Category: Dance

All-Wheeldon @ New York City Ballet

Saturday January 28, 2012 evening – I’ve waited a long time for this: the first programme at New York City Ballet devoted entirely to works of Christopher Wheeldon. Christopher, who danced with the Company and attained the rank of soloist before resigning the position to devote all his energies to choreography, eventually served a stint as NYCB‘s first resident choreographer. He then spent three seasons running his own company, MORPHOSES. Now he is one of the most sought-after creators of new ballets in the world. Meanwhile his established works increasingly crop up in the repertoire of top international companies.

Tonight we saw the world premiere of LES CARILLONS, set to music from Bizet’s L’Arlesienne suites; POLYPHONIA which I tend to think is Wheeldon’s greatest masterpiece to date; and the New York City Ballet premiere of DANSE A GRANDE VITESSE, originally created for the Royal Ballet in 2006. The evening was a huge personal triumph for Christopher and for the individual dancers.

An unfortunate injury to Jennie Somogyi during her valse in POLYPHONIA was unsettling and surely affected her colleagues in the ballet, though they danced on with poise. After a few minutes, Tiler Peck – who was dancing in the other two ballets tonight – stepped onto the stage and finished the ballet in Somogyi’s place.

LES CARILLONS is the most purely appealing new ballet I’ve seen at New York City Ballet since Melissa Barak’s SIMPLE SYMPHONY. CARILLONS shares with with the Barak gem its use of familiar and ear-pleasing music, excellent structuring, and striking passages of dance where the classical movement vocabulary gets stretched but never breaks, giving an overall impression of freshness. Andrews Sill, on the podium, mined the Bizet score to perfection, displaying the melodic and rhythmic variety of the music while providing solid support for the dancers.

CARILLONS begins with ten men onstage; they wear dark fitted costumes with one arm bare; semi-see-thru tops are accented with panels of deep reds or blues. They dance to one of Bizet’s most familiar tunes, soon joined by the women whose wine-toned skirts give the piece an aspect of visual richness. (There is a backdrop but it’s not visible from the 5th Ring).

The ten magnificent principals (yes, I include Ana Sophia Scheller since she should be) then embark on a series of vivid solos, duets and ensembles in which Christopher gives them complex and varied things to do, most especially in the partnering aspects and in the use of hands and arms. Meanwhile the corps of ten, equally handsome dancers all, swirl on and off, enriching the visual textures.

There is a lush saxophone melody to which Sara Mearns and Amar Ramasar dance a spacious pas de deux; there is a vivacious pas de quatre for Ms. Scheller, Tiler Peck, Gonzalo Garcia and Daniel Ulbricht. Wendy Whelan and Robert Fairchild dance a lovely nocturnal duet; then Wendy remains onstage, wandering among the corps dancers as they weave intricate patterns. Wendy’s solo shows her at her radiant best. Wendy and Maria Kowroski (who looked particularly sumptuous in her scarlet gown) dance in beautiful snyc to yet another familiar Bizet melody, and Maria has a gorgeous saxophone adagio with Tyler Angle. In a passage of pure seduction, Sara Mearns displays incredible star power, later joined by the men. The harp lends lyric mystery to a solo impressively danced by Tiler Peck which later extends into a pas de trois for her, Gonzalo and Daniel. Amar Ramasar races around the stage in a series of brilliant leaps. The eye is constantly drawn to one and then another of these charismatic dancers.

Joshua Thew from the corps de ballet joins the principal men in certain passages; Joshua looked totally at home in this stellar ensemble and with his tall, handsome presence he seems like a dancer deserving of greater opportunities to shine.

As the ballet’s original musical theme returns, the cast unite for a richly-wrought finale. The crowd let loose with uninhibited shouts of approval as the dancers came forward to bow; flowers for the ladies and lots of screaming when Christopher appeared onstage. After two high-profile strikeouts with new ballets (SEVEN DEADLY SINS and OCEAN’S KINGDOM – failures to be blamed on bad narratives and uninteresting music) I think the public felt they were entitled to express their unbridled enthusiasm. In CARILLONS, Christopher Wheeldon takes music we want to hear and dancers we love to watch and produces structure and movement that does ballet proud.

