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Paul Taylor’s BELOVED RENEGADE

Thursday March 29, 2012 – Nearing the end of their exciting seaon at Lincoln Center, the Paul Taylor Dance Company tonight presented one of the choreographer’s finest recent creations, BELOVED RENEGADE. In Tom Caravaglia’s photo above, dancers Michael Trusnovec and Laura Halzack.

BELOVED RENEGADE premiered in 2008 and was hailed not only as an outstanding example of Taylor’s choreographic genius but also as a perfect vehicle for one of the greatest dancers of our day, Michael Trusnovec. Danced to Francis Poulenc’s GLORIA and drawing inspiration from the poetry of Walt Whitman, this large-ensemble work is both sensuous and spiritual. Mr. Trusnovec gave a luminous performance which elicited a particularly warm response form the audience. The dancer’s slender, all-muscle form moved through this poetic dreamworld with consummate power and grace.

With Michael Trusnovec at the work’s epicenter, the other dancers made vivid impressions: notably Laura Halzack, Amy Young, Parisa Khobdeh and Robert Kleinendorst all of whom have been at their finest during this wonderfully pleasing Taylor season.

Michael Trusnovec and Amy Young opened the evening in a performance of AUREOLE which – in its fiftieth year – still looks fresh and vital. Francisco Graciano, Michelle Fleet and Heather McGinley danced with great verve; Michael Trusnovec’s solo was a page of visual poetry and the lovely tenderness of his duet with Amy Young gave AUREOLE its gentle soul.

The evening in fact was something of a Michael Trusnovec festival as he finished off the programme in the exciting Bach/Stokowski PROMETHEAN FIRE. Parisa Khobdeh danced radiantly here, and indeed the entire Company seemed inspired tonight. The appearance of Paul Taylor at the end caused much joy in the House as the audience swept to their feet to acclaim both the dancers and the dancemaker.

Curtain call. Click on the image to enlarge.

March 29, 2012
Ballet Next @ MMAC

Wednesday March 28, 2012 – For the second in their Exhibitions Series at Manhattan Movement and Arts Center, Ballet Next presented a delightful programme of new and classic works performed by world-class dancers to live music. Above: Ballet Next’s founding artists Michele Wiles and Charles Askegard, photo by Kokyat. Click on the image to enlarge.

Cellist Elad Kabilio and the Ballet Next music ensemble struck up the celebratory processional from the final act of Tchaikovsky’s SLEEPING BEAUTY as the house lights dimmed. Ana Sophia Scheller and Joaquin de Luz then appeared as Aurora and her Prince to dance the celebrated wedding pas de deux. These two remarkable dancers gave an elegant interpretation of this duet. Ana Sophia is a beautiful and aristocratic young Princess, dancing with her signature polished technique and vastly pleasing mastery of classic style. Joaquin looks like the perfect teenaged Prince; his dancing vivid, his feet in 5th position right out of a textbook. It was so purely enjoyable to watch these beloved dancers at close range and bask in their musicality and artistry. Bravi! Bravissimi!!

New choreography is a key element of Ballet Next‘s mission and tonight we were shown a new pas de deux choreographed by Charles Askegard. Charles mentioned that this was not his first choreographic endeavor, and he also spoke of the challenges of dancing your own choreography. Using excerpts from Stravinsky’s enchanting Baiser de la Fee, the opening duet passage has a frisky playfulness but also moments of romance. Michele Wiles and Charles each have a solo with jazzy inflections woven in, and the coda has a twist of irony. Excellent choice of music (very well-played) and – of course – great dancing.

We had previously seen the duet ENTWINED that Margo Sappington created as a calling card for Ballet Next. Now the choreographer is enlarging on this work, adding a solo for Michele Wiles and a marvelous pas de trois. Ms. Sappington spoke of her desire to fashion one more movement for this piece – a duet for two women. Pianist Ben Laude invested the Satie works with moody, dusky colours. In the opening pas de trois, Charles Askegard employs his renowned partnering skills as he manipulates the heavenly bodies of Ana Sophia Scheller and Georgina Pazcoguin with silken assurance. The new solo for Michele Wiles explores her more vulnerable, dreamy side. And then there’s the sensuous duet danced by Georgina Pazcoguin and Charles Askegard which gives us the feeling of eavesdropping on something very tender and very private.

