the danceview times
|
Volume 2, Number 3 January 19, 2004 An online supplement to DanceView magazine
Letter from New York 19
January 2004. Five or six
years ago, Pacific Northwest Ballet—codirected by NYCB alumni Francia
Russell and Kent Stowell—mounted a new production of George Balanchine’s
1962 evening-length version of A Midsummer Night’s Dream,
with new sets and costumes commissioned from Martin Pakledinaz (the first
time The Balanchine Trust authorized the redesign of a Balanchine story
ballet). I happened to see that lovely production in its first season
and was astounded to discover how much my view of the latter half of the
ballet was changed by the seriousness with which Russell (a ballet mistress
for Balanchine at the time of Midsummer’s making and the
stager of the work for PNWB) had treated the wedding dances of the Second
Act, both in the directions to Pakledinaz about the set and in her own
attention to details of the choreography. In conversation at that time,
Russell expressed her admiration for the construction and nuances of those
wedding dances—not just the famous partnered adagio at the end,
but all of the ones for the corps de ballet that lead up to it. She also
referred to the passage in one of the Jonathan Cott interviews with Balanchine
from the early 1970s (subsequently anthologized by Lincoln Kirstein in
the album Portrait of Mr. B), which guided the new PNWB set for
the Second Act that reveals the night sky, illuminated by a crescent of
stars: read past Letters from New York Balanchine's Magical Confection
Harlequinade Even if a
stage filled with jesters is your idea of dance hell, you should see Harlequinade
(1965, revised 1973), brought back with an all-new cast as part of the
New York City Ballet’s “Balanchine 100". Particularly
to those who tend to think of Balanchine as a superlative modernist, it
will be interesting to see him working his wiles in this backward-glancing
Petipa mode. It is a reminder of the scope of his genius. Balanchine
could do anything in dance. This makes what he chose to do, and when,
that much the more compelling food for thought. Of course if you start
with Harlequinade, you’ll be starting with the candy course,
and listening to Riccardo Drigo. No One Danced At My Mother’s Wake by
Ann Murphy No one danced at my mother’s wake. Not a single person found the screwdriver that might have removed the front door so that that door could be stretched out in the parlor to let an uncle tap out a jig or a reel as another relative fiddled. No one kept awake all night by her side to usher her spirit on, dancing about the room with her tiny body to help her get to the next world. It’s not a surprise. There was
no Derry County front door, no parlor, not a stitch of food nor a drop
to drink at this sanitize wake in the New England suburbs for this Irish
American woman who could never fully embrace nor escape her origins. And
anyway, the uncles that might have danced were dead, and no one knew a
reel or jig to play. The Inside View Robert Altman's The Company by
Rita Felciano With The Company director Robert Altman created a gentle hermetically self-contained world into which reality bursts like momentary gusts of wind when opening a window. As has been his wont throughout his long film career, Altman blurs the line between fiction and fact when taking us inside a somewhat mythologized Joffrey Ballet of Chicago. In this case the approach served him particularly well. Ballet is an arcane universe but is inhabited by surprisingly human beings. The Company captures this double perspective with considerable success. One would only wish that the works shown in performance were of higher quality. Not much
of a plot animates this otherwise sweet little film. It traces the love
and work life of an ambitious but amiable young dancer, Ry (Neve Campbell
who also co-wrote the story with Barbara Turner) and her chef boyfriend
Josh (an affable James Franco). But the real story, as the title indicates,
is the company. Altman weaves a richly textured fabric of off-stage life,
rehearsals and performances. Periodically he introduces little dollops
of personal drama. However, those never interfere with the film’s
trajectory. He plops them in much like close-ups on a face. It’s
an excellent way of bringing individuals momentarily to the surface without
having to develop characters. Old and New BalletNY by
Mary Cargill The Fugate/Bahiri BalletNY (formerly DanceGalaxy) presented a varied program of old and new, lyrical and dramatic works. If some of the experiments were less successful, the company, basically a pick-up group of dancers with various backgrounds and performance histories, looked well-rehearsed and engaging. The 1967
version of Balanchine’s Valse Fantaisie (to Glinka—the
music was taped) opened the program. It was set by Judith Fugate, who
had danced it at the New York City Ballet. It suited her strengths so
well, with its romantic urgency and stylish arms, and her company caught
the windswept, lyrical, and otherworldly quality with a beautifully controlled
amplitude. The four corps girls were true sylphs, with delicate and perfectly
placed arms, but were modern, fearless ones, sweeping through the music.
Cheryl Sladkin, especially, stood out for her elegance and sense of reaching
further.
|
New January 23, 2004 An Evening's Debuts
Tschaikovsky Piano Concerto No. 2/Harlequinade by
Mary Cargill Jennie Somogyi made her eagerly awaited debut as the lead ballerina in Tschaikovsky Piano Concerto No. 2; she has previously danced gloriously in the second lead. This ballet, so full of the spirit of Petipa, needs a phenomenally accomplished dancer, which of course Somogyi is, as well as an instinctive ballerina, who can make the steps sing her own song. Somogyi does have the rare ability to speak with her body, without imposing a false drama, and it was an extraordinary debut. The opening
cadenza, where the ballerina (who might as well be called Aurora) dances
a fast and difficult solo, recalls the beautiful princess at her birthday
party, and Somogyi did have the youthful grandeur and grace notes (if
not always impeccably secure turns) to bring the role alive with all its
youthful joy. Royal Danish Ballet in D.C. New
January
21, 2004 La
Sylphide/Etudes When
the curtain rose Saturday afternoon on the Royal Danish Ballet’s
new production of La Sylphide it rose on a miracle. After four
days of a Napoli that, one tried to tell oneself, might be the
best that could be expected after the many changes the company has undergone
in the past decade, the minute Gudrun Bojesen extended her long, beautiful
foot and began to dance, time stopped. What we saw last weekend was, with
allowances for changes in cast and designs, what we saw 11-and-a-half
years ago when the company last danced La Sylphide at the Kennedy
Center. The musicality was there, the poetry was there, the drama, the
pacing, the beautiful soft, clear, modest dancing. The Knight of Faith Napoli When
it was new, August Bournonville’s Napoli (1842) was typical
of mid-19th century ballets: a good story with fantastic elements, lots
of local color, a stage full of individualized characters, classical dancing
based on the French school, and character/demi-caractere dancing that
helped place the ballet and added vigor and spice to the mix. Napoli
is the only full-length ballet of this type to survive, and seeing it
is a privilege. It’s not only a window on dance history, it’s
the showcase for the talents and tradition of the Royal Danish Ballet,
its custodian. New casts in Napoli Napoli It's
a tall order to conjur Napoli, its down-to-earth salt-of-the-sea
populace with temperaments as suddenly volcanic as Mt. Vesuvius and then
as calm and clear as a cloudless Italian sky. But not just showing what's
special about that city and citizenry, but letting the audience discover
bonds these people have in common with the rest of humanity is the challange
Royal Danish stagers and performers face every time the curtain goes up
on August Bournonville's Napoli, a ballet in three very different
acts. New January 21, 2004 Commentary
by
Alexandra Tomalonis In June of
2005, the Royal Danish Ballet will celebrate Bournonville’s 200th
birthday with a third Festival, at which it will present the surviving
ballets. It will be a festive time, but also a sober one. This may be
the last chance to make the case for Bournonville. There are no credible
opportunities for another Festival for years to come. Will the Danish
audience, and the Danish dancers, want to keep him around for another
century?
|
|
Copyright
© 2004 by DanceView |
|