Haglund's Heel

NYCB 1/28 Barber Violin Concerto, Fancy Free, Who Cares?

Finally, New York City Ballet corpsman Joseph Gordon is old enough to walk into a bar for a beer. Though he still retains a youthful hint of Opie Taylor in the eyes and cheeks, his U.S. Navy dress whites now pump up his confidence with the ladies. Last night, when he tried to set himself up with the oh-so “experienced" Tiler Peck  in Fancy Free, it initially looked like she was a cat who had found a new mouse to toy with rather than a mature sailor who would show her a nice night on the town. But Gordon, a corpsman since 2012, quickly swayed her thinking – and ours – with his slick, effortless partnering and big, big solo dancing in an awesome debut.

Andrew Veyette and Daniel Ulbricht, who made up the other two-thirds of the sailor trio, clearly had more experience with the ladies – which we will not, under any circumstances, go into on this blog. Veyette’s very American Rumba, accentuated by a slight rip in the back seam of his pants, was pretty darn close to what one finds in establishments along 9th Avenue in New York where sailors in uniform always get special drink and room rates during Fleet Week. Daniel Ulbricht’s high-flying, split-landing antics were brilliant and hilariously augmented by his appeals to the bartender to “keep ‘em coming.” In addition to Tiler Peck, the other ladies dressed for a good time were Gretchen Smith and Laine Habony.

Of late, NYCB has had better male casts of Fancy Free than ABT for whom Jerome Robbins originally made the ballet  – probably ever since Jose Manuel Carreno retired his Rumba. The addition of Joseph Gordon sees that trend continuing in the near future. We wonder how much longer it will be before Harrison Coll will be old enough to walk into a bar.

Georgina Pazcoguin stole the stage in her debut in Peter Martins' Barber Violin Concerto. Stole. It. Her unrelenting effort to convince her balletically-inclined partner, Russell Janzen, to throw form to the wind, was as intense as it was clearly modern dance in this choreography that sets a pair of ballet dancers in motion with a pair of barefooted modern dancers. Janzen succumbed – sort of – his natural elegance and danseur noble bearing are hard to shake off. Jared Angle and Teresa Reichlen completed the quartet. It is, for Angle, an excellent role that both highlighted his strengths and made his weaknesses unimportant. Teresa Reichlen managed all of the technical matters efficiently, but is not expressive from the waist up, despite extreme exercising of the eyebrows.

There were some fabulous performances in Balanchine’s Who Cares? last night — heck, most everybody was fabulous including the men’s demi-soloist ensemble of Harrison Coll, Cameron Dieck, Ralph Ippolito, Lars Nelson, and Peter Walker. Savannah Lowrey reprised her sultry performance from last Sunday. Ashly Isaacs smoldered like hot ash ready to start a fire anew in her blue costume. An outstanding technician, she now toys with the steps hinting of another Ashley Bouder and Tiler Peck to come. We are very excited to watch this dancer develop.

Sterling Hyltin and Amar Ramasar as the lead couple may not have had the sensuality of Mr. and Mrs. Robert Fairchild in these roles, but they brought crackling electricity to their PdD and solos mostly through strong dynamics, fabulous musical punctuation, and an appetite for risk-taking. There's a little bit of Fosse percolating in Ms. Hyltin. Theirs is a performance not to miss going forward.

By the way, we are so totally over missing the original Karinska costumes in this ballet. Santo Loquasto's designs are sharp, sassy, and jazzy. We like them – except for the men in blue who look like they're in sanitation department uniforms.

With much thanks to NYCB for an energizing evening of beautiful dancing, we bestow the H.H. Pump Bump Award, someone’s glittery tribute to the U.S. Navy that includes a gold anchor on the toe which is not seen in this image, to Joseph Gordon for his outstanding debut in Fancy Free.

NYCB – Whip it, baby 1/26

New York City Ballet could make hundreds of thousands of dollars by hooking up with Proctor & Gamble for a Pantene Shampoo brand that features the finale of Walpurgisnacht Ballet in a commercial. The hair, the music, the wild dancing, the purple - it all screams "buy me, buy me." Even bald guys would be lining up to buy it.

So good was the cast tonight that at the end of the ballet, members of the audience were doing their own Iggy Azalea hair flips while cheering. It wasn't just the ladies' hair -- no, no, no. Adrian Danchig-Waring had some of best looking swinging locks that we've seen on a man in a long time.

Sara Mearns, Danchig-Waring, and Erica Pereira led the cast along with demi-soloists Alina Dronova and Kristen Segin, who P&G might also want for a toothpaste commercial. Twenty corps ladies joined them.