POLYPHONIA is always a mesmerizing ballet but it seemed even more so tonight; premiered on January 4th, 2001, this Ligeti-inspired work has always been for me the first dance masterpiece of the 21st century. It continues to fascinate and – like all great danceworks – has passages that we wait for with keen anticipation. Cameron Grant and Alan Moverman at the keyboard made Ligeti’s quirky, nuanced music tingle the ear.

Jennie Somogyi’s injury, coming during one of my favorite parts of the ballet, placed the performance in a darkish aspect. The other dancers were surely affected by the incident but managed to forge onward with some intriguing dancing.

The duet for Gonzalo Garcia and Adrian Danchig-Waring, Sara Mearns’ quiet radiance in her mysterious solo, Craig Hall’s godlike presence, the lively pairing of Sterling Hyltin and Adrian Danchig-Waring (can’t wait to see them together in IN G MAJOR coming up), and Tiler Peck’s cool and collected artistry as she unexpectedly added to her already-busy evening by taking over here – all these made strong impressions.

Central to POLYPHONIA are the two superb duets for Wendy Whelan and Jared Angle. Wendy’s suppleness and the way she turns the angular shapings of her body into poetic statements keep the viewer riveted, while Jared brings an unexpected quality of nobility to the partnering. As Wendy backbends over Jared’s knee and snakes herself into her final kneeling pose, her enigmatic beauty is distilled into a single unforgettable image.

I really wish I could come to appreciate DANSE A GRAND VITESSE but, seeing it tonight for the second time (the first was danced by Angel Corella’s company at City Center) I found it overly-long, with the athletic partnering tending to lose impact as we see more and more of it. The City Ballet dancers – led by Teresa Reichlen/Craig Hall, Ashley Bouder/Joaquin de Luz, Maria Kowroski/Tyler Angle and Tiler Peck/Andrew Veyette – were nothing short of spectacular, and the corps excelled. But I found my attention wandering as the piece progressed, despite Clothilde Otranto’s dynamic reading of the Michael Nyman score. The best passages seem to me to be for the corps where, in spacious patterns, they and their shadows filled the space. The audience loved it, so clearly I’m in the minority here. I found myself wishing that instead of DGV we could have had a revival of either EVENFALL or KLAVIER, or even of Christopher’s misunderstood and magnificent SHAMBARDS.

What mattered though was that Christopher Wheeldon has brought us a new Bizet ballet to admire and – hopefully – to see again, although ticket pricing now at NYCB makes seeing things twice something to ponder deeply before heading to the box office.

The big ovation Christopher received as he came out for a solo bow at the end of the evening was so thoroughly well-deserved.

January 28, 2012
NYCB NUTCRACKER 2011 #4

Tuesday December 27, 2011 – Above, today’s Sugar Plum Fairy at New York City Ballet: Abi Stafford in a Henry Leutwyler photo. Thanks to the Company’s new pricing policy, I only got to see four NUTCRACKERs this season as opposed to my usual seven or eight. I simply can’t afford to go as often as I would have liked, and the notion of bringing a guest is pretty much a thing of the past.

I’m sure by this point in the holiday season that the dancers and musicians are thoroughly sick of this ballet but they never gave any indication of their NUTZ-fatigue tonight. The house was substantially full despite some gaps of empty seats in the orchestra. To see Abi’s Sugar Plum, with Amar Ramasar as her Cavalier, was a big draw for me this evening. And I hadn’t see Janie Taylor’s Dewdrop in recent seasons so the lineup tonight was especially appealing.

Vincent Paradiso’s Drosselmeyer is vigorous, and he looks dapper as a prematurely grey and still youthful ‘uncle’. Excellent rapport with the children and guests; Vincent brings some real dancing into his interpretation and animates the entire scene with his lively gestures. Marika Anderson’s Frau Stahlbaum has an interestingly high-strung quality; Christian Tworzyanski is her genial spouse. Conductor Ryan McAdams took the soldier’s solo at an unusually fast pace but Troy Schumacher nailed it with some virtuoso dancing; Sarah Villwock and Kristen Segin were charming in the commedia dell’arte kissing duet. In the Snow Scene I was smitten with Lauren Lovette’s radiant dancing.

