Haglund's Heel

New ABT Nutcracker by Ratmansky at BAM beginning in 2010

The New York Times reports that ABT will announce tomorrow that it will establish a Nutcracker franchise at the Brooklyn Academy of Music beginning in 2010.  The new choreography will be by Alexei Ratmansky and will be in residence at BAM for at least five years – starting with a two week run and increasing to four weeks! 

Costumes and sets will be by The Lion King collaborator Richard Hudson.  Jennifer Tipton will design the lighting.  David Koch will put up the initial $2.5 million – 50% of the initial costs of creation and rehearsals.

Thank you, Mr. Koch.

This will not only be a tremendous boost for ABT, but it will be a huge shot in the arm for Brooklyn.  Assuming that NYC can finish with the street construction around BAM by next year, a major residency like this will truly help to transform and enhance the neighborhood. 

An ABT Nutcracker was on Haglund's Wish List, but a two to four week ABT residency up the street from his pad was more than he ever hoped for.  He feels so blessed.  And last night, Shoeless Joe emerged from a corn field to visit Haglund in his dreams and urged him not to stop wishing for Mayerling - "It too will come," he said.

If we wish for it, it will come.

Sarah Lane's Giselle Debut - LakeCities Ballet Theatre

Haglund was visiting the website of  LakeCities Ballet Theatre, a regional company with a highly-acclaimed conservatory in the northern Texas city of Lewisville, because he had read that Julie Kent and Sascha Radetsky were performing in the company’s Nutcracker this weekend.  This past year Sarah Lane performed her first Giselle with the company – a performance that we in New York are probably years away from experiencing.

While cruising around the website, Haglund happened upon photos of the Giselle production.  These photos strongly suggest that when she’s finally given the opportunity to perform this in New York, Sarah Lane will break our hearts like we never expected. 

The individual performance photos in the website’s gallery are uncredited although the home page of the website indicates “Candid photography by Nancy Loch” (Assistant Director and mother of Steven Loch – Sarah’s Albrecht and a familiar face on the YAGP circuit, who left for PNB‘s professional division last fall) and “Portrait photos by Steve Skaggs.”  We are eternally grateful to the talented photographer who captured these treasured moments and to LBT for giving Sarah this opportunity:

 

 

New York deserves to see Sarah's Giselle (and Stella's ! ) without further delay.

NYCB – Opening Night Gala 11/24

'Tis the week to say special thanks for all of our blessings and try not to complain about what is being served at the table.  All cooks are not equal.

We have a newly renovated theater that completely justifies all the sucking up that had to be done to get the money for it.  Unlike many of the renovations currently underway at Lincoln Center, the changes made inside the former New York State Theater were improvements that now make the theater experience more inviting and comfortable.  No designer was allowed to run amuck and damage a classic structure in order to practice his own dull brand of genius.

The seats accommodate spreading butts and while not exactly “hip chairs” are more conducive to a graceful sit-down.  The two aisles running through the orchestra level create dozens of coveted aisle seats that will surely draw more subscriptions.  The restrooms are “wow” with new gray marble and lighting that makes everyone look beautiful.

The orchestra pit is a spectacular work place with elevator floor and its own special theatrical lighting that spotlights the musicians when called for as it did last night when the New York City Ballet Orchestra opened the gala evening with a glorious Sleeping Beauty Waltz.   The waltz played to a filmed tribute that fast-forwarded the months of renovations and the enormous skill and craftsmanship of the workers.  Watching the electricians thread the intricate wiring was like watching a seamstress weave sequins into a costume. 

The dancing began with Ashley Bouder, Wendy Whelan, Joaquin DeLuz, Gonzalo Garcia and Benjamin Millepied leading a spirited performance of Concerto DSCH backed up by a corps of obviously happy dancers costumed in sweet potato pie and cranberry sauce colored outfits by Holly Hynes.  Whelan and Millepied, who were in over-creamed spinach green, delivered a delicious pas de deux stuffed with the ingredients and seasoning that years of chef experience yield.

Guest artists Aurelie Dupont and Mathias Heymann of the Paris Opera Ballet performed the Rubies pas de deux which was not, how you say, c’est si bon.  Not their fault.  They didn’t understand it, and quite frankly, neither does Peter Martins.  Rubies is supposed to be about the boy - not just any boy - but a boy in the mold of Edward Villella.  Over the decades, Rubies has – through compounding misinterpretations and wrong emphasis – evolved into being about the girl - the girl with “attack,” the girl with blazing speed, the girl who dances explosively and dares to fall down, the girl who swizzles like a too-fruity martini.  Maybe Rubies will be restored to its 1960s integrity when and if Robert Fairchild is given a crack at it and Martins has the wherewithal to ask Villella to help this enormously talented dancer.  It really all depends on how deep Martins’ respect for Balanchine runs and whether it runs deeper than the vein of his own I-can-do-it-all ego. 

