The Scottish Ballet brought a chamber-sized touring group of mostly principal dancers to the Joyce Theater this week in a program that both distinguished the company from the typical fare served up by Joyce visitors and also showed that they could not resist faddish content.
Artistic Director Christopher Hampson’s Sinfonietta Giocosa to music by Bohuslav Martinu opened the program with its straightforward neoclassical vocabulary of pleasing geometries. Martinu’s music is less symphonic than piano concerto, particularly the first movement which recalls Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto in its pace and energy. Still, there is an unmistakable neoclassical direction in the music that Hampson followed skillfully.
Beginning with two parallel lines of dancers stretching the depth of the stage, the ballet went on to present tidy examples of perpendiculars, interesting skews and slopes, and an agonic-type PdD. Such choreography can celebrate the technical strengths or expose the weaknesses of dancers. But in this case, the unfortunate choice of costuming for the women – black tights, black leotards, and black pointe shoes to dance on a black, under-lit stage floor – made it difficult to see and appreciate the intricate footwork.
Bryan Arias’ Motion of Displacement exemplified The Angst and Yank of Contemporary Ballet trend. It was a banal, repetitive, unimaginative effort to out-Forsythe Forsythe and all of his many imitators. The dancers wore socks which came in handy for endless sliding across the floor following their joint snapping maneuvers. As disturbing as this trend is to balletomanes, it’s candy for the local Joyce Theater regulars who enjoy more off-the-ballet-road type of performances.
Christopher Bruce’s Ten Poems had its share of angst & yank choreography, but it explored Dylan Thomas’ poetry creatively. The last time we observed dance set to text at the Joyce Theater, it was John Cage’s Empty Words choreographed by Angelin Preljocaj in a dance called Empty Moves. Bruce’s Ten Poems was a comparative breeze to sit through. Bruce selected ten of Thomas’ well-known poems as read by Richard Burton including In my Craft or Sullen Art that has these gem lines:
I labour by singing light Not for ambition or bread Or the strut and trade of charms On the ivory stages But for the common wages
and laid atop joint-snapping, gymno-choreography that sometimes alluded to Thomas’ words and sometimes had nothing to do with them. Thomas’ use of alliteration – “Drunk as a new dropped calf”, "And on seesaw sunday nights I wooed Whoever I would with my wicked eyes” – tickled Haglund pink as did the possibility of alliterative dance.
Ten Poems was the most successful dance of the evening, certainly the most innovative. It’s full of Rambert DNA. Both Christopher Bruce and Antony Tudor are in Rambert’s choreographic ancestry tree. However, setting the typically harsh and very narrow contemporary dance vocabulary to Thomas’ thoughtful poetry didn’t always work or enlighten us about either although it was interesting to watch. So was Preljocaj’s Empty Moves.
The HH Pump Bump Award, with its contemporary mesh of alliterative straps, is bestowed upon Ten Poems. Originality counts for a lot.
As most everyone knows, Scottish Ballet will bring its acclaimed production of A Streetcar Named Desireto the Kennedy Center May 28-30, which is the weekend after Memorial Day. Tickets don’t go on sale to the general public until February 4th; so don’t forget about this event when calendaring your spring ballet performances.
This week Scottish Ballet opens in Glasgow with another unique program that includes Christopher Bruce’s Ten Poems. Originally conceived for Ballet Kiel in 2009, this ballet uses as its score ten poems by Dylan Thomas as read by actor Richard Burton. From The Scotman's Sunday edition:
IT ALL began with Richard Burton’s face. Standing in his local record shop in Somerset, choreographer Christopher Bruce saw a CD sitting on the counter.
The Welshman’s piercing gaze caught his eye on the cover of the 1954 album Richard Burton Reads Dylan Thomas, a collection of poems recorded a year after the poet’s death.
“I was just so moved to see his picture,” says Bruce. “I had always loved watching him, even in films that weren’t that good. He was such a wonderful actor.”
