Haglund's Heel

On Haglund's Calendar – Stravinskymania with Gergiev & the NY Phil

Attention Stravinsky Maniacs and Gergiev Groupies:

This coming 2009-2010 season the New York Philharmonic will present an eight part, 14 performance Stravinsky festival with all performances conducted by the great Valery Gergiev.  The Russian Stravinsky, as the festival is being called, will cover 17 of Stravinsky's major works including ballet compositions The Firebird, The Right of Spring, Les Noces, Petrushka, Symphony in C, and Symphony in Three Movements. 

The New York Philharmonic has its annual one-week online sale beginning August 16 when all seats will be $59.  The only catch is that you have to buy three performances.  Otherwise, tickets are priced $31 - $119.

The Russian Stravinsky
Valery Gergiev, Conductor

April 21 & 22
Les Noces
Symphonies of Wind Instruments
The Firebird

April 23 & 24
Jeu de cartes
Symphony of Psalms
The Firebird

April 28 & 29
Le roi des etoiles
Violin Concerto
Oedipus Rex

April 30 & May 1
Orpheus
Oedipus Rex

May 1 (11 am)
Insight (lecture) Series
Morgan Library
Guest Speaker Gergiev

May 2
Renard
The Soldier’s Tale

May 5 & 6
Symphony in C
Capriccio for Piano and Orchestra
Petrushka

May 7 & 8
Symphony in Three Movements
Concerto for Piano and Wind Instruments
The Rite of Spring

Tulsa Ballet @ the Joyce

Tulsa Ballet arrives at the Joyce Theater in less than two weeks.  Tulsa, as in Oklahoma.  As in the defunct Roughnecks and other necks.  They’re coming to Chelsea.  And they just might be the hottest ticket of the late summer.

Tulsa, Oklahoma is about 75% white, overwhelmingly Republican, and is getting a new baseball stadium for its minor league Tulsa Drillers (their star pitcher, Jhoulys Chacin, just got called up by the Colorado Rockies for the bullpen).  The mayor recently inaugurated a Mentoring to the Max with Music program where local musicians volunteer to mentor 4th and 5th graders in local schools.  And Paul McCartney will be in town next month for a concert.  While that may not be exactly what it takes to make Tulsa your next vacation destination, the city is not the butt of fly-over jokes it used to be.  And it has a darned good ballet company.

Tulsa Ballet’s dancers hail from China, Sweden, Spain, Venezuela, South Africa, Jamaica, Korea, Brazil, Italy, Russia, Netherlands, Japan, Hungary, and the U.S. (CA, NY, MN, NC).  That’s New York-style diversity.

The company has an extensive repertory of choreography by Nacho Duarto, Lila York, Stanton Welch, Paul Taylor, Christopher Wheeldon, Ben Stevenson, Roman Jasinski, MacMillan, Balanchine, Petipa, Robbins, Tudor, Perrot, Jooss, de Mille and many others.  Again, that’s New York-style diversity.

The program at the Joyce includes Kenneth MacMillan’s Elite Syncopations, Nacho Duarto’s Por Vos Muero, and Young Soon Hue’s This Is Your Life.  Program diversity – New York-style.

Tulsa Ballet has a spiffy website and sports a logo which in some ways resembles a newish moon – Day 2 of the lunar cycle, to be precise.  Astrologers say that new moons are a good time to dream.  But the logo also resembles a solar eclipse – and those have been said to throw electrical disruptions, disorient bees, and make water undrinkable. 

Which ever moon they bring to the Joyce, Haglund is going to be sitting under it – either dreaming or disoriented – or if he's lucky, both.

 

 

Nina Ananiashvili's final reverence

In today's Christian Science Monitor, Iris Fanger reflects on the meaning of reverence and in particular, Nina Ananiashvili's reverence at the conclusion of her final Swan Lake last June:

To me, the most glowing representation of "reverence" is the white-tulle-clad ballerina taking a curtain call when she sinks to the floor in grateful appreciation of the bond between her and her fans. She has danced her heart out; they have responded with admiration, communicated by clapping, often accompanied by cheers and flowers.

And on Nina's tribute to the legendary Irina Kolpokova (why isn't her bio on the ABT website?):

She made reverence to the audience, but the deepest one was reserved for Irina Kolpakova, the former prima ballerina of the Kirov Ballet, now a ballet mistress and teacher for ABT. In bowing to a mentor, Ananiashvili was honoring the foundation of ballet, the handing down of technique and experience over the generations.

There are still ballet traditions which dictate that class begins with reverence as well as finish with it. 

