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Wednesday September 29, 2010 – How I wish I could have been taking class with Deborah Wingert this morning at Manhattan Movement and Arts Center instead of just watching. Throughout the 90-minute class I was constantly envying the dancers and wishing that this was how I had spent my life rather than in a cubicle or on the retail floor.

I had watched Deborah Wingert, formerly of New York City Ballet, teach class at the New York International Ballet Competition last summer and I thought 1) she is gorgeous and 2) she gives a really good class. She has a quick eye for details, gives corrections in an authoritative manner and calls out praise when she sees something well-executed. In imparting her technical advice to the students, Deborah uses imagery, both humorous and poetic. She will show the students how bad a pose or move looks when poorly executed and then show them how to make it look beautiful.  Her knack for finding just the isolated element in a flow of movement that is preventing the student from making the best possible effect seems instinctive, though clearly it was honed thru years of studying, dancing and working with George Balanchine and Jerome Robbins. She often refers to these two men in her detailed descriptions of how something should look but it’s not mere name-dropping; it’s almost as if she was passing on things the two choreographers had just told her a day or two ago.

Enhancing the atmosphere of the studio at every moment was the de luxe musicianship of pianist Mijin Jung. Mijin’s playing always seemed to have just the right tempo and her choices of the melodies as well as her excellent technique made her playing seem like a labor of love.

The students were all very fine dancers, including two girls we’ve met previously at Miro Magloire’s New Chamber Ballet: Maddie Deavenport and Lauren Toole. One amazing aspect of watching dancers of this level in class is hearing the teacher call out the next combination: “Let’s do this-this-this-this-this-and finish with this, then repeat on the other side.” Immediately the students dance it out while I am still mentally at the first “Let’s do this…” I suppose after a while these things become second-nature but it always amuses and baffles me how quickly they absorb.

The class flew by and all-too-soon the dancers were applauding the excellent pianist Mijin Jung and Deborah came over to talk with Kokyat and me; up close the white-blonde woman with the phenomenally green eyes becomes even more striking; her speaking voice (both in class and in conversation) is melodious and her tiny injections of wit – and her references to people and ballets out of the past – make her so intriguing to talk with. Coming out into the lobby space, we encountered two Balanchine legends – Allegra Kent and John Clifford – and were introduced to them by Deborah.

Kokyat spent the 90 minutes padding around the studio to catch everything as best he could; the dancers were very gracious about this intrusion into their routine. We’ll have his photos here in the next couple of days. The pictures with this article are from my little Lumix. 

Kokyat did me a special favor and immediately processed and sent me this picture of Deborah and Allegra Kent taken right after Deborah’s class today. Click the image to enlarge.

Deborah Wingert teaches open class at MMAC (on West 60th Street) on Wednesdays at 10:30 AM now thru December; I urge all my ballet-dancing young friends and acquaintances to take class from her. If I was physically able, I’d be the first person at her barre every Wednesday.

Saturday September 25, 2010 evening – Ballets set to three great 20th century violin concertos were presented tonight at New York City Ballet. This excellent programme was one of the most enjoyable – and impressively danced – evenings in recent seasons. Faycal Karoui was on the podium and three very fine violinists took turns, playing works of Barber, Prokofiev and Stravinsky.

Arturo Delmoni (above) played the gorgeous Samuel Barber piece. Read about this concerto’s troubled ‘birth’ here – it’s a great story out of recent musical history. Mr. Delmoni played it gorgeously tonight and the orchestra – save for an errant oboe – sounded wonderful.

A Paul Kolnik photo from BARBER VIOLIN CONCERTO above, with this evening’s cast: Charles Askegard, Sara Mearns, Jared Angle and Megan Fairchild.

When Sara Mearns stepped into the spotlight I just knew she was going to give an astonishing performance and she certainly did: her dancing had a great sense of freedom and expansive lyricism in the opening movement where she would step into whirling arabesques which she sustained with a floated feeling. Charles Askegard was yet again the ideally attentive cavalier: always right there at the right moment. They look super together. 

