Haglund's Heel

Book Review – Bravura! Lucia Chase and the American Ballet Theatre

Author: Alex C. Ewing
University Press of Florida
Hardcover - 339 pages
List price $36
Amazon.com $23.76

Alex Ewing has written a captivating and detailed account of the life of his mother, Lucia Chase, and about how the seeds of American Ballet Theatre were sown from her grief over the loss of her husband of six years. Born into enormous wealth, Lucia had the opportunity to choose how to spend her life without regard to realities or probabilities of success. She dreamed of becoming an actress and dabbled in theater and music early on, always with an enormous, perhaps unrealistic optimism that affluence and sheltering tend to foster. She did not begin to study ballet seriously until after her husband and the father of her two small children died unexpectedly leaving her with massive wealth and a shattered life. 

After a period of grieving, Lucia sought out her acquaintance, Mikhail Mordkin, a former member of the Bolshoi Ballet and the Ballets Russes, who ran the Mordkin School of Dance Arts. There was nothing odd about a widow with two children beginning to study ballet seriously for the first time.  The comfort of the discipline and the art form’s demand for full focus eased her grief and gave purpose to her days. And as happens with so many, the ballet took hold of Lucia and took over her life.

Much of Ewing’s account traces the financial challenges and missteps over several decades which brought ABT to its knees on more than one occasion. But there are stories that give glimpses into the creative geniuses and pathological tenacities that drove the development of ABT.

The cut-throat ambition of Richard Pleasant and his maneuvering of the Mordkin Ballet out of Mordkin’s hands is a troubling period that Ewing deals with openly and honestly. Lucia’s discomfort at frequently being asked for money to run the company, distracting her from her self-promotion as just another dancer and raising questions about the legitimacy of her talent, elicits the reader’s sympathy unexpectedly. She truly did have talent as a dramatic dancer, particularly in the ballets of Tudor and de Mille, but that was always overshadowed by her financial usefulness. 

About Jerome Robbins’ early methodologies around the time of Fancy Free, Ewing writes:

Most choreographers start out with a germ of an idea that may lead them to do considerable research beforehand, but they generally wait to be in a studio with dancers before they begin formally working. But Robbins took the novel approach of writing everything down first, working out on paper exactly what would take place in each miniature segment, who would be dancing what and for how long, how the characters would look and act in relation to each other, and describing every movement in such intimate detail that later on, after seeing the ballet, to read the written script was like watching a rerun of everything that took place onstage.

The ability of Ewing’s mother to put one foot forward in front of the other and emerge from crisis after crisis is a recurring theme as he remembers the devastating fire that destroyed the sets, costumes and personal belongings of the dancers while on an European tour. And there was Lucia’s struggle with the IRS which disallowed her losses on “loans” to ABT because the IRS simply could not believe that Lucia actually believed that the loans were made with the expectation of returning a profit.

Lucia’s fortitude was tested time and time again by Sol Hurok and his management of ABT’s touring engagements and culminated in a relationship-ending stand-off over money which he owed the company. Lucia and the rest of the company’s steering force resisted Hurok’s efforts to turn ABT into a Russian imitation and maintained a commitment to acquiring new works, most notably, by Tudor, de Mille, and Robbins.

It was Lucia who early in ABT’s life, when the State Department sponsored so many overseas tours, began referring to the company as a national treasure and the country’s national ballet company – a branding opportunity only formalized in recent years.

Ewing’s book is a highly interesting examination of ABT’s family tree and the characters that contributed DNA to the present day company. Much time has passed since Lucia Chase relinquished the reins of ABT and it is time to refresh our memories of her sacrifice, determination, and deep love for the ballet. A good place to start is with Alex Ewing’s book.

Fall for Dance – 9/27

This afternoon’s Fall for Dance performance had some of the most diverse programming Haglund has seen inside a theater. Diverse does not always equate with good, however, but generally one is willing to sit through what one doesn’t care for in order to get to the part of the program that one plopped down cash for.

In the case of this afternoon, Haglund did not plop down any cash at all. His friend, Azlan, hosted a group not only for the performance but for a delicious lunch – feast, really – at Lili’s 57. It was a most delightful afternoon among old friends and new acquaintances.

 Puppeteer Basil Twist's group was up first with his Petrushka Suite to Stravinsky’s score with movement based on the famous Fokine ballet. In the ballet, Fokine’s choreography brilliantly persuaded us that the dancers were puppets with big hearts and dark hearts, frustrations, passions, and jealousies. Twist presented us with actual puppets with several visible puppeteers behind each one. Wearing costumes true to the original Fokine production, the puppets, themselves, convinced us of their hearts and passions, and elicited considerable empathy from the audience. A collective sad and very sincere sigh was heard from the audience when the moor stabbed Petrushka who then died – dramatically. These puppets were really cute, and the invitation to fall into their fantasy was hard to resist.

