Tag: New York City

BalletCollective Studio Showing

Above: BalletCollective dancer Taylor Stanley photographed by Christopher Starbody

Thursday June 27th, 2013 – Today Troy Schumacher invited me to a special showing of his new work for BalletCollective, in preparation for the Company’s upcoming New York City performances.

At the Ailey Citigroup Theater, friends and supporters of the Collective watched Troy working out some phrases with his exciting ensemble of dancers, all of whom are current or recent members of New York City Ballet. The work is accompanied by live music composed and conducted by Ellis Ludwig-Leone and played by ACME. During this preliminary tinkering session, lighting designer Brandon Baker tried out various effects. We were then shown a run-thru of the work-in-progress.

The ballet, The Impulse Wants Company, takes wing on a poem by Cynthia Zarin, who was present for the showing. The music is both perfectly contemporary and beautifully melodic, with some interesting rhythmic figures; the musicians are expert.

Ms. Zarin’s poem reflects on childhood visits to a beach, on nature, weather, on people and conversations recalled from the past. I didn’t read thru the poem until I’d seen the ballet, but the line “I was a water nymph” might have inspired the opening solo for Kaitlyn Gilliland, the tall ballerina who – with her poetic arabesque and arching back-bend – seems to conjure visions of Odette. David Prottas, a prince of a dancer, joins her. There is a trio of young women – Lauren King, Ashley Laracey and Meagan Mann – who remind me of Rhinemaidens or the nymphs on the lonely shore of Ariadne’s Naxos.

Harrison Coll, a dynamic young dancer, joins Taylor Stanley in an off-kilter waltz, Taylor’s solo begins with him swaying like a tree in the breeze; later he travels up a diagonal in some skitteringly fast footwork before circling the space in a questing motif.

Troy Schumacher told us the that this ballet was created in ten days of studio time; in terms of both movement and imagination, it shows his distinctive choreographic style which uses the classic vocabulary of steps and port de bras with fresh, contemporary nuances. And he has the grest good fortune to be working with some of the best dancers in the world.

It was nice to see so many familiar faces from among New York City’s serious dance aficianados here supporting Troy today, and to greet the lovely former New York City Ballet ballerina Maya Collins, who now dances with Miami City Ballet..

BalletCollective will be performing The Impulse Wants Company along with a re-working of their 2012 ballet Epistasis at The Joyce on August 14th and 15th. Information and tickets here.

You can follow BalletCollective on Ashley Laracey’s blog: The Insider.

June 27, 2013
Watching Yuki @ Dixon Place

Wednesday April 24th, 2013 – Certain dancers seem to grab our attention no matter what they are dancing. I’ve been following Yuki Ishiguro’s work here in New York City for a few seasons now and he’s a dancer I’ll often go out of my way to see. Tonight he was performing in a piece by Charly Wenzel in a mixed programme at Dixon Place; the evening was part of the NYC10 Festival.

Yuki began his dance-life break-dancing in Japan. Since coming to New York City, he has danced with isadoraNow (where I first saw him), for Darcy Naganuma, Sunhwa Chung, and Emery LeCrone; he appeared in a witty work with Yoo and Dancers and he’s currently involved in Cori Marquis’ The Nines. Yuki performed his poignant solo ANOTHER WORLD with BalaSole Dance Company, and was photographed by Kokyat while rehearsing a duet with Kentaro Kikuchi.

What makes Yuki so intrguing – beyond his style of movement – is his enigmatic quality. There’s no other dancer quite like him on the Gotham dance scene. Tonight he appeared in an excerpt from Charly Wenzel’s mysterious Light and Breath and Life and Thought, a work for small ensemble which incorporates hand-held lights and tiny mirror-discs sewn to the costumes which create starry patterns as they catch the light. Yuki danced beautifully in a role that featured elements of break-dancing, a form in which his combination of technical skills and artistry make him a stand-out.

My plan this evening was to go, watch the piece that Yuki was in, and leave. It turned out that Yuki was on next-to-last but it didn’t matter because I ended up enjoying the entire programme. Here is a brief commentary on each of the participating companies:

The Beat Club – a tremendous and diverse large ensemble of gorgeous young people; they closed the evening with a fantastic performance; combining many genres, their energy was unstoppable in this brilliant and often auto-biographical work combining spoken narrative and infectious rhythms.

