 20:40

Cinema, Aspirins and Vultures
The 1940s. Johann, a German escaping the World War, is selling aspirin in rural Brazil – and showing movies on a portable projector to attract the punters. On his travels he encounters a local, Ranulpho, and offers him a job as his assistant. Together they bicker, laugh, share stories and slowly disclose information about their lives. Gomes’ assured road movie is a handsomely shot study of an unlikely friendship in compromised times.
Director Marcelo Gomes
Cast Peter Ketnath, João Miguel
Country Brazil
Year 2005
Running time 99min

Waste Land. 2010. Great Britain/Brazil. Directed by Lucy Walker

A collaboration between The Museum of Modern Art and the Rio de Janeiro International Film Festival, the annual Premiere Brazil! festival introduces New York audiences to original and accomplished recent work by both new and established Brazilian filmmakers.

This year’s edition opens with the New York premiere of an acclaimed documentary about contemporary artist Vik Muniz’s collaboration on a recycling project with the inhabitants of the world’s largest garbage dump—a powerful ode to the transformative powers of art. A number of evocative works (Lands; Reidy, Building Utopia; I Travel because I Have To, I Come Back because I Love You) deal with the collision between modern lifestyles, urban expansion, and the destructive power and delicate balance of the vast Brazilian landscape. This year’s classics selection, dedicated to the continued preservation and celebration of the legacy of the influential Cinema Novo movement, features newly restored prints of two of Carlos Diegues’s seminal films from the 1970s.

Several recent features introduce the strong authorial voices of first-time directors (Esmir Filho, Maya Da-Rin) or build on the promise of filmmakers with a few films under their belt (Anna Muylaert, Marcelo Gomes and Karim Aïnouz, Raphael Alvarez and Tatiana Issa).

All films are from Brazil and in Portuguese with English subtitles. All are New York premieres, and first screenings will be introduced by the filmmakers.

Inte för att (svensk)klaga… men djäkligt varmt var det idag.

Jobbpicnic utan solglasögon med gassande sol är ett sätt att bygga på kisrynkorna.

• She may be short, but she has a lot of angst.  She likes pretty, romantic ballets but if not that then they have to be pretty…raging
• She’s one of those “danced since I was three” jazz babies.  Showing off big flashy jumps and fouettés go in the plus column, as do Fred & Ginger
• This is educated conjecture, but she probably has no appreciation for classical music.  This isn’t to say she hates it, only that she’ll like what sounds pleasing to her ear, without deeper understanding of the finer details.
• She has questionable taste in men (mostly because she dates people I disapprove of)
• She’s Italian and her mom makes good sauce
• She likes the Pittsburgh Steelers, Andy Roddick and Sex and the City (she thinks she’s Carrie Bradshaw if that means anything to you)
• Her phone number is…

So those are some things about Nacho and after looking at NYCB calendar (link) I’ve convinced her that attending NYCB’s program on June 25^th with After the Rain, The Lady with the Little Dog and Who Cares? would be an ideal choice (she will be in New York June 18^th to August 18^th).  There’s a short preview of After the Rain on YouTube I sent her and she likes the tragicalyricalness and I also sent her a clip of Who Cares? which she loved.  I have no idea about Little Dog, but I figured two out of three is more than sufficient for a happy evening.  Glancing at the other programs, the chances of her liking Prodigal Son are slim to none but I do think she would enjoy Western Symphony.  June 26^th has a program with La Source, a new Martins ballet and Western Symphony but I don’t know what Peter Martins choreography is like and I’ve only heard of La Source in passing…so what say you, fellow balletomanes?  Then there’s the added allure of farewell performances including that of Darci Kistler, the last ballerina to be selected by Balanchine himself…do you miss the opportunity to witness something so epically historical?  I’m almost completely unfamiliar with the Kistler farewell program (minus Swan Lake of course) so suggestions para Nacho por favor!

She could watch Kistler in an excerpt from Swan Lake, but it turns out ABT (calendar link) will be doing Swan Lake the previous week as well so I say go all out and see the whole shebang.  But the casting!  Decisions, decisions…I’m thinking she should cat fight with the rest of the audience in attendance for the June 21^st show with Roberto Bolle so she can fall madly in love with him (she does like them tall…and he’s Italian too) in addition to seeing the beautiful Veronika Part, but there are so many great casting options like Julie Kent/Marcelo Gomes or Jose Carreño/Gillian Murphy.  Now I don’t know if she’ll make it in time for Sleeping Beauty, but good heavens!  It’s the battle of the guest stars…do you opt for the saccharine innocence of Alina Cojocaru or the flight of the Osipova?  Then ABT does a week of mixed bills and I’m more obsessive about watching ballet than Nacho is but even I’m finding the selection overwhelming.  If it were me, I’d go with the All Ashton program on June 30^th to sort of round out the experience and diversify the choreographers, but it’s Nacho and not me, so I would only strongly suggest/force that idea upon her if I had a legion of people who agreed with me (also keeping in mind she’s never seen a MacMillan and the Manon pas de deux is just…to DIE for).  ABT then does a week of Romeo and Juliet in early July before heading off to Los Angeles, and you know I’m a grouch when it comes to Romeo and Juliet so I’m in no position to be suggesting which casting I think would be lovely to see.

So friends, I beseech thee to diagnose Nacho and help her get the most out of her summer in New York!  Here’s a short interview I did with her which might help figure out which ballets/casts she should see:

YDF:  Do you like Roberto Bolle?

Nacho:  Sure.

YDF:  Liar.  Do you wear clothes from the Gap?

Nacho:  Roberto Bolle is fine…don’t really have an opinion of him and no I do not.

YDF:  Not the answer I was looking for.

Nacho:  Sorry friend.

YDF:  Do you even know who he is?

Nacho:  Yes, I YouTube’d him.

YDF:  Just now?

Nacho:  Yes…I’m not a little ballet freak remember? (oh NO she didn’t!)

YDF:  Did you know he’s Italian?

Nacho:  I kinda got that

YDF:  You’re Italian.

Nacho:  Indeed I am.  What was the answer you were looking for?

YDF:  The answer should have been yes, so I could tell you that he was a model for a Gap ad, and then you’d have something in common…but you ruined it.

Nacho: Sorry Charlie

YDF:  How do you like your male dancers?

Nacho:  Good?

YDF:  Fascinating.  Now describe your ideal ballerina.

Nacho:  Traditional yet not stiff?  I don’t know.  These are hard!

YDF:  Okay so final question (and this SHOULD be easy) what do you love about dance?

Nacho:  The expression through movement…the story that can be told without any word use.  The different interpretations of pieces, the emotion, the passion…I don’t know.

YDF:  Okay I lied, the REAL final question is, what are some characteristics of dances you like or dislike?

Nacho:  You know I don’t like too modern/abstract pieces… but I do like originality… generic pieces make me wanna scream.

And there you have it.  I’ll be sure to update on her progress as the summer progresses!

Marcelo Gomes and Ashley Bouder in Avi Scher’s Utopia, photo by Matthew Murphy

On Saturday evening, Avi Scher & Dancers made its New York debut at the intimate Alvin Ailey Citigroup Theater.  Formed in 2008, the company performed six works by choreographer and founder Avichai Scher – a remarkable number for such a young group.  Even more unusual was the star-studded lineup of dancers, including American Ballet Theatre’s Marcelo Gomes and Veronika Part, and New York City Ballet’s Ashley Bouder (a last-minute substitute for Sara Mearns), Savannah Lowery, Abi Stafford, Ralph Ippolito, and Christian Tworzyanski.  Although the program lacked an authoritative choreographic voice – the pieces covered a wide range of moods and styles without being unified in any way – watching these dancers up close was a rare treat.  Scher is lucky to work with such talented performers, and he shows great potential as a choreographer.

