Haglund's Heel

observations 1/31

Haglund'eelers are snapping up the tickets to the February 19 screening of the Royal Ballet's La Bayadere at Landmark Theater Cinemas on W. 57th St. We all recall how the RB's Swan Lake sold out quickly which necessitated opening up a second screening room for the overflow crowd; but there is no guarantee that another screening room will be opened this time. So, we recommend getting your tickets ASAP. No opportunity to see Marianela Nuñez should be missed.

––––––––––––––––––––

Haglund is skipping the Justin Peck premiere this evening. Of late, the choreographer hasn't made enough progress and has continued to offer up the same schtickky pseudo-intellectual pop dope accompanied by media which suggests it's like some gift from Christ. On a program where NYCB has elected to celebrate, promote, and normalize the violence and misogyny inherent in rap music, it all becomes too easy to walk away from. 

––––––––––––––––––––

In our review of NYCB's Tschaikovsky program, we neglected to mention the outstanding debut that Emilie Gerrity made as the Dark Angel in Serenade. A dancer who possesses near-perfect physical and technical form, Emily is a full-service ballerina who excels in the stark black and white ballets as well as the lusciously romantic ones. Burned into the memory is the image of her in Serenade where her stationary arabesque ascended slowly until it pointed to the heavens.

We're happy to report that on Tuesday evening, Teresa Reichlen soared in Tschaikovsky PC 2 as we hoped she would following her timid performance last week. Her temperature was perfect for the main ballerina role: slightly cool, approachable, confident. The dancing was strong, assertive without being brash, and glamour-worthy of the tiara atop her head. Loved the performance.

But Mozartiana -- good grief, what a miscast. Such bull-in-a-china-cabinet mucking around we got from Sara Mearns. Clomp, clomp, clomp went the hops on pointe with cutesy expression. She seemed to be having such a good time missing her steps and trying to turn them into artistry. And, trust us, whenever anyone hears a ballerina publicly over-proclaim how important a role is to her and what it means to be allowed to dance it, you know damn well that she knows she should not be dancing it. But she was having such a wonderful time...  How about thinking more about the quality and integrity of what one is putting on stage rather than whether one is having a great time. Hopefully, this is the last season that we'll have to see Mearns in Mozartiana.

We found Harrison Ball's Gigue pretty darned pleasing -- dancing, musicality, and especially expression. The only thing we object to were those moments where it looked like he might consider them a place to get a little rest. The front attitude in plie that came at the end of a musical phrase arrived on time but not with the punctuation that one sees in Ulbricht's performances where there are definitely no resting places.

––––––––––––––––––––

In the Department of Who Takes Their Arts Seriously: There was an uproar among the public and performing artists this month in Kyrgyzstan when the Kyrgyz National Academic Opera and Ballet Theater allowed their theater to be used for a Cyber Sports tournament of Dota 2, the multi-player computer game devoted to violence and war. Such was the uproar – which included baritone Tair Beisheev's public declaration that a "terrible event" was taking place where great names, the sons and daughters of Kyrgyzstan had performed – that the director of the theater was dismissed by the country's Culture Minister. The country's Prime Minister signed a decree relieving the director of his position. Aren't we lucky here in America where Kanye West's violence and misogyny can be glamorized and normalized on the ballet stage in the name of promoting diversity without any such consequences?

 

NYCB Week 1Serenade, Mozartiana, Tsch Piano Concerto No. 2

Somebody’s out of shape.

A month and a half of holiday eating and then – wham bam! – it’s right into a string of seven performances at NYCB without so much as an episode of Law & Order with chips from the couch for a breather. But that’s the balletomane’s life. Truth be told, the law & order on the George Balanchine Stage at Lincoln Center during the first week of the Winter Season certainly helped to calm our junk food/anxiety/political pangs. 

 

Balanchine, Stravinsky, and Tschaikovsky kept the goings on stage on the straight & narrow. Energy was high, fifths were flat, and the dancing was in service to the art. The Corps de Ballet in Serenade has never looked more ravishingly beautiful or moved with a greater sense of sisterhood than they did last week. The women entered the stage time and time again as if carried by winds and often exited with faces turned upward to the sky to catch the light. 

