Category: Ballet

Alison Cook Beatty for Ballet Next

Friday August 17, 2012 – Alison Cook Beatty (with Michele Wiles and Jason Reilly in the above photo by Paul B Goode) is choreographing a new work for Ballet Next; entitled TINTINNABULI, the ballet is set to Arvo Pärt’s Tabula Rasa. Today I stopped in at the DANY studios to have a look at this new creation, which will have its premiere during Ballet Next‘s upcoming season at The Joyce.

The dancers were having a breather when I arrived but after a few minutes they gathered their energies (they’d already been rehearsing for 2 hours) and ran thru the new ballet’s completed first section and the nearly-finished second part.

TINTINNABULI begins with the women on a diagonal (watch a rehearsal sample here ) which evolves into a solo for Michele Wiles – stylized, mystical movement but highly emotive in expression. Her solo is observed by Jason Reilly – principal dancer from Stuttgart Ballet, guesting with Ballet Next this season – a charismatic dancer and excellent partner. As their pas de deux commences, there’s a nice chemistry between Jason and Michele Wiles, even though for the longest time they don’t actually touch. But when they do, it’s luminous. Jason has a dynamic solo passage of his own.

Alison Cook Beatty, Michele Wiles and Jason Reilly in a Paul B Goode photo, above.

The quartet of soloists form chains with joined hands; they crouch is a circle. Their linked, ritualistic movements evoke images of Matisse and Balanchine as they move along the diagonal. The girls of the ensemble – Lily Balogh, Lily Di Piazza, Kristie Latham, Tiffany Mangulabnan and Erin Arbuckle – each bring a distinctive element to the work while functioning as a unit.

Michele and Jason resume their duet, really gorgeously set on the music, and they give it a strong emotional context even though it’s just a rehearsal. A brief flurry of virtuosity follows.

Alison went on from the finished passages, exploring possible phrases as the ballet moves to a conclusion. I’ll have to go back one of these days and find out how she resolves things.

Charles Askegard is a wonderful presence in the studio, supportive of the young choreographer and offering meaningful suggestions without intruding on the process. At one point, a lift was being pondered and Charles suddenly swept Alison overhead with the signature effortlessness of a prince among cavaliers.

Really nice atmosphere in the studio, and I look forward to seeing Alison’s ballet costumed and lit at The Joyce. My special thanks to Paul Goode for his evocative rehearsal images.

You can catch Ballet Next at the 92nd Street Y in the Fridays at Noon series: Friday October 19th at 12:00 noon. It’s free!

August 20, 2012
tomgolddance: Off to Spain!

Likolani Brown and Russell Janzen rehearsing The Man I Love for tomgolddance; photo by Brian Krontz.

tomgolddance are heading to Spain to perform at the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao on August 1st. Photographer Brian Krontz and I stopped by at the City Center Studio to take a look at the dances Tom’s taking across the Atlantic. When we arrived, they’d just finished running thru Tom’s Faure Fantasy which will open the programme in Bilbao. Brian found his corner from which to shoot and the White Swan pas de deux commenced.

Above: Simone Messmer in the White Swan pas de deux

Earlier this year, I was at an ABT SWAN LAKE in which Simone Messmer appeared in the Spanish dance at the court festivities. I found myself constantly drawn to her, even when she was simply standing on the sidelines, observing. I kept thinking: What a Swan Queen she would be! Today, that thought became a reality as Simone danced Odette, with New York City Ballet‘s Jared Angle as her prince.

In their practice clothes and making mini-corrections along the way, Simone and Jared (aboove) created a distinctive impression in this familiar pas de deux. Simone’s lyricism, coloured by a restless energy pulsing beneath the surface, finds a perfect compliment in Jared’s noble bearing and poetic expression: he’s ardent without being fussy or melodramatic. Such an intriguing experience to watch this partnership; now if we could just find a way to have them dance the whole ballet together.

Amanda Hankes in SHANTI.

SHANTI is Tom Gold’s colourful ensemble ballet set to an exotic-sounding John Zorn score; it will close the programme in Bilbao. Tom gives all the dancers in this piece ample chance to shine, with high-energy combinations for Devin Alberda and Russell Janzen and some sinuous moves for Amanda Hankes and Likolani Brown; Amanda also has a nice and zesty fouette combination. Abi Stafford, Simone Messmer and Jared Angle weave in and out of the ensemble in skillfully-managed partnering passages while Tom gives himself some virtuosic feats to pull off.