Charly Wenzel & Dancers
– at once dark and luminous; a mystery-filled excerpt which makes me want to see more.

NonaLee Dance Theatre
– four dancers in tightly-hooded body suits dancing excellent moves, with appropriate-energy music. I liked this a lot.

Sublime Dance Company
– really inventive, very well-danced, and an interesting ‘script’ actually spoken by the dancers. Nice individual performances; I know dancers don’t like talking as a rule but they handled it very well.

SUNPROJECT – fantastic send-up of SWAN LAKE with four black-leather and boldly-sassy swans doing wildly provocative moves to Tchaikovsky; hugely entertaining, and I was smitten with Keiji Kubo.

Sunny Nova Dance
– very fine choreography and super-good dancing, the music was a bit anonymous but the dancers carried it really well.

MJM Dance
– the most thought-provoking work, very well-executed; it’s the story of a tragic 1911 sweatshop fire in New York City that killed over 140 workers. Nice ensemble work from the all-female cast.

DanceSpora
– four distinctively beautiful women on pointe; really enjoyed this choreography and all the dancers, despite an innocuous musical score. The movement and individual personalities were very pleasing.

Billy Bell’s Lunge Dance Collective – a powerful, sensuous and violent pas de deux danced magnificently by Billy Bell and McKenna Birmingham; everything here was engrossing except the music, the anonymity of which somewhat undemined the power of the piece. Nevertheless, a fascinating and disturbing work, and Billy Bell is tantalizing
in his cruelty shaded with guilt while Ms Birmingham gives a courageous performance.

Yoo and Dancers – a truly original work in which a young woman deconstructs and re-builds a male statue; live piano music enhanced the performances of Mary-Elizabeth Fenn and Sean Hatch, who carried out the choreographer’s idea with a lovely seriousness of intent.

So, because of a single dancer – Yuki – I met a whole lot of new choreographers and dancers, including some I definitely want to see again. It was a really good evening.

April 24, 2013
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
Cedar Lake @ The Joyce: Program B

Tuesday May 22, 2012 – Three works, all of them new to New York City, held the stage as Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet started their second week at The Joyce. Above, an image of the Company in Simply Marvel by Regina van Berkel.

On a stage illuminated by huge hanging parchment-shaded lamps, Ms. van Berkel’s work commences with a solo danced by Oscar Ramos; the music, for solo piano, is ultra-slow and so is the movement. The dancers arrive one-by-one, the women in stylized tutus and toe shoes. Sculptural formations assemble and dissolve in this slow-motion universe.

The mood then shifts to a brighter, more animated vision as solo violin music by Nicolo Paganini sets off the three women – Acacia Schachte, Ebony Williams and Soojin Choi – in a series of on-pointe vignettes, partnered by the men. Quirky, witty and jagged, the work maintains an odd sense of formality thanks to the music. Impressive dancing from the entire cast brought the work to a close, signaling the first of many ovations during the evening.

Halfway thru the intermission, the curtain rose on the stagehands preparing for the second work: Tuplet by Alexander Ekman. As the crew busy themselves setting up, Harumi Terayama stands alone in an illuminated square, gesticulating rapidly or conducting an imaginary orchestra. As the house lights dim, five other dancers take up their own squares.

After an introductory sequence, the work’s highlight comes with a solo brilliantly danced in silhouette by Jon Bond which he – one of Gotham’s most incredible dancers – delivered with astonishing clarity and power. Throughout this ballet, the sounds of the dancers’ movements – and even of their breathing – mesh with the musical score to create a personalized soundscape.

The audience went wild after a wonderfully inventive passage in which the six dancers lined up across the front of the stage and danced to the sounds of their own names being spoken. This tour de force was so perfectly delivered by the dancers. Performing in Tuplet, in addition to Harumi and Jon, were Jubal Battisti, Oscar Ramos, Joaquim de Santana and Ebony Williams: an all-star cast.