 

Two casts of principals complemented the Corps de Ballet stars for the four performances of Serenade. Tiler Peck’s wondrous Russian Girl caught the spirit of the corps and danced with a vibrant independence and luscious musicality. Hers was the highlight performance among the principals. Lauren Lovette’s debut as the Waltz Girl in the alternate cast showed great promise. She also showed lovely musicality but on a smaller scale. And while the pairing of Lauren with Ask la Cour looked odd, it really didn’t hurt their individual performances. Ask’s debut in this role showed him to be in very good form and partnering with his usual elegance and faultless coordination. Aaron Sanz debuted and danced the other male role in all four performances. It’s a tougher assignment than the male role that is matched with the Waltz Girl because this secondary male must partner each of the three women principals as well as a slew of corps dancers who come flying toward him at full speed. Aaron didn’t allow himself to become overwhelmed although his concentration and determination were evident. This guy’s classical dancing and dramatics in the core repertory could take NYCB to a new level in the near future so long as he does not get injured from being over burdened with partners who are too large or thrown into too much worthless new choreography that relies on stupid pet tricks. He’s among the most handsome dancers in the company with an extremely readable face; he doesn’t need to wear more makeup than Sara Mearns. 

 

Speaking of makeup, if a dancer has a hard feature, is it really wise to emphasize it with black-red lipstick? Half of the principal ladies in Serenade seemed to think that black-red lipstick would make a difficult smile more appealing. It doesn’t make thin lips look bigger, and it has an extremely unflattering effect on a dropped expression. 

 

Mozartiana received exquisite readings from both Maria Kowroski and Sterling Hyltin although on different scales: Maria’s dancing in Mozartiana continues to burn with ever-increasing brightness like our own aging sun in our solar system; Sterling’s interpretation of Mozartiana is just beginning to form and release glow and warmth. Both artists seem to understand that they can trust the choreography and do not need to over-do facial expressions or convey faux happiness or drama. The lightness and weightlessness in their dancing and interpretations revealed the brilliance in the choreography.

 

Tyler Angle and Anthony Huxley each responded to the lightness of their ballerinas in kind. Tyler is dancing superbly this season with speed and articulation that one normally doesn’t see in a man his size. Anthony’s dancing has reached yet another level of brilliance. His every moment on stage is polished to perfection. In Mozartiana – first of all, he kills in the white tights – he blitzed through the allegro knocking out batterie with such straightforward clarity that it made one wonder why anyone else would have to struggle with it.

 

Daniel Ulbricht and Troy Schumacher shared performances of the Gigue, and both danced the steps cleanly and with energy. What made Daniel’s far more exciting was his intensity and his ability to dance on the front of each note — always on the music, but on the very front of the note.

 

Completing this program was the Tschaikovsky Piano Concerto No. 2. Ashley Bouder, Joseph Gordon and Lauren King led the first cast; Teresa Reichlen, Tyler Angle, and Megan LeCrone led the second. Lauren King’s performances were unquestionably the highlight of the current run. She out-danced, out-graced, out-performed everyone else and made this ballet about the “turning ballerina” which is what her role is nicknamed. Lauren’s progress over the years has been slow & steady - an anomaly at NYCB where the stars tend to rise quickly. But good heavens, she stole the show in this ballet and probably would have been more watchable in the lead ballerina role.

 

Ashley Bouder got her allegro steps just fine but offered little else. The upper body and arms were graceless. Due to the buildup of the muscles in the shoulders and arms, her port de bras is now shorter than ever. The extension of the leg and foot in developpe, while accurate, is not a particularly lovely line and shape. From the first note, it did not seem like this was a good matchup of dancer and ballet. Ashley is quite wonderful to see in lightning fast allegro of the Concerto DSCH variety, but big ballerina roles should be shelved. 