Tom Gold

Russell Janzen and Devin Alberda

Whenever I’m watching New York City Ballet I always find myself thinking that the dancers in the corps de ballet could step into principal roles with ease. We had a glimpse of that today as Likolani Brown and Russell Janzen (above) danced The Man I Love from Balanchine’s WHO CARES?

Likolani is a beautiful dancer, someone I love to keep an eye on in the corps and who always makes the most of her demi-soliste roles; she has a warm, Springtime quality and she’s a sophisticated mover. Russell, one of the tallest men in the NYCB family, has the partnering well in hand. Together they brought a young-love feeling to this classic Balanchine duet.

Abi Stafford and Jared Angle (above) in the Act II pas de deux from Balanchine’s MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM, one of the choreographer’s most ravishing creations. Bringing to mind their intoxicating partnership in Emeralds, Abi and Jared have the clarity of technique and the gentle combination of courtliness and romance to give this duet its special perfume: there’s really nothing else quite like it in the Balanchine canon.

All photos by Brian Krontz; an additional gallery of images from this rehearsal will be found here.

The Bilbao audience are in for a treat with this programme; and tomgolddance have another exciting tour stop on their itinerary: in October, the will dance in Cuba!

July 29, 2012
The Girls from Covenant

In 1976, I started a temp job at Covenant Insurance Company in Hartford, Connecticut. After temping for a couple of weeks, I was hired full-time as a mail clerk. Within a year, I started training to be a claim rep and I eventually took over an inside adjuster’s desk; I remained with the Company for 22 years, surviving two buy-outs (by American States Insurance and then by Safeco) and left in 1998 to move to New York City.

Handling insurance claims is a stressful and thankless job: you are always saying ‘no’ to someone, it seems. What made the job bearable (and the days almost enjoyable – almost being the key word) were the people I worked with. From the start, the three women above – Jackie, Trudy and Judy – were among my all-time favorite colleagues. As time passed, they each left to work elsewhere. We kept in touch but seldom saw each other, and after I moved to New York City I heard from them only rarely. But we kept afloat the idea of a reunion and today (July 25, 2012) it finally came to pass, after a lapse of almost a quarter-century since I last saw any of them.

With more than two decades of catching up to do, the conversation over lunch jumped from topic to topic as they talked about their kids (and Jackie about her grand-kids) and we reminisced about people we’d worked with (“Where’s whats-his-name these days?”) who we’ve lost track of. Many of our co-workers have since passed away, of course; we recalled how everyone smoked in the office back in the day, and several kept bottles of booze stashed away in their desks or credenzas and went to imbibe in the bathroom stalls or in their cars during lunch break. Office affairs were commonplace; people who were thought to be happily married were found to be otherwise, forming improbable liaisons along the way.

We walked over by the river, and then took a hike along to the High Line (which has now become a tourist destination and is rather commercialized), ending up at a pub on 8th Avenue for a drink before they headed back to Grand Central.

Trudy & Jackie

Judy and I took private ballet classes together for a while; she had studied as the Hartford Ballet, and she still has ballerina hair.

We parted, agreeing that it would be a good idea not to wait another 25 years before we arrange to meet again.

July 25, 2012
POB: Orpheus and Eurydice

Saturday July 21, 2012 – The Paris Opera Ballet concluded their 2012 guest-season at Lincoln Center with Pina Bausch’s staging of Gluck’s immortal opera based on the myth of the singer Orpheus, a man who braves the furies of hell to bring his beloved wife back from the dead. Bausch created her version of the opera in 1975 at Wuppertal and it entered the repertoire of the Paris Opera Ballet in 2005.

Ms. Bausch eschews Gluck’s plan for the opera to end happily; the composer has the gods taking pity on Orpheus after he has caused Eurydice’s ‘second death’ and she is restored to him. In her setting, Ms. Bausch follows the course of the myth: by disobeying the decree that he not look at his wife until they have left the Underworld, Orpheus loses Eurydice forever. He is condemned to wander the Earth, lonely and tormented, until he his torn to shreds by the Maenads. This gruesome conclusion is not depicted onstage; we simply see the dead Eurydice and her distraught husband in a final tableau as the light fades.