Oh, it all started safely enough with the ladies in neat ponytails, except for Sara who had her secure ballet bun which she needed in order to do a marvelous diagonal of about three different kinds of pique turns including a complete swivel with the foot to the back of the ankle. But when that Charles Francois Gounod music from Faust ramped up into full force, Satan took over everyone's hair. The ladies were flying in arabesque sautes and saute de chat. Such good fun, all of it.

Basically, the entire evening's cast was changed to the cast that should have performed on Saturday, but didn't because of this:

Sonatine received a lovely reading by Tiler Peck and Joaquin De Luz with pianist Cameron Grant on stage playing the music by Maurice Ravel. What is this ballet about? Who knows. Two French people kicking around with each other, answering each other's steps, allowing their romance to blossom -- maybe. It doesn't matter. At times the choreography seems to be Balanchine answering Robbins, but it is all quite beautiful.

Mozartiana was the highlight of the evening with the luminous dancing of Sterling Hyltin, Daniel Ulbricht, and Anthony Huxley. When Sterling Hyltin was promoted to principal in 2007, Haglund was not yet a fan. In fact, she was very low on his list of preferred performers. But 9 years later, she is one glorious ballerina who can honestly run the rep at NYCB: from an insect in Robbins' The Cage with tentacles so real you can feel the sticky oozing out of them to a magical sylph who breaks your heart when she dies in La Sylphide to a tornadic force in Symphony in Three Movements. We cannot wait to be surprised with what she does in the Second Movement of Symphony in C shortly. Tonight her Preghiera and Theme et Variations opposite Huxley were utterly divine. The expressiveness of her arms and head, the twinkle in her eye, the smile of slight amusement, the crystal clear footwork were a sight to behold. Huxley was superb as well in his variations and partnering. This man is serious about becoming one of the greatest artists of his generation. Every appearance on stage shows growth and new understanding. He is clearly past the wiz-kid stage. Daniel Ulbricht was outstanding in the Gigue. His vitality, musicality, and consistency never let up. He's always on his A-game.

Symphony in C was okay, but it loses some of its brilliance when viewed from the orchestra level as it was tonight. This is one of those ballets, like Serenade and Concerto Barocco, that is best seen from the rings. Megan Fairchild and Gonzalo Garcia danced the First Movement. Her every movement sparkled while he had a fair debut. Gonzalo is not a pirouette specialist, and this role calls for that. His partnering was superb, however, and included a very nice save of one of Megan's pirouettes.

Teresa Reichlen and Tyler Angle delivered a flawless Second Movement. Erica Pereira and Antonio Carmena needed to strengthen their jumps for the Third Movement, but showed great vitality nonetheless. Brittany Pollack was outstanding in the Fourth Movement opposite an engaging Taylor Stanley. Brittany etched out the shapes and turns with ease and time to spare. We would love to see her take on Theme and Variations.

The HH Pump Bump Award, a stiletto of diverse creativity that maintains its fine gold structure, is bestowed upon Sterling Hyltin for her beautiful Mozartiana.

 

 

NYCB – Liebeslieder Walzer, Glass Pieces 1/20

On Wednesday night no fewer than eight dancers debuted in two long established ballets in the repertoire and all brought freshness and individuality to their roles. Balanchine’s Liebeslieder Walzer premiered 55 years ago with Diana Adams, Melissa Hayden, and Violette Verdy among the first cast members. Glass Pieces, a groundbreaking piece by Jerome Robbins whose choreography helped make the Philip Glass minimalist style of music accessible to additional masses of people – the composer likes to call it “music with repetitive structures” – arrived 23 years later with a cast that included Heléne Alexopoulos, Lourdes Lopez, Joseph Duell among others.

Repetitiveness in our society during the era of the premiere in 1983 had long been seen as the scourge to creativity and to a life worth living. Whether on the assembly line in an auto factory, toiling over a sewing machine in a crowded room in the Garment District, or hand-washing dish after dish in a restaurant’s kitchen, repetitiveness killed the joy of life eight or more hours a day, everyday for years, decades, entire lives. Every day millions of people got up at the same time, walked the same routes to the bus or train, performed the same work tasks, and left to go home at the same time.The working class life was rigid and predictable as if pre-plotted on a piece of single quadrant graph paper like the one that hangs as the backdrop for Robbins’ Glass Pieces.