 

We can’t say what might have happened to Teresa Reichlen in the alternate cast, but her performance looked like her timid debut from several years ago. Fortunately, that debut was followed by powerhouse performances that demonstrated her ownership of the role. Hopefully, we’ll see that again in the coming week.

 

Megan LeCrone did not fare well in TPC 2 either. Joyless dancing with stern concentration made the role look terribly small and unimportant. 

 

As for the men, Tyler Angle once again delivered a solid performance as Teresa’s partner while powerfully and cleanly dispatching the allegro. Joseph Gordon enjoyed an excellent debut, but his matchup with Ashley was not pleasing. He was mesmerizing during the Andante non troppo when he partnered the two lines of women. Everything was vivid and worth watching: his own lines, his face, his reverie, his gracious manner with all of the ballerinas. Wherever his heart went in that section, we went, too.

 

The new costumes for TPC 2 were likable for several reasons: the blue-gray-navy color scheme is a bit unusual but handsome; the sparkles look good; the bodices are elaborate enough to go atop tutus. The only objection to this costume (as well as the previous ones) is the length of the skirt combined with the weight of the fabric which gives it a cocktail dress look. A cocktail length skirt looks fabulous overtop stilettos. Not so over a flat foot. Nor is the clingy cocktail length the best friend to the short leg. The cocktail length also looks odd below a tiara-ed head. Tiaras go with tutus or floor length gowns, not cocktail dresses. The combination of tiara and elaborate bodice over somewhat plain cocktail skirt yielded an unbalanced look. That said, we’ll take ‘em. They are an improvement over the peachy things of the past — they're just not the tutus that we had our hearts set on.

 

Our H.H. Pump Bump Award for last week’s Tschaikovsky program is bestowed upon Lauren King whose name was on the lips of many after each of her three glorious performances. 

 

 

 

 

observations 1/28

Tickets are now on sale for the screening of the Royal Ballet's La Bayadere (Nunez, Muntagirov, Osipova) on February 19th at Landmark Theaters cinema on W. 57th St in Manhattan. Tickets for the ROH's La Traviata and Queen of Spades are also on sale. Tickets for all seem to be limited; so, get yours early.

NYCB 1/22 Myths & legendary dancing open the season

Apollo, besides being the god of music, poetry, truth, healing, and sunlight, is also the god of foreigners and the protector of refugees. We thank him for taking time out of his impossibly busy schedule to open the Winter Season for New York City Ballet.

 

Taylor Stanley, debuting as Apollo, with Muses Tiler Peck, Brittany Pollack (also debuting), and Indiana Woodward were a competent if at times dull team last night. Was Apollo on Prozac? we asked ourselves.  It wasn’t all the dancers' fault, though. It seems that Maestro Litton, conducting from the newly named Stravinsky Orchestra Pit, was determined to keep everyone calm on stage by making the revelatory score sound like elevator music — slow, slight, and shallow. 

 

Over the past couple of years, Haglund has suggested that the stage be named the George Balanchine Stage at Lincoln Center so that we all don’t have to squirm when referring to the location of NYCB. Since this step of naming the orchestra pit after the great Stravinsky has now been taken, why can’t a donor or two step up for the privilege of naming the stage after Balanchine? And the city should still consider ceramic murals of Bing, Balanchine, and Bernstein in the 66th Street subway station. And maybe Toscanini, Tallchief, and Te Kanawa. Better yet, the Plaza at Lincoln Center should be a Walk of Arts with our great ones' faces and names forever engraved.

 

Back to the performance last night –

 

It will be interesting to see how Stanley’s Apollo develops over these next two weeks and whether he can figure out how to convey Apollo’s youthfulness and inexperience which were missing last night. Scowling into the spotlight and stoically glaring at the muses did not do the trick. For a dancer as expressive and intelligent as Stanley, this brand new type of expressiveness should come quickly. Throughout his performance, Haglund kept thinking about what Stanley's Prodigal Son might reveal to us. 

