Haglund's Heel

observations 4/29

DuhBlahs says that NYC will fully re-open July 1st. He says Broadway theaters will be later because it takes time "to ramp up productions." However, we know that it doesn't take much time to ramp up for a summer season of ballet at the Koch Theater. Given all the "dancing" that NYCB and ABT artists have been loading up on Instagram, it would seem that the combined companies should be able to produce a sufficient number of vaccinated, in-shape dancers to put on a few shows at the Koch this summer.

Let's go, folks. Make it happen. Get the miracle moving. Let's go let's go let's go!!

We're gettin' antsy here on the blog. New York ballet companies need to step up and contribute something to the recovery this summer.

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Meanwhile, Pennsyvania Ballet's spring digital season continues beginning tonight. The program includes Allegro Brilliante, Raymonda Suite, Polyphonia, and an excerpt from Dwight Rhoden's And So It Is. Tickets are $25. Order here and enjoy the show for a full week.

 

observations 4/22

Here's some good news:

Every Thursday from 5PM, Nathan's hotdogs out at Coney Island will cost 5¢ when you buy a regular priced food item - not including apple pie. Even at their normal price of about $5, these hotdogs are worth every cent. And Nathan's has the best institutional mustard on the planet. Squirt it on one of these beauties, bite down, and revel in the crisp snap and juice of the most perfect hotdog ever. Drool your way to the end of the D-Line for one of the most delicious deals NYC has to offer.

Also, beginning today through September, there is a brand new Farmers' Market down at the Hudson Yards complex every Tuesday and Thursday. Come on down.

 

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More good news:

Beginning next Thursday April 29th through May 5th, Pennsylvania Ballet will stream the Resilience component of its Strength, Resilience, Beauty Spring Digital Season. A few weeks ago, Strength was an outstanding program with Stanton Welch's Clear and Balanchine's Concerto Barocco; so, you don't want to miss this upcoming stream that will include Balanchine's Allegro Brilliante, Wheeldon's Polyphonia, Corella's staging of Raymonda Suite and a solo danced by Jermel Johnson from Dwight Rhoden's And So It Is.

The dazzling Mayara Pineiro and Zecheng Liang will lead Allegro Brilliante. Polyphonia will feature Oksana Maslova, Sterling Baca, So Jung Shin, Russell Ducker, Nayara Lopes Jack Thomas, Alexandra Heier, and Aleksey Babayev. If all this isn't exciting enough, the Raymonda Suite will be led by Dayesi Torriente and Arian Molina Soca.

For only $25, you'll get the best seat in your house. And you can watch the program over and over again for a full week. This is digital planning by someone who knows what the ballet lover values and wants.

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For those of you who watched the digital performance of Lauren Lovette's La Follia Variations danced by the ABT Studio Company and were impressed by the choreography and dancing but not impressed by the dark lighting and drab costumes, we have some good news. For the upcoming live performance being presented by ABT at Segerstrom Center this Sunday for a digital stream available May 12 - 26 for $25, Lauren has chosen designer Victor Glemaud to create some lovely, color-rich tutus for the women. Here's a pic from WWD (note the gorgeous fushia tulle pinned to the bulletin board):

 

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 2/27

ABT and New York City Center will stream A Ratmansky Celebration beginning on March 23rd. The program, which was recently taped on stage at City Center, will be available on demand through April 18th. For $25, here's what we'll see.

"Rose Adagio" from The Sleeping Beauty
Cast: Skylar Brandt, Aran Bell, Patrick Frenette, Blaine Hoven, and Tyler Maloney

Seven Sonatas Second Movement
Cast: Herman Cornejo, Luciana Paris, Carlos Gonzalez, Devon Teuscher

The Seasons Pas de Deux
Cast: Isabella Boylston and James Whiteside

Bernstein in a Bubble World Premiere
Choreography by Alexei Ratmansky
Music by Leonard Bernstein (Divertimento)
Lighting Design by Brad Fields
Cast: Aran Bell, Skylar Brandt, Patrick Frenette, Blaine Hoven, Catherine Hurlin, Tyler Maloney, and Cassandra Trenary

As always with ABT, the casting determines whether it's watchable or not. The opportunity to see Skylar Brandt's nascent Rose Adagio should not be missed. This Aurora has been incubating for more than a year under the attentive, obsessed-with-detail coaching of Irina Dvorovenko and Max Beloserkovsky. We are, indeed, fortunate to get a glimpse of what may turn out to be not only a dream Aurora, but Ratmansky's dream Aurora as well.