Next up was Monica Bill Barnes & Company with dancers Anna Bass, Monica Bill Barnes and Deborah Lohse. Their offering entitled “I feel like” tried to capitalize on the oddness of the performers’ appearances to achieve physical comedy. In some instances, it succeeded. In her initial solo, Ms. Lohse, a lanky dancer with large features and a cropped reddish haircut, contorted her face as comedienne Carol Burnett might have been expected to, and then the other two dancers followed suit during their duet to a James Brown recording. All three wore what appeared to be wool skirts and sweaters that were popular schoolwear decades ago. They frequently lifted up their sweaters to reveal their navels or pulled down a sleeve to reveal a shoulder. It all represented the common misunderstanding among so many small modern dance companies that any and every creative act is art worth putting on a stage and asking people to pay money to see.

Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo's Go for Barocco, a Balanchine parody by Peter Anastos, is really one of the Trocks’ tamer works. The program choice was probably a good one considering that so much of the audience had been drawn to this afternoon’s performance by the appearance of DanceBrazil, a group of hot, strutting Capoeira performers. The Trocks breezed through the challenging choreography in their size 13 pointe shoes with pecs pushing over the tops of their leotards. Compliments to Mme. Vanya Verikosa and Mme. Katerina Bychkova for their harmonious and hilarious pas de deux.

DanceBrazil put on an unbelievable display of Capoeira martial arts to music. The performers were truly hot in some very hot red-orange Capoeira pants. Okay, not really dance, but definitely performance. They are going to be at the Joyce Theater March 23 – April 4, 2010, but the Spring season is not up on the Joyce website calendar yet.

Haglund awards this hot leopard Pump Bump for this afternoon’s offerings:

 

 

Copyright © 2009

 

　

On Haglund's Calendar – ABT @ AFH

Haglund is looking forward to the abbreviated season at Avery Fisher Hall in less than two weeks, especially the Seven Sonatas offering by Alexei Ratmansky to Scarlatti's Keyboard Sonatas. 

But why is there no ABT microsite for the three new pieces of choreography?  It kind of suggests that perhaps they don't want to build up our expectations, doesn't it?  No matter – Haglund's expectations for two of the three new pieces are moderate:  He's simply hoping for something more than the usual McBallet w/ fries.

 

NY City Center's Fall for Dance – Opening Night

City Center’s Fall for Dance kicked off its 10 day season last evening with a $10 sampler of goodies designed to appeal to a variety of dance palates. But this season has also been carefully infused with choreography and derivatives from Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes for whom the world is celebrating the centennial of its invasion of the Theatre du Chatelet in Paris where bold innovation imbedded with strong craft and creative brilliance began a revolution in the world of ballet.

Last evening opened with the presentation of the 58th Annual Capezio Dance Award to Arlene Shuler, City Center’s President & CEO.  Edward Villella flew up from Miami to make the presentation.  He observed how Shuler’s extraordinary career had come full circle – from a 13 year old performer on the City Center stage in Balanchine’s Nutcracker to a member of the City Center Joffrey Ballet to Columbia Law School to the NEA to Lincoln Center and back to the City Center as its chief executive.  Shuler, noting that she had indeed worn Capezio pointe shoes as a performer, choked with emotion as she recalled and thanked the late Robert Joffrey – “He was my teacher,” she said.  He was also the ballet world’s champion of Ballets Russes era restorations and had a passion for details and historical accuracy for which we can all be grateful.

The first performance on the program was the Boston Ballet in Nijinsky’s Afternoon of a Faun.  Altankhuyag Dugaraa was the faun who awakes to see a bevy of nymphs led by Lia Cirio.  The nymphs dance around the faun and arouse him and eventually leave behind a scarf which the faun then uses in the self-gratification process.  Nijinsky’s choreography references Greek bas-relief with torsos front, arms at right angles, and faces in profiles.  The brilliance is in how Nijinsky imagined that these characters would move if brought to life from their static poses.  They walked with bent knees and exaggerated heel to toe movement.  The nymphs’ hands were delicately curled when joined with one another.  Last night’s performance had a museum quality and textbookish tint to it.  The faun was about as erotic as an 8 week old kitten. Haglund thinks that the problem with presenting Afternoon of a Faun is always the same problem – it needs Nijinsky.

The Paul Taylor Dance Company gave a spirited performance of Offenbach Overtures. Michael Trusnovec, Sean Mahoney, Robert Kleinendorst, and Jeffrey Smith were especially funny in the American Eagle Waltz..