In the closing work, Necessity, Again by Jo Stromgren (World Premiere) the stage is strewn with sheets of paper; pages hang from clotheslines strung above the space, and periodically the dancers bring in more and more sheaves of pages; occassionally someone flings a fistful of papers into the air. In this messy, cluttered setting the dancers appear alternately bored, bemused or borderline manic. There is a stylized rape scene and at one point the dancers strip down to their underwear (some people go to Cedar Lake just for the bodies). Meanwhile an annoying voice lectures on the meaning of ‘necessity’; this is offset by a series of Charles Aznavour songs. Somehow out of this chaos a dancework is built, and – thanks to the individuality and dramatic capacities of the Cedar Lake dancers – it becomes a necessity to watch.

The audience – including danceworld luminaries Miki Orihara, Stephen Pier, David Hallberg and Larry Keigwin – gave the Cedar Lakers a rousing reception at the end of the evening.

May 22, 2012
Stravinsky & Desyatnikov @ New York City Ballet

February 23, 2012 – New York City Ballet has been my home away from home since I moved to New York City in 1998. In fact, NYCB was a major factor in my desire to move here in the first place. This season has seen the effects of changes in ticket pricing and seating availability, along with the marginalizing of the 4th Ring Society and the way long-time friends and supporters of the Company feel they have been treated by the powers that be. The official stance seems to be that the changes are working and that everything’s hunky-dory, but the gaping emptiness of the 4th Ring (ten people sitting up there tonight) is a sad commentary on the real situation.

Increases in ticket prices are a necessary evil from time to time, but it’s the way it was done and the lack of sync between the website and the box office in terms of availability and pricing that is off-putting to say the least. The level of dancing is very high and the lure of Balanchine is as strong as ever, but the sheer joy of attending often and feeling you are part of a happy family of ballet-goers is greatly diminished these days. In this Winter season where I’d ear-marked 14 performances on my calendar, I ended up only going six times.

At any rate, when the curtain rose on STRAVINSKY VIOLIN CONCERTO tonight and Janie Taylor was standing there with four handsome boys, I forgot my misgivings. On the podium, George Manahan brought out individual voices in the orchestra – as we might expect a seasoned opera conductor to do – and violinist Lydia Hong conveyed the angular beauty of the concerto in an overall very pleasing performance.

Janie and her partner Ask LaCour gave an especially fine rendering of their duet; in the course of it I noticed things in the choreography that I’d somehow never picked up on before. The allure of the two dancers, and the Taylor mystique, seemed in a way to create a narrative where there isn’t one. I really enjoyed watching them.

Maria Kowroski and Amar Ramasar are developing into a powerful and vastly appealing partnership. Their pas de deux was marvelous in its sense of nuanced dramatic detail and in the dancers’ technical strength and clarity which both underscored the complex choreography and made it seem inevitable.

The corps danced beautifully, and it is wonderful to see Faye Arthurs onstage again after a hiatus. It was a performance of this classic work that re-affirmed its iconic standing in the Balanchine pantheon.

Ratmansky’s RUSSIAN SEASONS is an unique ballet in many ways; drawing on aspects of Russian peasant life, the choreographer presents characters who are anonymous yet differentiated by finely detailed aspects of gesture and movement. The music, with it’s prominent violin (Arturo Delmoni) and soulful singing (Irina Rindzuner) all came back to me from the moment of Manahan’s downbeat. The score, and the rich colours of the dancers’ costumes, weaves a particular spell. I was very glad to see this piece again after a few seasons’ absence from the repertoire.

The Playbill now denotes role debuts at NYCB, and only Georgina Pazcoguin had previously appeared in her role as the Woman in Red. Abi Stafford danced in the premiere of RUSSIAN SEASONS but has now switched to the role originally created by Jenifer Ringer. Beyond that, the cast drew together some of the Company’s most attractive personalities.

Amanda Hankes, Marika Anderson and Lauren Lovette were each lovely and distinctive to watch, while the presence of Taylor Stanley, David Prottas, Andrew Veyette, Adrian Danchig-Waring and Christian Tworzyanski showed off the strengths of the Company’s male contingent.