No Matter What explored community and alienation to the delicate sounds of Aphex Twin and Adam Lewis.  The seven melancholy dancers moved through formal formations that were dotted with intricate footwork and gestural language.  Similar movement was evident in Touch, which included a duet for Veronika Part and Arron Scott followed by an unrelated but absorbing trio for Ralph Ippolito, Savannah Lowery, and Eric Tamm.

Ralph Ippolito, Savannah Lowery, and Eric Tamm in Touch, photo by Matthew Murphy

Little Stories, a series of three duets set to music by pop singer Jason Mraz, never reached beyond cute or cliché.  The first playful duet lead to one with more romantic potential, and the third duet – danced powerfully by Savannah Lowery and Christian Tworzyanski – was outrageously aggressive and angsty as the dancers ripped off their shirts.  Unfortunately, Scher relied too heavily on Mraz’s cloyingly sentimental songs to tell the story.  Mystery in the Wind was similarly cliché-heavy with music from the soundtrack of Chocolat, but Marcelo Gomes was mesmerizing amid the dark, moody atmosphere and Veronika Part was beautifully expressive (as was Abi Stafford in the ballet’s trio).

Marcelo Gomes and Veronika Part in Mystery in the Wind, photo by Matthew Murphy

The most memorable piece on the program was Utopia, a premiere for Ashley Bouder and Gomes, with music by Rachmaninov (played live by Melony Fader) and costumes by New York City Ballet’s Janie Taylor.  Structurally, the work was similar to Jerome Robbins’ Other Dances, which is also a duet with a pianist on stage, though Utopia had a bit more playfulness and pizzazz, and a lovely whirling quality.  Bouder worked her magic, balancing charm and remarkable attack, while Gomes offered lyricism and grace.  This wasn’t the first time that Bouder was an impromptu replacement in a principal role (she learned the title role of Firebird in a few hours while still in City Ballet’s corps de ballet), but she seemed relaxed and completely comfortable with the movement.  Furthermore, she has a unique way of using her breath (enjoyably audible in this intimate venue) that adds buoyancy and power to her dancing.  Together, Bouder and Gomes looked dynamite, and they were fortunate to perform the most choreographically intriguing work of the evening.

Sadly, the program ended on a sour note with the premiere of Inner Voices, featuring syrupy lyrics sung by Genevieve Labean, who also performed in the piece.  While the sweet, one-dimensional innocence in this work was evident elsewhere throughout the evening, the company’s debut also illustrated textured movement and maturity that is far more appealing and interesting.  The program suffered because of the tension between the two, without firmly rooting itself in one or the other.  As Scher continues to grow as a choreographer – and he undoubtedly will – hopefully he will gain clarity about what he wants his dances to convey to his audience, not only as individual works, but also as an overall reflection of his personal and choreographic explorations.

I think in a previous post I alluded to my posts being sparse this month and although I forget what I said and where I said it, I do know why and in this time of renewal I think it’s a good time to reveal that reason.  I’m packing my life up and leaving Columbus, Ohio and headed westward for the Emerald City…aka, Seattle.  Last weekend I was there looking at apartments and details are all coming together.  I feel really good about this move for many reasons and I feel that Seattle will give me that much needed shot in the arm to renew the search for life, love and happiness.  I don’t hate Columbus…it’s my hometown and I’ve learned to accept and cherish the good, the bad and the ugly.  However, it’s been over twenty years of living here and oddly enough when I realized I was completely fine with spending the rest of my life here, my heart went berserk and told me it can’t do it anymore.  I’ve tried to make things work in Columbus, but have essentially failed (not that that’s a bad thing).  It’s time to do things differently and renew the job search in a new city…job hunting in Columbus only resulted in consistent rejections, and some say the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.  By the way, tendu anyone?

I have no illusions that Seattle will be perfect, which is the healthiest way to approach anything but there is one thing I am really looking forward to, and that is Pacific Northwest Ballet.  If things go according to plan, I may end up living within walking distance to their studios and performance venue.  PRAISE BILLY ELLIOT!  But why Pacific Northwest you ask?  Well, they are a company that has a strong tradition in Balanchine/Robbins works which brings me one step closer to two things: my beloved Tchaikovsky Pas de Deux and Dances at a Gathering, choreographed by Balanchine and Robbins, respectively.  Believe it or not, I have not seen works by either choreographer live, and while I’ve seen videos of Tchaik and excerpts of Dances from the Jerome Robbins documentary on PBS, nothing compares to live performances.  Much to my chagrin, PNB just did Dances last season…but at least I know it’s in the repertory.  Regrettably, a move to the West Coast takes me geographically further away from potential Ashton works, since ABT is one of the few companies to do them regularly, but one of my best friends has moved to DC and I can crash at her place if ABT or the Royal Ballet tours something I really want to see (although in defense of the West Coast, San Francisco Ballet actually did Symphonic Variations many years ago.  I would love for PNB to learn it though, and have a triple bill of Dances at a Gathering, Tchaikovsky Pas de Deux and Symphonic Variations.  Heaven…on Earth.)

Dreams are dreams though, and I have to face reality.  Reality isn’t all that bad though, because I move just in time to catch the All Balanchine bill with Serenade, Square Dance and The Four Temperaments (Hindemith!  SQUEE!).  I’m beyond stoked for Serenade and The Four Temperaments, and Square Dance I’ve read a little bit about from the book In the Wings, by NYCB dancer Kyle Froman.  It’s mostly eye-catching photography from studios, rehearsals, backstage and such, with anecdotes from Froman about life as a dancer.  He discusses performing Square Dance in the book, and supposedly it’s quite wild.  It’s a really neat book and I like his perspective as a corps dancer.

In addition to PNB though, I really want to get into the Seattle dance scene, because I’d go nuts without some variety and because PNB only does six or seven performances a season.  So I have a request for my readers; if you have any information about other dance companies in the Seattle area and/or upcoming shows I should check out, please tell me!  Also, recommendations for places to take class would be nice too.  Living close to PNB would have its perks but if that doesn’t work out a backup plan for ballet classes would be nice.  And like a check-up with the doctor, I do like to drop in on the occasional modern class to challenge myself in new ways and experience something new.  Oh, and jazz classes!  I did some searching online but couldn’t really find any jazz classes (for adults anyway).  Enlighten me, Seattleites!  I am in dire need of your help!

Anyway, at present I’m a bit busy with moving logistics but there are a lot of exciting things coming up that I will post more about and everyone should save the following dates (I mostly needed to write these down for myself too!).  Next week is a busy one for dance!

March 22^nd – ABT’s Culinary Pas de Deux, hosted by principal dancer Marcelo Gomes and soloist Craig Salstein.  It’s an evening of fine dining and dance and although a $350 ticket is probably not in the cards for many of us, the event will feature a live Twitter feed to dish the dish. 7:00pm EST.   Meanwhile, Marcelo Gomes follows me on Twitter, and that makes me smile. (^-^)

March 24^th – Jerome Robbins’ NY Export: Opus Jazz, the Film airs on PBS.  Check local listings for times.

March 26^th – Dance Anywhere, an event where everyone, whether in private or public stops whatever they’re doing and dances at 3:00pm EST.  More on this in my next post, methinks!

An on the topic of dancing in public and being in Seattle, this is what happened last time I visited the city:

*note that none of those people except me have taken dance classes.  Well, quasi-wife dabbled a little.  Inspirations for the above performance include Donkey Kong for Nintendo and chase scenes from Scooby-Doo.

♥♥♥

Var duktig och städat idag, nu ska det spelas pluggpepp musik och pluggas en aning innan jag går och tränar. Oh yeh, you heard me. Skaffat SATS-kort, så här ska tränas á Vera De Milo style.