The evening ended with the music ensemble, now harpsichord- rather than piano-based, playing Vivaldi’s rollicking La Follia as two majestic ballerinas, Michele Wiles and Drew Jacoby, danced in unison and ‘spoke’ to one another in a complex gestural dialect. In this Mauro Bigonzetti dancework, solo passages for each of the two women show off their unique feminine powers before they reunite in a fast-paced finale, settling at last into the same enigmatic pose that opened the piece. Brilliant dancing from Mlles. Wiles and Jacoby, and spirited playing from the musicians left the audience exhilarated.

The next Ballet Next Exhibition will be April 25th at Manhattan Movement and Arts Center. And it has just been announced that the Company will be at The Joyce for a week in October.

March 28, 2012
Palazzo Vendramin

Click on the image to enlarge.

Late in the evening of February 12, 1883, Richard Wagner sat down at his piano in the Palazzo Vendramin, Venice, and played the Rhinemaidens’ Song from DAS RHEINGOLD. Wagner had been in poor health for weeks, and had come south with his family from Bayreuth following the 1882 festival to recuperate in the warmer climate of Italy. Cosima was with him that night as he finished the Rhinemaiden theme, and he said to her: “I am fond of them, these creatures of the deep with their longings.”

The next day, February 13th, Wagner felt unwell and decided to stay in his room; Cosima heard him talking to himself and shuffling thru his papers. She went down to luncheon with the children but suddenly the maid rushed in saying that Wagner was calling for his wife. Cosima dashed blindly from the dining room, running head-long into a doorframe which did not deter her. She reached her husband’s side just as he was collapsing of heart failure. His pocket watch fell to the floor. “My watch!” he exclaimed as the life drained out of him. For hours on end, Cosima remained in the room, cradling Wagner’s body. At last she was prevailed upon to return to reality for the sake of her children. Wagner’s coffin was transported back to Bayreuth and he was buried in the garden at Wahnfried. Cosima lived on for nearly fifty years before joining her husband in his resting place.

My friend Kokyat was recently in Venice and he very kindly stopped to photograph the Palazzo Vendramin for me. As someone with a mortal dislike of travel, I’m so grateful to have these images of one of the very few places that I would actually love to visit; Bayreuth is another fantasy destination. If only I could simply be there without having to get there.

The Palazzo Vendramin houses a Wagner museum in the rooms where the composer lived during his last weeks; the main floor of the building is given over to a casino. When Kokyat walked in, he was urged to buy chips and gamble but he declined.

Cosima Wagner kept a detailed diary throughout her marriage to the great composer. The story of his playing of the Rhinemaiden music on the evening before his death marked the journal’s last entry. Although she lived on for decades, her diary ended with her husband’s death.

All photos by Kokyat.

March 26, 2012
Superb AUREOLE/Paul Taylor Dance Company

Above: Michael Trusnovec of the Paul Taylor Dance Company photographed by Jordan Matter.

Sunday March 25, 2012 matinee – Among the many works being presented by Paul Taylor Dance Company during their premiere season at Lincoln Center, AUREOLE (celebrating its fiftieth birthday) looked outstandingly fresh and fine this afternoon. The cast was led by Michael Trusnovec who gave a performance of great clarity and lyric power in the role’s expressive solo. Michael has been dancing magnificently all season and today, both in AUREOLE and the afternoon’s concluding SYZYGY, he was on top form: one of the truly great male dancers of our time.

For AUREOLE’s beautiful but all-too-brief pas de deux, Amy Young was at her loveliest; she and Michael danced in perfect harmony in this Springtime duet. Mr. Trusnovec was not the only top-flight male dancer in the cast: Francisco Graciano gave a vivid performance of his athletic and very demanding role, his dancing crisp and crystal clear. Gorgeous dancing from Michelle Fleet and Heather McGinley put just the right finishing touch on this ballet. An all-star cast in a Taylor masterwork: life is good.