Abi Stafford’s performance had a nice sense of freshness to compliment her clarity of movement. As the central couple, Rebecca Krohn and Robert Fairchild used their personal magnetism to full advantage. Rebecca’s dancing was serene – and poignant in the passage where she seems to have been abandoned. Rob Fairchild seized the opportunity to make yet another ballet ‘sing’ to his charismatic approach. His dancing was technically impressive and dramatically vivid.

In a glorious performance, Georgina Pazcoguin’s Woman in Red was suffused with her highly individual beauty and intensity; as she swirled with a restless spirit through the many swift pirouettes and space-filling combinations of this demanding role, Gina seemed like a woman possessed. Truly breath-taking at every moment.

STRAVINSKY VIOLIN CONCERTO: Taylor, la Cour, Kowroski, Ramasar

RUSSIAN SEASONS: Pazcoguin, *Krohn, *A. Stafford, *Lovette, *Hankes, *Anderson, *R. Fairchild, *Prottas, *Stanley, *Tworzyanski, *Danchig-Waring, *Veyette

February 23, 2012
Rita Gorr Has Passed Away

Another colossal figure from my early days as an opera lover has passed away: the Belgian mezzo-soprano Rita Gorr died on January 22, 2012 at the age of 85. The great singer had a relatively brief but busy career at the Metropolitan Opera; from 1962 thru 1966 she sang 42 performances in New York City and on tour, including Amneris, Eboli, Dalila, Santuzza, Waltraute in GOTTERDAMMERUNG and Azucena. It was in the last-named role that I heard her live for the only time, at the Old Met:

Metropolitan Opera House November 25, 1965
IL TROVATORE {350} Giuseppe Verdi Manrico.................Bruno Prevedi Leonora.................Gabriella Tucci Count Di Luna...........Robert Merrill Azucena.................Rita Gorr Ferrando................Bonaldo Giaiotti Ines....................Lynn Owen Ruiz....................Charles Anthony Messenger...............Hal Roberts Gypsy...................Luis Forero
Conductor...............Georges Pretre

Her singing was powerful and intense, and all evening long she and her colleagues received vociferous applause and bravos. What a great evening for a young opera buff!

Rita Gorr extended her career into the 21st century; her final stage performances were in 2007 as the Old Countess in Tchaikovsky’s QUEEN OF SPADES at Ghent and Antwerp.

Only recently I acquired a copy of the Leinsdorf recording of Wagner’s LOHENGRIN and have been listening to it over the past few days. It now takes on greater significance since Ms. Gorr is the majestic Ortrud, singing in the grand manner. In the great duet for husband and wife which open Act II, William Dooley as Telramund expresses his fear that his defeat by Lohengrin in Act I was a sign from God. “Gott????!!” Gorr/Ortrud responds ironically, then lets out a daemonic laugh. Brilliant!

Rita Gorr’s classic EMI solo disc of arias seems to be unavailable now; I owned it on LP as a young man and literally wore out the grooves. But several tracks can be found on YouTube. Here is her Liebestod from TRISTAN UND ISOLDE, sung with an Old World grandeur that seems to have vanished as opera moves away from its voice-centric uniqueness into a more generalized feeling of being mere entertainment.

January 23, 2012
Miro Magloire/New Chamber Ballet

Friday June 24, 2011 – Miro Magloire and his New Chamber Ballet hold a unique place on the New York City dance scene. Performing works deeply rooted in classical ballet technique, NCB use an intimate studio setting to bring the viewer as close to dance as one can get. As a composer and musician, Miro puts an equal value on the music we experience at his performances: performed live by excellent musicians, we frequently hear works by contemporary composers that we might not otherwise get to know.

Miro’s troupe of ballerinas allow us not only to enjoy their individual dance-personalities up close but also to observe the technique of dancing on pointe in a way that can’t be grasped in the large venues where ABT and New York City Ballet perform.

Miro Magloire frequently re-visits his earlier works and brings them back with fresh details. Tonight’s opening THE GAME was originally developed under the title TABLE. Much of the piece looks as it did in the earlier version, but a deck of cards has been added giving a focus to the subtle combat between the two seated women. Madeline Deavenport and Katie Gibson (top photo by Kokyat) each periodically skitters away from the table to dance in jaggedly expressive phrases. Violinist Erik Carlson’s mastery of the Brian Ferneyhough score underlines the tension between the two players; Katie wins the game as the cards go flying across the studio space.