You know, it’s been a while. I admit to taking an unannounced hiatus due to a magical visit from a dear creature, who’s now back across the sea. But I do have a lot of new discoveries to show from it. And I will tell about each of them, one day at a time.

And so, without further adieu: It is the male dancers who fascinate me most, to be honest. I think it is because they can do things us girls never could because it is not our place. But since during shows I am locked onto watching the female lead, it was nice last weekend to have no other choice than to watch a male  - and not just any male, but the BEST. In a coined celebration of male dancing, City Center’s “Kings of the Dance” three-act show included the most talented boys in ballet working today, including Jose Manuel Carreno, David Hallberg, and a new favorite of mine, Guillaume Cote. But if I had to choose, I’m most strongly locked onto Marcelo Gomes, the ABT star from from Brazil.

Aside from his chiseled profile, he is captivating, powerful, technically sound and versatile, as expected. But what’s more is the underlying passion apparent in everything he does, big and strong and simply impossible to ignore. The fact that he apparently likes dachshunds doesn’t hurt, either. Below, Gomes and ahhhh Alessandra Ferri in Othello… Just watch.

So anyway. . . . . . . . . .

Anyone who knows me, or follows my tweets (www.twitter.com/chrismcdaniel08) knows that I am a huge fan of New York City Ballet Principal Dancer Robert Fairchild, and American Ballet Theatre Principal Dancer Marcelo Gomes. Both of them possess a versatility and performance quality that I aspire to. They are both technically capable of dancing ANY ballet in their companies repertoire. They are both also incredible actors. In any ballet that I have seen them dance that they’ve had to tell a story, I left the theater believing it.

Another defining and admirable characteristic of the two of them, is their sense of humility and selflessness. Both of them are so giving and down to earth. I believe that a dancer who can grace a stage should also be approachable and be pleasant with fans. I consider it an honor and privilege to have taken class with and from both of them. It’s so comforting and encouraging to see them standing next to me in class, getting corrections, taking risks, and sometimes even offering a correction.

In the fall of 2008 at Ballet Academy East, Marcelo came and taught a few of my classes. Being a student I was uber intimidated and I didn’t take class well. I allowed my being “Star-Struck” to hinder the work that he wanted me to do. I even had a melt down and cried, lol. Ugh How pathetic?!?!?  BUT that was then, and think things are pretty different in my little brain now.

Usually I can be spotted sitting in the audience at the NYCB at least 3 days a week.  With the lack of a full professional company at the Dance Theatre of Harlem, I find myself seeking  inspiration in many other places (NYCB being a main source of inspiration). I have my selection of dancers that I frequently try to catch in various roles. I see most of Robbie’s shows, because he is the most inspirational for me.

This morning (on my day off) I took his class at the Manhattan Movement and Arts Center!!! It was such an intense class! He is definitely a disciple of Willy Burmann! Who’s class I take quite often at Steps on Broadway. There were some similar combinations, but Robbie made them his own, and it was just what I needed! During the duration of the barre I was able to execute the foot work, but put more focus into my port de bras, and épaulement. I was also able to put more weight into my dancing throughout the center, by using my plié more, which is a correction I get quite often at DTH. I have always appreciated the teachers I had growing up and the ones I have now. I KNOW they had careers and were great dancers. However it’s totally different taking class from a dancer who you can go see on stage the next night. To see the dancer on stage authenticating the very ideas  they are teaching, pushes me reach for another level of professionalism and artistry.

taciturn [tas-i-turn] adj. inclined to silence; reserved in speech; reluctant to join in conversation; dour, stern, and silent in expression and manner.

You could say the word means “uncommunicative,” then, couldn’t you? And so. How beautiful and perfect Marcelo Gomes’ new book “Taciturn Heart” fits the bill.

As we prepare to send off 2009 and embrace a new decade, we look back into what was hot, fun & fab around the ballet blogosphere to pick our favorite things this year. Feel free to share yours too.

Favorite Blog Posts

Haglund Heel’s “ABT needs a Mayerling” campaign

The coolest ballet campaign of the year. We keep on crossing our fingers & sending positive vibes for Mayerling to be part of ABT’s repertory someday. We’d definitely cross the Atlantic to see Marcelo Gomes as Crown Prince Rudolf.

You Dance Funny on the mess with “Swan Lake’s third act Pas de Deux”

We love uncovering mysteries à la Sherlock Holmes / Dr. Gregory House.  Divalicious prima ballerina decides she doesn’t like the score for her Swan Lake 3rd Act solo and asks Ludwig Minkus to write another one. This in turn bothers the original composer, a certain Mr. Tchaikovsky, who then writes a second version which never makes it to the final cut after all. Complicated? This could very well yield material for a soap opera.

Bloggerina meets Mr. Clement Crisp

Once upon a time our favorite ballet critic, Mr. Clement Crisp, went on a trip to Canada to see a triple bill composed entirely of new ballets, something sadly unthinkable in our neck of the woods. He met the Toronto ballet audience & spoke about what can be done to ensure the future of ballet. We were left very jealous…

Bella Figura’s Make your own Ballet Xmas in Paris

While Eurostar #FAIL would have surely prevented us from celebrating a balletic Xmas in Paris this year, this post provided us a much needed insight into the pick and mix of POB‘s casting. We are very curious about the darkest of all Nutcrackers and we might be more than tempted next December when the Mariinsky will also be in town. The post also offers a witty description of a certain Bolshoi star who has a habit of hanging on to theatre curtains.

Demicontretemps’s “If Ballet Stars were comic book heroes”

We love graphic novels, comic books and movie adaptations of both. We also often imagine deathmatches between our favorite ballet stars… if only we could pitch this idea to MTV. In this very funny post Eric Taub imagines Ballet dancers as drawn by famous comic book artists.

Veronika Part on Wolcott and Swan Lake Samba Girl

She is one of the most glamorous things to have happened to ballet. Just as gossip started to circulate that she would leave ABT she turned the tables on the rumour mill and bagged a promotion for Principal and a spot on David Letterman. May she long continue to fascinate us.

Favorite Tweets/Social Media Stuff

Sanjoy Roy on How dance companies must embrace the internet. The Guardian dance writer Sanjoy Roy picks up on the Ketinoa debate.

Hedi Slimane’s short film featuring Royal Danish Ballet’s Oscar Nielssen rocking and phrasing beaten steps to the music of Supershine drummer Matthias Sarsgaard. We said it before and will say it again: Ballet Rocks! (as tweeted by @hedislimanetwit)

Crankocast – Who would you be cast as in a Cranko ballet? Over here we got the two Taming of the Shrew sisters, one for each Bag Lady. Spooky! How did they know? (as tweeted by Stuttgart Ballet Principal dancer @EvanMcKie)

Charlotte MacMillan’s Mayerling photos at The Arts Desk – breathtakingly sinister studio shots of one of our favorite dark ballets with one of our favorite casts (as tweeted by @Macmillanballet)

Mariinsky in Japan Little Humpbacked Horse photos – mouthwatering candy store-like pictures of the Ratmansky ballet we are dying to see (as tweeted by the lovely @naomip86 – our Japanese ballet guru)

Favorite Ballet Bag Stuff

Interviews – Three fabulous leading dancers with each of the Mariinsky, the Royal Ballet and ABT. Three very distinct personalities which resulted in very different interviews. We hope you enjoyed them as much as we did. We are crossing our fingers for more.

Bridge Over Troubled Water & other Social media posts – We are big believers in the power of social media. All of these posts were great fun to write & some even managed to stir some controversy (see Sanjoy Roy article above).

Supermassive Black Hole – Our resident physicist analysed BRB’s new ballet based on Einstein’s Theory of Relativity. Perfect for the job.

Grace – This was a tough cookie. Someone asked in our Facebook group if we could write something about the ballerina’s grace. It was hard to put a subjective concept into words but we really liked the final product, not least because it gave us a chance to quote from Pride and Prejudice.

