observations 9/28

The Scottish Ballet is touring its acclaimed production of A Streetcar Named Desire in the southern U.S. during October. Lucky folks in New Orleans (Oct. 4), Gainesville (Oct. 10), and Tampa (Oct. 13) will get to see the Tennessee Williams classic brought to life under the theatrical direction of Nancy Meckler and choreographer Annabelle Lopez Ochoa. Haglund usually keeps his ear pretty close to the ground, but he didn't hear about this one until it was too late to make travel plans to see it.

When the ballet's first round of performances were heating up the theaters in Great Britain in 2012, Haglund reported that the London Evening Standard declared that attaching a theater director to the production team was a "template for how to tell a story in dance." In New York, we will get a chance to see a theater director's influence on a new story ballet when Alexei Ratmansky's The Tempest opens ABT's fall season at Lincoln Center. Tony Award winning director Mark Lamos will be the production's dramaturge, a position that can encompass varying degrees of responsibility in theater.

If anyone needs a reminder of how sizzling the Scottish Ballet's promo for Streetcar was, here it is again.

 

 

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Misty Copeland has announced the fab-u-lous news that she will dance Swanilda in ABT's Opening Night cast of Coppelia during its 2014 season at the Metropolitan Opera House. Her debut will be in Abu Dhabi a few weeks before. Looking forward to seeing Misty in her long-overdue first leading classical role.

Here's hoping that's a good sign for Stella Abrera, Sarah Lane, and Yuriko Kajiya to also get the principal opportunities and recognition that they have long deserved.  From novelist Ellen Glascow:

"I waited and worked, and watched the inferior exalted for nearly thirty years; and when recognition came at last, it was too late to alter events, or to make a difference in living."

Time is running out for these artists while the inferior are imported and exalted in roles that should be danced by our own homegrown artists.

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Haglund already has his tickets to the World Premiere of Martha Clarke's dance-play Cheri starring Herman Cornejo and Alessandra Ferri at Signature Theatre located at the beautiful Pershing Square Signature Center on 42nd Street at 10th Avenue. If you're not a subscriber, you can buy your tickets beginning October 15th. The play will run November 19 through December 22. 

Experiences at Signature Theatre can be mixed. The last presentation that Haglund attended included a few too many instances of "line, please." But the theater's residency program for mid- and early-career playwrights is widely admired and something that New York's theater community badly needs.

I waited and worked, and watched the inferior exalted for nearly thirty years; and when recognition came at last, it was too late to alter events, or to make a difference in living.
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