Now to the turkey.

Haglund thought that the concept of Peter Martin's new ballet Naïve and Sentimental Music was promising.  All of those principal dancers on stage at once was enticing.  Many are easily identifiable as naïve in that they are magically intuitive when it comes to music and movement:  Jennie Somogyi, Jenifer Ringer, Abi Stafford, Robert Fairchild, Philip Neal and Joaquin De Luz.   Others are sentimental and reflective:  Darci Kistler, Maria Kowroski, and Chuck Askegard.  But this dance was like chewing the same gum over and over again.  It didn’t just lose its flavor; it became distasteful.  How many times can someone chew the same gum?  If you’re Martins, apparently about 80 times.  However, Haglund can and will now say something nice about the piece in the Spirit of Thanksgiving:  It wasn’t as bad as Aszure Barton’s 1 of 3 last month at Avery Fisher Hall.

The choreography was a series of Valium-inspired pas de deuxs that were mostly unimaginative but sought to pay reflective homage to Balanchine and Robbins.  The music, John Adams’ composition of the same name, had very little appeal for the human innate sense of rhythm.  It sounded more appropriate for a movie score. 

The pairs of dancers did their best with what they had.  Haglund will never complain about seeing Jennie Somogyi or Jenifer Ringer on stage.  It is an all too rare pleasure.  But Martins’ latest offering is a  turkey.  He’s got to do better.  These dancers deserve better.

Haglund is glad he attended the gala but has to award this uncomfortable Pump Bump because he wonders if Martins' choreographic light bulb will ever go on.

Copyright © 2009

MacMillan Symposium - The Ballet Bag Report

Emilia and our friends over at The Ballet Bag have invited everyone to read their full report on the Kenneth MacMillan Symposium that was held in London earlier this month.  It sounds like it was a content-packed event with attendance by so many artists and scholars who worked with MacMillan during his periods of intense creativity.

Emilia emailed Haglund that she had a chance to speak with Edward Watson and informed him of our grassroots – now international – lobbying campaign to have ABT mount a Mayerling in New York:

"During the event we had the opportunity to speak to Watson again and share the story about your campaign to get an ABT Mayerling.  Just so you know the RB's quintessential Prince Rudolf would be happy to guest, so carry on lobbying!"

Oh we love you, Emilia!

If we wish for it, it will come.

On Haglund's Calendar – NYCB Gala

Haglund is shining up his glitterwear for next Tuesday's New York City Ballet Gala performance.  Peter Martins' new piece is said to have all of the principals dancing on stage.  Since it's an all too rare chance to see Jennie Somogyi performing, Haglund recommends that everyone attend.

The first week of Nutcracker casting is up on the website, and it's a little hum-drum.  Haglund is waiting and hoping that Kaitlyn Gilliland will get another chance at Sugar Plum this year.  Her debut in the role last year came on Christmas Eve and was fantastic.

Cory Stearns on Fox 5 News!

"And guess where this top model was discovered" - was the lead-in.

Cory Stearns was news tonight on Fox 5.  Dari and Ernie told the story of how the squinting
24 year old ABT soloist was discovered by a modeling agent at Andy's Deli during an ABT rehearsal break.  Flash: picture of Stearns squinting, another picture of Stearns squinting, and still another picture of Stearns squinting.  Seriously, get the guy some glasses.  More seriously though, it was terrific exposure and it continues over on the My Fox News website.

"The IT boy" – Dari's words – will be featured in the December issue of Vogue in Annie Leibovitz's photographs.

The best part – lots of film footage (from AFH) of Lovely Stella Abrera in their PdD from Millepied's piece.  (Her lovely husband should be going back up on the ABT website any day now.)

The Importance of Little League Nutcracker

It’s not just Yankees and Phillies fans who are passionate about baseball.  Cubs fans are, too.  Year in and year out, regardless of their teams' win/loss records, baseball fans fill the stadiums across the land to cheer and boo, drink beer and eat hot dogs, and co-manage their teams.  When they’re not in the stands, they’re watching the game in bars, living rooms, on patios and in garages all over the country.  Are baseball fans hardwired for their passion?  Close.  While baseball might not be in the fans’ DNA, it’s in our culture’s.

Every kid in this country – rich, poor, white, black, golden, short, tall, coordinated, not-coordinated, with/without glasses or braces, with/without a dad or a mom, sub- or super- IQ’d, walking or wheelchair-bound – every kid goes to a home plate somewhere at some point in his/her life and gets the opportunity to live the dream of whacking a home run or just getting to first base – and then hearing the cheers and applause of teammates, friends, and spectators.  Everybody gets a chance to play this game somewhere.