Abi Stafford’s Sugar Plum Fairy opened the second act with her finely-danced solo; she then greeted the procession of divertissement dancers, led off by Mary Elizabeth Sell and Zachary Catazaro who looked authentically Spanish and danced brightly, with Mary holding one balance to striking effect. She’s a dancer deserving of more and more opportunities. Georgina Pazcoguin’s sultry glamour as Arabian held the audience in the palm of her hand: “I like her best!” the little boy sitting behind me said aloud as Gina finished her solo; her fantastic combinations in the finale were the frosting on a delicious Pazcoguin cake. Giovanni Villalobos, another dancer we should see more of, was a sprighty Tea and Sean Suozzi’s space-filling, theatrically vivid Candy Cane energized the crowd. Ashley Laracey danced the tricky Marzipan solo with total command, polishing off her triple pirouettes to perfection. In the ensuing Waltz of the Flowers, Amanda Hankes and Brittany Pollack danced beautifully, leaving me to ponder which of them has the loveliest smile.

Janie Taylor (Leutwyler image, above) is the most ethereal Dewdrop I’ve seen; all different ballerina-types have been cast in this role over the years, from majestic goddesses to petite princesses. I love the variety of interpretations, and Janie’s stands out. With her high-flying extension and elegant jetes, the ballerina brings a touch of impetuosity to everything she does. The audience seemed very taken with her performance, showering her with applause as she flashed thru the brilliant fouette combination; later, in the finale her swift pirouette-to-arabesque sequence was beautifully timed, then she went flying off in a big, stretched-out leap.

Abi and Amar kept the audience, full of youngsters, in a keenly attentive state with their dancing of the adagio, the grand climax of the Balanchine NUTCRACKER. Here the choreographer shows us the art of classical ballet partnering, echoing the lyric grandeur of the Tchaikovsky score. In this pas de deux, Abi and Amar combined youthful freshness and a sense of courtly manners. Building from one passage to the next, the dancers capitalized on the inherent drama of the duet with its final suspenseful promenade and Abi’s sustained balance; Amar then daringly tossed the ballerina into the air before sweeping her into the final dive. The audience ate it up.

TUESDAY EVENING, DECEMBER 27, 6 PM (Conductor: McAdams)

SUGARPLUM: A. Stafford; CAVALIER: Ramasar; DEWDROP: Taylor; HERR DROSSELMEIER: Paradiso; MARZIPAN: Laracey; HOT CHOCOLATE: Sell, Catazaro; COFFEE: Pazcoguin; TEA: Villalobos; CANDY CANE: Suozzi; MOTHER GINGER: Thew; FLOWERS: Hankes, Pollack; DOLLS: Villwock, Segin; SOLDIER: Schumacher; MOUSE KING: Dieck; DR & FRAU STAHLBAUM: Anderson, Tworzyanski

As we now head into the Winter season at New York City Ballet, many long-time fans of the Company are finding their loyalty tested as they remain fully supportive of the dancers but find the marketing practices of the current regime off-putting. How it will play out remains to be seen.

December 27, 2011
Ailey Dances Taylor’s ARDEN COURT

Saturday December 24, 2011 matinee – Paul Taylor’s ARDEN COURT is one of the 20th century’s great dance masterpieces; this season it is being danced by Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater (photo above by Mark Lennihan) during their season at City Center, the first Taylor work to be performed by the Ailey Company. Looking at my packed December calendar a couple of weeks ago, I realized that today was going to be my one Ailey opportunity of the year, and how fortunate that ARDEN COURT was part of an extremely attractive programme:

Arden Court
Cry
The Hunt
Revelations

One of the finest dancers on the current scene, Kanji Segawa, joined Ailey earlier this year and Kokyat and I were especially happy to find Kanji dancing a lot this afternoon. Kokyat photographed Kanji (above) dancing with MORPHOSES at the Guggenheim in the Autumn of 2010. His brilliant, buoyant leaps in the men’s diagonal entree passage of ARDEN COURT were outstanding, and he flung himself into the non-stop demands of Robert Battle’s dark and sexy THE HUNT with characteristic flair.

