Haglund's Heel

Right here, right now

Theme and Variations, Les Syphides, Don Q PdD, Firebird 1978

http://lincolncenter.org/lincoln-center-at-home/show/american-ballet-theatre-at-the-metropolitan-opera-house-1978-109

Email sign-up required tonight 🙄

Right here, right now

A Midsummer Night's Dream 1986

http://lincolncenter.org/lincoln-center-at-home/show/a-midsummer-nightrsquos-dream-1986-244

observations 5/29

NYCB stages its final performance of the Digital Spring Season tonight at 8PM. The program features works from its 21st Century Choreographers bills including Peck's Easy and excerpts from dances by Tanowitz, Ratmansky, Reisen, Abraham, Peck, and Bigonzetti. Watching so many excerpts together should provide for an opportunity to generalize what's wrong with so much of today's new choreography. On the other hand, the excerpt from Peck's The Times Are Racing might look to a lot of my fellow wrinkled geezers like it was ripped straight from the 1960's TV shows Hullabaloo and Shindig -- only not as good.

You can watch on the NYCB website, YouTube channel or Facebook. (Give these platforms a minute or two after 8PM to get the curtain up. Just keep refreshing. As we know, nothing happens until 8:05 or 7:35 on real performance nights in the theater.)

––––––––––––––––––––

Meanwhile, the artistic director of Lincoln Center, Jane Moss, is waltzing out the door on August 1st after 27 years. She directs Lincoln Center’s Great Performers series, Mostly Mozart Festival, White Light Festival, American Songbook, Midsummer Night Swing and Lincoln Center Out of Doors. Recall that she assumed the responsibility for everything when Debora Spar quit and the decision was made to ax the Lincoln Center Festival. With the new management, whoever that may be, let's hope we get some new thinking on the value of LCF. We need the Paris Opera Ballet, Mariinsky, Royal, and Bolshoi back here ASAP.

YIKES! And don't forget that tomorrow is the beginning of Lincoln Center's Dance Week of archived Live from Lincoln Center Performances. Refresh yourself concerning the upcoming rep here.

Watch it on the LC website here or on FB.

 

Reopening

As we already wrote somewhere in the comments, the Brooklyn Nets are dipping their toes back into training.

They are conducting training sessions at the new HSS Training Center in Sunset Park. The Hospital for Special Surgery created the 70,000 square foot facility atop a warehouse. It has all the requisite equipment plus a basketball court.

The first rule is that only four players are allowed in the building at one time. No coaches permitted. No scrimmages. No practice games. AND players are strictly forbidden from using non-team facilities such as health clubs or gyms.

(Rules courtesy of https://brooklyneagle.com/articles/2020/05/26/a-return-to-normalcy-under-new-guidelines-nets-return-to-sunset-park-practice-facility/ )

One toe at a time back in the pool.

Let's hope NYCB and ABT are working on reopening plans. With regard to NYCB, starting with classes three or four days per week would be reasonable. Four or five dancers could be assigned to each of the many studios available at the Koch Theater and at SAB. One of those studios could include a teacher and pianist who would be transmitted via internet to the other studios. That's all very workable provided precautions are taken and the dancers remain disciplined with regard to social distancing and quarantining when not on site.

Let's assume -- because we're pessimists -- that there will be no fall season. Let's think ahead to Nutcracker season. What can be done to preserve that tradition and some of the income and also ignite the crazy joy that comes with the season?

How about 50 video streams of a shortened Nutcracker Suite of dances at $5 a swig? But these 50 video streams would have a different Sugarplum Fairy, Cavalier, Dewdrop, Tea, Coffee every time. That's right, every time. In fact, every single dancer in the company, right down to the newest apprentice, could run a principal role on some night thereby insuring plenty of repeat customers willing to slap a five down on the bar for another swig of Nutcracker. Everyone remembers how disappointing last year's Nutcrackers were with the same veteran dancers hogging the spotlight with fingernails dug into their tutus while side-eyeing all the talented up & comers. Enough of that!

