Haglund's Heel

Tulsa Ballet – Dracula

Ben Stevenson's Dracula is driving up pulse rates in Tulsa where the Tulsa Ballet is presenting its hematopoietic-delicious version this week at the Tulsa Performing Arts Center.  James Watts of TulsaWorld reviewed Thursday night's performance and also wrote a preview piece earlier this week.  Of Alfonso Martin's performance in the title role, Watts wrote:

"Martin's performance is wonderfully menacing — the sort of spider-like slides he makes after attacking his first victim were really unsettling — and he handled the character's heavy, voluminous, winglike cape as if it were an extension of his body."

 

More of these pictures on the Tulsa Ballet website.

Meanwhile we bloodthirsty Yankee fans wait for the rain to stop in Philadelphia.

Morphoses / The Wheeldon Company – 10/29

Morphoses / The Wheeldon Company opened at City Center tonight with an overall program that was impressively produced even though the choreography was less than substantial.  As we’ve come to expect from past years and look forward to, the evening’s dance was supplemented with interesting film clips.  This year the clips captured the dancers in the midst of creative process working and living at Martha’s Vineyard. These films have always been a positive aspect of Morphoses’s seasons, and succeed in differentiating the company's programs from most other presenters at City Center.

The dances this evening were accompanied by live, bold music from the Philharmonic Orchestra of the Americas led by Alondra de la Parra who founded the orchestra. The evening began with an undanced musical overture by Alberto Ginastera entitled Estancia: Malambo.

The first ballet on the program was Commedia by Christopher Wheeldon to Stravinsky’s music.  Rather clinically put together from a choreographic standpoint, Commedia has good scenery and costumes and the dancers moved efficiently through the choreography, but there was nothing inventive enough or funny enough or passionate enough to stir the soul or imagination of this viewer.  Wheeldon’s emphasis on curious hand and arm movements was, well, curious, but it never led to anywhere.  In short, the piece looked good, was danced well by all including Melissa Barak and Carrie Lee Riggins, but was not especially interesting.

Australian choreographer Tim Harbour’s new ballet Leaving Songs to music by Ross Edwards was Wheeldon-like in some ways. The costumes of the ladies were pinkish/salmonish leotards without tights which looked a bit like After the Rain. There was significant pretzeling about in the Pas de Deuxs; and while Harbour in a film clip tried to explain that the ballet was a poem about death and life, it came across as being trite, especially when the dancers were carrying balloons.

Softly as I Leave You by Paul Lightfoot and Sol Leon of Nederlands Dans Theater was an interesting theater-movement piece performed passionately by Drew Jacoby and Rubinald Rufing Pronk.  Jacoby was trapped in a relationship as signified by her angst-dance within a three sided wooden box.  Pronk appeared and they moved outside the box, together and separately, and then moved back into the box together where each one literally lifted up the other one, signifying how they, yes, lifted one another up, and then Jacoby softly left the box and went out on her own.  Sounds simple, but it was quite an eventful journey to music by Bach and Arvo Part (the same music Wheeldon used in After the Rain).  Haglund can’t say that he would want to see this piece again, but he can say that it transported his imagination to another place for a short spell - which is what dance is supposed to do.

The final offering of the evening was Alexei Ratmansky’s Bolero.  The last time Haglund saw a ballet to Bolero, it involved Jorge Donn dancing seductively on top of a table in Bejart’s choreography.  It was hot stuff back in the ‘70s.  Tonight’s Bolero was just a bunch of steps without much else.  If Haglund never, ever, ever again sees Ratmansky’s around-the-head-port-de-bra, it’ll be too soon.

The one aspect of Bolero that was pleasing however, was Lucas Segovia, a Julio Bocca protégé who has enough similarities to the much missed Julio that it was hard not to follow him around the stage to the exclusion of the other wonderful dancers.  He commanded the attention the way Julio used to and communicated with that unmistakable Bocca-passion.  It was hard to tell in this choreography what his classical abilities might be, but if they are anything close to his contemporary skills, we should sign him for the home team right away.

Morphoses is at City Center through Sunday. Go see. The structure is in place for a good evening of dance, but it’s just missing content.

 

 

Copyright  © 2009

 

World Series Balletics 10/26

Haglund is jubilant and looking ahead to Wednesday’s Game One of the World Series.

The Yankees need to be nervous.  This Philadelphia ballet team is a lot more than a bunch of little Theme and Variations.  This season their players have a powerful arsenal that includes Agnes de Mille’s Rodeo and John Cranko’s Romeo and Juliet.  And most dangerous of all – they have a Boston connection.  Well, so do the Yankees, but he’s been a wimpy question mark ever since he cut off his hair.

