The Ballet in Cinema project by Emerging Pictures is turning out be a fantastic opportunity for us to see a lot of productions that we wouldn’t get to see without incurring the expense of international travel. Last Sunday the Bolshoi Ballet presented an evening of Asaf Messerer’s Class Concert and Grigorovich’s Giselle. Of course, it was 11:00 a.m. in New York. Although the cinema on East 59th Street was far from full, quite a lot of people turned out on a very cold Sunday morning to see the live-streamed performance. The cinema theater’s manager is much less devoted to the arts than to his attendance numbers; so, we have to try a bit harder to support this initiative if we want it to continue. Next up is the Paris Opera Ballet with Caligula on Feb. 8th followed by the Bolshoi Ballet in Don Quixote on March 6th. Both will be live-streamed performances.
According to Asaf Messerer’s nephew, Mikhail, who was interviewed at the performance, Class Concert was choreographed by Asaf after he saw a performance of Harald Lander’s Etudes. Asaf observed that Etudes resembled the Russian ballet class structure at the time and thought that he could develop a similar choreographic piece that truly exemplified the path traveled by the developing Bolshoi dancer from child beginner to adult artist. The result was a progressive class that began with the tiniest students at the barre and culminated with the adult principal dancers impressively tearing through big chunks of petit and grand allegro. The students were beautiful although there was a visible range of abilities. It was interesting to see some of the youngest ones more conscious of their upper bodies and head placement than the older students whose priority was more about getting side extensions and the back attitude as high as possible. Haglund wonders if he will ever again see dancers who are schooled in grand rond de jambe en l’aire to slightly increase the height of the leg as it goes from front around to the back instead of increasing the height from front to side and then lowering it with an obvious and clumsy hitch rotation of the hip to get the leg to the back so they can crank it up again.
Speaking of students – last Wednesday while in Washington DC to see ABT at the Kennedy Center, Haglund had the opportunity to see a presentation by students from ABT’s Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis School who performed on the Center’s Millennium Stage. The stage is quite small for dance but the dancers adapted to the space beautifully. The program opened with a contemporary piece of choreography by Kanji Segawa which he created in 2006 for students at the Metropolitan Ballet Academy. It was what we’ve come to expect for contemporary ballet choreography in the way of lack of substance, but the dancers demonstrated a cohesive style that would later be even more apparent in Vasily Vainonen's Flames of Paris PdD and Raymond Lukens’ Jerusalem Divertissement. That style is marked by an absence of affectations.
Unfortunately these days affectations have come to be confused with style. The wrist flipping and gross finger and hand manipulations of students at the School of American Ballet or the jutting of chins by students at the Vaganova Academy have come to be identified as style by some who really should know better. The ABT school style is now one with acute attention to the upper body and making it harmonious with the lower body. As busy as the feet and legs may be, the upper torso and arms remain calm and collected, and the head follows a classical pattern. The arms are held low and move from one position to another through a rounded first position. It’s a style that will enable the dancer to immerse himself or herself in any of the many types of choreography adopted by ABT – from Tharp to Robbins to Petipa to Balanchine to Ratmansky – without having to fight off annoying individual habits that have crept into their technique. It’s easy to learn how to flap your arms around and wing your feet. It’s a lot harder to learn not to do that once those habits are ingrained.
Haglund thought that the students, some of whom have yet to finish growing, looked handsome for pre-pre-professionals. Boy, has Kiril Kulish, one of the original Billy Elliots, grown. The kid has some catching up to do but he’s come to the right place to do it. Shu Kinouchi looks to have gained confidence since his appearance at the Prix de Lausanne last year. As a group, the girls’ dancing seemed to be more mature than the boys’, which is what one expects in any group of similarly aged kids.
One nice aspect of the performances on the Kennedy Center’s Millennium Stage is that they are preserved on the Kennedy Center’s website. The January 19th and 20th performances are available for viewing now. Some of the camera work is distracting but the programs are worth taking a look at to see who ABT’s principals might be in another 10-15 years.
Back to the Ballet in Cinema program – the second half was a performance of Giselle with Svetlana Lunkina in the title role, Dmitry Gudanov as Albrecht, and Maria Allash as Myrtha. Haglund enjoyed Lunkina’s interpretation which was one of great fragility. Clearly her heart was weak. Her eyes filled with tears during the Mad Scene. There was no way she could survive Albrecht’s duplicity.
The Act II PdD was everything it had to be to make Haglund choke up, although it might not have been technically brilliant. Lunkina was hauntingly beautiful. Her expression was ghostly with only a hint of sadness in the eyes. The crossing of Giselle and Albrecht with the tour jetes and the lilies was so beautiful. (If Haglund doesn’t get to see Stella Abrera perform this section with the lilies before he dies, his spirit will not be able rest in its grave.) Albrecht was not truly sorry about his betrayal until the last ten minutes. His final walk backward to the upstage corner while slowly dropping the white flowers and the final image of Albrecht on his knees and the line of white flowers connecting him to Giselle’s grave was heartbreaking.
Myrtha was a bit of a disappointment. Haglund could actually understand why she got left at the altar. Don’t know why Allash got cast in this. She definitely was mean looking, but not the least bit stately and certainly not stately and beautiful. She didn’t move like a wili in Haglund’s estimation, and there was nothing impressive about the quality of her dancing or her technique.
The Peasant PdD paired the hopelessly-in-over-his-head Andrei Bolotin with the so-beautiful-she-should-be-Giselle Chinara Alizade. That’s the way it went.
The corps was just fine. We saw them backstage rehearsing line placement right up until the curtain went up. They did very well.
Haglund is very sorry that he missed the Royal Ballet’s Giselle which was live-streamed on Wednesday. He was traveling to Washington, DC to see ABT’s repertory program which is reviewed here.
Mark your calendars. February 8 for the Paris Opera Ballet’s Caligula and March 6 for the Bolshoi Ballet’s Don Quixote. Go to Ballet in Cinema’s website to find where these live performances will be presented in your zip code area.
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