It seemed a bit odd to have back-to-back comedies as the central segment of the programme; perhaps being a matinee it was thought to play to the many kids in the audience. I would have chosen one or the other and in fact could have done without TROILUS AND CRESSIDA altogether, except that Robert Kleinendorst looks so hot in his underwear.

Poor Ponchielli! Walt Disney and Allan Sherman have conspired to make the ballet music from LA GIOCONDA a source of mirth for millions of people who wouldn’t know the Ca D’Oro from a bowling alley. Over the last half-century at The Met ballerinas like Sally Brayley, Nira Paaz, and Allegra Kent have danced to this music; in 2006 Christopher Wheeldon re-choreographed the ballet for the Met’s Montresor production: Angel Corella, Danny Tidwell, Gillian Murphy and David Hallberg have danced Christopher’s bravura and only slightly tongue-in-cheek version, while Ashley Bouder performed it splendidly with MORPHOSES at City Center. Paul Taylor’s take on the Dance of the Hours goes in for pratfalls and guffaws. It couldn’t end soon enough.

By contrast, GOSSAMER GALLANTS, which had seemed like a major bit of fluff when I first saw it, now looked more appealing. The Smetana score is entertaining, and there’s quite a bit of real dancing mixed in with the horseplay…and the bug-spray.

SYZYGY dates from 1987 but for me it’s a real 60’s piece. Watching the dancers whirl and swirl madly about the stage, I feel like it’s the Summer of Love and everyone’s more than a bit high. I half-expected Janis Joplin to materialize in her feathers and finery and sing “Try…Just a Little Bit Harder”. Donald York’s synthesizer-rich score amplifies this feeling: it’s kozmic, to say the least.

The title SYZYGY comes from a term used to describe those rare times when the sun, moon and Earth are in perfect alignment. It’s a great finale for a Taylor performance, and it was brilliantly danced today.

March 25, 2012
Three Paul Taylor Masterpieces

Above: Robert Kleinendorst and Eran Bugge in Paul Taylor’s ESPLANADE, photo by Paul B Goode. Click on the image to enlarge.

Saturday March 24, 2012 evening – To see ROSES again was a major reason to attend Paul Taylor Dance Company‘s performance at Lincoln Center this evening. The cast of dancers was the same as at the earlier performance I had seen, and they again made a profoundly satisfying impression. There is so much tenderness in this work, and it is very moving to see the relationships between the various members of the Company which – under the romantic surface of the piece – seem to reflect their affection and respect for each other as dancers and as colleagues.

As the poignant strains of the Siegfried Idyll fade away, Eran Bugge (above) and Michael Trusnovec appear like shining angels in white and dance a sublime duet in which time seems to stand still. ROSES creates such a heart-filling atmosphere; I wish it was being danced more often this season because I would go every single time.

Above: Fracisco Graciano and Parisa Kobdeh in THE UNCOMMITTED, photo by Tom Caravaglia.

THE UNCOMMITTED seemed an exact counter-balance to ROSES. Whereas the latter is all about settled relationships and the quiet joys of companionship and trust, THE UNCOMMITTED charts its craggy course amid the rocks and reefs of isolation and inability to connect. The incandescent music of Arvo Part gives the work an almost spiritual quality.

In the opening segment, each dancer (Michelle Fleet, above, in a Tom Caravaglia photo) has a solo passage expressing frustration, restlessness or dismay; these are people who cannot (or who don’t really want to) forge links with others in the group. Each soloist is ‘dropped off’ to dance, then re-absorbed into the collective but never really becoming part of it.

A series of duets ensue (Laura Halzack and Michael Trusnovec, above in a Tom Caravaglia photo) but the couples – though sometimes seeming to hover on the brink of romantic unity – always end up escaping one another. No one is really ready or willing to settle down, the conflict between desire and wariness always ending in turning away. THE UNCOMMITTED seems like a dancework that will continue eternally even after the curtain has come down. It’s a piece that speaks strongly to me.

The sheer, sunny simplicity of ESPLANADE – its structured and sometimes whimisical exploration of walking, running, jumping and falling – always makes for a joyful finale to a Taylor evening. Set to music of Bach, it builds to an exciting conclusion as the dancers fling themselves onto the floor in fearless sliding motifs. The cast of nine (but did I spy a tenth?) included the radiant Amy Young and the elegant beauty Laura Halzack (wearing pants), with Michelle Fleet in an especially dynamic performance.