The Paris Opera Ballet‘s production, vivid in its simplicity and superbly performed by dancers and musicians alike, made for an absorbing evening. A packed house seemed to be keenly attentive to the narrative; the silence in the theatre was palpable. The only slight drawback in the presentation was the need for two rather long set-changing pauses during the first half of the evening; the house lights were brought to quarter and the audience began to chatter. Fortunately, order was quickly restored once the music started up again. The second act, with its unbroken spell of impending doom and its heart-breaking rendering of the great lament “J’ai perdu mon Eurydice” by the superb mezzo-soprano Maria Riccarda Wesseling – the audience seemed scarcely to draw breath while she spun out a miraculous thread of sound in the aria’s final verse – was as fine a half-hour as I have ever spent in the theatre.

The opera was sung in German, with the chorus seated in the orchestra pit. Each of the three principal roles in the opera is doubled by a dancer and a singer. The three singers, clad in simple black gowns, move about the stage and sometimes participate in the action. So fine were the musical aspects of the performance that the opera could well have stood alone, even without the excellent choreography.

Ms. Wesseling (above) was a revelation; her timbre reminded me at times of the younger days of Waltraud Meier and she shares with that great artist an intensity and personal commitment that make her singing resonate on an emotional level. Ms. Wesseling’s sustained and superbly coloured rendering of “J’ai perdu mon Eurydice” – with remarkable dynamic gradations – was so poignant; how I wish we could have her at The Met, as Gluck’s Iphigenie perhaps. The two sopranos, Yun Jung Choi (Eurydice) and Zoe Nicolaidou (Amour), gave lovely performances. Conductor Manlio Benzi wrought the score with clarity and dramatic nuance, wonderfully carried out by the musicians and singers of the Balthasar-Neumann Ensemble.

In this powerful musical setting, Ms. Bausch moves her dancers with dignity and grace; the ritualistic passages for female ensemble evoked thoughts of Martha Graham, and reminded Kokyat of Lydia Johnson’s stylishly flowing images of sisterhood. As Orfeo, Nicolas Paul looked spectacular in flesh-tone briefs, his torso god-like and his anguish expressed by every centimeter of his physique. Tall and radiant, Alice Renavand looked tres chic in her red gown as Eurydice. Charlotte Ranson was a lively angel in white as Amour.

It was in the second half of the evening where Ms. Bausch’s vision transcended theatricality and took on a deeply personal aspect. Nicolas Paul as Orpheus strove movingly to ignore his wife’s pleas to look her in the face; when at last he could no longer withstand her torment, the fatal moment comes. Ms Renavand collapses on her singer-counterpart’s body and remains prone and absolutely still as Ms. Wesseling sings the great lament. Mr. Paul kneels, facing upstage, in a pool of light which accentuates the gleaming sweat on his back. In this simple tableau, so much is expressed without movement of any kind. The voice of Orpheus in his grief fills the space and the soul.

The Dancers:

Alice Renavand (Eurydice), Nicolas Paul (Orphée), Charlotte Ranson (Amour)

The Singers:

Orpheus: Maria Riccarda Wesseling
Eurydice: Yun Jung Choi
Amore: Zoe Nicolaidou

July 21, 2012
Boylston/Simkin SWAN LAKE @ ABT

Wednesday June 27, 2012 matinee – Alas that the performance I most wanted to see during ABT‘s week of SWAN LAKEs fell on a Wednesday matinee. I knew it would be a bad audience experience and I was right about that; actually, considering the vast number of children in the audience it wasn’t as bad as it might have been. But of course seated right behind us were a mother and her three kids who whispered and squirmed and ate and drank their way through the matinee. Eventually I gave up my excellent seat and moved to the balcony boxes so I could concentrate.

ABT‘s SWAN LAKE is overall rather dull; the ‘traditional’ parts – especially the first lakeside scene – are of course quite lovely but there’s a whole catalog of tedious bits that detract from the focus of the narrative. Nonetheless, it serves ABT‘s purpose as a producton into which each principal ballerina and danseur can be plugged for their annual go at Odette/Odile and her Prince. Today, though, the casting was fresh: soloists Isabella Boylston and Daniil Simkin (photo above) tackled these iconic roles for the first time at The Met and scored a resounding success.

