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.

 

 

Comments

[mt]

Ok, I'm going to be unpopular here. Yes, I enjoyed the wonderful T and V piece. Who wouldn't? But, someone on another site led me to the 1978 Gelsey Kirkland, Baryshnikov version which in some ways I liked much much better. Kirkland's rendition moved me. Her arms, her control; it was beautiful. Not exuberant, nor joyful, but masterful.
I'm a big fan of Tiler Peck, but I'm not in love with her flying arms. If you watch Kirkland, you see she actually comes to gorgeous positions, while Peck's arms and wrists flit and flail at times. It was too much. Perhaps I've seen too many of her recent instagram dance posts which imitate to a large degree the same loose style.
Just my opinion.

[Haglund]

Hi mt.

I'm familiar with the Gelsey/Baryshnikov video and absolutely adore it. But Gelsey and Tiler have vastly different interpretations. Gelsey created a clear character who was akin to a princess meeting her prince. The formality of her port de bras was intended to convey the formalities that people employed in some royal setting in her imagination.

Also at the time, Gelsey was re-inventing herself as a Vaganova ballerina and intentionally eliminating all of the loose, careless arms that we see at NYCB (and often complain about). During the first series of classes that she ever taught at David Howard's studio, she tortured students over placement of fingers, eye focus, the degree of angle of the inner elbow, the palm placement -- tortured students with the exactness required in order to make it beautiful.

Of course, that's not the way over at NYCB; but Tiler's treatment of port de bras is like academic perfection compared to what we had to endure from NYCB dancers 20 some years ago.

Basically, my heart is big enough to love many different stylistic versions of T&V. I hope to live long enough to see Brittany Pollack and Emilie Gerrity tackle the role.

[Jennifer]

Tiler's musicality and precise technique rarely disappoints. I have watched Theme multiple times and will sneak in at least one more viewing before Thursday. I also have loved the rehearsal segments. Thanks for the info on PA ballet

[Melponeme_K]

I thought the NYCB T and V just put online was fantastic.

Peck looks beautiful in it. The only thing I missed were the pas de chat jumps in the first solo. They look so impressive and explosive in the Kirkland performance. The little jump and leg shakes just don't do it. Although Peck did perform them in the second solo. So that was good.

[Marta]

Hi Haglund,

I'm very familiar with the Gelsey/Misha T & V, both the 1975 and 1978 versions. You might say I've watched it hundreds of times. I also can appreciate many different versions but the GK/MB is to me the gold standard. The arms and upper body
of both dancers sing, and their style is classical and unmannered. Tiler's technique and to a lesser extent Veyette's is very impressive. They both, but he especially have rather wild arms, and much less movement in the torso. I felt very little chemistry between them. Although I'll watch it again, I'll return repeatedly to the GK/MB version. I'm hoping to see Peck and Joe Gordon in this in the theater some day.

[DF]

There is something warmer and looser about Tiler, Gelsey it’s book perfect. Tiler she is not perfectly calculated, she is one with the music and the steps, she blends, gives, and plays and allow moments to happens. I can not said one it’s better than the other, but like Haglund mentions they both have a place in the history of T&V. With Gelsey you have a sense of wonder , with Tiler it’s like she make you feel her happiness and freedom when she dance one of the hardest ballets in history!!!!! That is to me the most impressive about Tiler she makes it’s looks easy!

[Haglund]

Yes, DF. I would say one is Chardonnay and one is Cabernet. I enjoy both!

[Marta]

Haglund, well said! I enjoy both too.