 

 

Michael Kaiser - Reducing the nation's health care costs through dance

No sooner did Haglund recommend Michael Kaiser for a State Department diplomatic post to save the world through culture than there he is on The Huffington Post making important and sweeping statements about how allowing every child to study and learn to love dance will reduce the nation's health care costs.  He's right, you know, especially when he says:

But last, and certainly not least, dance teaches a love of body. Children who dance are far more likely to appreciate their own physical selves. Dance training helps address the obesity problem currently facing our nation. Children who dance regularly are less likely to be overweight; they improve their metabolisms and burn calories. But perhaps most important, children who dance are less likely to participate in the dangerous behaviors that adversely impact the lives of their peers: teen pregnancy, drug abuse, unprotected sex, etc.

And by the way, he has the Pennsylvania Ballet, New York City Ballet, American Ballet Theatre, Mariinsky Ballet, and Bolshoi Ballet all lined up at the Kennedy Center for the Perfoming Arts for the 2009-2010 season.  

 

 

Poem looking for a ballet

This is one of Haglund's favorite poems.

Poetry Is . . .  is from Richard Snyder's first book of poems "A Keeping in Touch" published in 1971 by The Ashland Poetry Press.  Mr. Snyder [1925-1986] was one of the founders of the Ashland Poetry Festival and the Ashland Poetry Press in Ohio.  He practiced and preached meter and rhyme, and tended to speak in iambic pentameter when lecturing to students at Ashland College.  Unfortunately, his few books are out of print and difficult to locate.   But if you ever stumble upon one of his poems, like now, you will see just how lovely and well-crafted they are.  This particular one begs to be made into a ballet.

POETRY IS . . .

many things, of course,
but since you ask
I'd say it was Orlow Steigerwalt
many dead autumns ago in my home town.
Old Orlow at The Blanchard County Fair
putting on his annual exhibition of horse-shoe pitching,
a sport that has survived dead seasons, I suppose,
but changed, not as it was then, with him,
when a blanket was stretched to mask the pit
and Old Orlow arched the shoes over it.
We had to wait for the clank to tell us how he'd done,
but sometimes he'd nod to himself before the sound had come.
Don't ask me, though, what makes a man a poet;
maybe something trivial as his name
drove Orlow Steigerwalt to blind ringers.
And that I guess is what I mean:
somewhere back there's a metal stake
we keep pitching for,
and forsake other men's concerns
to practice our delivery —
to pause, poised to pitch, let fly by God,
and then to wait a space and nod;
and when iron on iron strike as chime
to nod again a second time.

 

Fabrizio's 3-legged ballerina

Haglund received the brochure for ABT’s upcoming six performance stint at Avery Fisher Hall in October.  It included an array of photographs, mostly by Fabrizio Ferri.  One photo confirmed that a soloist has not had a full meal in a while.  Others reminded Haglund of the just ended but already missed Met season – Marcelo Gomes as VonRothbart,  Veronika Part in Mozartiana.  And then there was the picture of the 3-legged ballerina – with two left legs.

It is a fun and useful exercise to think what a 3-legged ballerina might be able to do – simultaneous en dehor and en dedan pirouettes with a passe retiré to each side comes to mind immediately, followed by attitude turns with two legs in back making a perfect square, and of course the coolest pas de chats imaginable.

ABT’s fall season celebrates their shorter works and more adventurous repertory as opposed to full length ballets, and the company can sometimes use the season to perform painful experiments on its audience.  Somehow we survive.  But please, Haglund is just not ready for a 3-legged ballerina – with two left legs.  Not this year.

Tickets are on sale now, and they’re not unreasonably priced.

NYT's Failure to Cover The Royal Ballet in Cuba

Here is the response from the Office of the Public Editor at The New York Times:

Dear Reader,

Thank you for writing. This office does not direct news coverage but I will make sure the Arts desk sees your message. The Times did cover the initial plans to go to Cuba but does not seem to have followed up on the actual performances.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/25/arts/dance/25arts-THEROYALBALL_BRF.html

Sincerely,
Michael McElroy
Office of the Public Editor
The New York Times

Note:  The public editor's opinions are his own and do not represent those of The New York Times.

 

Here is our response to that response:

Mr.  McElroy:

We thank you for your reply and for forwarding our complaint to the "Arts desk."   Indeed we saw the preliminary alert in the Arts Brief last May and were eagerly awaiting full coverage from cultural and political perspectives.   Not only did the Times fail to fully cover the events in Cuba, it failed to cover them at all.  Clearly a poorly informed editorial decision was made that The Royal Ballet's visit to Cuba was not news worthy  – a position contrary to that of CNN, Washington Post, NBC News, Reuters, CBS News, Financial Times, BBC News, MSNBC, Associated Press and other national and worldwide news organizations. 

The purpose of writing to the Public Editor was to ask for an investigation as to why the Times's judgment on this story was 180 degrees from all other nationally and world-renowned news organizations.   It is the consensus outside the thick walls of your building that the Times blew it.  While we thank you for forwarding our message on to the "Arts desk," quite frankly, we could have done that ourselves.  

 Hopefully, you will see fit to delve into this matter a bit more seriously. 