Daniil, point blank, is a dancer I love. Although I don’t go to ABT all that frequently, I am always happy to find Daniil dancing on a day that I am there. And so when he was listed for his first Siegfried, I immediately put this matinee on my calendar. Having seen many 30-to-40 year old Siegfrieds over the years (not that I’m complaining: they’ve been wonderful!) it was really refreshing to witness Daniil’s youthful elegance in the role. Carrying himself with inborn dignity, Daniil brought a sense of true innocence to the ballet. Heart on sleeve, he went bravely into the uncharted territory of first love; that his passion would lead to his eventual doom never entered his mind. Throughout the performance, his boyish figure and expressive face kept us strongly focused on Siegfried’s story. Daniil’s dancing was fleet-footed, immaculate and supremely musical.

Isabella Boylston’s Odette/Odile was a lovely creation, beautifully danced. She hasn’t quite found the quality of mystery that will eventually make her Odette truly impressive, but her interpretation is already well-formed and she is quite a sparklingly powerful Odile. Boylston had the crowd with her from the start, reaping a burst of cheers for her fouettes and a huge shout of approval at her solo bow.

Jared Matthews was superb in Rothbart’s ‘hypnotic’ solo – an unnecessary passage, but Jared made it eminently worthwile. Kristi Boone and Karen Uphoff were luxuriant as the leading swans, but the idea of casting three soloists among the four cygnets didn’t come off: each ballerina seemed to be in her own world and the result was lack of coordination and a rather bumpy traversal of the space. The Act I pas de trois was finely danced by Joseph Gorak, Devon Teuscher and Christine Schevchenko.

In the Black Swan act, the national dances are lamely choreographed but I did very much like Simone Messmer in Spanish and thought – watching her watching the proceedings with her own personal mystique in play – what a fascinating Swan Queen she would be.

Simkin and Boylston taking their bows here.

June 29, 2012
Cherylyn Lavagnino Dance: Gallery

Above: Eric Williams and Sarah Bek in Cherylyn Lavagnino’s Ménage. Photo by Kokyat.

Since we weren’t able to attend their performances at St Mark’s Church on these final days of June 2012, Cherylyn Lavagnino Dance very kindly invited Kokyat and me to watch/photograph their dress rehearsal. The performance space at St. Mark’s is really impressive: the high ceiling, the polished floor, the wrap-around mezzanine, the stained glass windows.

The three danceworks were beautifully lit and the overall atmosphere was tranquil, well-suited to the lyricsm of Ms. Lavagnino’s choreographic style.

The opening work, Ménage has a Degas feeling; it is set to music by Scott Killian, Jacob Lawson and Jane Chung.

Here is a series of Kokyat’s images from Ménage:

Selina Chau, Sarah Bek, Laura Mead, Claire Westby

sarah Bek, Claire Westby

Eric Williams, Justin Flores

Eric Williams

Selina Chau, Eric Williams

Laura Mead, Justin Flores

Laura Mead, Justin Flores

Sarah Bek

Eric Williams, Sarah Bek

Laura Mead, Josh Palmer

Josh Palmer and Laura Mead in Ménage.

The pas de deux entitled Deux en Peu was created to the Andante con moto from Franz Schubert’s Trio in E-flat major. In the photos below, the dancers are Selina Chau and Josh Palmer.

All photos by Kokyat. A second gallery featuring images from Cherylyn Lavagnino’s Triptych (a premiere) appears here.

June 29, 2012
Lydia Johnson Dance @ Peridance – Part 4

Above: Kokyat’s image from Lydia Johnson’s CROSSINGS BY RIVER

Sunday June 24, 2012 matinee – Seeing a vast number of dance performances every season – to say nothing of the invitations I must turn down due to my packed schedule (and sometimes – admittedly – due to my sheer lack of interest) – I’m always glad when the annual performances by Lydia Johnson Dance come round. Lydia’s programmes are rewarding on so many levels: her musical choices are astute; her danceworks are thoughtfully crafted and pleasing both to the eye and the spirit; her dancers – whether those long associated with her style or guests invited for specific projects – are invariably beautiful, committed and moving. Lydia steers wonderfully clear of empty theatricality, and of vapid sentimentality, and of the twin dance crimes of cleverness and cuteness (which is not to say that playfulness is abjured, nor wit for that matter). Her works resonate with a direct emotional link to the music and with an expansive view of the human condition, whether they be imtimate domestic dramas, or reflections of the rites of community, or simply abstract visions of the sheer joy of the human body in motion.