Bruce was already familiar with the recording, but hearing it again he immediately saw its potential for dance. The combination of Thomas’s hugely evocative words and Burton’s powerful voice rendered music entirely unnecessary – the poetry was lyrical enough to carry his choreography along.
“What struck me was the wonderful rhythm,” he recalls. “And my first thought was that I would make a fairly abstract dance. But as I began to work on the material, and listen to the poems over and over again, I couldn’t help but be moved and react to the meaning of the poetry itself.”
Watching Scottish Ballet rehearse the piece in their Glasgow studios, it’s impossible to disagree. Within a few seconds of Burton’s dulcet tones filling the room, and the dancers’ bodies responding to the flow of his voice, any desire for a musical score disappears. Key words have been assigned a particular move to give them extra resonance, but mostly Bruce just captures the feeling – not only of Thomas’s poetry, but Burton’s delivery.
Ten Poems is on a program with Helen Pickett's brand new dance based on Arthur Miller's The Crucible.
Scottish Ballet is such an interesting company. Can't wait to see them in May.
––––––––––
Jared Matthews and Yuriko Kajiya wowed the Houston Ballet audience and critics in Paquita with the Houston Chronicle referring to them as a "new power couple" and plastering gorgeous pictures of the can't-hope-for-more-classical-elegance-than-this Yuriko all over its pages.
ABT is going to feel the loss of these two fine artists from night one of the fall season to the end of time.
The good news, albeit unofficial, is that Yuriko and Jared will dance Giselle and Albrecht at the Detroit Opera House on Sunday, November 2nd at 2:30, in case anyone wants to book transportation and tickets. We're checking the tires on the Gisellemobile today.
––––––––––
Oh, look.
Stella Abrera is on the cover of today's Sunday Manila Times Magazine following her acclaimed debut in Giselle with Ballet Philippines. It didn't come without a test, however. Typhoon Mario blew through in the hours preceding the performance knocking out Manila's electricity and flooding the roads.
UPDATE 9/22: From Philippine's VERA Files news outlet regarding braving the rains to see Stella's Giselle:
“I am used to bad weather but this horrendous monsoon rain was the worst to hit a ballet opening night,” said ballet teacher Perry Sevidal who has shared the stage with several Giselles from Natalia Makarova, Yoko Morishita and Maniya Barredo, among others. . . . “It was another interpretation and to me it was very special,” added Sevidal. “The mad scene was brilliantly underplayed and in Act II, she was indeed ethereal. The interpretation was very much her own and Whiteside gave utmost support. This is another landmark Giselle at the CCP.”
Just announced - the Scottish Ballet's blistering hot production of Tennessee Williams' A Streetcar Named Desire will be part of the Kennedy Center's 2014-2015 season. The company took this ballet into the heart of New Orleans last fall and stunned the audience with its brilliance.
"That, drama fans, is how you perform Tennessee Williams in toe shoes;
how you capture one of the great emblematic characters of American
theater without uttering a word."
That's from today's Times-Picayune in response to last night's performance in New Orleans. Oh, this is killing Haglund, because he wanted to see it so badly. So badly.
"Can the Scottish Ballet’s
powerful, New Orleans production of “A Streetcar Named Desire” be
distilled to a single dance movement? On Friday, Oct. 5, at the Mahalia
Jackson Theater for the Performing Arts, the key to the magic often
seemed embodied in the many ways that Blanche DuBois went on and off
pointe.
As danced by Eve Mutso, Blanche rose to her toes with
feline grace when playing the self-deluding seductress, rose like a
plant seeking sunshine when she contemplated her romantic past, teetered
desperately when drunk, sagged slowly amid disappointments, darted
desperately on the tips of her toes when pursued by the brutish forces
that crush her. Even from the balcony, one could read the meaning of
every phrase and gesture made by Mutso: the shaking calves and splayed
knees, the sudden whiplash turn and poised arabesques communicated
emotion as clearly as the tears shed by a friend in a neighboring seat."