But you also need a narrator to pull this hodgepodge of dances together. Let's say upfront -- not SJP, please. Someone like Tom Hanks or Nathan Lane or Elsa, Princess of Arendelle would fit the bill. Princess Elsa would be perfect, wouldn't she? Let it go. Let it go. It's time to see what I can do. To test the limits and break through.

Hopefully, NYCB is thinking outside the box. There could be a lot of excitement and instant focusing among corps dancers preparing their principal roles for a digital stream.

We're also noticing how the MariinskyTV is running some fabulous concerts of ballet music. Just today, they launched Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. 2 with Gergiev, Denis Matsuev and the Mariinsky Orchestra. Isn't it time for our NYCB Orchestra to be on stage playing and streaming some of their fantastic music? There were rumblings some time ago about recording possibilities, but we're in the streaming age now. Time to step up the game.

Let's go let's go let's go.

observations 5/26

Coming up this evening on NYCB's digital spring season is Donizetti Variations with Ashley Bouder and Andrew Veyette from January 28, 2015. Let's hope that NYCB extends and ramps up its digital offerings over the next few months. How about a full Stars and Stripes for the week of July 4th?

It's great to see that NYCB is seriously exploring paid digital streaming which is long overdue. Let's hope they really make it First Class; perhaps even join with another Lincoln Center resident company to produce a spectrum of content that might rival what the MariinskyTV webcasts produce.

NYCB should also be getting licensing fees from dancers who are using their NYCB identities to sell video content -- especially those who are teaching the SAB curriculum. It's only fair. If unions want to get grabby with NYCB video revenues, NYCB and the Balanchine Foundation should get grabby with dancers who want to profit from distributing to others what SAB and NYCB have given them -- particularly during a crisis time when NYCB has continued to pay the dancers salaries. It's like they're double-dipping while so many others are suffering. Just saying...

––––––––––––––––––––

Speaking of the fabulous MariinskyTV content -- right now they are running a video class taught by the Mariinsky coach, Elvira Tarasova. She currently coaches Mariinsky stars Ekaterina Kondaurova, Anastasia Matvienko, Tatiana Tkachenko, Kristina Shapran, May Nagahisa and Maria Khoreva. The class is free of charge.

 

observations 5/24

Today Governor Cuomo encouraged New York professional sports teams to start their training camps.

Let's find out how they are going to do that and how it can apply to our two New York ballet companies. The sports teams are building a functional model that might be applicable to dance. What will it take? Temperature checks, twice weekly COVID tests, antibodies tests, strict quarantining when not on the job? If we were to take a survey among NYCB and ABT dancers, we bet that we'd find at least 180 dancers willing to stick a swab up their noses twice a week in order to get back to dancing. Hell, they'd put the videos up on Instagram - you know they would. Actually, that could even turn into a Public Service Announcement movement. The quintessential New Yorker, "Yo, you wanna test me? Go ahead, test me, buddy."

 

observations 5/22

Tonight's NYCB Digital Season offering is an all-Wheeldon program of Liturgy and Carousel (A dance). Maria Kowroski and Jared Angle are featured in the first; Lauren Lovette, Tyler Angle, Emilie Gerrity, Peter Walker, Kristen Segin, and Ralph Ippolito are featured in the second. The program can be watched on the NYCB website, YouTube, and Facebook.

––––––––––––––––––––

If you missed the Mariinsky's broadcast of the 2016 Vishneva/Ganio Giselle earlier this month, here's another opportunity to see it. Tomorrow evening (5/23) check out the Mariinsky TV webpage.   Then on Sunday, Little Humpbacked Horse with Somova and Shklyarov will run again.

 

observations 5/19

Coming up this evening at 8pm is the NYCB digital season presentation of Balanchine's Diamonds with Sara Mearns and Russell Janzen and the extraordinarily beautiful Diamonds corps de ballet. The performance from September 2019 was among the five Jewels performances that Haglund happily sat through that season.

One of the most striking memories of that time was the new emotional balance between these two principals. "Calm is her super power, " we declared. We noted how Diamonds was no longer a solitaire – it had been "replaced by a pavé setting that unleashed the light and grandeur of Balanchine’s masterpiece."

This performance is really worth gluing the old eyeballs to over and over again.