So, on to Game One with “Chubby Cheeks” Sabathia leading the charge.  He really is a monster, and ‘tis the season for monsters.  

Go C.C.!   Monster Mash all over the Phillies!

 

On Haglund's Calendar – La Danse: The Paris Opera Ballet

Frederick Wiseman's hotly anticipated film La Danse: The Paris Opera Ballet opens at New York City's Film Forum  (209 West Houston, between 6th and 7th/Varick) on Wednesday, November 4th  for two weeks only.  Show times are 1:15 pm, 5:30 pm and 8:30 pm, and it appears that tickets are $12. 

The bigger-than-life Paris Opera Ballet on a bigger-than-life movie screen!   That's double the bigger-than-life experience for only $12!  Don't miss it.

 

 

Morphoses/The Wheeldon Company – NYT Preview

Roslyn Sulcas has written a preview piece in The New York Times for the upcoming stint of Morphoses/The Wheeldon Company at City Center.  It's kind of a doom-and-gloom piece that depicts Christopher Wheeldon's reality check about trying to start a new company as a cry-out for saving all of ballet on the planet.

Sulcas writes:

"The stakes are enormous for Mr. Wheeldon personally, but the survival of Morphoses is also a bellwether for the health of the dance scene and the cultural world in New York. Mr. Wheeldon, along with the Russian choreographer Alexei Ratmansky, is considered the most important creative figure working in ballet today."

Baloney.  Perhaps The New York Times considers Wheeldon and Ratmansky as the most important creative figures working in ballet today, but The Times does not speak for everyone or even most people or even any population outside its own walls.  Ballet choreography is flourishing thanks to John Neumeier, Nacho Duato, Ohad Naharin, Ratmansky, Wheeldon, Kudelka and others.  It's not particularly classical ballet, for which we sorely need a new choreographic champion, but it is ballet.

"If he can’t attract the financing and support for his work, it suggests that New York may no longer be a place where smaller, less institutional performing arts groups — even one with the built-in marquis value of Mr. Wheeldon — can be created and flourish."

"[S]maller, less institutional performing arts groups" as Sulcas terms them have never flourished in New York City.  Eliot Feld struggled for decades and decades with his concept; New York Theater Ballet lives, but on bread and water alone; Dance Theater of Harlem's story of struggle is well known; and the new Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet will continue doing whatever the heck it is doing so long as the family fortune funding it is healthy.

Lourdes Lopez, executive director of Morphoses,  is quoted in the article as saying "We are producing art at the level of [New York] City Ballet [and] American Ballet Theatre" which besides being untrue is just downright silly.  But it makes for a good plea. 

Haglund hopes that everyone comes out to support Morphoses during its season that begins next week at City Center.  But let's keep it real.

 

World Series Balletics – 10/22

Just when Haglund was about to send himself to the showers, the New York Yankees came to life to take the lead in last night’s ALCS game against the LA Angels – only to snatch defeat out of the jaws of victory a few minutes later.  Yankee rightfielder Nick Swisher needs a serious dunk.  0 for 5 in last night’s game, he had the hero-opportunity of the night in the 9th inning with bases loaded, and he blew it.  With a  .118 average, he’s not just lightweight – his bat is made out of paper.  Get him out of there.  Put in a seasoned guy like J.M. Carreno, who delivered the best Albrecht of last season with Ananiashvili’s Giselle, but is getting no respect this year.  No respect at all.

Just look at the ABT subscription brochure that arrived yesterday.  Carreno, the hottest and most virile dancer on the team, gets a tiny picture in his sailor suit.  And to add insult to injury, the brochure shows a stunning picture of glorious Irina Dvorovenko as Nikiya - a role which she is being denied in the upcoming season – a brilliant performance which we are being denied as well.

And so, it’s on to Game 6 Saturday night, where if Andy Pettitte can’t put it away, “Chubby Cheeks” Sabathia will roll up to the mound the next day and knock the Angels' halos all the way back to LA. 

Let’s get the job done by putting the right people in the game.

 

World Series Balletics – 10/20

CC "Chubby Cheeks" Sabathia powered the New York Yankee's defense past the LA Angels while A-Rod, Jeter, Cabrera, and, can you believe it, Damon, pounded the Angels with their bats in last night's 100 to 1 win – okay, okay, it was 10 to 1, but the pummeling was so severe that it must have felt like 100 to 1 to the Angels.

"Chubby Cheeks" jiggled through all 9 innings making the case that pretty-boy, light-weight pitchers who cannot deliver should not be given starting assignments on our ballet team.  He was, as his teammates described him, a monster.  He delivered.

Haglund continues to convince many people that the startling resemblance of Yankee Manager Joe Girardi to Rudolph Nureyev is no coincidence.  When you're watching the game Thursday night, look at Girardi's lean, Nureyev-like cheekbones, his lips, and his flashing eyes.  It's Rudy. 