Haglund's Heel
http://haglundsheel.typepad.com

 

 

Vanity Fair – current dance items

Over at Vanity Fair, James Wolcott says that we can expect to hear of his appointment as the Obama Administration's Ballet Czar soon.  Haglund predicts that Alaska will try to quash that one, but Mr. Wolcott will prevail.  You can bet you won't read about it in The New York Times, however.

Haglund's internal editor, a.k.a. the Humorless B____, recently wrote to Secretary of State Clinton to make certain that her staff was following the history being made by The Royal Ballet in Cuba.  H.B. suggested a diplomatic appointment for the purpose of formalizing the efforts of U.S. Cultural Diplomacy and she suggested Michael Kaiser for the post.  Kaiser has performed miracles for the arts wherever he has gone.  He's done a fantastic job for the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in recent years, but it's time for a new challenge.  A diplomatic post might be just the right thing – for him, for culture, and for the world.

Also on the Vanity Fair website:  Bodies Swayed to Music is a wonderful collection of dance photos that have been featured in past issues, including a smoldering Roberto Bolle pic; and an essay by Laura Jacobs on Bill T. Jones and his upcoming world premiere at the Ravania Festival just north of Chicago.

 

Love Fest - The Royal Ballet in Cuba - part sept / Dear New York Times:

Haglund hopes that the Public Editor at The New York Times, Clark Hoyt,  will get to the bottom of the paper's refusal to cover the story of The Royal Ballet's historic trip to Cuba:

Dear Mr. Hoyt:

Please investigate the apparent censorship  by The New York Times of one of the greatest culture stories of the year:  The Royal Ballet's historic trip to Havana, Cuba.

 

The Washington Post, NBC News, Reuters, CBS News, Associated Press, Financial Times, BBC News, Sacramento Bee, Gary Post Tribune, Miami Herald, MSNBC, San Francisco Chronicle, MSN Malaysia News, CCTV, Arab Times, and others covered this important cultural-diplomatic story from many angles.

 

According to the Cuban-American National Council, 84% of all Cuban-Americans live in four states: New York, New Jersey, Florida, and California.   [http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICDocs/data/ericdocs2sql/content_storage_01/0000019b/80/1b/5a/cd.pdf]

 

The New York Times invests wads of money trying to attract Latino readers and advertisers.  Why should the Latino community consider NYT as a reliable news source when it delivers a slap in the face to Cuban-Americans everywhere by ignoring such important news?   Why should readers of all ethnic backgrounds look to the Times for culture and news coverage when it ignores such important news?  And lastly, it makes one wonder what other news the Times, which proclaims itself a national newspaper with a so-called global edition, holds back from its readers that it shouldn't.

 

It is truly shameful, and we hope that you will be able to make the paper's editors feel their shame.

Haglund's Heel
http://haglundsheel.typepad.com

Their autoreply:

Thank you for contacting the Public Editor. An associate or I read every message. Because of the volume of e-mail, we cannot respond personally to every message, but we forward many messages to appropriate newsroom staffers and follow up to be sure concerns raised in those messages are treated with serious consideration. If a further reply is warranted, you will be hearing from us shortly.

Some messages to the Public Editor may be published in his column or online. Please let us know if you do not want your message published.

Requests for corrections should be submitted to [email protected]. If you are dissatisfied with the response, please let us know.

When referring to a specific article, please include its date, section and headline.

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The Office of the Public Editor cannot do research for the public or provide contact information.
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Love Fest - The Royal Ballet in Cuba - part six / The Orchestra

NBC News is still hard at work covering one of the most important culture stories of the year – The Royal Ballet's visit to Havana, Cuba.  Meanwhile, The New York Times critics are on vacation and phoning in second thoughts about ABT's Met season.

Mary Murray, NBC's Havana Bureau Chief, writes about The Royal Ballet's orchestra conductor, Martin Yates, and the extraodinary results of his efforts to work with the Cuban National Symphony:

The excitement began when he managed to pry open the theater’s orchestra pit, which had been sealed 15 years ago when Cuba’s strapped economy forced everyone in the arts to downsize. The use of the pit was such a novelty that during intermission members of the audience crowded the front of the auditorium just for a look.

Can you imagine – no orchestra pit for 15 years?!  Unbelievable.  Yates went on to describe the effects of the performance on the Cuban people:

"The audience exploded with cheers before I even finished the last few measures of music," said Yates. "Normally, the public is quite respectful. You play the last chord and it’s only on the last bang when the audience explodes. They couldn’t contain themselves on the last five bars when they knew it was the end…The public just erupted into an explosion of unbelievable proportions. The musicians should be proud of that accomplishment."

Wow.  What a story!  Thank you NBC News, CBS News, Reuters, Washington Post, AP, CNN, BBC, Sacramento Bee, MSNBC, and the Financial Times, for such great coverage.  You sure know what news is fit to print!