Miro’s working on a new piece to Lucio Berio which will be shown in the Fall, In the meantime, pianist Melody Fader gave us a musical preview tonight, playing Leaf from Six Encores as a solo interlude.

Lieder by Schubert, Schumann, Brahms and Wagner inspired LOVE SONG SOLOS, which premiered tonight. However, there is no singing involved. Instead Miro used the songs as a map, transcribing them for maracas (!) which he skilfully played himself. Who but Miro would imagine such a musical departure? But it works. Three dancers – Katie Gibson, Alexandra Blacker and Elizabeth Brown – each have a solo. They wear mossy green tunics by costumier Candice Thompson. Devoid of a literal story line, the dances nonetheless echo the emotional aspects of the original songs: passion, serenity, agitation and longing are conjured in movement. This unusual work gives each dancer ample expressive opportunity.

Choreographer Emery LeCrone calls for sustained energy levels from three dancers – Lauren Toole, Victoria North and Maddie Deavenport – in CHAMBER DANCES. This three-movement work set to John Adams’ Road Movies propels the dancers thru in-sync trio passages with relesntless pacing. A calmer central movement gives way to more bursts of movement in the finale. Each girl has a solo in which Emery builds on individual attributes to give us a personal look at each dancer while never stinting on technical demands.

A real workout for the threesome, CHAMBER DANCES signals Emery LeCrone’s ongoing ascent in the choreographic sphere. Earlier in the day, I got to watch another work that Emery is developing for the Guggenheim’s Work & Process series. More about that – with Matt Murphy photos – coming soon.

Alexandra Blacker is a dancer Kokyat and I have really admired in her performances with New Chamber Ballet. This past January we just happened upon Alexandra working in the studio with Emery LeCrone and Deborah Wingert on the solo VIRTUOSA for New Chamber Ballet; that’s where Kokyat took the above photo. Alexandra will now be moving back to California; it’s been lovely getting to watch her in several works with NCB during this past season.

June 24, 2011
MORPHOSES 2011: The Company

Jonathan Ollivier and Gabrielle Lamb (photographed by Kokyat, above) are among the dancers who will appear with MORPHOSES in their current season which will feature the New York City premiere of Luca Veggetti’s BACCHAE in October.

Kokyat and I were invited to the final afternoon of the audition process where he photographed some of dancers who will be part of the MORPHOSES Company for the Veggetti project:

Willy Laury and Yusha-Marie Sorzano

Luca demonstrating with Gabrielle Lamb

Luca working with Jonathan Ollivier

Luca coaching Sarah Atkins

Jonathan Ollivier, Gabrielle Lamb

Willy Laury, Yusha-Marie Sorzano

On March 20th two of the other Company dancers, Frances Chiaverini and Emma Pfaeffle (above) participated in a demonstration of a special platform that will be part of the MORPHOSES staging.

The complete roster of dancers for MORPHOSES 2011 will be:

Sarah Atkins

Yusha-Marie Sorzano

Brittany Keefe

Frances Chiaverini

Gabrielle Lamb

Emma Pfaeffle

Christopher Bordenave

Brandon Cournay

Willy Laury

Morgan Lugo

Jonathan Ollivier

Kokyat and I plan to follow the various stages of the creation of BACCHAE for my blog and we are very grateful to Lourdes Lopez and Luca Veggetti for opening their studio doors to us.

March 24, 2011
Bennyroyce Royon Contemporary Workshop

One of the New York City dance scene’s smoothest movers, Bennyroyce Royon gives a workshop in contemporary style and improv at Peridance from January 3rd – 7th, 2011. Watch a trailer here, which features Kokyat’s photography. Above picture of Benny teaching at The Rover earlier this year is also by Kokyat.

November 26, 2010
Joy Womack

Ballerina Joy Womack photographed by Vihao Pham. Kokyat and I met this young dancer this past summer at Avi Scher’s studio while she was in New York City.

November 25, 2010