The Rose Adagio segment was assembled by Nancy Raffa during a quarantine bubble in Silver Bay. The featured princes, which thankfully include Blaine Hoven and Patrick Frenette, are a first rate team of partners.

Missing from this taped performance are Tom Forster and Christine Shevchenko. They would have made a particularly attractive pair in The Seasons PdD.

So, $25 to watch a couple of PdDs, 1/7 of Seven Sonatas, and a new piece may or may not turn out to be worth the price.

Tickets for the stream go on sale on March 1st at noon on the NY City Center website.

 

observations 2/23

Whoa, our February ballet calendar is getting crowded. Hold it back, Universe. We can't take it. Give the Petipa Peeps and Balanchine Boomers a moment to pull up our Depends and put our teeth in!

Tonight at 8pm NYCB presents Three Faces of Balanchine with Maria Kowroski, Russell Janzen, Ken Jennings, Christina Clark, and Vanna White.

What?! Ken Jennings and Vanna White are going to be doing Prodigal Son? Are you kidding us, Haglund?

Well, possibly, yes. But we know that this is going to be a fabulous program whether or not Ken and Vanna choose to show up.

Thursday night at 8pm -- we'll be treated to a full performance of Prodigal Son with Daniel Ulbricht and Theresa Reichlen.

On Saturday, February 27th (U.S. EST 7:45 pm), the Australian Ballet will live-stream -- and we do mean LIVE -- a pay-for-view performance that includes the Kingdom of the Shades from La Bayadere, the finale from Theme and Variations, Tschaikovsky PdD and other repertory from a real stage. Buy your tickets here.

Oh my goodness, the hearts and souls of Petipa Peeps and Balanchine Boomers are rejoicing the world over. We're getting a glimpse of the light at the end of this tunnel. Let's hope it's not the A-Line trying to make up time.

There are still more signs of light. The Green Box Arts Festival in Green Mountain Falls, Colorado has booked ABT for a three-week gig from June into July. That's only four months away!

Toes will soon twinkle again, Folks.

 

observations 11/24

Folks, we've got something for everyone to do Wednesday night. The Royal Danish Ballet will live-stream its sold out premiere of Hubbe's third crack at La Sylphide. Never dull and always danced impeccably, the Royal Danish Ballet's La Sylphide will  leave us so full that we won't care about tackling the turkey the next day.

https://kglteater.dk/xtra/forestillinger/forestilling-sylfiden/

https://kglteater.dk/en/whats-on/season-20202021/ballet/la-sylphide/

https://m.facebook.com/events/3702134356486177?acontext=%7B%22source%22%3A%223%22%2C%22action_history%22%3A%22null%22%7D&aref=3

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Hate to have to say it, but oy, with the exception of one piece, what an embarrassment ABT dealt itself last night in proclaiming what its future will look like. ABT Today: The Future Starts Now is still available for viewing on YouTube.

 

Here we go again - dancers wanting to make the dances all about themselves and wanting to feel good about what they are doing. It’s the Me Forever movement, the Me in the Center of It All movement, the How Me Feels Is What’s Most Important movement, and the Me is Bigger than the Dance movement.

 

Touché by Christopher Rudd zeroed in on the problem with its pandering to the hyper sexual angst & exhibiting of Calvin Royal and João Menegussi. The goal wasn’t just to normalize gay sex, but to normalize public sex. You know, give the ballet audience the staged soft porn that they might watch on Netflix. Close-ups of hands going for crotches seemed to be the new advanced ballet technique. The requirement of a ballet master who drills dancers on technique has been replaced by the intimacy coach — yes, folks, intimacy coach Sarah Lozoff was hired to help the dancers convey their sexuality on stage. Oy, what would Tudor say...