Taylor audiences are the best: wonderfully focussed during the dancing and unbridled in their enthusiasm during the curtain calls.

March 24, 2012
…And Still More Theyre Lee Elliott

Another work by British artist Theyre Lee Elliott has come my way, thanks to a reader who shares the above painting from her collection.

The connection between the artist and Oberon’s Grove began back in 2009 with this discovery, and I have really enjoyed the ever-expanding tale of Theyre Lee Elliott and his work here on my blog which has continued here, here and here as readers have sent personal recollections of the artist and samples of his work.

If a search has brought you to this page and you have a recollection of Theyre Lee Elliott or any of his work in your collection, please help keep the story evolving. E-mail me at:

[email protected]

March 23, 2012
Collaborators: Luca Veggetti & Paolo Aralla

Choreographer Luca Veggetti and composer Paolo Aralla have developed a new website dedicated to their collaborative work. Visit the site here. Above: Kokyat’s image of Gabrielle Lamb in the Veggetti/Aralla BACCHAE, created for MORPHOSES in 2011.

I’m particularly grateful for the souvenirs of MEMORY/MEASURE, a mesmerizing piece created for Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet in 2009; I would very much like to see this dancework again.

March 22, 2012
Another Great Paul Taylor Evening

Above: Michael Trusnovec and Amy Young in Paul Taylor’s MERCURIC TIDINGS, photo by Paul B Goode. Click on the image to enlarge.

Wednesday March 21, 2012 – My beloved friend Kokyat is back from his trip to Europe and we met up tonight at Lincoln Center for a super evening of dance by the Paul Taylor Dance Company. In the past couple of years we have met – and Kokyat had photographed – some of the great dancers of the Taylor troupe and so there’s an extra feeling of excitement seeing them onstage. We also loved running into Taylor icons Rachel Berman and Richard Chen-See.

For their Lincoln Center season, PTDC are showing a vast range of works from their repertoire (as well as two new creations). Tonight I got to see a pair of older works that I’d never encountered before, as well as the darkly amusing 3 EPITAPHS and the to-die-for MERCURIC TIDINGS. The dancers were on peak form from curtain-rise to the final ovation where the legendary chroeographer took a bow as the audience collectively went wild.

In JUNCTION (of tranquility and fervor) eight dancers is brightly-coloured body tights dance to music from Bach’s cello suites. Some of the time the dancers are merely walking, but the variety of the pacing and the constant shifts of mini-groupings keep our interest keenly in focus. The work has an oddly appealing mix of gestural formality with off-kilter partnerings. The excellence of the dancers signalled yet again the personal appeal and technical prowess of the Company’s current roster: Amy Young, Robert Kleinendorst, Michelle Fleet, Parisa Khobdeh, Sean Mahoney, Jamie Rae Walker, Aileen Roehl and Michael Novak each found ways to shine as individuals even though the costuming gave them a uniform look.

Danced (or rather shuffled, scuffed and bumped along) to old New Orleans jazz/funeral music, the 1956 3 EPITAPHS made me laugh aloud when I first saw it at The Pillow years ago. The five dancers are in overall grey tights with metallic fragments attached to the skullcaps which refract beams of light into the theater. The movement is klutzy, ape-like, droll. Removing their facemasks for the curtain calls we see a collection of beatiful visages: Eran Bugge, James Samson, Laura Halzack, Heather McGinley and Francisco Graciano.

I’m not quite sure what to make of the 1981 HOUSE OF CARDS, but I know I liked it and I adored the Darius Milhaud score (La Creation du Monde) which reminded me of a jazz concert played in a Gothic cathedral. I can’t say for sure what this ballet is about, but does it matter? It’s quirky and makes for good viewing. Most of the dancers are clad in the red and black colours of a deck of cards, but then there’s a couple cavorting in pink (Laura Halzack and Michael Trusnovec) and a woman (Heather McGinley) who seems wrapped in aluminun foil. In one segment I particularly liked, three couples stand face-to-face as in a folk-dance. Francisco Graciano looked like a handsome young gypsy, and – although her distinctive red hair was covered here – I can only hope Ms. McGinley’s roles with the Company extend exponentially: she’s got a lot of star power.

