Haglund's Heel

March Madness

March is not going to be the "pause and catch our breath" month that it typically is between the end of NYCB's winter season and the busy spring season at Lincoln Center.

Pennsylvania Ballet will premiere its new Le Corsaire in Philly, Giselle will open at Washington Ballet, the Joffrey will stop by Lincoln Center, Paul Taylor Dance Company will be in season for three weeks at L.C., and ABT's Whipped Cream will premiere in Costa Mesa. Thanks to CMM for alerting us that the Met casting of the gala performance of the new ballet has been posted. It will be Simkin, Abrera, Hallberg, and Lane, who will also dance the premiere in Costa Mesa. We'll make it to most of these, but possibly not all.

Of course Haglund will be reporting on and reviewing the Segerstrom performances, and is fairly excited about seeing Hallberg back in the lineup. As we must continue to point out, Whipped is not going to be the Giselle that we need and deserve to see Hallberg and Abrera dance. Hopefully some sense will be knocked into McKenzie that will enable him to muster up enough respect for the ballet to avoid casting the fakerina twice in every ballet she isn't capable of dancing even once. It seems absurd to hand her three Giselle performances on a golden platter (Oman and two at the Met) all of which she is incapable of dancing at other than an amateurish level, while at the same time only allowing the company's ultimate Giselle, Abrera, one performance.

Haglund was thinking about this while at tonight's Westminster Kennel Dog Show at Madison Square Garden. Lots of the folks in the stands didn't know whether a pooch's frame was too bulky or whether its hind quarters were too big or its legs too short or whether its gait wasn't proper. They just looked at the cute hairy face on the MSG jumbotron and squealed. Those in the audience who spent a lifetime following the competition, love dogs more than most, and care deeply about the quality of each breed couldn't have cared less about what was on the jumbotron. For this dog show, the winner got the blue ribbon based on technical merit, not based on what the dog looked like on an oversized screen or how many people squealed for it. It seems that ABT's criteria for awarding Giselle performances (the blue ribbon ballet of all time) should at least have the integrity of a dog show. Wouldn't you think?

Rumor, the German Shepherd, won the big prize tonight. Haglund's fave, Adrian the Irish Setter, was runner up. They should get married and have little German-Irish Shetters, but we know it won't happen.

 

Paul Taylor Dance Company 3/23Fall in love again with Diversion of Angels

People, people, people –

Get to PTDC to see Martha Graham’s Diversion of Angels danced to the most exquisite interpretation of Norman Dello Joio’s score by the Orchestra of St. Luke's, and you will fall in love again. It is, after all, Martha’s ode to love: young love, hot love, mature love. The foremother of Paul Taylor’s company could not have wished for a better safe in which to stash her gold.

Haglund became acquainted with this dance long after the original interpreters left the Graham company. Some 30 years ago, the statuesque Peggy Lyman as the woman in The Couple in White brought such balletic tone and dramatic depth to the idea of mature love that it almost made one want to bypass the other two types of love. Peggy and Suzanne Farrell were/are the best ballet dancers ever to come out of Cincinnati. (She was Peggy Moerner in those days and embodied technique and style that reminded everyone in town of Cynthia Gregory.) Here are two Martha Swope photos of her in Diversion - click on each for a better view:

Last night Laura Halzack and Michael Trusnovec were wonderful as The Couple in White representing mature love. The style was easy on them and on the rest of the cast – all of it seeming so natural because they were, in a sense, going back to their roots. The strong body cores, the contract and release of the dancers’ centers, and the generous spiraling of their spines has always been indigenous to their home style. Mr. Taylor’s style will forever be linked to and reflect Martha Graham’s, but it mostly saves us from the angst and heavy moods that permeated so much of her work.

The Couple in Red (Parisa Khobdeh and Sean Mahoney) and The Couple in Yellow (Eran Bugge - a former student of Peggy Lyman, and Michael Novak) offered pitch-perfect characterizations of their erotic love and young love, respectively. Ms. Khobdeh was all ready-for-anything in her hot red dress. Her glide steps – those steps that look like fast crosscountry skiing – sizzled, and her sideways penches with arms extended were striking images. The ensemble dancers Michelle Fleet, Heather McGinley (a former Graham dancer), Christina Lynch Markham and the Fourth Man George Smallwood (a former Graham dancer who, over the past year, has found new and vibrant technical strength) all brought tremendous life, energy, and neatness to their phrases.