Robbins and Glass each captured the positive energy in the repetitiveness and rituals of everyday life. Robbins’ opening section Rubric had masses of dancers walking individual straight paths across the stage, crisscrossing, avoiding collisions, moving at the same speed. They were a living, breathing collection of y=mx+b against the graph squares behind them – people representing the little equations that make up life’s big formula. Their energy suddenly stopped, recalibrated, and then continued. All the while, the pulsing of Glass’s rhythms never varied except to grow more dense and more crowded.

Our soloists in this section (Ashley Hod, Daniel Applebaum, Meagan Mann, Joshua Thew, Laine Habony, and Cameron Dieck) delivered the energy if not always the preciseness that was expected.

The middle section PdD, Facades, was danced by Sara Mearns and Adrian Danchig-Waring. Of course, they performed all of the adagio acrobatics extremely well, but Sara didn't convey the clear lines and the arc length of curves as have the many others who danced this before her. She looked fine in the bright blue unitard but the ratio of legs to torso wasn’t as appealing as we have seen in other interpreters.

The final section of Glass Pieces is set to an early section of Glass’s opera Akhnaten wherein the Egyptian Pharaoh has just died and the Scribe announces the ascension of his soul. For the ballet, only the instrumental is used, not the lyrics. The rhythmic drumming and chirping scales of wind instruments accompanies a corps of men who on this night filled the stage with a collective driving force that was electric. As if in contrast to the Scribe’s unsung words of ascension, these dancers drove their energies into the ground. At the conclusion of the ballet, a man behind Haglund said that it made him want to look up every opera that Philip Glass has ever written and run to see it. The music and the movement had tapped into his inner sense of ritual, something we tend to try to control and suppress these days but which is still very much a part of being human.

Where Glass Pieces challenged the viewer to see the beauty and uniqueness in so much repetitiveness, Liebeslieder Walzer challenged the viewer to find the beauty and uniqueness in choreography that was arguably minimalist since it did not include massive pirouettes, grand jumps, skittering allegro or any of the other things that we have come to depend upon in ballets we love. This was just fancy waltzing, mostly in character shoes and massive Vienna-style costumes, although the ladies did change into pointe shoes for a period of time. This ballet did not speak to Haglund thirty years ago, but now the atmosphere created by the simpler dancing, elegant costumes and scenery, and gorgeous on-stage singing of Johannes Brahms' songs from Opus 52 and 65 is a much richer experience.

Megan Fairchild, Rebecca Krohn, Lauren Lovette, Tiler Peck, Jared Angle, Chase Finlay, Russell Janzen, and Amar Ramasar seemed to be truly enjoying themselves in this ballet. Several of them were debuting in roles, and this ballet appears to be one that dancers can’t wait to be handed, like Robbins’ Dances at a Gathering. Each woman was beautifully exactly who we expected her to be. There was no acting, only honesty. Maybe that was one of the ballet's main attractions. Rebecca’s deeply expressive upper body and Lauren’s just-coming-of-age beauty and confidence were particularly lovely. The gentlemen all personified elegance and fine manners. Chase Finlay was nearly busting out of his shoes with energy; it’s been a while since he’s done any real moving on this stage due to injury.

The H.H. Pump Bump Award, a gold Egyptian style sandal that any pharaoh would be thrilled to wear, is bestowed upon the men’s corps de ballet in Glass Pieces for their driving force in Akhnaten.

Whew! LCF comes thru with The Winter's Tale

Blizzard Schmizzard!

The snow can blow all it wants in D.C. this weekend, because Wheeldon's The Winter's Tale and The National Ballet of Canada are coming to the Lincoln Center Festival for five performances this summer (July 28-31st).

NYCB - Opening Night of the Winter Season 1/19

Over the next few weeks, the night skies will reveal five planets shining brightly simultaneously. It’s a rare occurrence that last happened more than a decade ago. Mercury, Venus, Saturn, Mars, and Jupiter will all be lined up in a row and visible with the naked eye. From now until about February 20th, you should look in the southern sky beginning about an hour before dawn. Venus and Jupiter are almost always easy to spot from the far West Side of Manhattan even with all the city’s lights; so, this should be a quite a striking display of celestial twinkling.

But let’s talk about the celestial twinkling that was hotter than blue blazes last night. New York City Ballet's opening performance of its Winter Season raised the city’s bitter cold temperature several degrees. Tiler Peck and Robert Fairchild led a sensational cast of Balanchine’s Who Cares? that included a sparkling Ana Sophia Scheller and a sultry Savannah Lowery. It’s possible that Haglund has never missed a local performance of Peck & Fairchild in this ballet. Back in 2012 when the two opened the Winter Season dancing these same roles, Haglund wrote that “The chemistry between the two was as grand as that of Leslie Caron and Gene Kelly” and again later that week “ Peck and Fairchild were like a spark and accelerant flirting beneath the kindling.” Well, here we are four years later. They’re now married and he has brilliantly re-defined on Broadway one of Kelly’s most famous movie roles with Leslie Caron. Back in 2012, it was all there in the stars for us to read.