Above: Tom Caravaglia’s photo of Laura Halzack and Robert Kleinendorst in MERCURIC TIDINGS.

The uplifting music of Franz Schubert (from his first and second symphonies) sets all these phenomenal dancers in motion for the concluding MERCURIC TIDINGS, a grandly lyrical and ritualistic work with thrilling structural elements and an achingly beautiful adagio (three featured couples in turn). The striking deep blue costumes (Santo Loquasto) accentuate the individual attractiveness of each dancer; the men are bare-chested, the women with their hair up like classical ballerinas.

Pacing motifs and stylized port de bras decorate the enemble passages, all underlined by a quiet sense of pure joy. Bodies beautiful: Michael Apuzzo, Michael Novak and Jeffrey Smith wear their costumes like a second skin while the girls (Eran Bugge, Jamie Rae Walker and Elizabeth Bragg) seem at times like nymphs who have strayed here from the Faun’s antique refuge.

In a star-turn featured role, Michelle Fleet (above) sails airily about, her gorgeousness captivating my opera glasses whenever she appears.

The triptych adagio opens with heavenly dancing from Amy Young and Michael Trusnovec, two of Gotham’s most treasurable dance artists. After a while they are subtly replaced by the distinctive blonde Aileen Roehl partnered by Sean Mahoney, he of the magnificent physique. These two bring a nice intensity to their duet, which eventually gives way to the ravishing Laura Halzack dancing with another Taylor deity, Robert Kleinendorst.

The cumulative effect of all these beautiful bodies, this soul-stirring music and Mr. Taylor’s perfect choreographic response to it evoked a sustained ovation from the House. The audience, so attentive throughout, couldn’t contain their delight in showering the dancers with applause, and when Paul Taylor himself walked onstage at the end, he was hailed as the dance hero he is.

March 21, 2012
Bewitched? We Bitched! Met MACBETH

Tuesday March 20, 2012 – I have no one to blame but myself, really. When the Met calendar for the current season came out, I skipped easily over MACBETH even though it is an opera I love: “Not with that cast!” But then a few weeks ago I was listening to the Leinsdorf recording and decided it would be good to experience MACBETH in the opera house. Despite the currrent Met trend for unmemorable productions and often brainless casting, I decided to give it a try.

I’d seen this production before; I love the huge moon with the black, scudding clouds that fills the proscenium as we wait for curtain-rise. But then the opera starts with the trivialized witches in 30s housedresses, coats and purses (each purse contains lightbulbs, how clever!). They are not sinister or even mildly interesting dramatically. And thus the production is off to a ho-hum start, and proceeds on its dreary way with injections of blood and vomit meant to shock us. It doesn’t work.

Gianandrea Noseda is often a fine helmsman at the opera, but tonight his MACBETH was workaday, and the chorus seemed uninspired. I very much liked the firm and dark-hued basso of Gunther Groissbock as Banquo; to hear his aria would have been the only reason to stay longer than we did. But not reason enough.

Over the years I have greatly enjoyed Thomas Hampson’s performances at The Met, but although he’s been fine in the more lyrical Verdi roles of Posa and Germont he simply doesn’t have what it takes for the big-guns parts like Boccanegra or Macbeth. It’s a bit like the borderline between a Merrill and a Warren: the former never trespassed into the Nabucco/Boccanegra/Macbeth region which suited (or would have) the latter so well. It’s a matter of amplitude. The sound of the Hampson voice is still fine, steady and more resonant than I expected. But it’s not Italianate in the least, it doesn’t billow and bloom with the turns of phrase or sail grandly on the words. Verbal over-emphasis, a common gimmick for over-parted singers, was a distration in a few places, as was a tendency to be ever-so-slightly sharp pitchwise. Yet still there was a lot to admire in his vocalism.