We wish that Mr. Taylor would ignore Alastair Irrelevant’s obnoxious knocks for including quotations in program notes and print the Ben Belitt poem that was the source of inspiration for Graham’s masterpiece. Belitt, a New York poet, was a fan of Graham’s and she of his poetry. In fact, Diversion of Angels premiered under the title Wilderness Stair in reference to a  Belitt collection. We’re going to help out here on the blog and give you the verse, although we’re not sure of the line breaks:

“It is the place of the Rock and Ladder, the raven, the blessing, the tempter, the rose. It is the wish of the single-hearted, the undivided; play after the spirit’s labor; games, flights, fancies, configurations of the lover’s intention; the believed Possibility, at once strenuous and tender; humors of innocence, garlands, evangels, Joy on the wilderness stair; diversion of angels.”

We could not be more happy to see this dance live on and thrive at PTDC. To see it performed to music so lovingly conducted by Donald York was heavenly.

Last night’s program included Three Dubious Memories, a 2010 Taylor creation wherein two men fight over a woman and eventually discover that they, sans the woman, were made for each other. She returns to find them together and has a little hissy fit. Sean Mahoney, Robert Kleinendorst, and Eran Bugge were the trio supported by James Samson’s major contribution of dance power and drama as the Choirmaster.

The latest Taylor documentary, Creative Domain, covers the creation of this work. From the documentary, one did not get the feeling that this work had all the comic elements in it that were apparent last night. It was that same wonderful mix of darkness, lightness, humor (both dark & light) all shining through purposeful and delightful choreography.

The program closed with Spindrift, a 1993 composition that Taylor preambles in the program with John Donne’s famous quote “No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of main…”  Michael Trusnovec was the featured artist - his assigned choreography was rippling with difficulty, tension, drama and at times a sense of resignation as he bent to his knee in a profile that reminded one of a Rodin sculpture. The dance opened to the sound of ocean waves spraying as they were blown by winds followed by Schoenberg’s String Quartet Concerto (after Handel) played beautifully by four members of the Orchestra of St. Lukes.

Ensemble members often approached Trusnovec trying to engage him but then disappeared. Madelyn Ho, who reminds us more and more of Mary Cochran every time we see her, seemed to make the strongest contact with our protagonist. Haglund doesn’t really know what this dance is about but its content coupled with the Schoenberg and the sound of waves has always tended to leave him somewhat emotionally spent.

We are having the best time at PTDC this season, and there’s lots more delight to come. On a somewhat related note, the restoration of the gardens in Damrosch Park continues. More trees and shrubs were delivered this week. A while back we mentioned that it would be so great to see an ice skating rink in front of the bandshell during December instead of the circus. We probably won’t get our way, but we happened to notice that the evergreen grassy shrubs being planted are named “Ice Dance” — just sayin', maybe there’s someone else out there on our side.

Take a look at the park on your next visit to Lincoln Center which hopefully will include either next Wednesday or the final Sunday when the company once again dances Diversion of Angels – recipient of the H.H. Pump Bump Award:

PTDC - Lincoln CenterWatch the doughnut, not the hole

Haglund is a happy Irishman today after enjoying two straight days of the Paul Taylor Dance Company which just opened its season at Lincoln Center. Two years ago, Taylor tweaked his company so that there is now an umbrella organization, Paul Taylor’s American Modern Dance, that incorporates other American modern dance artists and choreographies within the PTDC season. Despite the whiney alarms set off by so-called critics who decried that it was the end of PTDC, this has turned out to be another one of Mr. Taylor’s great ideas.

Opening night of PTDC at Lincoln Center has quickly become a favorite tradition among dance-goers, in part, because the ticket prices are in the single digits and facility fees are waived. It always starts the season off with a positive vibe. This year there was a special treat as well: the New York premiere of Taylor’s Dilly Dilly set to some of 20th Century America’s most favorite old songs as fashioned by the peerless balladeer, Burl Ives. Jimmy, crack corn and I don’t care; Watch the doughnut, not the hole; Lavender blue, dilly dilly, lavender green; Froggie went a courtin and he did ride. Mhmm. Listen, if you weren’t singing along during this dance, you were probably dead.