 

How often in classical ballet have we seen a woman reach for a man’s balls? How often in a classical ballet have we seen a man sexually reach for a woman’s crotch? We can recall that absurd moment in Liam Scarlett’s pathetic choreography where Whiteside bounced Copeland’s tits up and down. That served ABT well, didn’t it? Time-honored classical ballet treats intimacy and sexuality through its technical vocabulary, not through the 21st century vernacular. Rudd’s creation held nothing of value in terms of ballet. Just like intimacy is a euphemism for sex, his gymnastic-like manipulative choreography was a euphemism for and a mis-characterization of ballet.

 

The most embarrassing part of the program, however, was Pam Tanowitz’s film DAVID. Hallberg finally tipped the balance from having a stage-made career to a media-made career. For years, he has offered little in the way of stirring stage performances. Yet, he has not been able to tear himself away from the public’s presumed admiration. He came to everyone’s attention early in his career by way of pristine, beautiful work in classical ballets and valid interpretations of time-tested, time-honored choreographies such as Jooss’ masterpiece of German Expressionism, The Green Table. But injuries and the advance of time made it all too much of a challenge to continue. His bet that the public would love him as much if he would simply point his lovely feet in their faces and wave his long arms seems to have paid off, if not with a win or place, but with a show. Thankfully, Haglund has strong memories of Hallberg’s performances in Theme and Variations opposite Michelle Wiles and Gillian Murphy when the dancing was tough but glorious.

 

Indestructible Light by Darrell Grand Moultrie offered Dancing With The Stars choreography that would never make it past the final cut. Fabulous Duke Ellington music makes for fun social dancing in the club, but here it came off as a football game's “Half Time Show” where everyone was trying too hard to show that they were having a good time. 

 

The most watchable dance/film of the evening was Gemma Bond’s CONVIVIUM performed by Thomas Forster, Katherine Williams, Carlos Gonzales, and Breanne Granlund. The music by John Harbison employed violin, clarinet, and piano.  Unlike the other choreographers, Bond has a wide ballet vocabulary which she can use for sourcing her ideas. Interesting chains of movement, creative organization, and good use of the dancers’ individual talents all helped this chamber piece succeed. However, the ballet came across as being an excerpt of a much larger work. At the outset, we were shown deep dramatic expressions by the dancers without knowing what their deep concerns were. Whenever Katherine Williams throws a scowl on stage, it generally means something. Here, we weren’t given any clues as to why she was emoting. Ditto with Tom Forster at the beginning. Obviously something had occurred prior to our arrival at the ballet which caused him to be distressed, but we didn’t know what. Truthfully, we didn’t care; we were just happy to see him dancing.

 

We’ve been following around Carlos Gonzales for three years while waiting for McKenzie to notice his talent. He’s another one of those immediately-likeable Spaniards with blazing confidence and skill to back it up. In Bond’s piece, he was only one-quarter of the ensemble but he managed to catch our eye half of the time.

 

While we admired aspects of CONVIVIUM, we think it’s time for Bond to abandon her small chamber ideas and get to work on something big with much bolder music, a corps de ballet, quartets, trios, solos, and PdD. And why not?

 

 

observations 9/23

Oh, dear.

The Metropolitan Opera has cancelled its season until September 2021. True, the mammoth scale of its stage productions requires a small city of workers and performers to pull off every night. Both the New York Philharmonic and NYCB are a little more flexible. But still, it does not bode well for arts in New York City, especially for ABT. However, people are often socially distanced with many seats between them at ABT's Met performances anyway; so, it may be a bit early to write off the company's spring season.

There will be stages in the U.S. and in other countries that will be open to ballet, but perhaps not here. That doesn't mean that NYCB can't put together a live digital season for a paying national and international audience and make it a profitable endeavor. TV programs are still being made; TV commercials are still being made -- good grief; movies are still being made. Jeopardy is still producing new shows with social distancing.

European ballet companies have spent a year on tour while their theaters were being refurbished. It's not unheard of and not unmanageable.

Walking by Lincoln Center today, Haglund couldn't help but note that the campus is abuzz with major repair & refurbishing activity. A worker even did a Bouder off the roof of the building behind David Geffen Hall on W. 65th this morning around 8:30. The EMTs came and carted him off to the hospital. It was reported that he's okay. It looks like Lincoln Center is not going to waste the time off.  Let's hope that the Met replaces the cushions in some of those strongly scented seats in Rows S & T of the side Orchestra.

