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.)

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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.

 

Comments

[Jeannette]

Haglund, this was EASY-EASILY the least satisfying of the NYCB digital offerings. Sorry that they had to end on this low.

Wasn’t Kowrosky announced for the last piece, OLTREMARE? Did I blink and miss her?

It was nice to see the Miami FIREBIRD but, oh those cheesy designs! A red latex unitard on our Firebird? A yellow tunic on Prince Ivan? Did I detect purple polyester on those princesses? A villain looking like he stepped out of Sesame Street? And don’t get me going on that final tableau with the Cheapo flags. They should’ve rented the stunning Chagalls from NYCB.

[Slippersgirl]

Well, Haglund, you called it. Definitely a showcase of what is wrong with current choreography. I am sorry that I already responded to the survey, saying I would be willing to pay a monthly fee. If this is what they're planning on streaming, they'd have to pay me to watch it.

[Haglund]

True Slippersgirl. I wouldn't pay a monthly fee to watch that stuff--except for the Bigonzetti piece which I do have some respect for. Bear in mind that all of these pieces were just excerpts undoubtedly chosen as the best frames to use for selling the public on this muck. I actually disliked each piece more than when I saw it in the theater--Bigonzetti excepted. The laugh of the night was Peck's intro in which he calls the pieces "ballets." How incredibly disrespectful to the art form.

[Haglund]

Jeanette, never mind our daffodil Ivan -- the rose colored plastic-wrapped Firebird is so-o-o not hot. The whole palette is dreadful. This is another big mistake that follows the Midsummer Night's Dream costume/scenic debacle.

[Marta]

Hi Haglund,

The last "showcase" was an unsatisfying fiasco. I would have preferred to see one whole ballet, or maybe two substantial excerpts. Neither of the Peck pieces made me want to see more of them. I thought Taylor Stanley was excellent, yet... I don't know about the whole ballet. I recall that the Tanowitz and Ratmansky ballets were almost universally disliked by both balletomanes and critics. I was intrigued by both of those excerpts and would like to see the entire works. I've never been wild about Lovette but it was fascinating to see different facets of her dancing and I don't think I've ever seen her in a leotard ballet and in such a stark dramatic role. I felt cheated by the 10 second glimpse of Kowroski in Oltremare, another work I'd like to see in its entirety.