Haglund was the back-up catcher when his brother and his brother’s friends played baseball in the field next to the house.  When the primary catcher missed the ball and the ball rolled into the street, Haglund would run out into the traffic to retrieve it, curl his fingers across the seams and pitch his fastball back to the catcher.  Even though he was never actually on either team, but served as back-up catcher for both, Haglund always got a  chance to stand at the plate and swing.  He always made contact with the ball, always got at least to first base, and always heard the cheers and applause of his brother and his brother’s friends.

Today Haglund spends a good sum of money on baseball tickets and paraphernalia, and like much of the country, obsessively and compulsively watches his team on TV.  Every time Derek Jeter takes his stance in the batter’s box, Haglund’s arms and wrists tighten as if getting ready for the pitch.   When #2 slides into second base, Haglund feels the burn along his leg – he’s living baseball now because he lived it as a kid.

Every kid deserves a chance to dance in The Nutcracker.  It’s in the best interests of the art form to let every kid stand at the plate and swing at least once.

ABT - Tease, tease, tease

Over on ABT’s Facebook page, there’s a little teaser that asks readers what they would like for the 2011 Met season.   It ends with “Maybe Kevin will take your advise!”  This is all too tempting.  Haglund will now design the 2011 season (a Met season and two City Center seasons):

Mayerling
Firebird - a new production that makes good dance-use of the final 5 minute musical orgasm.
Cinderella - Ashton’s
Giselle
In the Upper Room
Green Table
Dark Elegies
Spartacus - if the kids on Dancing with the Stars can do Irek’s one-armed overhead lift, so can our guys!
Rodeo
Manon
The Nutcracker - Baryshnikov’s production (or maybe Stiefel’s new one for NCSA) for two weeks in December at City Center.  You’ve got all those kids in the JKO school who need something to dance.  We can never have too many Nutcrackers in this city.  Never.  Every kid deserves the chance to dance in a Nutcracker.
Onegin
Othello
Paquita
Petrouchka
The Rite of Spring - Nijinsky’s
Swan Lake

Did we mention Mayerling? 
Didn’t we mention Mayerling? 
For the love of god, how many times do we have to mention Mayerling?! 

If we wish for it, it will come. 

ABT in Beijing

It looks and sounds like the home team's trip to China was a great success.  Haglund can't wait to see more of Gene Schiavone's pictures of the trip.  A group photo of many of the dancers and staff in front of The Great Wall is posted on Gene's website here. 

Meiling, who lives in Beijing and authors a blog entitled All Red on the Inside, attended ABT's mixed repertory evening and found it truly inspiring.  Haglund found Meiling's own reflection on the dancers' discipline and creativity inspiring:

"watching last night's pieces and reflecting on them afterwards, i found myself struck by our endless flow of creativity and spirit. that we can ceaselessly gyre forward in our means of expression and art. and again i found myself i want to find myself closer to that widening gyre (in a positive sense). closer to creativity somehow. which of course requires discipline. something else that the dancers reminded me of. i have at times run my fingers through the idea of discipline as freedom."

Meiling also planned to attend Don Quixote.  Maybe she will write about that as well.

Dead Last - not

Elene Gedevanishvili is in 6th place, not last place as originally noted here.

After the short program at the Net Skate America in Lake Placid, 19 year old Gedevanishvili is 6th in the standings behind the first place Kim Yu-Na of Korea who today set a record for points in the short program.  For the record, Kim Yu-Na was beautiful and deserves to win everything and get all the flowers and teddy bears that the audience can throw at her.  But Haglund is going to watch the finals tomorrow afternoon on NBC and root for Gedevanishvili.

A native of Tibilsi, Georgia, Gedevanishvili became the first Georgian skater ever to win a Junior Grand Prix at an event in Estonia during the 2005-2006 season.  She’d always trained in Moscow until 2006 when she and her mother were kicked out of Russia after authorities revoked her mother’s visa.  Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili promptly awarded her the country’s Order of Honor.  She now trains in Hackensack, New Jersey.

Gedevanishvili, as Haglund indicated, is in 6th place.  She doesn’t own her triple jumps, and looks a bit like a little fire plug on skates.  Not an especially elegant line either.  In short, she’s not what the judges are looking for.  But in today’s competition, she packed more original content and passion into her four minute skate than all the other competitors combined.  Toward the end of her program she even served up an actual cabriole en arriere which beat and opened.  She skates with a bolshoi heart that reminds one of the greatest -shvili ever to come out of Georgia or anywhere else.  She skates on the edge of disaster the way John Misha Petkevich did almost 40 years ago.  Haglund would rather watch Petkovich any day than that sniveling Johnny Weir who spends way too much time with his sports psychologist.

So, Haglund is going to root for Gedevanishvili tomorrow.  It’s unlikely that we’ll see her on the medalists’ podium because of her lack of points.   But sometimes the points just aren’t the point.

From Sports Illustrated.

Note:  Ooops!  Haglund had to considerably revise his text this morning when he discovered that the results were not as he had interpreted on the TV last night.