The ‘modern dance’ roles in this ballet were originally created on Kate Johnson and David Parsons when they were members of Paul Taylor Dance Company. It would be fun sometime to see current dancers from the Taylor company in this Peter Martins work; I’d love to see Aileen Roehl and either Michael Trusnovec or Francisco Graciano in this ballet. But NYCB’s Megan Fairchild and Jared Angle are so fine in these roles that we really needn’t look elsewhere. They dance bare-footed, something you don’t often see at NYCB.

Above: tonight’s cast in a Paul Kolnik photo. In the second movement, Jared Angle’s tortured soul is becalmed by Sara Mearns – up to a point. Then suddenly the tension shifts and it is Sara being subjugated by Jared; what a frisson when her hair comes down! Jared carries her off to some unknown fate and we never see them again.

What a terrific performance Megan Fairchild gave – her Henry Leutwyler portrait above. I’ve seen her in this ballet before but she’s totally upped the level of her performance both as dancer and presence. It’s quite a leap from being a perfect Aurora to this role which has built-in elements of humour but is performed with a straight face. Megan nailed it and in the closing allegro section she pestered Charles Askegard to perfection; the audience were laughing but the dancers were dead serious. At the end she clambers up onto Chuck’s shoulders, he flips her and drops her to the floor – a tricky passage, expertly timed by the dancers today. Watching Megan Fairchild’s performance I thought I’d love to see her in more of the Taylor rep.  

Above: Gonzalo Garcia photographed by Kokyat while dancing with MORPHOSES in Central Park last summer. Gonzalo has chalked up one success after another since joining NYC Ballet but I tend to think that his performance in Jerome Robbins OPUS 19/THE DREAMER is one of those perfect matchings of dancer to role. For all the passion and intensity of his dancing here, Gonzalo always keeps that slight detachment from reality that sets the dreamer apart. A beautifully wrought and expressive performance. His muse tonight was Janie Taylor whose sense of mystery plays so well into this ballet, for we do not know if she is real or simply a figure in the dreamer’s imagination. Janie danced beautifully – her third role in two weeks – and she is such a captivating dancer to watch. Excellent dancing by the corps made this performance of OPUS 19 especially pleasing, and violinist Lydia Hong (I cannot find a photo of her!) played with poetic clarity. 

Kurt Nikkanen played the Stravinsky with authority, an ideal mixture of tension and flow, and touches of wit and of gypsy bravado.

In the Stravinsky, Maria Kowroski (above, in Henry Leutwyler’s photo) gave a sensational performance, remarkable for the clarity of her technique, her sweepingly high extensions, wonderfully supple torso and a quiet sense of joy in dancing Balanchine’s steps in the final movement. In her pas de deux with Sebastien Marcovici, the two dancers kept a current of dramatic energy flowing back and forth. Sebastien looks great – a powerful force onstage – and he and Maria created a whole portfolio of memorable black-and-white Balanchine images in that single duet. 

Sterling Hyltin (photo by Jeff Gurwin) looks so delectably lovely and youthful when the curtain rises; when she starts to dance it’s with a real feeling of authority. She has worked up a superb interpretation of this role, not only in her footwork and timing but with facial expressions which transmit both the nuances of the music and her underlying pleasure in dancing Balanchine’s phrases. Ask LaCour towers over Sterling like a protective prince; the beautiful moment when they simply stand together and Ask, with a sweeping gesture, shows Sterling the world before her, was especially poignant tonight.

Sterling and Maria exchanged smiles as the finale progressed and the whole Company seemed to be on a thriving mutual wavelength of camaraderie. The individual performances by the corps dancers gave me a lot to watch and as always the watching paid off. Wei was especially happy to see Faye Arthurs dancing in a duet passage with Sebastien right after their first entrance.

Maria, Sterling, Sebastien, Ask and Ms. Hong were enthusiastically applauded and came out for an extra bow at the end of this wonderfully satisfying evening.  