America has had no choreographer better than Taylor for finding the light within the darkness and finding the darkness within the light in life’s moments - big and small. Here, with the dancers costumed in Western wear – the men in cowboy shirts (without sleeves), cowboy hats, the women with their shirttails tied in front like Daisy Mae Duke or Miss Ellie May would have – Taylor rekindled the charm of these childhood folksongs that most of us hadn’t sung in decades. Back then, we loved the tunes and the camaraderie of singing them with our pals, but paid little attention to the lyrics. Seeing them played out on stage by the Taylor dancers shed a little more light on what we were singing way back then when we were all in short pants. Wonderfully singable years ago, wonderfully danceable now. The opening program also included Mercuric Tidings and Esplanade, both in fine shape.

As a group, the Taylor men must be the most fit and best looking men in dance: six-packs, eight-packs, ultra-lean muscle. And, they are a spirited bunch, dancing with joy and energy that is infectious. Heading toward twenty years with the company, Michael Trusnovec is still one of the most compelling dance forces on the New York stage. Among the ladies, Madelyn Ho, a tiny sprite full of personality and in her second year with the company, was the highlight of the bright new Sullivaniana, a three-parter set to the Overtures to Iolanthe, Pirates of Penzance, and Patience that had its New York premiere on the second night.

Sullivaniana was handsomely costumed by Santo Loquasto who put the men in black bowler hats and colorful plaid coats with tails. The ladies wore knee-length dresses with modified bustles on the back – also plaid – black stockings and character shoes with narrow heels. The Iolanthe section saw the dancers mostly individually tripping hither, tripping thither across the stage – not like fairies, but like single people looking for their other halves. The Pirates of Penzance section found them in couples, and the final Patience section paid off with a lively group dance which evolved into an orgy with the dancers rolling about the floor enjoying one another.

Never has Larry Keigwin’s choreography looked better than it did on the Taylor dancers in the world premiere of his Rush Hour last night. The non-stop, push-pull of his vocabulary set to the accessible score by Adam Crystal that included minimalist influences and a pleasing use of percussion had the dancers, well yes, rushing in every direction and encountering those who were trying to stop them. And there was plenty of Taylor vocabulary within the choreography, too. It all meshed extremely well to make a very high-powered whole. Clifton Taylor’s lighting design of white squares on the stage and Fritz Masten’s handsome costumes in gray and black that complimented the dancers’ lines added much to the success of this new piece.

The final dance on last night’s bill is one of Haglund’s favorites. Promethean Fire is set to three pieces of Bach and premiered ten months following 9/11. One of its most stirring images is of the dancers one by one slowly falling atop each another in a pile. Finally a lone dancer emerges from this heap of humanity and pulls up one more dancer with him to continue on.

Much is owed to Music Director Donald York and the Orchestra of St. Lukes whose music enriched the evening beyond words. Tong Chen, the Music Director of the Yonkers Philharmonic, brightly conducted the orchestra in Sullivaniana.

The HH Pump Bump Award, a vintage Buster Brown, is bestowed upon Dilly Dilly. Sometimes it’s good to dance just to dance.

 

Paul Taylor's American Modern Dance 2016 season

at Lincoln Center is going to be pretty exciting and will further clarify Mr. Taylor's vision and mission for his new organization.

The season will run from March 16 through April 3 and will include performances by the Paul Taylor Dance Company, the Dayton Contemporary Dance Company, the Orchestra of St. Luke's, and other musical guest artists to be disclosed at a later date. There will be live music at every performance.

PTDC will perform 14 of Mr. Taylor's works along with his newest dances: Sullivaniana and Dilly Dilly. The company will also perform Martha Graham's Diversion of Angels, made in 1948, and two new works that Mr. Taylor has commissioned from Larry Keigwin and Doug Elkins.

The Dayton Contemporary Dance Company will perform Donald McKayle's Rainbow 'Round My Shoulder which was created in 1958.

We're looking forward to seeing Promethean Fire again. The last of its four performances will be the final performance of the season on a bill with Diversion of Angels and Equinox.

Diversion of Angels will be new for PTDC. Since Graham's death, several ballet companies have acquired the work including ABT where Gillian Murphy and Stella Abrera both gave exquisite performances in the lead role in 1999. But it will be especially interesting to see the Taylor dancers tackle this masterpiece and to observe to what extent Mr. Taylor's own experiences dancing the work for Graham inform his company's interpretation.