Taylor danced by Ailey looks phenomenal. The dancers, in their sleek costumes, are propelled with effortless grace and power thru the demanding combinations, swept along on the vivid and superby danceable music of William Boyce. ARDEN COURT was set on the Ailey Company by one of the all-time great Taylor dancers, Cathy McCann.

Briana Reed (above, photographed by Paul Kolnik) danced the extended three-part Alvin Ailey solo CRY; with her unfettered extension and combination of strength and tenderness, Ms. Reed scored a huge hit with the crowd and was greeted with rockstar ovations, thoroughly deserved.

Robert Battle’s powerful all-male ensemble work THE HUNT (above, Eduardo Patino photo) is set to a driven, percussive score by Les Tambours du Bronx. With six men (it seems like more) in long black skirts swirling and sailing thru the air, this work is sexy, ritualistic and mysterious all at once. There are few moments of repose in this martial-arts inspired, combative dance.

Revelation: Clifton Brown, above, photographed by Kokyat earlier this year in rehearsal with Lar Lubovitch. We’ve been so fortunate to have been in the studio with Clifton several times in 2011 while he’s been working with Lubovitch and with Jessica Lang Dance. Today, in Ailey’s classic REVELATIONS Clifton burst onto the stage in Sinner Man and treated us to some simply magnificent dancing. In the finale he was a god-like cavalier, radiating both majesty and warmth.

Each section of REVELATIONS is set to traditional spirituals and gospel hymns, celebrating congregation and community while sometimes investigating individual journeys of the spirit. One memorable segment is I Wanna Be Ready, superbly danced today by Michael Francis McBride. In the finale, the women appear in marigold-yellow gowns with fans on a sweltering summer afternoon for a jubilant cotillion with their handsome beaus.

I hardly ever have a chance to see the Ailey Company; their season always falls at the busiest time of the year. This afternoon’s performance showed them to be on peak form as the Robert Battle era commences with a bang! Such splendid dancers: I need to get to know them better.

December 25, 2011
The Current Sessions

Monday November 28, 2011 – Down to the Wild Project in the East Village (or would we say NoHo?) for The Current Sessions, a programme featuring works – both live and on film – by nine choreographers. The Wild Project venue is a very neat space for dance, seating about 90 people in raked rows. The lobby is small, immaculate, welcoming – with a ‘garage door’ that I imagine would be open on Summer evenings. Earlier in the day, photographer Nir Arieli and I had watched the dress rehersal where he recorded the images you see here.

Photo at the top from Allison Jones’ Listen to Me.

The evening gave me an odd sensation: I was by far the oldest person in the audience. Aside from Kokyat and I, it was a twenty-something crowd: swigging form beer bottles, they were attentive and enthusiastic. The danceworks were created and performed by people of their generation with music that suits their frame of reference. All the works presented – even the witty ones – showed seriousness of creative intent as well as committed and always enjoyable dancing. The sold-out crowd were keenly receptive to it all.

In her solo a room, home Jenna Otter used the space beautifully and set a standard for the works to come. At close range, the dancer’s breathing became part of the texture of her performance as she veered from restless to subdued. Her excellent choice of Bach was the only nod to anything remotely classical in terms of music this evening, however I would like to express a hope that dance artists will stop using Glenn Gould’s versions of Bach with the pianist’s vocal ‘commentary’ always a distraction. There are a million recordings of all things Bach. Choose a different pianist.

In a duet by choreographer Allison Jones, dancers Hayley Jones and Amir Rappaport put their intimate and intense relationship on public view. Entitled Listen to Me, this duet on the surface is about two friends each trying to make a point. But there’s a sexual undercurrent as well, of control and of unspoken passion. The two dancers were beautifully expressive of the work’s wide-ranging emotional setting. The music was pleasant, innocuous, forgettable – a drawback shared by by most of the rest of the works we saw all evening.

Here are more of Nir’s images from Listen to Me:

Above: from Allison Jones’ Listen to Me.

In the solo Ragerian’s Vignettes, Genna Baroni showed an interesting mixture of technical strength and personal modesty. This dichotomy made her quite fascinating to watch, with the dancer immersed in herself though also warily aware of the audience. Again the music was simply there, neither enhancing nor distracting from the dance.