In what I now consider to be her most beautiful work to date, Lydia opened her engrossing programme today with a piece for female ensemble entitled CROSSINGS BY RIVER. Set to mystical sacred music by Osvaldo Golijov, this dance – so expressively executed – gave me those deep tingles of emotional response that come but rarely these days, indicating that the choreographer has taken the music – already striking in its own right – and given it a visual aspect that seems inevitable.

Having watched this work evolve from one of its earliest rehearsals, I found the experience of seeing it staged and lit to be extremely moving both in its innate spiritual quality and in the serene and dedicated dancing of the five women: Laura DiOrio, Lisa Iannacito McBride, Jessica Sand, Kaitlin Accetta and Sarah Pon. Putting me in mind of the ritualistic works of Martha Graham, CROSSINGS BY RIVER carries on the great dance tradition of memorable works for female ensemble. It needs to be seen and savoured.

Here is a gallery of Kokyat’s images from this Golijov dancework:

Laura DiOrio, Lisa Iannicito McBride, Jessica Sand

Jessica Sand

Jessica Sand, Lisa Iannacito McBride, Kaitlin Accetta

Sarah Pon

Lisa Iannacito McBride

Kaitlin Accetta

Laura DiOrio

Jessica Sand, Laura DiOrio, Lisa Iannacito McBride

Jessica, Lisa & Laura

The costumes for CROSSINGS BY RIVER – soft, satiny skirts and lacy black bodices – were designed by Jessica Sand. The photos are by Kokyat, taken at the dress rehearsal.

More about this evening of dance here, with still more to follow.

June 27, 2012
Lydia Johnson Dance @ Peridance – Part 2

Above: Max van der Sterre and Kerry Shea in Lydia Johnson’s FALLING OUT, photo by Kokyat. This dancework, set to Philip Glass’s 3rd Symphony, was created in 2006 and revived for Lydia’s 2012 season at Peridance. FALLING OUT centers on a romantic triangle in which the tranquility of a domestic relationship is threatened by the appearance of another woman who captures the roving eye of Max van der Sterre.

Kerry Shea (above) portrays Max’s established lady love…

…and Jessica Sand (above) is the woman who, at first perhaps unwittingly, causes the disruption by her mere presence.

In a complex pas de deux which is a continuous thread throughout the work, the central couple veer from tenderness to outright antagonism.

For a brief moment the man seems close to making a choice, yet he is continually drawn back to his longtime lover.

In the end, though Max and Kerry are still together, the situation remains unresolved.

FALLING OUT provides a sustained and demanding central role for the male dancer in which Max van der Sterre’s magnetic stage presence and the compelling security of his partnering make a vivid impression. Kerry Shea, looking striking in a cerise frock, captures both the strength and vulnerability of the woman whose peace of mind is threatened: beautifully danced, Kerry’s performance is marked by subtle shifts in facial expression that reveal the insecurities beneath the surface of a long-established relationship. Jessica Sand, in the physically demanding role of the ‘other woman’, spends quite a bit of the piece facing upstage; her upper back, shoulders and neck become expressive instruments even when we cannot see her face.

A quartet of women provide a sort of chorus for the work; at first they remain on the sidelines doing synchronized moves either prone or seated. Later they take a more active part in the drama. They seem to represent the man’s past loves – no longer essential to him, but still unforgotten.

More of Kokyat’s images from FALLING OUT:

Jessica Sand

All photography by Kokyat. Read more about this performance here, with more to follow.

June 24, 2012
Checking In With Tom Gold Dance

Tom Gold Dance will be performing at Kykuit, the Rockefeller Estate in Sleepy Hollow, New York on June 27th, 2012. Abi Stafford (in a Matt Murphy photo above), principal ballerina at New York City Ballet will share the stage with her fellow NYCBers: principal Jared Angle, and corps de ballet dancers Likolani Brown, Amanda Hankes, Gretchen Smith, Devin Alberda and Russell Janzen. Tom Gold himself will put on his dancing shoes again and appear in two of the works on the programme.