Flowers to writer Chris Waddington of the Times-Picayune for that description. And this:
"Mutso didn’t do it alone. On Friday, before a stunned and silenced house
of 2,200 theater goers, the Scottish Ballet showed the depths of its
roster and the dramatic savvy of the team that assembled the project."
And finally this:
"It was a triumph in New Orleans, and for New Orleans, and one suspects
that Tennessee Williams would have been mighty pleased, too."
Gainesville and Tampa, you have your chance to see this next week. Don't miss it.
The Scottish Ballet is touring its acclaimed production of A Streetcar Named Desire in the southern U.S. during October. Lucky folks in New Orleans (Oct. 4), Gainesville (Oct. 10), and Tampa (Oct. 13) will get to see the Tennessee Williams classic brought to life under the theatrical direction of Nancy Meckler and choreographer Annabelle Lopez Ochoa. Haglund usually keeps his ear pretty close to the ground, but he didn't hear about this one until it was too late to make travel plans to see it.
When the ballet's first round of performances were heating up the theaters in Great Britain in 2012, Haglund reported that the London Evening Standard declared that attaching a theater director to the production team was a "template for how to tell a story in dance." In New York, we will get a chance to see a theater director's influence on a new story ballet when Alexei Ratmansky's The Tempest opens ABT's fall season at Lincoln Center. Tony Award winning director Mark Lamos will be the production's dramaturge, a position that can encompass varying degrees of responsibility in theater.
If anyone needs a reminder of how sizzling the Scottish Ballet's promo for Streetcar was, here it is again.
__________
Misty Copelandhas announced the fab-u-lous news that she will dance Swanilda in ABT's Opening Night cast of Coppelia during its 2014 season at the Metropolitan Opera House. Her debut will be in Abu Dhabi a few weeks before. Looking forward to seeing Misty in her long-overdue first leading classical role.
Here's hoping that's a good sign for Stella Abrera, Sarah Lane, and Yuriko Kajiya to also get the principal opportunities and recognition that they have long deserved. From novelist Ellen Glascow:
"I waited and worked, and watched the inferior exalted for nearly thirty years; and when recognition came at last, it was too late to alter events, or to make a difference in living."
Time is running out for these artists while the inferior are imported and exalted in roles that should be danced by our own homegrown artists.
__________
Haglund already has his tickets to the World Premiere of Martha Clarke's dance-play Cheri starring Herman Cornejo and Alessandra Ferri at Signature Theatrelocated at the beautiful Pershing Square Signature Center on 42nd Street at 10th Avenue. If you're not a subscriber, you can buy your tickets beginning October 15th. The play will run November 19 through December 22.
Experiences at Signature Theatre can be mixed. The last presentation that Haglund attended included a few too many instances of "line, please." But the theater's residency program for mid- and early-career playwrights is widely admired and something that New York's theater community badly needs.
The Scottish Ballet's new production of Tennessee Williams'A Streetcar Named Desire just got another fabulous review from London's Evening Standard which called it "florid, poetic, poisonously beautiful" and "everything you could want of Tennessee Williams." Tama Barry, the leading principal dancer who portrays Stanley, is being compared to Marlon Brando, and the Artistic Director Ashley Page's bright idea of attaching a real theater director to the production team is being called a "template for how to tell a story in dance." Hope this company and production are on somebody's radar on this side of the Atlantic.
This photo in the Evening Standard is uncredited, but oh what a picture. Click on it for full size.
And yet another glorious review for this production in The Guardian along with applause for Ashley Page's decision to include a real theater director on the production team.
Story ballets are all the rage. They're bubbling and brewing everywhere. The whiny abstractionists are either climbing on board or fading away. It is a joint-wrenching choice for some of them.
Desire
TheScottish Ballet just premiered its version of Tennessee Williams' A Streetcar Named Desire to major critical praise. Directed by native New Yorker, Nancy Meckler, who works out of the U.K., and contemporary choreographer Annabelle Lopez Ochoa in her debut dabbling in narrative dance, Streetcar was conceived by outgoing AD Ashley Page. The Telegraph critic just reported that "The result is a brilliantly bold and sensitive ballet which is full of memorable set pieces."