Batsheva Dance Company’s Iyar Elezra and Bobbi Smith performed Ohad Naharin’s B/olero to Isao Tomita’s synthesizer version of Ravel’s Bolero.  Tomita has been described as pio-neering, but how much pioneering is involved when you take other people’s creative brilliance and skilled work product and just change it to accommodate your own talents?   It’s kind of like the Manhattan Transfer’s version of basic Christmas carols - eh.  Naharin’s choreography was his stereotypical fast changing, start-stop, just do anything that comes to mind vocabulary.  But the dancers did it very well, and the audience appreciated their explosive energy and responded with loud woo-whos.

Savion Glover closed the evening with a rousing tap jam with jazz quartet on stage entitled The StaRz and StRiPes 4EvEr for NoW. The musicians, The OTHeRz, each had extended solos before Glover came out and masterfully tap-conducted everyone. Then they all performed with additional tappers Marshall Davis, Jr. and Cartier Williams in a bring-the-house-down choreographed finale. Pianist Tommy James set Savion’s feet on fire throughout the piece, and for that, Haglund awards this Pump Bump – the Golden Ann Miller:

 

Copyright © 2009

Radetsky: Highbrow & Brilliant per NY Mag

New York Magazine notes the return of our guy Radetsky to the ABT line-up on The Approval Matrix.

Radetsky in his snappy Espada uniform waving his red cape over the bull.   Another great Fabrizio Ferri shot. (Yes, the cape is supposed to be blurry.)

 

 

ABT @ AFH Opening Night - To Die for in Part

The special opening night gala fare that ABT has been teasing us about is going to be Veronika Part in The Dying Swan.  Haglund  predicts that her performance will be Lopatkina-worthy and that there won't be a dry eye in the house when the final feather drops.

Hallberg will debut in the new Ratmansky piece with Kent, Reyes, Abrera, Cornejo and Saveliev.  Christine Shevchenko performs in Kent's role later in the week.  The rest of the casting is similar to the casting at Bard College which immediately precedes the AFH performances.  Still no word on who will dance Robbins' Other Dances or Barton's new piece.

Here's the release.

 

Camelliaphilia

Let the frenzy begin. 

Alessandra Ferri and Roberto Bolle cavort in Neumeier's Lady of the Camellias at La Scala.  Sadly, we won't be seeing Alessandra in the role of Marguerite in ABT's new production this spring, but the odds are astronomically in our favor that we will see Roberto as Armand. 

 

The press release that La Scala put out prior to that theater's new production a few years ago is worth reading and can be found over on ballet.co.uk. 

Camelliaphilia – let there be no cure.

NYCB – Sneak Peak: Spring Season

Wheeldon, McGregor, Ratmansky, Barak, Bigonzetti, Millepied, and Martins will all have premieres during the NYCB Spring Season.  This company will be dancing itself crazy!  Seven premieres and four commissioned scores.  Very, very ambitious.  Very, very on the right track!  NYT

 

 

ABT – Sneak Peak: 2010 Spring Season @ the Met

The New York Times is reporting that ABT's 2010 Spring Season will include:

Ashton's The Dream, Birthday Offering, the "Awakening" PdD from his Sleeping Beauty, and the "Thais" Meditation;

Neumeier's incredible and fascinating Lady of the Camellias;

Don Quixote;

La Bayadere;

And there are vague and complaining references to Swan Lake and Sleeping Beauty.

The report says that the season will also include works  by Balanchine, Tudor, MacMillan and Robbins.  Claudia La Rocca reports that we'll get another glimpse of Ratmansky's On the Dnieper.

But no mention of Giselle?  Yogi will be upset.  You know what he says: "An ABT spring season without Giselle is like a World Series without the Yankees.  It ain't official." 

The first brochure is due out in October.  Haglund's excitement over Lady of the Camellias already requires medication.

 

ABT – Glimpse of fall casting

A glimpse of the fall casting (Bard College, not Avery Fisher Hall) is up on the ABT website and one of Haglund’s nightmares seems on the verge of becoming a reality.

Haglund became giddy upon seeing Stella Abrera cast in Ratmansky’s new piece along with Julie Kent, Xiomara Reyes, Alexandre Hammoudi, Herman Cornejo, and Gennadi Saveliev,  but it is cruel and unusual punishment to pair up Lovely Stella with “the patchy Cory Stearns” (fellow blogger The Awkward Swan's apt description) in Millepied’s new effort.

A surprising pairing that shows great promise is Isabella Boylston and Isaac Stappas in Clark Tippet’s Some Assembly Required. That could be worth repeat viewings. And not unexpected, Isabella snagged a lead in sweetie Millepied’s piece as well with Marcelo Gomes as her partner.

There are a lot of dancers not yet cast: Hallberg, Herrera, Part, Wiles, Murphy, to name a few and still no casting for Other Dances or the Barton premiere or for any of the AFH dates.  So, we shall wait.