It's days like this that we need the panda cam...

 

observations 9/10

It's great to hear that New York City Ballet will be presenting another digital season beginning Tuesday, September 29 with previously recorded performances of Tschaikovsky Pas de Deux and “The Unanswered Question” from Ivesiana, as well as excerpts from Episodes, Liebeslieder Walzer, Symphony in C, and Stravinsky Violin Concerto.  The season will include four weeks of previously recorded performances (each Tuesday at 8PM, available for a week) which will be augmented by two Saturday family-friendly performances. The season will conclude with recorded premieres by Justin Peck and a bevy of non-ballet choreographers who hope to coax applause from the stodgy, know nothing, can't let go of balletic standards, the medium is the message, we'll judge you in comparison to Balanchine until we die NYCB audience that is in no mood whatsoever to see the equivalent of garage ballet. Hullabaloo outdoors -- nuh uh. Not even for free.

And not from dancers who are convinced that they have experienced some special struggle during the past six months that others have not and that the only thing they know how to do is ask for a handout from NYCB patrons through an independent solicitation effort. We're not living in a time where anyone can claim entitlement to work only at a job he loves and wants to do. That is why thousands of New Yorkers who really are feeling hunger and have dependents who are suffering are knocking themselves out to get temporary jobs as census takers, contact tracers, seamless delivery people. How many dancers at NYCB would laugh at the idea of climbing on a bicycle to deliver food in order to make ends meet? Probably every one of them. If the dancers want to claim that they can't escape the city like the rich Manhattanites do, they shouldn't post photos of themselves on Instagram showing their beach vacations or playing with their pets while living at Mommy & Daddy's or otherwise having a fun time every day. It's looking more and more like ballet dancers in this city live in their own little bubble worlds where there is always an NYCB donor nearby who will give them a handout. They can put together a slick website and Instagram page, but they can't ask for a job doing anything other than what they love and want to do. Does anyone want to guess how many of these dancers have been using the past six months to try to build some skills that might get them temporary work? Our guess is that it would be a piddly poor number. How many actors in this city wait on tables, answer phones, deliver food, toil over tedious data entry when they're not employed in the job they love and want to do? A lot.

Oh yeah, we're cranky today.

It seems that ABT has stumbled its way into the news again. Graceless as ever. Such a tactless, formless, unprofessional, shameful way to unload Sarah Lane. Here's hoping that McKenzie gets the same treatment and gets it soon.

We're extremely happy for the promoted dancers who deserved it, and we recognize social promotion when we see it.

 

observations 8/5

You can now purchase the live digital stream of ABT's performance of Don Quixote in Minneapolis on April 7, 2021. No casting available yet. The gig is a one-performance "tour" at the Northrop Auditorium on the U of M campus.

The charge for "household" access is $25. AND – you're not going to believe this – there is no service fee. Truly remarkable.

Hopefully ABT will cast carefully with the realization that this performance will appear in bits and pieces all over YouTube for eternity. Will ABT put its best feet forward in casting Kitri? That would mean Christine Shevchenko, without a doubt. But as we've mentioned so many times before, McKenzie doesn't cast based on merit. So we can expect that fans who live for the highest levels of classical ballet will be disappointed – again.

There will also be a free online preview event the day before which requires registration.

Just wanted to get this out there so my friends at BA have something to copy and post.

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Unfortunately, old Hag was a little slow in getting out the camera to capture this Hell's Kitchen neighbor's face mask, but the backend tells the whole story.

Please wear a mask.

 

 

observations 7/26

Kennedy Center announced that it will rev-up to full scale performances in January 2021. The season includes ABT's Don Quixote in April, which, of course means that we will most likely see it during the shortened five-week season at The Met. NYCB will present A Midsummer's Night Dream in March. Alvin Ailey will open KC's dance card on February 2nd. Paul Taylor Dance Company and Ragamala Dance Company are part of the season, too. Les Ballets de Monte-Carlo makes its debut at the end of February with Jean-Christophe Maillot's Cinderella. You may recall that former NYCB dancers Christian Tworzyanski and Lydia Wellington now perform with that company. Subscriptions available right now.

Available here for $10:

How many new lame joke dances about wearing face masks do you think we will we see during the 2021 season? Hopefully none.