Haglund's Heel

observations 3/29

We are in the middle of watching Pennsylvania Ballet's Spring Digital Season. Concerto Barocco, Clear, Suspended in Time, and Penumbra are on the bill. There are two casts available. One can purchase a ticket to one cast for $25 or both casts for $30. The streams will be available through March 31st. The program offerings can be watched in any order one chooses.

After watching both casts of Concerto Barocco and Cast A of Clear last evening, we are eager to get back to this season tonight. Loved both casts of Concerto Barocco, which was performed in a smaller than optimal space, and was totally mesmerized by So Jung Shin's first violin in Cast B. Oh my goodness, what a gorgeously gifted artist whose beauty of correct form seems like an offering to the gods.

Don't know if there has been a better performance of Clear since 2001 than the one led by Zecheng Liang and Oksana Maslova that we watched last night. We'll be rewinding that reel a couple of times before access expires on Wednesday night.

Angel's company looks superb. What an outstanding collection of individual artists he has assembled and mentored.

 

 

Finally, at last -- well, almost

So glad to hear that McKenzie has decided to make 2022 his final year. But will ABT survive it? If they can survive on hope, they will.

We had to laugh at this from the NYT article:

McKenzie’s decision to focus on homegrown dancers rather than international stars had been a courageous and important one, Ratmansky said. “Not everyone agreed with it,” he said, “but as a result we have a generation of extremely talented dancers grown from inside the company. "

The focus on homegrown dancers is a recent occurrence – like around 2015 – not a signature of his three decades of dismal directorship.

So let us consider the short list of viable candidates:

Bocca
Corella
Irina & Max
Nina
possibly Paloma - although the PC Police would be after her immediately because her current company includes no fatties, no thick gymnast bodies, no physiques that stand in the way of achieving seamless classical line.

And let us wince at the short list of TOP NO candidates:

Julie
Robert Hill
No one currently within or associated with ABT including Clinton Luckett, Cynthia Harvey, Keith Roberts, Ethan Stiefel.

But thank the gods everywhere that ABT finally may have a chance to become a great American classical company instead of serving up the classics with off-brand condiments. (Get your hot mustard Odette, your tangy Kitri, and onion mayo Giselle.)

Fingers crossed that the board makes the right choice.

 

 

observations 3/22

Unexpected obstacles seem to provoke her creativity. Twyla's, that is.

Coming up this Friday, March 26th, on PBS is a brand new Twyla Tharp documentary. The newest episode in the American Masters series shows Twyla at nearly 80 years old still making dances with her fresh, ageless ingenuity even in the midst of lockdown during a pandemic.

Check your local PBS channel for times when American Masters Twyla Moves premieres on March 26th.

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Yesterday Haglund spent a couple of hours watching The State Ballet of Georgia, a University of Minnesota Northrop documentary about Nina Ananiashvili's wonderful troupe. My o my, has the company matured since their visit to Avery Fisher Hall almost ten years ago. Then, their programming was mostly early Ratmansky works. Ratmansky still has a strong presence in the repertory, but this new documentary makes clear the institution's devotion to the country's famous son, Balanchine, and, of course, Petipa.

Nina has cultivated a handsome group of talented dancers from all over the world. The striking classicist Philip Fedulov, an alumnus of The Rock School, Orlando Ballet II, Houston Ballet II, and Edward Ellison's extraordinary academy in Manhattan, is a Leading Soloist in the company. We could watch him all day along with the beautiful Nino Samadashvilli. Scrupulous lines, lifted torsos, powerful jumps, endless length are on display throughout this company.

The documentary included clips from Sleeping Beauty, Romeo and Juliet, Giselle, Swan Lake, Laurencia and several Balanchine classics. While it would have been nice to see an entire ballet, obviously that wasn't doable for this project of Northrop's. The cost is $25 or $10 for students. The documentary will be available through March 28th.

 

 

Okay, we've got stuff to talk about

You have three more days to binge-watch the video stream of NYCB's Theme and Variations - a superb compilation of the October 6, 2015 and January 21, 2016 performances with Tiler Peck and Andrew Veyette in the leads. We hope that everyone with the technical capabilities will rip a copy of this performance and save it for the future benefit of balletomanes everywhere. A copy should be packed into the payload of Elon Musk's next trip to Mars. Once it's cut loose on the surface, those little green Martians will be dancing for joy -- doing entrechat-vingt and quintuple tours in their heavenly half-gravity. You heard it here first.

On Thursday, NYCB will present its final installment of Three Sides of Balanchine with a performance of Stravinsky Violin Concerto featuring Sterling Hyltin, Ask la Cour, Sara Mearns, and Taylor Stanley. Tonight at 8pm there is a rehearsal segment with Sara Mearns, Claire Kretzschmar, and Rebecca Krohn. Both will be available on the NYCB website and YouTube channel.

The May 5th digital gala is coming up; so keep an eye out for the info.

Believe it, People, we are clawing our collective ways out of the pandemic. A terrific segment about NYCB's plans for its slowpening has just been uploaded to Spectrum News NY1. It's an excellent piece with some heart-stopping footage of Maria Kowroski rehearsing Mozartiana.

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Pennsylvania Ballet has announced its upcoming digital season which begins on March 25th. The first performance will include Balanchine's Concerto Barocco. We can't help but pause here to observe that the other day this ballet's Bach music was being piped loudly out onto the sidewalk in front of a deli on W34th Street in order to dissuade vagrants from hanging out by the door. It worked on the vagrants, but Haglund hung around for about 10 minutes snapping his fingers and doing little plies. Thank goodness Security didn't intervene.

Also on this first program will be Stanton Welch's Clear, a piece entitled Suspended in Time which was choreographed by Angel Corella, Russell Drucker, and Kirill Radev, and a solo made for Jermel Johnson by Matthew Neenan.

The second installment of the digital season will include Allegro Brilliante, Polyphonia, Raymonda Suite (Corella), and an excerpt from a  Dwight Rhoden dance.

The final installment will be a collection of contemporary premieres.

$25 to view each performance OR $50 for all three. You can even pick your preferred cast or purchase both casts.

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University of Minnesota's Northrop Auditorium is presenting a pay-to-see digital program produced with Nina Ananiashvili's State Ballet of Georgia from March 20th through March 28th. The film will include parts of Chabukiani's Laurencia, Lavrovsky's Romeo and Juliet, Les Sylphides, Giselle, and more. Nina is laying out an irresistible buffet that we intend to gorge on until our eyes pop out.

$25, $10 for students.

Chins up, Everyone!! Ballet is making its return, and the yellow Peeps are on the shelves at CVS.