Last but not least

Our favorite Dances of the Decade

Our favorite Dance articles of 2009 (Conventional Media)

Dear Santa,

We know we had a lucky year with many wonderful ballet tickets filling our bags. We had a great time writing over here and making plenty of new friends on Twitter and Facebook some of whom we had the pleasure of meeting in person.

Having managed to strike a good balance between work & play we feel we now deserve some ballet candy for the new year. We’d happily trade that wonderful Rodarte dress or that anything Chanel we have coveted over the years for a few of these treats so, here’s what the Bag Ladies would really really like. Please and thank you.

• More NYCB, ABT and Mariinsky stars guesting with the Royal Ballet. If Evgenia Obraztsova, Ekaterina Osmolkina and Yvonne Borree did so well over here in The Sleeping Beauty, Swan Lake and Dances at a Gathering why can’t we have them more often and while you’re at it, can you please bring Ashley Bouder and Marcelo Gomes too?

• Royal Ballet revivals of Onegin, Song of the Earth and La Sylphide with plenty of new casting delights… and preferably with Steven McRae as James.

• Much smaller doses of such stalwarts as The Sleeping Beauty and Swan Lake or at least new designs for the latter. Yolanda Sonnabend’s are appreciated but they are starting to betray their age. If we are going to visit the lake once more let us see some different settings and costumes.

• A new narrative ballet that is not based on a children’s tale. Don’t get us wrong, it’s not that we are not looking forward to Wheeldon’s Alice in Wonderland, but a while back we had this interesting discussion on Twitter and concluded there are so many books which would lend themselves wonderfully into ballet scripts. We’re thinking the whole Jane Austen canon, the Russian classics, plus some Edith Wharton & Henry James.

• Sneak previews. If ballet seasons are planned so long in advance, we’d like to see the major ballet companies slipping some bits of information/trivia/teasers on what’s coming next or fueling discussion in their Facebook/Twitter pages like ABT did recently. Call us greedy but it’s more hype for them, less suspense for us. Everyone wins.

• More visits from foreign companies. It’s time the Mariinsky  treated us to a full-length Ratmansky ballet (yes we do mean The Little Humpbacked Horse). ABT could follow suit and show us On the Dnieper instead of Le Corsaire and Don Q. (yawn, yawn). And let us not forget that Ms. Diana Vishneva still owes us a visit since pulling out of the Mariinsky season at Sadler’s Wells (2008) at short notice. Can you pls. give her the nudge?

• Can we have more ballet companies embracing social media? We have great fun browsing SFB’s blog, ABT’s pictures and looking at NYCB, Mariinsky and Royal Ballet videos, but perhaps the Paris Opera Ballet and the Bolshoi can also follow suit?

• Less injuries. This we wish for every dancer in every company out there.

Many thanks again. Don’t forget to grab your box of cupcakes from underneath the Christmas tree. We know how you like the Christmas pudding special from The Primrose Bakery.

xoxo,

Emilia & Linda

The Brazilian cinema showcased at last week’s Rio de Janeiro film festival has a look and style clearly shaped by the country’s international heavy-hitters, directors such as Walter Salles and Fernando Meirelles. But weirdly, the most purely enjoyable Brazilian movie I saw was the most atypical ? and partly British-made. Only When I Dance, a lovely, sweet-natured film directed by Beadie Finzi, has been enthusiastically but misleadingly described by the New York Times as a “Brazilian Billy Elliot”. In fact, it is a documentary following a talented young dancer from the favelas, 19-year-old Irlan Santos da Silva, and his struggle to get a job with a classical ballet company in New York.

Da Silva comes from the Complexo do Alemão favela and, startlingly, a special premiere was held in a church in the favela itself ? the toughest urban slum-village in Rio, and one very much not part of the city’s tentative new “favela tourism” industry. A group of journalists were driven there by arrangement with the local community; we were given to understand that this was the first time outsiders had entered thefavela in this way ? unarmed, at any rate.

Traffic up the hill to the favela was slow and jammed, provoking spirited comments among the Brazilian members of our contingent, directed at the country’s 63-year-old president, Luiz Inácio Lulada Silva , or “Lula” ? increasingly scorned among the younger generation for his smugness, dullness and readiness to forget his early, radical beliefs. “Lula says there should be a car for everyone!” said one. “How about decent public transport?”

When we arrived, the neighbourhood was in mellow, welcoming mood, though one journalist almost gave our guide a heart attack by producing a video camera and trying to film ? tactless on a number of levels. He was brusquely hissed at to put his camera away or he would have to make his own way back. But the film itself, a charming yet unsentimental story, was an antidote to any tension. The story of Irlan’s triumph is juxtaposed with that of 14-year-old Isabela Coracy, also from the favela ; she has big dreams, too ? but after her parents have borrowed the thousands of dollars necessary to send her to Europe and the US for auditions, Isabela flunks, and is repeatedly told that she is too overweight for classical dance. That never happened in Noel Streatfeild’s Ballet Shoes. The final scene showing Irlan’s parents struggling with empty-nest blues put a lump in my throat, and seeing the film within thefavela community was an unforgettable experience.

Marcelo Gomes and Karim Aïnouz‘s I Travel Because I Have To, I Come Back Because I Love You has a lonely traveller’s tristesse. A geologist undertakes a severe, 30-day journey through remote north-eastern Brazil to make a land survey for a new canal. He narrates the film, unseen the whole time, and his sense of geological time corresponds to the film’s feel for the country’s physical vastness-  a shock every time I see Brazil on a map. He yearns to be home with his girlfriend, but this homesick melancholy is actually worse than it seems: his girlfriend has in fact left him already, and the narrator yearns to be swallowed up by the gigantic landscape.

The Famous and the Dead by Esmir Filho is another reminder of Brazil’s colossal scale, and the alienation that makes up some of its emotional landscape. A teenage boy earnestly blogs about his hero, Bob Dylan, but can’t make Dylan’s Brazilian tour date in São Paulo, because he lives too far away ? in rural Rio Grande do Sul, among a German-descended community about to have their annual June festival, where they dress up as if for the Munich Oktoberfest. Yearning, love and fear blow across the scrub like tumbleweed.

The Stillborn by Paulo Machline, who was Oscar-nominated for a short film in 2001, is a very different piece of work: a serio-comic chamber piece, set largely in a single room. A beautiful young singer is brought to São Paulo and put up in a hotel by an older man, ostensibly so she can audition for an opera company, but really so that he can confess to her his slavish devotion. This, he claims, is “asexual”, though he is certainly intensely weird -  gabbling on about his obsession with tarot cards, and their relationship to the various awful images of illness featured on cigarette-packets (he is a heavy smoker). This is a very strange, talky film that could have been made in the 1960s, featuring quirky camera angles, the like of which I haven’t seen since The Ipcress File. Gangsta-favela chic is what Brazilian films for export are supposedly all about. But Rio showed the poetry, melancholy and complexity that interests its film-makers more.

Alexei Ratmansky. Photo: MIRA / ABT ©

As long as there are choreographers like Alexei Ratmansky around our hopes for the future of classical ballet as an art form are renewed. Now one of the world’s most sought-after choreographers, Ratmansky started his career as a ballet dancer with the Kiev Ballet in the Ukraine. Dancing soon took him out of Eastern Europe to various companies in the West where he was exposed to different choreographers and styles. Absorbing all these influences he started developing his own choreographic language, a personal mix of influences by Petipa, Bournonville, Ashton, Balanchine and Tudor woven into narrative or abstract choreography.

His achievements as the Bolshoi’s Artistic Director and a winning streak of new works, including those for New York City Ballet (NYCB), put him center stage. This led to his recent appointment with American Ballet Theatre (ABT) as Artist in Residence, a role tailored so that Ratmansky can create new work for ABT whilst continuing to choreograph worldwide.