In a dance-related story, an exhibit of costumes from the Ballets Russes opens in London. I hope this collection will eventually be shown in New York City.  

Friday September 25, 2010 – We dropped in on dancer/choreographer Bennyroyce Royon (above) at the Rover Studios on Wooster Street where he was working with four dancers in an informal setting.

Nearly half of Benny’s studio space had been overtaken by a big collection of all sorts of lamps which had arrived early for an upcoming installation. Undaunted, Benny and the girls got into an exploration of movement thru improvisation and abstraction.

Demonstrating a basic pattern of steps which radiated fluid motion thru the torso and arms, Benny – one of the smoothest movers I’ve ever seen – got the girls into the flow of things with his easy-going style and positive feedback.

The four women – very different physical types – picked up on Benny’s energy and his centered spirit. The room was full of the expressive energy of the body in motion. Kokyat and I really enjoyed the experience; here are some of K’s images from the afternoon:

Melissa Peraldo and Benny

Abby Geartner works it (above and below)…

 

Melissa Peraldo

Cat Cogliandro

Carson Reiners

Carson & Melissa

Melissa & Carson

In the weeks since I first met  Bennyroyce Royon this past April, he has presented an evening of dance entitled The Chronos Project, danced with Karole Armitage’s company at the Cedar Lake Theater, and went to Aarhaus, Denmark with his colleague Natsuki Arai to dance a Brian Carey Chung duet, LONELY HOUSE.

Today’s dancers: Carson Reiners, Melissa Peraldo, Abby Geartner, Cat Cogliandro with Benny.

All photos: Kokyat.

Above: Angela Sterling’s photograph of Pacific Northwest Ballet dancers Seth Orza and Sarah Ricard Orza in Jiri Kylian’s PETITE MORT, part of the Company’s Director’s Choice programme.

View a slideshow of images from this production here.

 

Thursday September 23, 2010 – Just a few notes about the Met’s new RHEINGOLD which I saw at the dress rehearsal. Musically, it’s an A+ RHEINGOLD with Maestro James Levine seemingly choosing a somewhat faster pace than in his most recent traversals of the score. Wonderful orchestral detail.

Among the many vocal pleasures today, the Loge of Richard Croft ranks high as the most beautifully sung interpretation of that music I can recall ever hearing. His wonderfully clear and plaintive sound fell so melodiously on the ear. Bravissimo! Bryn Terfel’s Wotan alternated thunderbolts of tone with lieder-like intimacy – I really enjoyed listening to him – and Eric Owens sang with power and cutting dramatic edge as Alberich. Stephanie Blythe’s strongly sung but expressively colourless Fricka made me long for the dynamic and verbal detail such artists as Helga Dernesch, Christa Ludwig and Yvonne Naef have brought to this role at the Met. Grandly sung giants: Hans-Peter Konig and Franz-Josef Siegel. Patricia Bardon, looking a bit like Lady Gaga, sounded fine as Erda and Wendy Bryn Harmer’s powerful vocalism as Freia made me wish she was singing Brunnhilde. Kudos to Dwayne Croft (Donner) for rushing up onto the steeply raked platform to summon the lightning bolts with his authoritative “Heda! Hedo!”; his striking vocalism was superbly abbetted by the Met’s horns. Adam Diegel made a good impression as Froh and Gerhard Siegel compensated for missing out as Mime last season (due to ill health) with a finely-wrought vocal characterization today. Lastly (firstly, really) Lisette Oropesa, Jennifer Johnson and Tamara Mumford were the vocally attractive and verbally nuanced Rhinemaidens. They were called on for risky flying, some acrobatics and some nice balletic gestures and they dove in – so to speak – with good-natured compliance. There was something a bit ominous about their dark, long fins.