The bliss of romance, true love, and passion fired up these two again in Gershwin’s The Man I love. She launched turns joyously and he joined in with his hand to her waist — not so much to steady her revolutions but to make sure that she didn’t simply take-off into another world without him. Their musicality together was on the order of divine. In Fascinatin’ Rhythm, Tiler propelled the phrases forward sending the audience into the balletic equivalent of religious fervor. Meanwhile, The Man seemed to relish being back dancing in front of his home audience. His solo to Gershwin's Liza felt like we were meeting up with an old friend who we hadn’t realized just how much we missed. His dancing was generous, on the mark, and engaging from start to finish.

It sounded like Maestro Litton had the orchestra on a short leash last night. We would rather have heard more big band quality and New York energy than classical refinement in the Gershwin, but that’s our preference. The Bernstein music for Fancy Free sounded polite. The Candide Overture that opened the evening was lovely but restrained. We couldn’t feel Lenny's groove in it. 

Joaquin De Luz, Tyler Angle, and Amar Ramasar were fabulous as the sailors lookin’ for fun on a hot, summer night in 1944 New York. Fancy Free is probably Jerome Robbins’ best known stage ballet and, thanks to both local ballet companies who always field great casts, we get to see it here on a fairly regular basis. The Passers-by Georgina Pazcoguin, Sterling Hyltin, and Stephanie Chrosniak showed just the right amount of “experience” in dealing with these guys.

The program opened with a tremendous performance of Martins' Barber Violin Concerto – one of his most inspired choreographic creations. By the way, the orchestra and soloist Kurt Nikkanen sounded glorious in this piece. Megan Fairchild, Sara Mearns, Jared Angle and Russell Janzen (subbing for Ask la Cour) were the ballet and modern dance couples who tangled with one another – comfortable in who they were while needing to change in order to get want they really wanted. We cannot recall a more compelling performance from Sara and Jared in these roles. Their mutual trust and love for one another was evident throughout their PdD.

Okay, let’s get to the grand disappointment of the night which was the new art installation by Marcel Dzama. What a let-down after seeing such great work by the first three artists in NYCB’s annual Art Series. Huge video screens at either end of the promenade flash enough chaos and nonsense to bring on an instant headache, if not an epileptic seizure in those so predisposed. Rotating metal figures are centered on the promenade.  Some framed artwork around the perimeter and miniature set models on tables on the main floor offer individual examples of interesting stuff, but there seems to be no concept to this installation. Apparently, it was the artist’s funny bone that drove him to put large polka-dots on the huge statues at either end of the promenade, and it must have been his youthful defiance that made him feel entitled to deface someone else’s longstanding and respected art work. This was a real let-down. The flashing screens are likely to cause people to make fewer trips to the concession stands because it is all so annoying. So, there ya go. Every creative act is not art.

This little carousel is cute, however. You can see some of the other stuff on this brief vid:

Our first H.H. Pump Bump Award of the season, a Via Spiga gold work of art, is bestowed upon Tiler Peck for her brilliant interpretation of Fascinatin’ Rhythm and The Man I Love.

NYCB's winter premiere offering

Here is NYCB's promo vid for Justin Peck's new ballet based on Hans Christian Andersen's The Most Incredible Thing which premieres on Groundhog Day. Very slick and enticing marketing effort. Our fingers are crossed for this overall project and that Phil doesn't deliver a long winter. Also on the program is Christopher Wheeldon's very enjoyable and highly creative Estancia.

 

observations 1-18

Let's get it started, folks. Winter Season begins tomorrow!

We have loved this marketing campaign since Day 1. Illustrator Jamie Lee Reardin's little cat-like faces full of cat attitude and ultra-long skinny-kitty limbs just makes us smile and want to buy tickets to see all these cats jumpin' around. How great it would be if NYCB developed a series of little video cartoons with the dancers' actual voices. "Excuse me, that's my spot at the barre. Meow." "No problem, you can have it back when I'm finished. Meow."

 

 

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Free Master Classes at the Bergen Performing Arts Center. Advanced students 14 years old and up who live in Bergen County should call 201-482-8194 to reserve a space.

NYCB's Daniel Ulbricht is directing this ongoing series of classes. This Monday's class will be taught by Amar Ramasar. February 8th's class will be taught by Stella Abrera; April 4th's class by Gonzalo Garcia; and June 6th's class by Megan Fairchild.