While we follow his ABT career with interest and keep crossing our fingers for more of Ratmansky’s work in London, we leave you with some interesting facts & web notes on him.

Alexei Ratmansky in a Nutshell

Alexei Ratmansky was born in St. Petersburg in 1968. He grew up in Kiev, Ukraine where his father – a former gymnast – worked as an aeronautics engineer and his mother as a psychiatrist.  At the age of 10 he was accepted into the Bolshoi Academy (Moscow Choreographic Institute) to train under the guidance of Pyotr Pestov and Anna Markeyeva. His classmates included former ABT star and current Berlin Staatsballett Artistic Director Vladimir Malakhov, current Bolshoi director Yuri Burlaka and Bolshoi star Nikolai Tsiskaridze.

From early on Ratmansky showed an interest in experimenting with choreography but despite his talents in performing and in creating dances he was not accepted into the Bolshoi. Instead, he joined the Kiev Ballet as a soloist, dancing leading roles in the classics. During this period he met his soon to be wife, fellow dancer Tatiana Kilivniuk and juggled his dancing career with studying at the Choreographers’ Faculty of GITIS (today, The Russian Academy of Theatre Art – RATI). There he had the opportunity to stage his first ballet, La Sylphide-88. Set to Shostakovich‘s music this was a short work given in one single performance.

In 1992 while on tour in Canada, Ratmansky and his wife were invited to join the Royal Winnipeg Ballet. He continued creating small pieces, mainly for Tatiana, and became familiar with the works of Tudor, van Dantzig, Neumeier and Balanchine.

He quit The Royal Winnipeg Ballet and returned to Kiev in 1995 as a freelance dancer but left again to join The Royal Danish Ballet in 1997. During his seven years in Denmark, Ratmansky immersed himself in August Bournonville’s works. There he continued to create choreography whilst also becoming a principal dancer (2000).

Nina Ananiashvili soon spotted his talent and asked him to create short works for her international tours (the Golden Mask Winner Dreams of Japan, set to taiko drumming and flutes). The touring of these works boosted Ratmansky’s profile and led to his first commissions by the Mariinsky Theatre and the Bolshoi.

In 2002, he staged Cinderella for the Mariinsky and, in 2003, The Bright Stream, for the Bolshoi, as part of their Shostakovich celebrations. The Bright Stream had been originally created in 1935 by Fyodor Lopukhov to Shostakovich’s music but immediately discarded given Stalin‘s disapproval of “peasants on pointe”. Because of this Lopukhov was fired and Shostakovich never wrote a ballet score again. Reinventing the choreography on top of the original libretto, Ratmansky turned this “rejected ballet” into a great success.

Alexei Ratmansky Photo: MIRA / ABT ©

The Bolshoi Years

Golden Mask Prize winner The Bright Stream led to Ratmansky’s appointment as the Bolshoi’s Artistic Director in 2004. His mandate was to focus on modernising the company and reconciling the new repertoire with the classics.

The Bolshoi’s five years under Ratmansky have been celebrated as a golden age. The company rejuvenated and regained artistic credibility with new works. For Ratmansky it must have been a draining period with a lot of compromising and pacifying different personalities and artistic egos,  leaving him with little time and energy to choreograph. He has said in the past that Russia is not very friendly to choreographers given its emphasis on the classics and inherited traditions, with certains dancers limiting themselves to new opportunities and holding on to the belief that they can only be creative within the boundaries of the old repertoire.

During Ratmansky’s tenure 25 new ballets were acquired for the company including works by Balanchine, Roland Petit, Twyla Tharp and Léonide Massine. In addition to The Bright Stream he also successfully restaged lost ballets such as Class Concert, The Flames of Paris and a lavish and critically acclaimed reconstruction of Le Corsaire.

In addition to developing dances Ratmansky is also credited with nurturing and creating opportunitities for such new talents as Natalia Osipova, Ivan Vasiliev, Ekaterina Krysanova, Nelli Kobakhidze and Denis Savin, while also showcasing the artistry of dancers Maria Alexandrova, Ekaterina Shipulina and Svetlana Lunkina, by casting them in new roles.

Veronika Part, Marcelo Gomes and Paloma Herrera in Ratmansky's On the Dnieper. Photo: Gene Schiavone / ABT ©

From Bolshoi to ABT

Early in 2008, rumours started circulating of Ratmansky departing to NYCB as resident choreographer, to follow in the steps of Christopher Wheeldon. But the terms of NYCB’s offer would have restricted his ability to create work outside the company so, instead, he decided to join ABT as an Artist in Residence, a role that gives him enough freedom to pursue other collaborations.

Ratmansky’s Ballets

For Ratmansky, classical ballet can be kept alive as long as its human content is relevant, narrative being a particular trait in his works. Ratmansky often mentions that while for George Balanchine, one of his influences, it was all about the steps and abstraction, for him the steps are part of a conversation that blends craft and passion.

His works are considered musical and fluid, probably a direct influence from his experience with Bournonville. He considers his choreography to be instinctive, the product of an analytical reaction to the score and physical response to the music (he used to put on music and film himself to observe how his body reacted naturally). That explains his preference for a more naturalistic port de bras, open chested stands, patterns that are circling, dynamic and constantly shifting, with suggestions of folk dance, as is the case with his Russian Seasons.

Some of Ratmansky’s works

• A Fairy’s Kiss (Tchaikovsky, 1994) – Kiev Ballet
• Capriccio (Stravinsky, 1997) – Bolshoi
• The Charms of Mannerism (Strauss, 1997) - Postmodern-Theatre
• Poem of Ecstasy (Scriabin, 1998) – Mariinsky
• Middle Duet (Hanin, 1998) – Mariinsky
• Turandot’s Dream (Hindemith, 2000) – The Royal Danish Ballet
• Bolero (Ravel, 2001) –  International Ballet of Copenhagen
• Flight to Budapest (Brahms, 2001) – International Ballet of Copenhagen
• Nutcracker – Re-staging after Petipa (Tchaikovsky, 2001) – The Royal Danish Ballet
• The Firebird (Stravinsky, 2002) – The Royal Swedish Ballet
• Cinderella (Prokofiev, 2002) – Mariinsky
• Le Carnaval des Animaux (Saint-Saens, 2003) – San Francisco Ballet
• The Bright Stream (Shostakovich, 2003) – Bolshoi
• Leah (Bernstein, 2004) – Bolshoi
• Anna Karenina (Schedrin, 2005) – The Royal Danish Ballet
• Bolt (Shostakovich, 2005) – Bolshoi
• Russian Seasons (Desyatnikov, 2006) – NYCB
• Middle Duet (Hanon, 2006) – NYCB
• Le Corsaire – Restaging after Petipa, with Yuri Burlaka (Adam, 2007) – Bolshoi
• Jeu de Cartes (Stravinsky, 2007 ) – Bolshoi
• The Flames of Paris – New staging with use of original choreography by Vasily Vainonen, based on original libretto by Nikolai Volkov and Vladimir Dmitriev (Asafiev, 2008. )
• Pierrot Lunaire  (Schoenberg, 2009) – For Diana Vishneva as part of her show Beauty in Motion
• Concerto DSCH (Shostakovich, 2008) – NYCB
• The Little Humpbacked Horse (Schedrin, 2009) – Mariinsky
• On the Dnieper (Prokofiev, 2009) – ABT
• Scuola di Ballo – Restaging after Massine (Bocherini, 2009) – The Australian Ballet
• Seven Sonatas (Scarlatti, 2009) – ABT
• Don Quixote – Restaging after Petipa (Minkus, 2010) – Dutch National Ballet

Awards and Honours:

• Golden Mask  for Dreams of Japan (1999)
• Golden Mask for Best Choreographer, The Bright Stream (2004)
• Knighted in Denmark (order of the Danish Flag) for his contribution to the arts (2002)
• Benois de la Danse for Anna Karenina production for the Royal Danish Ballet (2005)
• Golden Mask for Best Choreographer, Jeu de Cartes (2006)
• Critics’ Circle National Dance Award for The Bright Stream after the Bolshoi’s London tour (2006)

Paloma Herrera as Olga and Marcelo Gomes as Sergei in Ratmansky's On The Dnieper. Photo: Gene Schiavone / ABT ©

Videos

The following short extracts should give you an idea of how rich and varied Ratmansky’s choreography is and how widespread it has become.