Above: Genna Baroni

Bennyroyce Royon’s duet Wander seems to portray a couple in an on-going relationship who have lost their focal point. As they vocalize their thoughts, which shift from the mundane to the profound, they move around one another, close but not connecting. Clad in casual summer-wear, Benny and his partner Marie Zvosec look great together. Benny’s choice of a sentimental waltzy song from Pale White Moon suits him and Marie very well here.

In the end, they find a new beginning.

A brief film 4PLAY from Yarden Raz concluded the first half of the evening. It had a Chaplinesque feel to it.

At the dress rehearsal, dancers Christopher Ralph and Gregory Dolbashian had simply marked thru Jonathan Royse Windham’s Oh! Darlin’ so that I really couldn’t get a feeling for what it would be like. But at the actual performance, Jonathan delivered a truly droll performance of this little vignette about a boy’s livelong love for his teddy bear. As Chris and Greg removed layers of Jonathan’s clothes, starting with his jammies, the dancer aged perceptibly. By the end, he was a bent old man…but still steadfastly attached to his bear. The familiar Beatle tune gave the piece an ironic twist.

In Alexis Convento’s raucously charming duet la baggare, rival French femme fatales (dancers Allison Sale and Lynda Senisi, above) each attempt to get the upper hand in this fast-paced romp with a Moulin Rouge feeling.

Allison and Lynda gave their on-going competitive spat a distinctive flair.

Jordan Isadore’s two-part film SARA began with a blonde-wigged dancer striking balletic poses, perfectly in sync to an antique music box. This truly funny flick gave way to a four-panel display of two dancers shot from four different angles; this was amusing for a minute, then went on too long. Brevity is still the soul of wit.

In the end, it was Yin Yue’s mysterious and well-crafted we have been here before that stood out among the evening’s offerings in its use of more than two dancers and its darkish, dreamy atmosphere. An abstract work, we have been here before shows Yin Yue’s fine sense of structure and – in addition to her own dancing, which has a specific perfume – her choice of persuasive individual fellow dancers to shape her work: Sarah F Parker, Jacqueline Stewart, Grace Whitworth and Daniel Holt.

Daniel Holt in Yin Yue’s we have been here before.

All photography by Nir Arieli.

November 28, 2011
TAKE Dance @ WestFest/Rehearsal

On December 10th, the men of TAKE Dance will perform the dazzling quartet from Takehiro Ueyama’s SALARYMAN at WestFest as part of the four-night celebration of dance at the Cunningham Studio at Westbeth, 55 Bethune Street in Manhattan.

SALARYMAN premiered in May 2011 and was received with great enthusiasm; another opportunity to see the complete work arises this Winter when TAKE Dance appear at Baruch Performing Arts Center, February 8th – 12th, 2012. Details to follow.

Kokyat’s photos here are from a studio rehearsal for the SALARYMAN quartet on November 26th at DANY Studios. The dancers are John Eirich, Kile Hotchkiss, Clinton Edward Martin and Kei Tsuruharatani.

John Eirich, Kei Tsuruharatani

Kyle Hotchkiss, John Eirich

Clinton Edward Martin

Bump

Swirl

The dance is breathless in its energy and relentless in its pacing.

Choreographer Take Ueyama giving notes, with dancer Kei Tsuruharatani.

All photos by Kokyat.

November 26, 2011
Beijing Dance Company @ Alice Tully Hall

Friday November 25, 2011 – Beijing Dance Company are on a US tour this month; having danced in Boston, Pittsburg, and Washington DC they are at Alice Tully Hall for a four-performance run. There’s been something of a Chinese invasion here of late: Cloud Gate and Beijing Dance Theater have recently been at BAM, and the National Acrobats of the People’s Republic of China put on a vastly entertaining single show at Brooklyn College last month. The trend continues in January with performances of THE PEONY PAVILION by the China Jinling Dance Company at Lincoln Center. Information here.