Here's a little promo blurb. While there appears to be some of the "same old same old splitzy stuff" going on, at about 50 secs into the video, check out the leap, lift, and lighting of "Stella" bending her back over "Stanley's" shoulder - steamy:
Several months ago, Haglund caught a performance of Satellite Ballet in the Jerome Robbins Theater at the Baryshnikov Arts Center and was wowed by the efforts of directors Troy Schumacher and Kevin Draper along with the dancers (from NYCB), musicians, and designers. Satellite Ballet and Collective is a serious collaborative model that workshops it productions in Michigan before presenting them on major stages.
In the works and hopefully for the October 2012 performance in NYC is a new "Ballet and Song Cycle" which the group describes as:
Set in New York, it's the story of a young woman who meets a thief who has collected her past and offers it to her in exchange for her future.
Hooked. Totally. Would love to see it produced at BAC.
Lumiere Ballet
Venti Petrov, whose ballet El Cid was received so well last year, has thrown himself head-first into another intriguing story for the Lumiere Ballet's performance on April 28 at Baruch Performing Arts Center's Mason Hall. DEAR NADEZHDA is a one-act ballet based on the story of Tchaikovsky and the woman who loved him.
From the company:
Between 1877 & 1890, composer Pyotr Tchaikovsky and reclusive patron of the arts Nadezhda von Meck sent each other nearly 700 letters. Nadezhda supported Tchaikovsky financially for 13 years, but stipulated that they were never to meet. DEAR NADEZHDA brings to life this complex and passionate epistolary relationship -- a virtual romance between an artist and a fervent admirer. It is set to a score by Tchaikovsky and features a company of 14 dancers including Oksana Maslova (Moscow Ballet, Connecticut Ballet) as Nadezhda, Tanner Schwartz (Boston Ballet, Joffrey Ballet), Lauren King (New York City Ballet), Alexander Tressor (New York City Ballet, Connecticut Ballet), Cassandra Trenary, Steven Melendez (New York Theatre Ballet), Ariane Mahler, Jocelyn Delifer, Jeremy Canade, Aina Tadokoro, Tracy Finch (Ballet NY, Connecticut Ballet), and Carrie Walsh (Royal Danish Ballet, Corella Ballet).
Also on the program will be several divertissements choreographed by Petrov including: • Soul in Captivity: As the table turns, the master falls prey to his victim. Music by E. Lalo. Danced by Nicole Graniero (American Ballet Theatre), Tanner Schwartz, Carrie Walsh and Aina Tadokoro • Patent Pending: A crash dummy decides to take his life into his own hands. Set to Leroy Anderson’s famed typewriter music. Danced by Anton Kandaurov (Moscow Ballet, Connecticut Ballet). • The Butterfly: One day in a life of beauty. Music by A. Dvorak. Danced by Lauren King. • Harlequinade: Based on the characters of La Commedia dell’Arte, this piece depicts the heartbroken and ever so hopeful Harlequin in his attempt to attract Columbine’s attention. Set to original music by Michael Zeiger. Danced by Cassandra Trenary and Steven Melendez. • Liebestraum: Two people have just fallen in love and explore their nascent feelings for each other. Music by Franz Liszt. Danced by Oksana Maslova and Anton Kandaurov.
Tickets are available by calling 212-352-3101 or through www.TheaterMania.com.
Vegetable, Animal, and Mineral
Dances Patrelle will present GILBERT & SULLIVAN, The Ballet! at the Dicapo Theatre (184 E. 76th St.) May 3-6. Haglund saw this last year, and it was a hoot! Francis Patrelle has put together a revue of The Pirates of Penzance, The Mikado and H.M.S. Pinafore and inserted his own imaginative reading of what went on behind the scenes to get these original productions on the stage.