In his book, Transcending Boundaries: My Dancing Life, Donald McKayle described Graham company rehearsals of Diversion of Angels back in the 1950s that he and Mr. Taylor had been thrown into when they were the newest men in the company. He recalled dancer Ethel Winter's frustration with Pearl Lang who was supposed to be teaching her the woman's role in the Red Duet section:

Ethel, who was learning the role from Pearl Lang who had originated the part, came out of those rehearsals with steam rising from her ears. "What's wrong, Ethel?" "That bitch refuses to teach me the dance." "Why.... what do you mean?" "She keeps saying, 'Martha never choreographed this section.'" "Why don't you ask her to teach you whatever the hell she's been doing for the last seven years?" The next day the part was learned but there were wonderful idiosyncratic movement transitions that were to remain with Pearl Lang and enter her own growing repertoire.

Esplanade, Offenbach Overtures, and Beloved Renegade will return for the season as well.

Tickets will go on sale to the public on September 16th. Friends of Paul Taylor's American Modern Dance may purchase them the week before by calling 646-214-5829.

PTDC, Parsons Dance, Ballet Hispanico @ Pier 63

The inaugural performances of the Hudson River Dance Festival are this week!

On Wed. 6/17 and Thu. 6/18 at 6:30 PM on the Great Lawn of Chelsea (Pier 63 @ 23rd Street) in Hudson River Park, this fabulous new annual festival will kick off with a bang. Of course, it's free.

Bring your blanket. No chairs allowed on the beautifully manicured Great Lawn of Chelsea.

 

observations 5/6

ABT has made more alterations to the spring season casting. Marcelo Gomes has been deleted from Gillian Murphy's cast of Ashton's Cinderella and replaced by Alex Hammoudi. On the heels of the end of the season, Gomes is slated to perform in Matthew Bourne's The Car Man at Sadler's Wells; so maybe this was just an accommodation to release him earlier for that. ABT considers Ashton's Cinderella the least important part of the season, anyway. That's why they loaded it into the final holiday week, and that's why there is no mention of it or anything of Ashton's in the Anniversary Gala.

Stella Abrera gets the opening night Lilac Fairy in Sleeping Beauty and Cassandra Trenary will be Princess Florine to Daniil Simkin's Bluebird. Wait until everyone gets a load of the clumsy Clydesdale clomping and hillbilly port de bras of the opening night's Diamond Fairy. . . .

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WWD previewed the costumes for Peter Martins' production of NYCB's La Sylphide. Who knew that the designer who Martins used for his production at Pennsylvania Ballet 30 years ago and is using again for NYCB happens to be a part-time usher at the Koch Theater? Haglund wonders if she is the usher who once arm wrestled him to the ground to confiscate a bag of cough drops. "You can have cough drops but not the bag." 

Yesterday Haglund watched a La Sylphide dress rehearsal and was mighty impressed with it all. He came right home and ordered tickets to several more performances.

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Free outdoor dance performance:

Paul Taylor Dance Company, Parsons Dance, and Ballet Hispanico will perform at the inaugural Hudson River Dance Festival on Pier 63 @ West 23rd Street in Chelsea on June 17th and 18th at 6:30PM. That early-ish start time is only listed in one place on the Hudson River Park website and is the usual start time for Park events. The email sent out about the event didn't include any mention of time at all. It might be a good idea to check again on the start time in mid-June.

 

Lincoln CenterPaul Taylor Dance Company - 3/12 Paul Taylor's American Modern Dance Premiere Season

Despite what may have been written recently in The New Yorker or earlier in the NYT, the Paul Taylor Dance Company is still Paul Taylor Dance Company. PTDC is now the main component of Paul Taylor's American Modern Dance, but it still has its own identity.

From last night's Playbill:

Here's the flip side of the above page:

Here's the BIG news:

That's the Orchestra of St. Luke's conducted by Donald York! Wow, what a difference they made.

And here's the BEST news of all:

Sorry for the blurriness, but Haglund snapped this pic of the fast moving Mr. Taylor with one hand while holding off the usher with the other hand. You gotta do what you gotta do.

What a terrific performance last night. Company B looked like new. Robert Kleinendorst's Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy (of Company B) was a highlight as was Eran Bugge's Rum and Coca-Cola section. Kleinendorst as Troilus and Parisa Khobdeh as Cressida romped to the Dance of the Hours by Ponchielli (aka Hello Muddah, Hello Faddah from 1963) in Taylor's very funny Troilus and Cressida (reduced). Michael Trusnovec, now in his 17th year with the company, was and always has been a riveting central figure in Brandenburgs. Michelle Fleet danced gloriously with the gusto and zest for life that is the hallmark of Taylor's dancers.