If you're too late to reserve a spot at the barre, you can still observe the class for free -- also very useful, sometimes more so. Take notes.

observations 1-13

As of January 1, 2016, the State Primorsky Opera and Ballet Theater in Vladivostok, Russia has been officially re-designated as the Primorsky Stage of the Mariinsky Theatre. There is a new beautiful website, still a work in progress, (http://prim.mariinsky.ru/en/) where our very own Joseph Phillips is now a Principal Dancer under the Mariinsky label, banner, and brand. The archive of the company's former identity is still available, too. (http://primopera.ru/splash_page/primorsky_splash_page_en.html). 

We could not be more proud.

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Excitement is percolating for the debuts of Lauren Lovette, Joseph Gordon, Brittany Pollack, Unity Phelan, and Megan LeCrone in Balanchine's Who Cares? during the second week of New York City Ballet's Winter Season. Gordon is also set for his sailor debut in Fancy Free. What a natural that will be! We hope to see other fabulous corpsmen in that ballet soon, too, – Harrison Coll, for instance, would simply live this ballet beyond life as we know it.

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Anyone who has this Friday off can hear the New York Philharmonic freakin' kill Stravinsky's Rite of Spring for $39 (plus service fees) by using the code mat0115 on the website. If you haven't heard the NYPhil and Maestro Gilbert give their love, passion, and respect to this piece of music, you are in for a treat. Concert starts at 11am.

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We wish that ABT would can that second intermission for its Sleeping Beauty. Life would be so much easier.

Speaking of ABT's Sleeping Beauty – in the Winter edition of Ballet Review, Alastair Irrelevant is at his most anal in his contribution entitled: Further Annals of The Sleeping Beauty: A Questionnaire in which he literally pesters Alexei Ratmansky, Richard Hudson, and Doug Fullington with written questions firstly designed to plump up the public's perception of the interrogator's own grasp of details but also reveals his proclivity for weaving his opinions within facts to make them also look like facts. It is a good read for what Ratmansky says, but you have to wade through Mr. Irrelevant's gush & slush to get to it.

NYCB 2016 Art Series – Marcel Dzama and Amy Sedaris?

Chess moves are coming to New York City Ballet's 2016 Art Series.

Canadian born, Brooklyn-based, chess enthusiast, contemporary artist Marcel Dzama will be the featured artist this winter. His installation on the Promenade will be digital in nature and will include a Chess Match Dance Off and apparently an "incognito" appearance by actress Amy Sedaris. We don't necessarily assume that she will show up as the (dancing) Queen, though. That would be disappointingly obvious.

Much of Marcel Dzama's work speaks of dance already; so, it should be great to see how the dancers of NYCB inspire him through collaboration. His work also frequently includes dark, disturbing elements. Let's hope that he doesn't go overboard with that in his costume and set designs for Justin Peck's new ballet based on the Hans Christian Andersen fairytale The Most Incredible Thing.

The dates of the special Art Night performances on which audience members are given limited edition commemorative souvenirs are February 6 Eve, 11, and 19. Tickets for these shows are $30. Buy now or be sorry. (Actually as of the publication of this post, you can't buy them yet. But keep your eyes open.)

 

observations 1-7

Bolshoi Ballet in Cinema presents Jean-Christophe Maillot’s THE TAMING OF THE SHREW on Sunday, January 24th. The cast is as follows:

Katharina, the Shrew:      Ekaterina Krysanova
Petruchio                          Vladislav Lantratov
Bianca:                             Olga Smirnova
Lucentio:                          Semyon Chudin
The Housekeeper:           Anna Tikhomirova

The length is 125 minutes with one intermission. In Manhattan, there are 3 theaters showing THE TAMING OF THE SHREW on SUNDAY JAN 24 at 12.55pm Eastern Time:

Regal Union Square Stadium 14 (850 Broadway at 14th Street)
AMC Loews Kips Bay 15 (570 Second Ave)
AMC Empire 25 (234 West 42nd Street)

Here's the trailer:

 

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Competing on that Sunday will be New York City Ballet with a fantastic program that closes with Tiler Peck and Robert Fairchild in Balanchine's Who Cares? Technically, it would probably be possible to attend both the Bolshoi Ballet's cinemacast and the last part of the NYCB matinee if one woke up Sunday morning with the energy to do it.

We're pretty excited about the first week's cast of Ballo della Regina. Megan Fairchild, Joaquin De Luz, Ashley Laracey, Erica Pereira, Ashly Isaacs, and Lauren King should leave us breathless on Thursday and on Saturday evening.