• Extract of Russian Seasons as danced by Dutch National Ballet [link]
• Pas de deux from Anna Karenina, danced by Gitte Lindstrøm and Mads Blangstrup from The Royal Danish Ballet [link]
• Nina Ananiashvili in Leah, from Ratmansky Gala at the Bolshoi [link]
• Le Jardin Anime scene from Ratmansky’s Le Corsaire, with Svetlana Zakharova as Medora and Ekaterina Krysanova as Gulnare [link]
• Extract of Bolt, featuring Denis Savin, Anastasia Yatsenko and Andrei Merkuriev [link]
• Diana Vishneva and Andrei Merkuriev in Cinderella [link]
• A short feature on Scuola di Ballo for The Australian Ballet [link]
• Alina Somova and Vladimir Shklyarov in an extract of The Little Humpbacked Horse [link]

Extracts of Reviews and Selected Praise

Of The Bright Stream:

The final offering of the season was The Bright Stream. In 1935, when Shostakovich’s sunny score was staged in Moscow with choreography by Fyodor Lopukhov (and initially much liked), it drew down Stalinist wrath as “balletic fraud”, wholly irresponsible in portraying the nature of collective farming. It has been Alexey Ratmansky’s achievement to rehabilitate the piece, by rescuing the score and taking an amused look at its narrative and, most significantly, at the aesthetic and political conventions of ballet in the 1930s. Clement Crisp at the Financial Times (2007) [link]

Alexei Ratmansky, who completely rechoreographed it for the Bolshoi in 2003, didn’t have to worry about toeing the party line and was free to do whatever he wanted with Shostakovich’s jolly music and Piotrovsky and Lopukhov’s lighthearted libretto. His new production honours them both with wit and compassion, and a stream of wonderful — and very funny — choreography…All in all, the best new ballet to come out of Russia in years. Debra Craine at the Times (2006) [link]

Of Bolt:

Though I hope other choreographers will give sharper visual style to this unusual and instantly appealing music, I feel that Ratmansky deserves the highest credit here. He may not have produced a definitive new Bolt, but he has given the full ballet score to the world to play with, a marvellous gift. Ismene Brown at The Telegraph (2005) [link]

Of The Little Humpbacked Horse

This ballet is life-affirming and rich in humanity. Ratmansky’s choreography is masterly, and has a clear form and shape. His narrative is clear, and each scene is of the right length. The final transformation scene of Ivan into a young tsar is effective and witty. The two classical duets are full of heart-warming tenderness. The duets for Ivan and the Humpbacked Horse in Act I are spirited and lively. Kevin NG at The Saint Petersburg Times (2009) [link]

Of On the Dnieper:

Ratmansky, as always, produces lovely movement—the solos for both men are particularly telling. And he never loses his touch with groups of dancers, their extended passages both coherent and effective in themselves and reflecting the emotional trajectory of the story. Robert Gottlieb at The New York Observer (2009) [link]

Mr. Ratmansky gleans every bit of story possible from the Lifar-Prokofiev original and makes the most of it. (…) What Mr. Ratmansky captures beautifully with these characters (and less eloquently with Natalia, described in the program as “grief-stricken yet noble”) is what it is like to be torn by opposite emotional impulses. The choreography’s other felicities include some lovely subtleties of ensemble and striking instances of dancers standing or moving with their backs to us. Alastair Macaulay at The New York Times (2009) [link]

Of Russian Seasons

His “Russian Seasons” finally received its world premiere on Thursday evening at the New York State Theater, and it was worth the wait (…) It would be too easy to say that the choreography owes its originality to its inspirations from folk dance, though it does make happy use of such dancing. Mr. Ratmansky is a fountain of movement ideas, with sweeping stiff arms and vigorous floor-stamping and clapping and every sort of catlike pose, from freshly funny to deeply tragic. Intimations of character and personality never get in the way of pure dance. John Rockwell at The New York Times (2006) [link]

Leaving the theater, I could have danced for joy, especially if I had been choreographed by Ratmansky. A new choreographer has come to light – and the dance world is a better place. Clive Barnes at The New York Post (2006).

Of Concerto DSCH

Concerto DSCH is an endlessly suspenseful choreographic construction, with passages of breathtaking dance brilliance. Again and again, you find yourself thinking, “I didn’t realize this was going to happen after that,” and “What exactly were those steps that flashed by just now?” Better yet, it’s marked by tender pure-dance poetry. Alastair Macaulay at The New York Times (2008) [link]

Certainly “Concerto DSCH” seems at first glance – even second glance – a weird name for a ballet, but Alexei Ratmansky’s new work created for New York City Ballet on Thursday night is a gold-plated, copper-bottomed hit. Clive Barnes at The New York Post (2008) [link]

Sources and Further Information

1. Alexei Ratmansky’s Biography from the Bolshoi’s Website [link]
2. Alexei Ratmansky’s Biography from the Benois de la Danse Website [link]
3. ABT’s Alexei the Mild? by Robert Greskovic. The Wall Street Journal. June 2009 [link]
4. Interview with Alexei Ratmansky by Natasha Dissanayake. Ballet.co Magazine. July-August 2004. [link]
5. Freelance Freedoms. Alexei Ratmansky in conversation with Marc Haegeman. Dance Now Magazine. Vol. 17, No. 4. Winter 2008/09.
6. Ballet’s future Russian Ahead by Leigh Witchel. New York Post. October 2009. [link]
7. Ratmansky Takes Manhattan by Marina Harss. The Nation. September, 2009. [link]
8. Bolshoi Director May Take Job at City Ballet by Gia Kourlas. The New York Times. February 2008 [link]
9. For Bolshoi Ballet, Two Steps Forward, One Step Back by Nora Fitzgerald. The Washington Post. February, 2007 [link]
10. Alexei Ratmansky and the new Bolshoi by Margaret Willis. Dance Magazine, November 2004. [link]
11. New Home, New Job and New Moves for Alexei Ratmansky by Roslyn Sulcas. The New York Times, May 2009. [link]
12. The Bolshoi in Paris: An interview with Alexei Ratmansky by Patricia Boccadoro. Culturekiosque, February 2004. [link]
13. Alexei Ratmansky by Roslyn Sulcas. The New York Times. November, 2009 [link]

O balé é uma arte ancorada na expressão corporal de seus atletas. No entanto, a carreira de bailarino ainda parece ser subestimada quando se trata de força física e masculinidade. Para provar o contrário a atividade tem, entre outros nomes, Marcelo Gomes, 29 anos, que é a personificação dos príncipes de contos de fadas, nos palcos de Nova York, como primeiro bailarino da companhia American Ballet Theatre (ABT).

Brasileiro nascido em Manaus (AM) e criado no Rio de Janeiro, Gomes, admirador das belas artes, deu seus primeiros passos em direção ao balé clássico aos oito anos de idade, mas sua paixão pela dança e pela música se confirmaram quando tinha cinco anos e se encantou pela dinâmica que envolvia os movimentos da aula de teatro musical na escola em que sua irmã desenvolvia uma atividade.