The Robert Lepage production is neither here nor there. Two outstanding ‘pictures’ linger in the mind: the opening with the mermaid-Rhine daughters drifting up thru the blue depths of the Rhine to perch high above the stage floor for their teasing of Alberich…

…and (above, in Richard Termine’s photo) the beautifully evocative walk high above the stage of Wotan and Loge as they head to Nibelheim (an effect dampened, however, by their visible fly-wires). Once in Nibelheim the braziers and billowing smoke are most effective. Excellent screaming from Alberich’s hapless gang of slaves.

During much of the afternoon, the singers in rather drab costumes – Ms. Blythe looking especially frumpy in mossy green – simply stand in front of grey walls on grey floors and sing. The characterizations are standard and generalized and there is no galvanizing moment, no memorable stroke of drama.

Among the production’s oddities were the first entries of Freia, Donner and Froh (acting doubles, I believe) who slide down a steep ramp head-first – pointlessly. Freia is made to look like Minnie in LA FANCIULLA DEL WEST; when it is time for the gold to be measured out in Freia’s dimensions, poor Miss Harmer had to lay in a fussily-arranged hammock while cheap fake-gold armory was heaped upon her. Then she had to sit up to listen to Erda’s warning and then lay back down in her hammock til Wotan paid the full price for her release.

I expected fantastical effects for Alberich’s transformations into dragon and toad but the dragon was just a huge skeleton shoved out by visible stagehands. The stuffed frog was a droll touch and he was caught by Loge and tossed into a nearby pot and the lid hastily put on. That was pretty amusing.

Apparently a mechanical malfunction caused the finale to look very lame and empty: the gods are reportedly supposed to be seen scaling the wall and heading for Valhalla, but this all went awry. Ms. Blythe, heading down below the set where a double would supposedly take over for the climb, seemed to get stuck between the set’s two panels. Her upper body remained visible; the lights went down but she did not move. Then as the grandiose music depicting the entry of the gods into Valhalla thundered from the pit, nothing happened onstage. Panels of rainbow colours flowed across at the back of the set but there was no Valhalla and no gods, neither singers nor doubles.

Even if the ending gets fixed, which it must if the production is to have any kind of meaning, the overall impression is of a rather dull staging – a dutiful telling of the story without the expected visual dazzle. For all the stand-and-deliver vocalism I thought a plain old Bayreuth-style disc could have been used as a setting, saving the Met a bundle. 

There were only a handful of spectators at the rehearsal. Before it started, I was enjoying the sound of the Met’s trumpeters warming up with their Wagnerian fanfares and I realized that the lady sitting next to me was none other than Diana Soviero – one of my all-time favorite Violettas and Butterflies. We had a nice chat.

Wednesday September 22, 2010 – After watching a preview of the ballet MAA at the Guggenheim two days ago, I was anxious to see the entire work staged at Columbia’s Miller Theatre. For his setting of Kaija Saariaho’s 1991 score, choreographer Luca Veggetti has assembled a cast of seven dancers, all but one of them having associations with Juilliard Dance Division. Kokyat and I attended the dress rehearsal where he took these photographs. Click on the image above to enhance.

View a ‘trailer’ for MAA from the Guggenheim’s Works and Process presentation here.  

MAA will be repeated on Friday and Saturday September 24th and 25th; for more information contact the Miller Theater box office at 212-854-7799.

The Saariaho score was played tonight by the remarkable International Contemporary Ensemble, the same musicians who blew my mind with their brilliant rendering of Xenakis’ ORESTEIA at the same venue in September 2008. Among those players with outstanding solo moments were harpist Bridget Kibbey, the perpetually brilliant Jacob Greenberg on keyboards…

…violinist Erik Carlson…

…and flautist Claire Chase.

MAA opens with a prelude (entitled Journey) in which the electronified sound of the composer’s footsteps impart a sense of mystery and carry us away from the everyday world to the place where we watch the dancers moving to Luca Veggetti’s seemlessly flowing, other-worldly style which attunes so perfectly to the ballet’s score. Intense movement phrases are interspersed with moments of repose, and the dancers who are not dancing at a given moment might sit or lay down on the floor, or take a seat among the musicians. One especially beautful motif is a sliding movement as the dancers glide from place to place across the floor.