I’d heard Nadja Michael about ten years ago singing the mezzo part in the Verdi REQUIEM at Avery Fisher Hall. She sounded awful. Of late her name has cropped up as Salome in a European production that has made it to DVD (so many productions do these days, god knoweth why). I was expecting nothing from her vocally as Lady Macbeth, and that’s what I got. I’ve heard lots of bad, unattractive or hopeless singing in my day but usually it either has to do with a ‘beloved’ singer being past his/her prime, or a perfectly respectable singer attempting a role beyond his/her capabilities, or being indisposed but giving it a go to ‘save’ the evening. In these instances, you can usually still perceive that there is a real instrument at work but just not suited – for whatever reason – to the task at hand. There’s no such excuse to be made for Ms. Michael: this is how she sounds.

Obviously no one at The Met these days knows or cares enough about singing to have sorted this out in advance. Would this woman have passed an audition for the East Buttfcuk, Idaho community choir? I dunno, but somehow she’s entrusted with a great Verdi role at The Met. Her first aria was a mess and wtf is up with giving her a repeat of the cabaletta? Once was more than enough: the voice is shallow, desperate, breathy, wobbly, harsh and grossly unpleasant. Some people have said: “At least she has the high notes!” Yeah, if ill-pitched, desperate screeching counts. Following “Vieni, t’affretta” there was one prominent ‘brava’ (husband? manager? paid goon?) and one boo from a neighboring box, plus tepid applause for an aria that should bring down the house. There was also an oddly rustling sound to be heard which I soon determined to be the joint spinning in their graves of Callas, Rysanek, Nilsson, Dimitrova and Verrett.

The booer got up and left; I eyed my friend Alan to see if he was ready to leave but the opera was going forward and I didn’t want to cause even a slight disruption for those around us, so we stayed on thru the end of the great ensemble that marks King Duncan’s murder. Luckily no one attempted the traditional top note to crown the choral finale. I would like to have heard Mr. Groissbock’s aria but that meant listening to “La luce langue” first. No way.

Despite the mess she made, Michael won’t be bought out. The Met can’t afford to do that anymore. So if she shows up, ready to sing, she sings and gets paid leaving the audience with the stick end of the lollipop. One might wish for her to vanish from the scene, but apparently they have her down for BLUEBEARD’S CASTLE two seasons hence. I won’t go to that, regardless of who sings the Duke.

Alan and I staggered down to the Plaza in disbelief at what we’d just heard. There’s no excuse for it, really. A sad commentary on the state of things at The Met. And then there were all those empty seats…

March 20, 2012
Lydia Johnson’s Workshop @ Peridance

Tuesday, February 28, 2012 – Thie past weekend, dancer Jessica Sand (above, photographed by Kokyat) performed a solo in Lydia Johnson’s newest work, an untitled piece set to music by Osvaldo Golijov. Today, Jessica was teaching this solo to a roomful of young dancers as part of a week-long Lydia Johnson Dance workshop at Peridance.

Jessica is a thoughtful and patient teacher; she, along with her LJD colleagues Kaitlin Accetta, Laura DiOrio and Lisa Iannacito McBride, demonstrated and coached the participating students in the phrasing on an individual basis. Lydia’s silky fluidity of style suits Jessica so well; imparting this feeling goes beyond just the execution of the steps. The dancers were soon settling into the flow and responding to the spirituality of the Golijov score.

Above: Kaitlin Accetta of Lydia Johnson Dance.

The studio was so crowded that it quickly became necessary to break the dancers into three groups so they had sufficient room to dance full-out. There were a lot of very appealing movers in the studio, including three dancers I’ve had my eye on over the recent months:

Bethany Lange…

Lauren Jaeger…

…and Yuki Ishiguro.

Kaitlin, Jessica and Lisa observing the dancers; moving on from the solo passage, the students tried a partnered trio motif which produced considerable mirth as they worked on being in the right place and the right time to catch a swooning fellow dancer. As the clock ticked down to the final minutes of studio time, it seemed that the dancers really wanted to continue.

I’ll never know how dancers manage to look like a million bucks (Kaitlin Accetta, above) before noon!

The workshop follows on Lydia’s highly successful presentation of the Golijov work along with her 2006 piece FALLING OUT, set to music of Philip Glass. Mary Cargill writes about the February 26th matinee performance here.

February 28, 2012