Helena Lobato foi sua primeira professora de balé e foi ela quem mostrou o que seria o futuro de Marcelo através de vídeos de grandes bailarinos. A partir disso ele decidiu concentrar-se somente no balé, deixando de lado outras atividades. Ainda hoje ele evita se envolver em atividades que possam prejudicá-lo fisicamente – jogar futebol nem pensar. Quando atingiu 12 anos participou do vídeo de uma das alunas de sua nova escola, Dalal Aschcar. Foi esse vídeo que chamou a atenção do Conservatório Harid para Gomes, escola que impulsionou seu desenvolvimento.

O conservatório está localizado na Flórida e assim que Marcelo Gomes completou a idade mínima de aceitação, 13 anos, se mudou para lá sozinho. Seus pais o ajudaram na transição e ao fim de uma semana ele ficou sob os cuidados da escola, morando nos dormitórios, estudando matérias como história da arte, história da dança, piano, canto para não citar outras. Com 16 anos, participou de uma competição em Lausanne, transmitida ao vivo pela Europa, e seu desempenho mereceu uma bolsa oferecida para estudar na Paris Opera Ballet durante um ano, o que foi a realização de um sonho.

Em Paris o jovem bailarino teve a oportunidade de aprender e incorporar novas técnicas ministradas por grandes nomes do balé internacional como Serge Golovin. Essa trajetória percorrida por Marcelo o transformou em primeiro bailarino de uma das Companhias mais famosas do mundo. Além disso, ganhou reconhecimento internacional e ser um dos poucos bailarinos com uma coreografia criada especialmente em sua homenagem – passos curtos – um título bastante sugestivo se considerar aonde chegou em tão pouco tempo.

Com seu desempenho de Romeu recebeu várias criticas positivas, principalmente do New York Times, por sua expressão e movimentos inspiradores que são essenciais para dar destaque ao conjunto do espetáculo ao lado de sua Julieta. Isso reflete em sua vida cotidiana: Marcelo Gomes demonstra ser um homem de grandes aspirações e um caráter humilde ao declarar sua admiração aos colegas da Companhia e reconhecer em si e nos outros as diferenças que os tornam importantes para os espetáculos. E quando o brasileiro visita a família não perde a chance de se apresentar e trazer espetáculos para o Teatro Municipal de Manaus.



Que parceria fantástica formam Karim Ainouz e Marcelo Gomes. Recordemos o belo trabalho desenvolvido em Madame Satã; Cinema, Aspirinas e Urubus e o Céu de Suely. As últimas produções, enraizadas no nordeste carregam toda minha admiração, visto as dificuldades para conseguir apoio num cenário nacional que paulatinamente volta a reproduzir histórias fora do eixo Rio – São Paulo. O mesmo acontece em Viajo Porque Preciso, Volto Porque te Amo, título próximo ao universo construído por Mia Couto em suas obras literárias. Só o nome do filme vale o preço do ingresso, dirá a poética que segue toda a obra.

Nessa nova empreitada conhecemos um viajante, o narrador perdido na aridez dos próprios pensamentos, suspiros e lamentações. Na primeira parte do filme percorremos a estrada, e viajamos através da lente de uma câmera que nunca revela o corpo que dita o ritmo. Uma voz pode soar estranha ao começo, mas logo se adequa as imagens. Sentimos a solidão do personagem naquele ambiente um tanto vasto, nossa estrada tem buracos que alguns insistem em cobrir com areia para levar algum trocado. Não é uma experiência fácil, algumas vezes as imagens parecem repetidas, entediantes mas são fudamentais na contrução da narrativa.

Logo percebemos o descontentamento de nosso personagem, um geólogo num terreno pobre, onde pouco brota. A distância da amada irrita o narrador que conta os dias para a volta, em meio a cenários que vão do deserto total até as movimentadas festas populares de algumas cidades da região. As referências religiosas passam sem qualquer incomôdo assim como as músicas típicas, baladas bregas que fizeram sucesso por todo o país. A cômica Morango do Nordeste não desagrada os ouvidos mais rigorosos pois encaixa-se perfeitamente ao contexto da obra.

Tanto amor encaminha o filme ao turning point, momento no qual o narrador revela sua situação com a amada. O teor apaixonado do personagem passa por uma grande transformação. A lente que explorava espaços vazios logo começa a observar a prostituição da região. Mulheres de todos os “tipos” interessam nosso narrador que não tem pudor ao tratá-las como simples objetos de prazer. Eis um dos pontos altos – a forma como o filme desenvolve os sentimentos pela narração acompanhada de imagens. Os sentimentos mudam, a entonação e as imagens acompanham. A viagem, motivo de tristeza inicial torna-se fundamental para a superação de um trauma. Viajo porque preciso, mas e a volta? Será mesmo por amor?

A ótima fotografia misturas diversos tipos de película, desde o rústico Super 8 até material digital. Esse mix de formatos contribui para a atmosfera poética, produzindo diversos olhares para cenas semelhantes. Tanta poesia e deu vontade de escrever na parede – Viajo porque preciso, volto porque te amo – mas não será necessário, a expressão permanecerá viva na memória. Para quem não acredita na riqueza do nordeste verá que a produção é uma obra de arte trabalhada com os elementos disponíveis. Que bom que tal concepção tenha uma mãe cearense e um pai pernambucano, fato que só aumenta nossa vontade de ter uma “Vida-Lazer”.

So onto her review!  (with a few comments here and there from yours truly) *Also, all pictures are copyright of whomever took them.  This is totally educational.

Sumptuously Ominous…or Ominously Sumptuous?

The playbill for the Joffrey Ballet tells us that they are “America’s Company of Firsts.”  The first dance company to perform at the White House, the first to appear on television, the first to visit Russia, you get the idea.  However, I would also add that they may be the first to field an Othello with a six-pack. I mean, look at him. Seriously, just look. *drool*

Steve says: Approved!

Ok. On to matters of substance.

On my trip to Chicago last weekend I was lucky enough to score a ticket to the Joffrey’s presentation of Lar Lubovitch’s Othello, which ran through October 25^th at the gorgeous Auditorium Theatre.  In another first for the Joffrey, this presentation was the Midwest premiere for Lubovich’s 1997 work. Having already shown on both coasts in New York and San Francisco, it seems appropriate that this incredible piece finally makes its heartland debut in Chicago, Lubovitch’s hometown.  Another first you might notice is that this is a full-length American ballet (possibly the only American commissioned full-length work?  I’ll leave that research to Steve) [I looked into it and couldn't find any info.  Most American ballets are one act, with the only full-length ones I can think of being A Midsummer Night's Dream and Jewels and I don't believe either was commissioned.  So I'll go with "yes" and recklessly deny whatever the truth is]  Anyways, though the piece was a full evening with three acts, it did not feel lengthy in any way and, in fact, I could have watched all night.

What I loved about this work was that, though it re-enacts Shakespeare’s tale of love, lies, jealousy, revenge and murder, it does so not by painstakingly acting out each scene from the play, but rather by creating moving portraits that evoke the raw emotions of the characters.  By leaving much of the backstory relegated to the program notes, it was possible to portray just as much plot as was necessary to frame the beautiful range of emotion.  I also loved the seamless blending of classical and modern; the ornate costuming and regal poses that belie Shakespeare, but also the modern rolled shoulders and flexed ankles that allow us to experience the true depth of the characters’ anger and anguish.  From the very opening scene this juxtaposition of the sumptuous life of warlord Othello and the ominous fog of ever-present foreshadowing snake through every movement. [Tingles!]