 

observations 5/14

Well, this is great news!

Dance Week at Lincoln Center will present the following lineup of rebroadcasts of Live from Lincoln Center performances on the LC website and Facebook page:

(1) Saturday, May 30 at 2:00pm ET

 

CARMEN.maquia and Club Havana (2015)

Live from Lincoln Center
Ballet Hispánico

Ballet Hispánico will “whisk us away to contemporary dance’s hottest spot“ (Washington Post) in this showcase of Latin-inspired contemporary dance at its best.

 

(2) Saturday, May 30 at 8:00pm ET

 

A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1986)

Live from Lincoln Center
New York City Ballet

George Balanchine’s enchanting ballet based on Shakespeare’s comedy comes to magical life in this 1986 Live From Lincoln Center broadcast with the New York City Ballet. Ib Anderson is Oberon; Maria Calegari is Titania; Merrill Ashley dances the Divertissment.

 

(3) Sunday, May 31 at 8:00pm ET

 

American Ballet Theatre at The Metropolitan Opera House (1978)

American Ballet Theatre

An evening of repertory includes the Act III Grand Pas de Deux of Don Quixote, Fokine’s Les Sylphides, Balanchine’s Theme and Variations, and Fokine’s Firebird. This will include Kirkland & Baryshnikov in T&V, Bujones & Makarova in Don Q, Ivan Nagy & Marianna Tcherkaassky in Les Sylphides, AND Cynthia Gregory as Firebird!

 

(4) Monday, June 1 at 7:00pm ET

 

Virtual Workshop Performance Celebration

School of American Ballet

Outstanding highlights of SAB’s annual Workshop Performances, with commentary from the school’s leaders, faculty, and distinguished alumni Justin Peck and Maria Kowroski.

 

(5) Tuesday, June 2 at 8:00pm ET

 

Coppélia (1978)

Live from Lincoln Center
New York City Ballet

George Balanchine’s and Alexandra Danilova’s comic ballet, with music by Léo Delibes, centers on a mechanical girl with whom the hero falls in love. Patricia McBride, Helgi Tomasson, and Shaun O'Brien star.

 

(6) Wednesday, June 3 at 8:00pm ET

 

Tribute to Balanchine (1983)

Live from Lincoln Center
New York City Ballet

A month after the great George Balanchine passed away, New York City Ballet threw this loving tribute to its co-founder, with dances set to Strauss, Tchaikovsky, and Gershwin. Vienna Waltzes with Bart Cook, Suzanne Farrell, Kyra Nichols, Sean Lavery, Peter Martins, Karin von Aroldingen; Mozartiana with Farrell; Who Cares with Patricia McBride, Sean Lavery, Heather Watts, Lourdes Lopez.

 

(7) Thursday, June 4 at 8:00pm ET

 

Chroma, Grace, Takademe, Revelations (2015)

Live from Lincoln Center
Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater

Witness a masterpiece of American dance, Alvin Ailey’s Revelations, in a program including Wayne McGregor’s  Chroma, Ronald K.  Brown’s  Grace, and Robert Battle’s  Takademe.

 

observations 5/12

From the New York Post:

"You can’t make this ship up.

The American Ballet Theatre has thoughtfully planned an auction to help with COVID-19 relief. Less thoughtful: Some available lots include bookings for a cruise.

Of course, cruise ships were reported as an early spreader of the virus, and at one point in March the largest outbreak of the coronavirus outside of China was aboard the Diamond Princess, a British ship with more than 700 cases and 13 dead. Many ships were stranded at sea because nations refused to let them dock, fearing that their passengers would infect residents."

Honest to god, does this company's management have even one single nano-strand of common sense? They are basically auctioning off clusters of COVID to their patrons. And we'll bet that they'll find a way to coerce dancers -- that is, select dancers who they wish would retire or leave -- into climbing back on a cruise ship to perform. McMoron: "So you want to begin preparing Swan Lake? Here's your opportunity to show me how badly you want it and how much you will sacrifice to get it. Go dance on a filthy, pathogen-infested cruise ship."  This is the type of stuff that the dancers' union should spend its time on – rather than blocking video-streaming revenues.

☠️