We're going to get back to the PTDC  and PTAMD several times over the three-week run and hope to see more ballet-type folks there, too. Marcelo Gomes was in the audience last night - a sure sign that it was the place to be.

Check this out. Don't miss Promethean Fire, Esplanade, Piazzolla Caldera, Sunset, Eventide, Cloven Kingdom and so many other great ones. The Limon Dance Company will stop by to perform Doris Humphrey's Passacaglia, and Shen Wei Dance Arts will perform Rite of Spring. Some performances still have $10 seats left.

 

Paul Taylor @ Lincoln Center 2015 - live music, Limon, Shen Wei, and much more

This coming March marks the inaugural season of the revamped Paul Taylor Dance Company, and it looks to be pretty exciting.

Paul Taylor's American Modern Dance will take up residence at Lincoln Center for three weeks beginning March 11th. At this moment, the company is "finalizing negotiations with the world-famous Orchestra of St. Luke's, and Mr. Taylor's long-time musical director, Donald York, to present live music at every performance." That is more than wonderful to hear.

In addition to such favorites as Piazzola Caldera, Promethean Fire, Sunset, Cloven Kingdom, and new works by Mr. Taylor, the season will include performances by the Jose Limon Dance Company and Shen Wei Dance Arts.

The Limon Company will perform Doris Humphrey's Passacaglia and Fugue in C Minor (1938) and the Shen Wei dancers will perform Wei's Rite of Spring. Three performances of each will be mixed in with the Taylor repertoire.

Tickets go on sale to the general public on September 23, and there will be lots of very good $10 and $30 seats to choose from if you buy early.

 

Paul Taylor Dance Company @ Lincoln Center60th Anniversary Gala – 3/13

Remember in the old days when you would arrive at a fine restaurant and the hostess would usher you past the dessert cart on your way to the table just to get you salivating? Keeping your hands down at your side was so difficult because the trigger finger was ready to swipe a path through the dense icing that beckoned from around the base of the chocolate cake.

Thursday night at the Paul Taylor Dance Company's Spring Gala, up the steps to the ring levels we trudged, past the long table of silver dessert compotes with their little goodies all identically arranged and awaiting transfer to the gala tables on the promenade level. Oh look, are there a few delicious little cakes missing from that compote at the end of the table by the stair railing?

By the end of the evening’s performance, no one really had room left for dessert anyway.

What a terrific, uplifting evening of dance during which we enjoyed 3+ masterworks by the master of American modern dance: Paul Taylor’s Cloven Kingdom, Sunset, Piazzolla Caldera, and an excerpt from Airs. The excerpt, treated something like a piece d’occasion, was performed beautifully by Tiler Peck and Robert Fairchild of New York City Ballet.

Every time Haglund sees Cloven Kingdom in which the men in black and white tuxedos gloriously prance around to snare drum cadences with their “hoof-hands” proudly held out in front of them, he’s reminded of those New Year’s Day Rose Parade telecasts from the 1950s and '60s when the Calizona equestrian drill team strutted down Colorado Boulevard with the Appaloosas high-stepping and side-stepping to the crowd’s applause. Their spotted rumps were always so curious looking.

Cloven Kingdom is Taylor’s witty, brilliant comparison of formal and primitive aspects of society – the civil versus the uncivil, the good and the evil animal in every one of us. The men in tuxedos sometimes precision-dance cooperatively and sometimes climb on one another’s backs like uncivilized animals tend to do. The women engage in more formal dances while wearing long dresses with mirrored headgear that bounces the reflection of the stage lights all over the audience in the darkened theater rings. It all serves to create a strange but attractive society that some might think could be just another neighborhood below 14th Street. On Thursday night the Taylor dancers were hysterical in their seriousness and exceptional in making it all look like an ordinary day in the lives of their creatures.

The New York Times loved Cloven Kingdom (1976), calling it “wickedly sophisticated.” The Times loved Piazzolla Caldera (1997), calling it “genius” and “a brilliant essay” on the tango. The Times loved Sunset (1983), calling it “beautiful” and a “masterpiece.” But those were better Times – times when the Times critics actually had practical dance knowledge and didn’t carry the burden of a whiney one-note agenda to stop men from dancing with women. Yes, those were better Times. But this little animal will not stoop to any uncivil discourse about anyone’s sketchy qualifications for evaluating dance in today’s Times - not at this time.