 

All of Apollo’s steps seemed to be intact. There was a little bit of extra wiggling of the shoulders and arms which didn’t contribute anything other than extra wiggling. But then, his Terpsichore, Tiler Peck, also occasionally indulged in a little bit of Broadway-type wiggling of the shoulders. Last night’s slow tempo meant that Tiler had time to embellish the choreography which is sometimes a great thing but not with the role of Terpsichore.

 

Brittany Pollack’s debut as Polyhymnia was the strong performance that we expected to see. No problems with the pique turns with finger to the lips. But there was a sense that the tempo was holding her back in places. Her exceptionally long, lean lines contrasted with those of Tiler’s and Indiana Woodward’s. Indiana’s Calliope wasn’t danced with the urgency that we normally associate with her dancing, but the role was danced faultlessly.

 

Balanchine’s Orpheus, created in 1948, may have been the choreographer saying, “I will do Martha Graham my own way.” Here’s a picture of Graham's 1944 Herodiade, a work based on the Greek myth with a little Jungian flavoring thrown in. Watching Orpheus requires some patience which some in the audience didn’t seem to have judging by the phone lights that went on during parts of it. The Stravinsky score is not dance-y or even particularly dramatic. It plods like Orpheus plodding through the Underworld searching for Eurydice. Last night’s performance was certainly better than the ones we saw the last time this dance came around thanks to Gonzalo Garcia’s expressive face and Sterling Hyltin’s melodic phrasing and commitment to her character.

 

Peter Walker was a demonic Dark Angel. Unity Phelan led the Bacchantes with an open throttle. That was certainly pleasing to see; however, there is still an awkwardness that appears when Unity’s shoulders go up, the arms with dropped elbows fly careless behind her torso, and the head juts forward. Every dancer knows that it feels good to do that, but it looks awful.

 

Following Orpheus several people in the row in front of Haglund left the performance, so the sightline for Agon could not have been more pleasurable. Maria Kowroski and Tyler Angle wrestled through their pas de deux with Euclidean perfection and left us breathless. Such extraordinary geometry one rarely sees on the ballet stage — except at NYCB. It takes more than just long legs to achieve the visual art that Agon is. The ballerina must define the shapes with the longest possible arabesques, the largest possible circles, the most clearly defined angles. And Mr. Angle was expertly directing Maria's compass and pencil the whole way.

 

These days it’s so important to see every one of Maria’s performances in these iconic black & white masterpieces. Who knows if anyone her match will ever come along again in our lifetimes. We look at the instruments of corps dancers like Christina Clark and Clara Miller and think of the possibilities for the future of Agon; but that future is so far away that we may never see it.

 

Anthony Huxley danced the Sarabande with exuberance and a just-below-the-surface wryness. Megan LeCrone’s Bransle Gay was going great guns but then ended abruptly like there was a miscommunication with the music. Daniel Applebaum demanded our attention with every step, battement, arabesque, and even when he was standing still.  Lydia Wellington, Unity Phelan, and Devin Alberda completed the principal cast and danced handsomely. It’s such a pleasure to see Lydia Wellington get a few more opportunities. She radiates unusual warmth whenever she’s on stage and would probably make a stunningly beautiful Lilac Fairy.

 

So that was the opening night. Overall, there was a sense of caution in the dancing with not much risk taking. At times it all came close to an “I’m okay, you’re okay; let’s all have a nice day” sort of performance. That’s not what we come to NYCB to see.

 

The H.H. Pump Bump Award is bestowed upon Maria Kowroski who after nearly 25 years is still kicking ass and delivering legendary dancing like no one else.

 

 

 

observations 1/21

Who cares...

Feeling warm and toasty thinking about the opening of NYCB's Winter Season tomorrow. 

For those who did not have the chance to see the Bolshoi's production of La Bayadere in the cinema yesterday, you may access it on the Bolshoi website: http://media.bolshoi.ru/play#/vod/play/435   Registration is required. We recommend entering an alternatively-factual birth date when requested, and perhaps be prepared for election-interfering spam mail in the run-up to 2020. But hey, it's a small price to pay to see such glorious dancing.