From the opening quartet entitled Gates, the dancers are Craig Black and Chen Zielinski…

…Viktor Usov and Min Young Lee. Such off-kilter balances recur as the ballet progresses.

In her long and marvelously expressive solo (entitled …de la Terre), Frances Chiaverini (above) is accompanied by Erik Carlson’s violin, the sound of which resonates, buzzes and warps electronically.

Above: dancer and violinist: Frances Chiaverini and Erik Carlson performing …de la Terre.

One of the most captivating musical passages is Forest in which magical sound-textures are achieved by all the instruments playing same-note staccati while the timpani suggests a sexual undercurrent. Some choreographers might have gone in for bursts of allegro dancing here, but Mr. Veggetti instead gives us a stretchy, sexy-tension duet for Casia Vengeochea and Spencer Dickhaus (photo above).

The remaining three movements are danced by the ensemble; here are some individual photos of these young dancers:

Viktor Usov, Min Young Lee

Min Young Lee

Spencer Dickhaus

Casia Vengoecheva with Spencer Dickhaus

Craig Black, Chen Zielinski

The ensemble

Craig Black, Frances Chiaverini and Viktor Usov

As the music shimmers to a hush, the dancers slowly move off (Min Young Lee, above)…

…leaving the stage to Ms. Chase as darkness falls. Click the image to enlarge.

Enhancing the stage picture were the lighting designs of Roderick Murray, sculptural pieces by Moe Yoshida and costumes designed by the choreographer with Deanna Berg MacLean. During the applause, Ms. Saariaho appeared onstage and kissed each dancer and musician in turn.

All photos by Kokyat; some of his black and white images from the dress rehearsal are here.

Saturday August 28, 2010 – Choreographer Emery LeCrone invited us to her rehearsal at MMAC today for the upcoming performances of her ballet FIVE SONGS FOR PIANO by Miro Magloire’s New Chamber Ballet which take place at City Center Studio on September 18th and 19th. Above: the dancers, Alexandra Blacker at the right. Click on the above image to enlarge.

The ballet was originally created for the Columbia Ballet Collaborative and is set to music of Felix Mendelssohn. Pianist Melody Fader was on hand to play the score ‘live’ for today’s rehearsal; Melody and Emery above. The ballet is set for five women, the dancers being Victoria North, Madeleine Deavenport, Elizabeth Brown, Lauren Toole and a new face at New Chamber Ballet: Alexandra Blacker.

FIVE SONGS FOR PIANO is truly lyrical, taking wing on the music of Mendelssohn which Emery has visualized with clarity of movement and rich emotional undercurrents. One key element of today’s rehearsal was the meshing of steps with the right tempo for each movement to show the dancers to best advantage. Adjustments were readily made and Emery also asked Melody for to linger momentarily in a couple of transitional passages to underscore the nuances of a dancer’s upper body or port de bras. In a final run-thru, everything seemed to be jelling quite nicely.

Here are some of Kokyat’s images from the rehearsal:

Victoria North

Victoria and Emery

Elizabeth Brown

Maddie Deavenport

Lauren Toole

Victoria North, Alexandra Blacker

Victoria North

Melody, Emery and Miro

For New Chamber Ballet’s upcoming performances, in addition to Emery’s Mendelssohn ballet, there will be a revival of Miro Magloire’s Adue
(http://www.newchamberballet.com/rep/adue.html); then Miro’s Haydn
ballet (which premiered this past Spring but will be completely re-worked and re-titled), and a new ballet set by Miro to his own music. Melody Fader will be the pianist. Ticket information here.

All photos: Kokyat.

Troy Schumacher of the New York City Ballet spent part of his summer creating a new piece entitled SATELLITE. Above: Marika Anderson. View videos from the ballet here.