On Monday June 25th, I stopped in at City Center Studios where Tom and his dancers were putting the finishing touches on the works to be danced at Kykuit. They’d started rehearsing at the ungodly hour of 10:00 AM yet they all seemed full of vim and vigor. New York City Ballet pianist Susan Walters was at the keyboard and Willy Burmann, Tom’s designated ballet master, was giving out tidbits of advice to the dancers: invariably he was spot on.

Put me in a room with dancers from NYCB and I’m happy – especially with this particular bunch of dancers who happen to be among my favorites in my favorite Company. It’s incredible to see these great technicians at close range. Tom’s choreography looks really demanding to me: a virtuoso himself, he asks for virtuosity in his ballets. He’s chosen top-notch music: Faure, Satie, Poulenc, Gershwin and – in his newest creation – classic songs by Noel Coward and Ivor Novello which will be sung live by vocalist Sasha Weiss.

The Coward/Novello ballet, entitled Mad About The Boy, features Amanda Hankes dancing an elegant solo to the title song. My opera glasses frequently get ‘stuck’ on Amanda during NYCB performances; I so enjoyed watching her today. The ballet has a Gosford Park air about it, with Likolani Brown and Devin Alberda as the below-stairs couple kicking things off with a charming duet. Abi Stafford, Gretchen Smith, Jared Angle, Russell Janzen and Tom Gold take turns whirling around the salon in pairs and solos while the songs remind us of a more innocent time…though of course, it wasn’t really.

Another ensemble work, Faure Fantasy, will open the Kykuit evening, and Abi Stafford and Jared Angle will dance in Tom’s setting of the Gershwin Preludes. Likolani Brown and Russell Janzen perform Suite Francaise, three duets in contrasting moods set to music by the French immortals Faure, Satie and Poulenc.

Earlier this year, Tom Gold Dance gave their full-evening New York City debut performance at Florence Gould Hall. In the coming months the Company will tour to Spain and Cuba, with anticipated performances in New York City this Autumn.

June 24, 2012
Lydia Johnson Dance @ Peridance

Sunday February 26, 2012 matinee – Lydia Johnson Dance presented two works at Peridance this afternoon. The performance marked the first full presentation of Lydia’s new, as-yet-untitled work to music of Osvaldo Golijov as well as a revival of her 2006 piece to music of Philip Glass: FALLING OUT.

Kokyat and I have been following the creation of the Golijov work from its earliest days, visiting the studio periodically to view the work’s progress. Lydia is so generous in sharing her creative process, giving us an extraordinary insight into how ideas become danceworks.

Click on each image to enlarge:

In the Golijov, a trio of women first appear in soft golden gowns; their black-lace bodices provide a Spanish feel. Remaining in place, they perform a gestural ritual implying both spirituality and cleansing.

Quietly they move in a circular pattern…

…which is expanded by the entry of two more women.

With an unexpected juxtaposition of calm and urgency, the women continue their mysterious rites as the music takes on a soulful expression.

Images of silent despair and of consolation are evoked…

…blended with uplifting gestures of unity and hope.

The final movement of the Golijov is marked by themes of rocking as each girl in turn swoons into the arms of her sisters to be gently lulled.

In this work, choreographer Lydia Johnson seems to be telling a story yet the mystique of the five women – who they are and what their rituals mean to them – is left to the imagination of each viewer. One of the things about Lydia’s work that I most appreciate is her unerring taste in music: she always seeks out the best, whatever genre she might decide to work in. Here, the religious themes of the Golijov pieces she uses offer a wide range of interpretative images, from the earthy to the sublime. Darkly handsome in atmosphere, this dancework resonates with the bonds of sisterly unity and affection; it steers clear of sentimentality, thus striking a deeper chord.

Always a choreographer’s greatest good fortune: to have dancers who understand and communicate the imagined nuances of a given work. The lyricism and grace of the five women dancing in the Golijov maintained the spirit of the music and movement from first note to last. They are (above): Sarah Pon, Lisa Iannacito McBride, Kaitlin Accetta, Laura DiOrio, and Jessica Sand.

Details of the afternoon’s second work, set to music of Philip Glass, will appear here shortly.

All photographs by Kokyat.

June 23, 2012