Both Olgas delivered truly outstanding dancing but Marchenkova's Gamzatti was one hot, fully loaded baked картошка. Happily, Smirnova's Nikiya was quite an improvement over what we saw her do some years ago while guesting at ABT, but still, her face is somewhat frozen. Even when she smiled, there seemed to be a disconnect with the expression of her eyes. But she delivered a lot of gorgeous dancing. Artemy Belyakov's Solor was one that Haglund could replay all day long. In fact, that's what he's been doing today while he waits for it to warm up outside. Solor's cabrioles were beaten so clearly and slowly that they looked like they were being done under water. All of his dancing was handsome. True, dancing in white pants doesn't invite the same level of critical scrutiny as dancing in white tights. But he looked pretty darned classically lined from head to toe.

While Makarova's staging may still be a favorite due to her treatment of the final act, there is room in Haglund's heart for yet another La Bayadere. How great it was to see such dedicated artists who respect the fundamentals of the art form (excepting Smirnova's ill-placed extensions in the last act pdd) and dance with selfless belief in the value of their art. Yesterday, the corps' Kingdom of the Shades was as good as we've ever seen.

observations 1/13

The Bolshoi in Cinema presentation of La Bayadere next Sunday seems to be a very hot ticket here in NYC. For those who haven't yet reserved seats and don't want to sit in the first few rows of the movie house on Sunday, you may want to consider hot-footin' it over to the Beekman Theatre on 1st Ave between E. 66th & E. 67th Sts. on Monday afternoon 1/21 at 2PM or on Tuesday evening at 7PM to see the presentation.

––––––––––––––––––––

Very happy to see that Amar Ramasar has signed on with the Rome Opera Ballet and will create the role of Don Juan Jose in a new production of Carmen by Jiří Bubeníček. While the company website lists him as a guest artist, his own I-G sounds like it could be a more significant engagement. Good for him, but we hope eventually to see him back at NYCB along with Zachary Catazaro, no matter how long it takes.

––––––––––––––––––––

Before I built a wall I'd ask to know

What I was walling in or walling out,

And to whom I was like to give offense.

 

Haglund was thinking the other day that if Tudor, de Mille, or Robbins were alive right now, they might be working away on a new ballet inspired by Frost's 1914 Mending Wall. There's a whole ballet within his 45 lines of words just begging to be made. 1914 was not really a very good year, except for poetry.

 

 

 

Forward looking

It seems that Haglund has tickets for every performance of the first week of NYCB's winter season. In fact, at least eleven times during the first two weeks he’ll be ensconced in his favorite haunt with his eyeglasses freshly wiped, ears swabbed, and hands ready to burn new clapping blisters.

NYCB is not a company “on hold” or a company carefully walking across broken glass. As the new season begins, it is a company that is pushing its dancing and its best choreographic product to the forefront for everyone to focus on. Jon Stafford’s steady leadership through a turbulent year has been outstanding, and the company deserves to own the benefit of his serious and energetic focus permanently. The company doesn’t need another up-ending as it regains its stride so that Sarah Jessica can talk high heels with a token female director on Hulu TV.

Young artists are growing and the company as a whole is blossoming beautifully, not pushing up daisies as some would have you think. Unfortunately, the media suffers from an attention deficit disorder which prevents it from focusing on what takes place on the stage. At least now that the NYT has eased out its pretentious critic whose own troubling back story and lack of technical expertise in ballet were too long ignored, perhaps it will hire someone who focuses on art and performance qualities as opposed to promoting obnoxious socio-political agendas or engaging in Page Six style titillation and libel. 

The highlight of highlights of NYCB’s first week may be the return of Balanchine’s grand and glorious Tschaikovsky Piano Concerto No. 2.  We don’t mean to put any pressure on the solo pianist for that week, but this is an extraordinary recording from 30 years ago by pianist Peter Donohoe with the Bournemouth Symphony that brings out details in the music not always heard. Take a listen and don’t miss this ballet during the first two weeks of the season.

 

 

Come on, NYCB, make our hands burn from clapping.