The works presented tonight by Beijing Dance Company were inspired by Chinese folklore and myth, dating back hundreds of years BC. Of the ten danceworks presented, most had a sentimental feeling underscored by the traditional-sounding music. Only in the final Yellow River could one sense a slight break with tradition. As one colorful work followed another, the excellence of the dancers and their commitment to dance was strongly evident.

References to iconic cultural elements abound: calligraphy, bamboo, the crane, the butterfly, flying fairies, the terra-cotta warriors, Bhuddist rituals. Costumes were rich in detail though sometimes a bit garish while a series of projections which set the tone of each piece might have been even more effective if the colours had been more subdued.

My favorite work of the evening was Free and Unfettered Spirits in which the men of the Company seemed at one with nature; wearing mossy-green full-sleeved costumes the brotherhood danced their rites in an outdoor setting. Earlier, in her solo Flying Fairy, dancer Zhao Qiao manipulated the super-long sleeves of her dress in mesmerizing swirls and flourishes. The most powerful and exciting dance came from the four men who appeared as warriors (top photo) in Emperor Qin’s Soldiers; their fusion of kung fu, acrobatics and ballet elicited a loud ovation.

Perhaps the best-known work on the programme was The Butterfly Lovers, a Romeo and Juliet tale of forbidden love. Very well-danced, this work at times veered into the realms of cloying sentimentality; it is a little too long and the choreography sometimes seemed thinly stretched over the music. Nevertheless, the dancing was excellent.

The audience for the most part were attentive and enthusiastic – except, of course, the young boy sitting near us who squirmed and muttered throughout the first half without any admonishment from his mother. Most dance programmes are not for kids, especially one like this which is somewhat stately in its pacing and musical presentation.

November 25, 2011
Lar Lubovitch’s MEN’S STORIES/Gallery

On November 19th. Kokyat photographed the Lar Lubovitch Dance Company in a performance of the choreographer’s MEN’S DANCES. Read about the evening here.

Clifton Brown, Brian McGinnis, Milan Misko

Jason McDole

Attila Joey Csiki

Clifton Brown

Reed Luplau, Jason McDole

All photos by Kokyat.

November 23, 2011
Ballet Next!

Monday November 21, 2011 – In one of the most-anticipated dance events of recent seasons, BALLET NEXT have made their world debut with a single calling-card performance at The Joyce. The theater was filled to over-flowing and many luminaries from the Gotham dance scene were on hand, lending the evening a special air of excitement. Rehearsal photo of Michele Wiles and Charles Askegard at the top by Nir Arieli. Click on the images to enlarge.

In the Summer of 2011, two of ballet’s premiere dancers made their farewell appearances with their respective resident companies: Charles Askegard had a full-scale grand gala as his last performance with New York City Ballet. But ABT‘s Michele Wiles simply slipped away without fanfare, leaving New York balletomanes wondering why.

Not long afterward came the announcement that these two tall and tremendously talented artists would be launching their own ballet company: Ballet Next. Their plan: to present classic and new works with world-class dancers, calling upon top choreographers of the day and working with live music. Tonight their initial offering was an emphatic success.

As the audience settled into expectant silence, the ensemble of musicians struck up the White Swan prelude and moments later Michele Wiles (above, in rehearsal) made Odette’s iconic entrance to a burst of applause. Then Charles Askegard stepped onstage; the audience greeted him affectionately. The two dancers look so very fine together, with Michele’s long limbs shaping the classic poses with finesse and Charles giving a textbook lesson in the art of partnering: ardent but never fussy. Their partnership immediately made me start making a list of works I want to see them dance together: the BAYADERE Shades pas de deux comes first.

The first half of the evening was devoted to the classics and to Tchaikovsky; Ballet Next‘s musical director Elad Kabilio and his fellow musicians now introduced the Act III pas de deux from SLEEPING BEAUTY. San Francisco Ballet‘s delicious petite etoile Maria Kochetkova was exquisite as Aurora and New York City Ballet’s Joaquin de Luz was her blindingly handsome Prince. Their partnership had the youthful charm and elegance that makes the balletomane’s heart beat the faster; they held their finely-shaped final fish dive (of three) to the delight of the crowd. In their solos, the two dancers swept thru the demands with flair, re-uniting for a bravura coda. Their lovely performance extended to their gracious bows.