Sunset is the masterful manipulation of music and movement that we have enjoyed from Taylor’s work over six decades. Edward Elgar’s Serenade for Strings and the heartfelt mourning in his Elegy for Strings grab the gut and won’t allow us to to feel the happiness that the actors on stage portray because we know their futures long before they live them. The soldiers who are on leave flirt and dance with the pretty young girls. There is such hope and expectation of happy lives ahead. But the joy in their steps can’t be felt because Elgar’s Elegy is the “distant roll of thunder at a picnic” that Auden described. At the end of the day, as the soldiers leave to return to war, a hat falls from a soldier’s head to the ground. The fallen hat is retrieved by one of the young girls who clutches it as hope for the future when the soldier returns and as a keepsake in the event he doesn’t. No matter what the war, this scene plays out over and over again.

Piazzolla Caldera erupts into smoldering, steamy hot, tango-inspired movement that takes your breath away. There’s some funny business as when two inebriated men dance a tango of compadróns in which they fight and wrestle with one another, but mostly the dance conjures up the flavor of the old style tango movement that was born in the brothels of Argentina as opposed to the slick and glamorous portrayal we often see today in dance competitions. The highlight of Thursday night's dance was the PdD for Michelle Fleet and Michael Trusnovec. So sizzling hot in terms of technique and sexual inferences that it became necessary to loosen the collar while watching it.

Paul Taylor choreographed the masterpiece Piazzolla Caldera when he was nearly 67 years old. He made Sunset when he was 53 and Cloven Kingdom when he was 46. His Emmy Award winning Speaking in Tongues and Brandenburgs, both unfortunately omitted from this season, were made when he was 58. He made the disturbing but compelling war-related piece, Banquet of Vultures, when he was 75 years old. Every year, Taylor has made two new works. Some years, particularly in the first decade or two, he may have made more during the year, but unlike today’s much younger choreographers, he did not race from place to place, from commission to commission, from idea to idea, trying to leverage his economic value at the expense of his artistry. He made two new works each year.

Taylor’s body of work is filled with important, craft-saturated dances that likely will endure until the end of dance. Now, thankfully, Taylor’s own idea of creating a repository and incubator for American modern dance will ensure that, as well as ensure the preservation and continued presentation of works by America’s modern dance legends such as Merce Cunningham. There will be no childish lawsuits over who owns the choreography created by Taylor when he is gone. There will not be a planned lingering death of his company. No, Paul Taylor is choreographing estate planning and future revenue streams for the benefit of the past, present, and future of American modern dance. If the choreography is as good as Cloven Kingdom, Sunset, and Piazzolla Caldera, we will be eternally grateful. Hopefully, this campaign will yield the newest permanent resident organization at Lincoln Center. Just tell us where we should send our checks.

The Gala evening was filled with so many outstanding performances. But Michelle Fleet and Michael Trusnovec in their PdD from Piazzolla Caldera take the cake and the H.H. Pump Bump Award, a stiletto of pure ecstasy from Christian Louboutin.

 

All the evidence you need

Over on Vanity Fair, James Wolcott has nothing but praises for Angelin Preljocaj's Spectral Evidence at New York City Ballet:

"Spectral Evidence," choreographed Angelin Preljocaj to music from John Cage--I can recommend not only as a phenomenal piece of theater but as a vitamin b shot for the winter doldrums, its eroticism ice-melting and insurrectionary.

and this:

Fairchild's solo was the best thing I've ever seen him do at NYCB--dark masculine mastery done with scything arms and a Michael Fassbender severity of iron brow.

and this:

Almost needless to say, the professional dance critics were complete dopes about the Preljocaj, with Alastair Macaulay in the Times calling it "creepy, grim, and tedious"--words more applicable to Macaulay's critical tenure--and his colleague Brian Seibert leaning on snideness, the default mode of the idle critical bystander unable to engage with what's in front of him.

Tonight is the year's final performance of this work unless it gets substituted for that Dalbavie/Martins creation that has been postponed twice already but is scheduled again for the spring. Let us pray.

Spectral Evidence, which premiered at NYCB's Fall Gala last September, should appeal to the widest ranging audience that one sees at Lincoln Center's various music, dance, and theater venues. Haglund hopes that Mr. Taylor has had a chance to see it, because it would be right up his alley. His company opens its 60th Anniversary Season on March 11th at Lincoln Center. Lots of great works are in store for us: Piazzolla Caldera, Black Tuesday, Cloven Kingdom, Gossamer Gallants, and new works as well. Tiler Peck and Robert Fairchild will dance an excerpt from Airs at the PTDC Gala on March 13th.