New! updated February 26, 2004
Nijinsky—Lost in the Chaos
Nijinsky
Hamburg Ballet
Opera House
John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts
February 25, 2004
Clare
Croft
copyright © 2004 by Clare Croft
published 26 February 2004
Vaslav
Nijinsky is a ballet icon. His ballets and life story have cemented his
place in dance history. But with iconic status sometimes comes a flattening
of character, and John Neumeier’s depiction of the famous dancer
in the evening length Nijinsky has fallen into this trap. Neumeier
devotes most of his two-and-half-hour ballet to placing Nijinsky’s
inner landscape onstage, creating a swirl of impossible-to-digest dance
that presents Nijinsky as a one-dimensional figure, lost in the swirl.
The man who created the first truly modern ballets and passed through
two complicated relationships, first with impresario Serge Diaghilev,
then later his wife Romola, appears the same throughout Neumeier’s
ballet. Though the relationships were, in fact, very different, Neumeier's
depictions are not. The
lack of subtle character development was even more striking after having
seen Norman Allen's "Nijsinky's Last Dance" at the Kennedy Center
this past fall.
read review
Clichés of Madness
Nijinsky
The Hamburg Ballet
City Center
New York, NY
February 20–22,
2004
by
Gia Kourlas
copyright 2004 by Gia Kourlas
published 23 February 2004
After
spending Friday night with John Neumeier’s latest full-evening catastrophe
about Vaslaw Nijinsky (yes, another histrionic attempt to depict the famous
dancer), I can’t help but imagine what went into his “Nijinsky
File.” You know—points of inspiration for visual design and
character development; I’m not referring to historical photographs
or sketches of costumes or musical scores. This version of Nijinsky’s
life falls into the category of trying to make insanity hot (as opposed
to truly sad, which it was, or unintentionally funny, which is more often
the unfortunate case. Apart from actual research—and he does reportedly
have a vast collection of Nijinsky memorabilia—Neumeier seems to
have had two things on his mind before he stepped into the studio with
his dancers: homoerotic Calvin Klein advertisements (those featuring young
men in underwear) and Adam Cooper in Matthew Bourne’s Swan Lake
(that’s his Diaghilev).
read review
Letter from New York
23
February 2004.
Copyright © 2004 by
Mindy Aloff
For
the past 25 years, Theodora Skipitares has been making award-winning spectacles
of puppetry, using techniques from around the world. The several productions
of hers that I’ve seen tend to be optically spellbinding and aurally
almost unendurable. Her scripts are disorganized and banal, the voices
of her actors aren’t very interesting, and the minimalist electronic
scores she uses, often for 70 minutes at a stretch, cancel out the delights
that come in through the eye. What she really needs, from my perspective,
is to present her puppetry in silence, with dialogue streaming electronically
somewhere visible.
And yet,
when she triumphs, one is knocked out with pleasure. There was one scene
in Skipitares’s new production, Odyssey: The Homecoming,
which I saw at La MaMa e.t.c. yesterday, that was worth the effort to
go.
read
letter
Conjuring Loie Fuller
Dance
of the Elements
Time Lapse Dance
Nitery Theater, Stanford University
Palo Alto, CA
February 17, 2004
by
Rita Felciano
Copyright © 2004 by Rita Felciano
published 23 February 2004
Howling
winds and slashing rains couldn’t keep me from traveling to Stanford
the other evening despite the fact that my little car was telling me in
no uncertain terms that it didn’t belong on a freeway during such
a dark and stormy night. But then how many chances does one get to see
something at least approximating what the mother of modern dance, one
Loie Fuller, of Fullersburg, Ill and Paris, France, might have looked
like?
read review
A Valiant Beauty
The
Sleeping Beauty
New York City Ballet
New York State Theater
February 19,
2004
by
Mindy Aloff
copyright
2004 by Mindy Aloff
published 23 February 2004
The
photograph you see here is of Jenifer Ringer (with Philip Neal), the first-cast
Aurora in the New York City Ballet’s production of The Sleeping
Beauty. The last two weeks of NYCB’s winter season have been
given over to Beauty, and, in that time, the company is fielding
five sets of principals. Several critics from The Dance View Times
will be writing about the other casts next week. This review considers
the first cast I was able to see, with Yvonne Borree as Aurora, Nikolaj
Hübbe as Prince Désiré, Kyra Nicholas as The Fairy
Carabosse, and Maurice Kaplow conducting. Before I begin, I want to give
my frame of reference for critiquing this ballet.
read review
New Casts in Jewels
Jewels
New York City Ballet
New York State Theater
New York, NY
February 7 and February 12, 2004
by
Mary Cargill
copyright
2004 by Mary Cargill
published 23 February 2004
The
redesigned Jewels was the not-so-surprise hit of the season,
with packed houses and cheering audiences. The earlier designs, with the
chintzy parures in the background, were not a great loss, but they at
least did not detract from the choreography in the way the news ones,
to my mind, do.
“Emeralds”
is now a mass of green nothingness, Clearly the designer wanted a nether
world, either a bower or a sea bed, but the dancers, with their green
costumes, fade into the background; even their skin seems to take on a
greenish tinge. Despite the oppressive "Green Mansions" mood,
the second cast, Rachel Rutherford with Robert Tewsley (in a welcome return
from injury), and Pascale van Kipnis with James Fayette, caught the delicate
lyricism of the music. Rutherford, in the Verdy role, danced with a delicate
shading and a gentle urgency; those horns were calling her away to somewhere!
The difficult mime-like movements, where the hands say nothing exactly
and everything allusively, were lovely. I never saw Verdy dance the role,
though, and people who did are always disappointed; and yes, it is inexplicable
that Verdy does not coach her part. Though some of the partnering looked
a bit tentative, Tewesley had a romantic authority and plushness to his
dancing that gleams with an old fashioned
courtesy, so perfect for “Emeralds”.
read review
Pushing It
Ellipse
Sydney Dance Company
Joyce Theater
New York, NY
February 19, 2004
by
Susan Reiter
copyright
© 2004 by Susan Reiter
published February 23, 2004
The
gentle swaying of a glowing oblong red lantern, as it rose slowly through
the darkness up to the flies, was the opening image of Graeme Murphy's
Ellipse. The introductory section, for two women who shared a
mysterious symbiotic connection, was a bravely reflective and somber one.
But as it progressed through its 80 minutes, Ellipse evolved
into a rough-and-tumble agglomeration of teasingly tasteless costumes,
excessive gymnastic exploits, and attempts at humor that veered too close
to silliness.
read review
A Powerful Depiction of Poverty and Despair
Les Sublimes
Compagnie Hendrik van der Zee
Festival of France, Kennedy Center
Eisenhower Theater
Washington, D.C.
Feb. 19-21, 2004
by
Lisa Traiger
copyright
2004 by Lisa Traiger
published 23 February 2004
In
1904, when Pablo Picasso painted "Les Saltimbanques," he captured
a world-weary sense of isolation. That evocation has become a hallmark
of the malaise infiltrating contemporary society. Picasso's saltimbanques
are circus people: a tall harlequin, a fat clown in a red suit, a young
girl in a tutu, a bare-chested teenage boy, a younger boy and a seated
woman in an oddly perched hat. (The large canvas hangs in the National
Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.) They're not a family in the traditional
sense, but they're bound together even in their despair, their isolation.
They stare out at us from Picasso's barren no-man's-land landscape telling
of the psychological separation of lives lived on the fringes of society.
read review
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