From ABT, soloists Misty Copeland (rehearsal image, above) and Jared Matthews gave a joyous, space-filling performance of Balanchine’s Tchaikovsky Pas de Deux. The Joyce stage could barely contain their ebullient dancing; their easy rapport as partners and the speed and clarity of their solo dancing won the audience’s vociferous approval.

Following the intermission, Ms. Kochetkova re-appeared in a whimsical costume: pink body tights, a head-wrap, and half a tutu. She danced a Jorma Elo solo entitled ONE OVERTURE set to music of Mozart and Biber. This solo calls for pure classical technique applied in off-kilter, witty combinations as the dancer occasionally whisks offstage only to re-appear. In the pit, Ben Laude switched from piano to harpsichord for an authentic Baroque texture. The choreography is clever and unusual but the piece is a trifle too long.

For Satie, Mr. Laude reverts to the piano and the curtain rises on New York City Ballet principal Jennie Somogyi with Charles Askegard (rehearsal photo, above) to dance a Margo Sappington duet, ENTWINED. This work is stylized in its shaping but there are erotic undercurrents in play, as one might expect from the choreographer who gave us Oh! Calcutta! The two dancers, in sleek body tights, look fantastic together. I hope Ms. Somogyi is at the top of Ballet Next‘s list of dancers for future return engagements; there are so many things I would love to see her dance. It was fun to see Ms. Sappington joining the dancers onstage at the end.

Misty Copeland then returned to dance a solo, ONE, choreographed by Robert Sher-Machherndl to music by Max Richter. In this solo, Misty showed off the power of both her technique and her ability to hold the audience in the palm of her hand. The choreography was not memorable, and the piece went on a bit longer than necessary, but as a vehicle for the dancer all was well.

Above: Michele and Misty taking a break at rehearsal.

The musicians then struck up Vivaldi’s beloved La Follia and the curtain rose on Michele Wiles and Drew Jacoby crouching in a pool of light. The two leggy ballerinas then took off in Mauro Bigonzetti’s demanding and fast-paced choreography, dancing in sync or in solo passages. Bigonzetti keeps throwing steps and gestures at the two girls; they take it all in stride and keep sailing on the music.

“Faster!”, Drew Jacoby (above, in the studio) called out to the musicians at a rehearsal I attended, although she was already moving at high velocity. In her solo Michele spun some silky pirouettes; there’s some very quirky footwork in the finale which then seems to evaporate at the girls return to their opening pose.

Above: Michele Wiles rehearsing the Bigonzetti.

As all the dancers came out to bow, I was thinking of the endless possibilities for future Ballet Next programmes. With their extensive network of friends who are also great dancers, Michele and Charles can call upon stellar line-ups in the wink of an eye. There’s a vast store of established works that they can dance, both popular and forgotten, which will fare well in their live-music settings. And there are many choreographers I’d like to see them working with – Jessica Lang, Melissa Barak, Emery LeCrone, Edwaard Liang, Andonis Foniadakis, Pontus Lidberg, Justin Peck and Luca Veggetti come immediately to mind. Let’s see what’s next for Ballet Next.

The rehearsal photos included here are by Nir Arieli.

November 21, 2011
Fall for Dance 2011 Program II

Above: Clifton Brown and Yuan Yuan Tan in Kokyat’s image from a rehearsal of Jessica Lang’s AMONG THE STARS. More photos from this rehearsal will be found here.

Sunday October 30, 2011 – The Fall for Dance 2011 festival continues with:

PROGRAM II
Vertigo Dance Company, Mana (adapted for Fall for Dance); Noa Wertheim, choreographer
Drew Jacoby, Bloom; Andrea Miller (Artistic Director of Gallim Dance), choreographer
Jessica Lang Dance, Among the Stars; Jessica Lang, choreographer
Richard Alston Dance Company, Roughcut; Richard Alston, choreographer

In Noa Wertheim’s MANA (photo above by Gadi Dagon), Vertigo Dance Company from Israel featured eight dancers in dark-toned long tunics, skirts and wide-legged trousers dancing before a beautifully lit silhouette/facade thru the door of which they come and go. With folk-like motifs of circular patterns and casually organized duets, the movement feels both spontaneous and ritualistic. Ran Bagno’s mid-East fusion score is rhythmically varied with some quirkly instrumentation; it is pleasantly innocuous and eventually unmemorable. The dancing was excellent and the dancers deserved the enthusiastic response of the audience, but the work would make a more persuasive statement if it were pared down a bit. It gives the impression of someone who goes on talking after his point has already been made.