  
 
Go Yankees.  Point those toes!

 

ABT 2010 Met Season – Initial Announcement

ABT released its 2010 Met Season programming with its first stab at casting. The season’s highlight will surely be the June 3rd Don Quixote and Celebration for Alicia Alonso - 90 years young. Three couples will share the leads with each one assigned an act. Herrera/Gomes, Reyes/Cornejo, and Carreno with a TBA partner. Haglund hopes that ABT invites one of Alonso’s Company ballerinas or former ballerinas to dance with him. It would make more sense and be more of a real tribute than sticking Osipova in the slot. That performance is going to be a night to remember. Imagine – Alicia Alonso taking a bow on the Met stage. Shivers.

Let's hope The New York Times covers it.

The overall 2010 programming is promising but for the absence of Giselle.  The casting is a hodgepodge with major players under-represented and a minor player way over-represented.  It’s really surprising, in a really bad way, to see that Dvorovenko will not be performing Nikiya in La Bayadere when her brilliant performance the last season that LB was on the schedule was magical, tender and heartbreaking - none of the adjectives that could be used to describe Murphy’s version which we are getting along with Cory Stearns’ Solor.  Stearns is the weakest of all the soloists; and yet, McKenzie continues to privilege this guy with opportunities that he neither deserves nor is qualified to handle.  The lead in Don Q??  How about acquiring a decent Espada first.  Come on! The lead in the brand new Lady of the Camellias instead of Carreno or Corella or Stiefel or Radetsky or Saveliev or Salstein?  Come on!  The lead in Swan Lake?  His Rothbart is really weak and he’s never even done the PdT. Come on!   End of rant.

Fancy Free has three excellent casts.  Can’t wait to see Simkin in the sailor suit.

Where’s Abrera’s chance on this schedule?  She’s the senior-most soloist and she’s not getting a new opportunity for a lead in a full length?  And yet Stearns, lacking in qualifications and experience, is handed everything?

Where’s Riccetto’s chance on this schedule?  Why not a Riccetto/Simkin Don Q? Besides being more appealing than a Wiles/Stearns Don Q, it would probably sell more tickets.

Thank goodness we will have a generous helping of Roberto Bolle: two La Bayaderes with Part, three Lady of the Camellias with Kent, one Swan Lake with Part, and one Romeo and Juliet with Dvorovenko.

Osipova is slotted for a Sleeping Beauty and a Romeo and Juliet with Hallberg.  You have to expect that she’ll also show up in a Don Q, but it’s hard to tell where.

Much of the casting looks like someone stood at the top of a staircase and threw down a bunch of casting face cards, and whoever landed with whom got stuck together - except then Stearns was carefully inserted into every possible slot.

Haglund needs to chill.

　

World Series Balletics

When the New York Yankees whuuped the Minnesota Twins in the Division Playoffs, they whuuped a team in a great, great city, Minneapolis, that unfortunately has never solidly supported a major classical ballet company in its town.  Now the Yankees are whuuping the LA Angels, a team in a great, great city that despite its vast cultural offerings can’t manage to support its own major ballet company.

The message is clear:  You wanna get by the Yankees this year, you’ve gotta have a great ballet company in your city.  We’ve got two.

Last night's game was a thriller.  Jerry Hairston, Jr., a utility player who during his career has played all of the outfield positions, 1st base, 2nd base and shortstop, stepped into the batter's box in the 13th as a pinch hitter, smacked a single and ended up crossing the plate with the winning run.  He's our hero.  He's our John Paxson (1993 three-point swish for the Bulls' championship).  He's our Sascha Radetsky.

Dust out the Canyon.  Our heroes are on their way.

 

Mayerling: If we wish for it, it will come.

The Movement is building.

The Mayerling Movement.

We've waited long enough. 

Haglund has been crying out for a home team production of Kenneth MacMillan's Mayerling for some time.  And now The Movement has crossed over into the next borough where Swan Lake Samba Girl  has raised her voice and joined The Call.

If we wish for it, it will come.

We must prepare.

We shall dispatch our Marcelo Gomes, David Hallberg, Isaac Stappas, and our own Edward Watson: Eric Tamm, to Greece to learn the fine art of using guns and human skulls as sex toys from the great Irek Mukhamedov, perhaps the most frightening and disturbed and sexually-magnetic Rudolf ever to walk our planet - and now the director of the Greek National Opera Ballet.  And we must commence our search for the perfect Mary Vetsera of the Viviana Durante mold. 

Yes, we must prepare.  Because if we wish for it, it will come.  And when it comes, well, yes, we will have asked for it.

 

Buy it here.