I also have to give a shout out to the amazing score by Academy Award winner Elliot Goldenthal [Totally a Jew] and its equally amazing performance by the Chicago Sinfonietta.  Add to this that the Auditorium Theatre was designed by famous Chicago architects Adler & Sullivan in 1889 with an aim to produce the best acoustics in the world. Not too shabby.  Sometimes I take for granted that ballets will be accompanied by a live orchestra (here’s looking at you, Don Quixote at the Kennedy Center…), but until you’ve seen a full-length ballet performed to canned music you may not appreciate how much live music contributes to the atmosphere of the production [TOTES truesies]. For example, in the opening act, although Othello, Desdemona and the townsfolk all seem to be happily enjoying wedding festivities, the ominous tone prevails with Goldenthal’s shrieking oboes and flaring horns telling us that something is amiss with Othello’s right hand man, Iago (no, not a parrot perched on the shoulder of an evil emir named Jafaar [RAAAAWK! Cave of Wonders!]).  And again in act two, while we’re promised a sunny tarantella, Goldenthal keeps with the ominous minor keys and gives us more of a Danse Macabre to guide the company, dancing Thriller-like with arms outstretched and wrists limp. [You know I love a good macabre danse.  Dance.  Whatever]

Steve says: Tis the season! Speaking of which, I have like four leftover bags of Kit-Kat bars because like ten trick-or-treaters came to my door (my favorites being a pair of boys, one dressed as a hot dog and the other as a banana). What to do with so much chocolate...

As for the actual movement, the more modern aspects definitely prevailed.  While there was the typical partnering, company and pas de deux work that you would typically expect with a full-length work (but no ghosts or enchanted forests!!) [Huzzah!  Clear skies prevail!] , there were very few of the flashy steps usually associated with classical counterparts, for example only a handful of grand jetés, and no stunning series of 16/32/138 fouettés rond de jambe en tournant.  [Although I'm sure the record is probably around 138, I believe the longest choreographed set of fouettes that I can think of is 96 counts, as opposed to 64 (which equates to 32 fouettes).  The 96/48 fouettes is done in Ricardo Cué's Snow White that was choreographed on Tamara Rojo.  And because she's a goddess, she tosses in triples and doubles like it's no big deal]  There were, however, an inordinate number of fish dives…[It's still one of my lifelong goals to find someone who can throw me into a fish dive]

Anyways, I have no doubt that the success of this piece was in no small part a result of the amazingly trained company.  Down to every last person on stage it was clear that only impeccable training could result in a performance that conveyed the modern aspects of powerful love, hatred, fear, betrayal and anger while still portraying the restrained, classical atmosphere we would expect from a Renaissance court.  If this production ever tours to your area, don’t think twice.  You can bet that any ballet graphically depicting execution and strangulation must be unique and I cannot recommend this powerful piece highly enough. 

Steve says: Okay, so I haven't actually read Othello, and I don't know what's going on here.

 Thank you Hilary with one L for such an awesome review!  You’ve got me interested, and I’ve added the San Francisco ballet DVD featuring Desmond Richardson and Tan Yuan Yuan to my wishlist.  I also checked out some clips on youtube of the main pas de deux, and there’s one of Alessandra Ferri and Marcelo Gomes that is STUNNING.  No words…just goose bumps!

I had a fantastic weekend, and saw a show on Friday, Columbus Dances X, which featured up and coming artists in Columbus, including a new jazz company, Xclaim.  I am so thrilled that a jazz company is trying to make a name for itself in Columbus, and a friend of mine was actually in the piece so that was awesome and you know me, I love to support.  Neat soundtrack featuring a vocal percussionist and some great movement phrases too, although at times I felt like the phrases looped a lot and it was getting a little repetitive.  Overall I liked the mood of the piece though, and I’m always happy to see a staged work of the jazz genre.  It bothers me that jazz is relegated to the background in musicals (not that I hate musicals!) or is seen in dance competitions (I definitely hate those).  Cities like New York and Chicago have some good jazz companies, but it’s weird to me that it’s taught as much as it is and is invisible in performance venues.  Perhaps jazz isn’t seen as “high art” because it has a tendency to be (or is blatantly) transparent and borderline cheesy, but I say even the simple messages like “I am here to entertain you” have a valid place onstage.

Anyway, I don’t have anything specific to write about for this entry, but I do have a lot of exciting things lined up for myself.  First, I was scouring the web and happened upon a Korean video site that had *gasp* the Tchaikovsky Pas de Deux!  Bwahahaha, Round 2 of youdancefunny vs. The Balanchine Trust goes to me!  Although there weren’t many complete videos, there were lots of variations from many big name ballerinas, the most delightful of which I found to be Alina Cojocaru.  She has such a charming, youthful energy, and is of course exceptionally clean.  It’s a good ballet for her, although I’d be interested to see how she fared in the coda.  There was a complete video of Alessandra Ferri, who is not really suited for the role, and clearly struggled with the pace of the fouette-steppy steps and tempo in the coda.  Of the codas I did see, I find it interesting that a lot of ballerinas struggle with it, and quite frankly Suzanne Farrell is unmatched in that department.  Also with the fish dive of doom, there were a lot of…well, anticlimactic ones.  None of them were as daring as Farrell/Martins or Reyes/Corella.  In fact, I was severely disappointed with the vast majority.  I suppose it’s probably a lot harder than it looks though.  Even Patricia McBride, partnered with Baryshnikov didn’t really do much with it, although their solo variations were fantastic.  I also managed to find Marcelo Gomes with someone…but unfortunately it was just the pas de deux with no variations or coda.  He’s a wonderful partner though, and I hope there’s more of that video somewhere out there.  That, and Natalia Osipova…she’s on my wish list for Tchaik.  I can imagine her FLYING into a fish dive of doom.  The only question is, is there a danseur out there man enough to catch her?  She’s light as a feather but with a SERIOUS trajectory.

In other web-scouring, I also happened to find what I think might be a resurrected ketinoa.  Lots of Mariinsky videos, including Balanchine works, which I smartly saved to my computer just in case.  I will FINALLY be able to see Concerto Barocco, Serenade, La Valse and Symphony in C, and decide if I like them enough to purchase a DVD.  I also got Bringing Balanchine Back from the library, so I have a Balanchine intensive week ahead.  It’s going to be good.

I’ve also secured a copy of the Bournonville La Sylphide, so that’s in queue as well.  I also have a few ballets I’ve downloaded, including Royal Ballet’s La Bayadere, Firebird and Sylvia (which I’ve had for quite some time and keep forgetting to get around to!).  Others in the library DVD stack are ABT’s Don Q with Cynthia Harvey, Giselle with Lynn Seymour and Nureyev, and I still haven’t gotten around to La Fille mal gardée.  I don’t know if people are familiar with the reviewer “Ivy Lin” on amazon.com, who writes very in depth and insightful reviews of ballet DVD’s, but she said that the Seymour/Nureyev Giselle should not be anyone’s first full length Giselle.  Uh oh.  But it’ll have to do.  So much to see, so much to think about!  It’s going to be an exciting week.  Don’t you love educating yourself about dance?

In other news, got an e-mail about the presale of Nutcracker tickets.  Cash cow season has officially begun.

Para homenagear o icônico modelo 501, Marcelu Ferraz buscou inspiração em um dos trabalhos da artista argentina Leonor Fini, criado a partir de imagens de ossos do corpo humano. Para interpretar a obra, Marcelu criou uma estampa de sobreposição de radiografias de ossos, aplicada artesanalmente em cada uma das 20 peças exclusivas criadas para a parceria com a Levi’s.

A parceria da Levi’s com o estilista Marcelu Ferraz pode ser conferida nas imagens especiais de divulgação, assinadas pela equipe de profissionais da agência Glloss e estrelada pelo modelo Junior Ottoni, eleito pelos londrinos como “The Body” ao posar para a campanha de Verão 2010 do estilista.

Ficha Técnica:
Foto: Maurício Gomes (Glloss)
Beleza: Marcelo Gomes (Glloss)
Styling: Marcelu Ferraz
Modelo: Junior Ottoni
Notícia: DuoPress