I asked Troy to tell me a little about his ballet. He replied:

“This was a work commissioned by the Satellite Gallery in
conjunction with the Dogwood Center for the Performing Arts in Fremont,
Michigan. I put a group of dancers together including myself, Ashley Laracey, Justin
Peck, Marika Anderson, Lauren King, and Daniel Applebaum. In the first
half of the programme, excerpts from Agon and Barber Violin Concerto as well as the complete Tschaikovsky Pas de Deux were danced.

The music for Satellite was
created by Nick Jaina (piano), Nathan Langston (violin), and Amanda
Lawrence (viola). This was a collaborative process
between the four of us. It started with Bernard Tschumi’s Manhattan Transcripts and an epic poem and a ‘mood arc’ by Kevin Draper. The
musicians and I took those three inspirations and created an initial
structure for the piece that developed as the project continued. What I
found particularly interesting was that each musician also collaborated
to compose their own parts in this piece, which seems to be quite rare. The musicians played live and it was wonderful. And Andrew Scordato of NYCB designed the costumes.”

Ashley Laracey and Justin Peck

Lauren King

Daniel Applebaum

Photos by Lora Robertson, used with her kind permission.

Monday August 23, 2010 – A rainy, cool day: perfect for watching dancers in the studio. Choreographer John-Mark Owen is preparing for an appearance at the DanceNOW Festival on September 9th and today he working with dancer Julie Voshell on his duet Unam Ceylum, set to music of Heinrich Biber.

This was Julie’s first rehearsal of this piece and they’d been working on it for a half-hour when I arrived. Julie and John-Mark are great friends so it was a very easy-going, laugh-filled atmosphere. They watched a performance video of the piece and talked their way thru it, then began trying some phrases and marking various passages. In this way, Julie learned the basic structure and key elements of the piece in less than an hour.

It’s really interesting to see how dancers assimilate verbal cues and translate them into their own language of movement. John-Mark has scheduled plenty of rehearsal time but I think they’ll have the duet at performance level very soon; they can spend the remaining sessions polishing the fine points.

Unam Ceylum is one movement of John-Mark’s memorable and deeply personal TRIPTYCH: three duets danced by the same couple which trace the development and dissolving of a relationship. The music is achingly beautiful and the work has an intrinsic spiritual quality.

The studio was rather dark for taking pictures today; I was wishing Kokyat was there with his two cameras. The photos here were shot with my little Lumix.

 

Friday August 20, 2010 – TAKE Dance offered a two-week summer intensive this year and eighteen young dancers participated, taking daily class from either Take or Jill Echo and then working on pieces from the TAKE Dance repertoire with members of the Company.

Click on the images to enhance.

This afternoon there was a well-attended showcase performance; the participating dancers danced an excerpt from a new piece by Take, somewhat comic in tone, reminding me at times of Snow White’s dwarf-pals, or of the goons in PRODIGAL SON. The students stomped, wobbled and swayed…

…and sometimes they took to the floor…

…only to be “revived” by their colleagues.

Emily Chapo, Sylvana Tapia

The dancers then split into two groups to perform an excerpt from Take’s recent success, FLIGHT.

The segment being performed today uses music of Philip Glass and I especially like one stretch of the work where the music’s going very fast and the dancers are moving very slowly. Take is one of the few choreographers  who could pull this off convincingly.

Here are a few more of Kokyat’s images from the afternoon:

Sophie Bromberg

Jasmine Saunders, Iwalani Martin

Grace Sanford, Corinna Phillips, Alex Rodabaugh

Grace Sanford

Susan Ponomarenko, Natalie Walters, Sylvana Tapia

Kelsey Berry, Lauren Calzolaio, Sophie Bromberg

Kelsey Berry, Emily Chapo, Andrea Dispenziere

Ensemble in FLIGHT

A big round of applause for all the Intensive participants.

TAKE Dance will appear at the DanceNOW Festival on September 11th, and they will collaborate with the composers of PULSE for performances at Judson Memorial Church on October 14th and 15th; further details of this collaboration will follow.

Photos by Kokyat.