The imperial contemporary ballerina Drew Jacoby (this year’s calendar girl for Fall for Dance, in a Lois Greenfield photo above) then danced a new solo created on her by Gallim Dance‘s Andrea Miller. Entitled BLOOM, set to music of Radiohead, the solo finds the dancer on a blue-lit stage in a gossamer cerise frock; dancing bare-footed rather than in toe-shoes gives the ballerina a vulnerable look. Swirling thru windswept patterns that propel her around the space, Drew is restless and relentless. Elements of classic ballet technique are subtly spun into the choreography – big jete, attitude turns – and are executed at high velocity. In moments of relative calm the dancer seems aware of the audience but is then propelled on her way again, at times almost against her will. The curtain falls but Drew continues to dance at the lip of the stage and eventually sails back into the re-opened space. The solo personifies the dancer as a force of nature and is a wonderful Drew Jacoby portrait; we get to see Drew again at the Festival in Pontus Lidberg’s Faune (November 1st & 2nd).

Yuan Yuan Tan, principal ballerina of San Francisco Ballet, and Clifton Brown, beloved Alvin Ailey star since 1999 and now a guest artist with that Company, created quite a stir as they danced Jessica Lang’s mystically luminous duet for star-crossed lovers, AMONG THE STARS. Above, the two dancers at a recent studio rehearsal, photographed by Kokyat.

The duet draws upon the legend (found in many cultures) of Altair, a lowly herdsman who dared to love Vega, daughter of a goddess. They are punished by being transformed into stars separated by the vast river of the Milky Way, But it is said that the Goddess of Heaven, out of pity, decided to let them unite once a year on the seventh day of the seventh lunar month as she was touched by their devotion.

Poetic images of tenderness and longing fill this pas de deux, which Ms. Lang has set to music of Ryuichi Sakamoto. Yuan Yuan Tan and Clifton Brown danced with poignant lyricism, the ballerina’s compelling technical mastery wedded to her delicately nuanced gesture and expression while Mr. Brown was the epitome of masculine grace. The audience, spellbound by the piece and by these two magnificent artists, erupted in a frenzied ovation as the dancers stepped forward to bow.

ROUGHCUT, performed by the Richard Alston Dance Company, closed the evening. It was perhaps impossible to imagine something that could follow the sublime dancing of the Lang duet; in the event the Alston piece gave the right counter-balance of mood but stretched out beyond its viability as the choreographer worked to fill the two long Steve Reich pieces with dance. In the end it seemed too much of a good thing.

Clarinetist Roger Heaton and guitarist James Woodrow played the demanding Reich scores live, standing at either side of the proscenium. The nine Alston dancers gave unstinting energy and flair to the choreographer’s spirited, driven combinations, soaring about the stage in spacious leaps and turns. There were passages of near-respite in some solo and duet segments but the onrush of movement never abated. As the dancers were rightly hailed at the end, I was thinking how much ROUGHCUT reminded me of some of David Parsons’ fast-paced works. But David would have known when to get out the scissors.

October 30, 2011
AMONG THE STARS/Rehearsal Gallery

These are some of Kokyat’s images from a rehearsal of Jessica Lang’s pas de deux AMONG THE STARS. The work was being prepared for two performances at New York City Center as part of the 2011 Fall for Dance Festival. Yuan Yuan Tan, principal ballerina from San Francisco Ballet, and Clifton Brown, who danced with the Alvin Ailey Company for over a decade and now appears with them as a guest artist, premiered the duet together in 2010. The music is by Ryuichi Sakamoto.

These images are from a studio rehearsal on October 28, 2011. Details of the Fall for Dance performance of AMONG THE STARS, which drew ecstatic applause from the packed house, will appear here shortly.

All photos by Kokyat.

October 29, 2011