It’s All a Blur: Baryshnikov Photography at 401 Projects
March 30, 2008
Evan and I wandered down to Chelsea this afternoon to check out an exhibit at 401 Projects gallery of photographs taken by Mikhail Baryshnikov of Merce Cunningham dancers. We had seen the photos online at 401′s website and thought they looked… blurry. We’ve known Baryshnikov, one of the two most famous male dancers of the 20th century whose movements are spellbinding, Baryshnikov the star of the Kirov, NYCB and ABT, Baryshnikov the artistic director, Baryshnikov the actor, and Baryshnikov the entrepreneur who opened his own NYC cultural center. Naturally we wanted to see Baryshnikov the photographer, too.
Evan at 401 Projects gallery
I’ve taken plenty of photos of friends dancing on stage, and between bright lights, rapid movement, and user-friendly commercial digital cameras, the photos have always come out very blurry. Pretty, but blurred, colorful streaks of movement awash in lights, too quick for our mediocre shutters to capture. Baryshnikov’s were just the same. One or two were particularly striking in the silkiness of the color and in their pleasing, misty lines, and some were nice to see as a group of silvery, almost transparent looking bodies. The exhibit was nice to look at, but not moving or even particularly interesting. Although Baryshnikov shot them on 35mm, most were blown up too large, and at close range you could tell how pixelated the photographs were. The subject was predictable and vague and I can’t say they provided any insight into Cunningham or the dynamism of dance. While Baryshnikov has and will continue to dominate mastery and innovation in the world of dancing and choreography, he doesn’t hold a candle to photographers like Lois Greenfield.
Since Misha shared his collection of blurred dance photographs, I thought I’d share some of my own from over the years.
Evan dancing in Columbia University’s Orchesis Dance Group, Spring 2005
Julie Bakshi in Orchesis Dance Group, Fall 2005
Orchesis Dancers, Fall 2005
Deborah Jowitt Fired from The Village Voice
March 28, 2008
Word has quickly spread among the online dance community about the firing of The Village Voice chief dance critic, Deborah Jowitt, who had been there for forty years. This is only one of many dance critics who have been fired (or “laid off” – the more common term) within the past few months, which is scary and alarming, to say the least.
Although it’s wonderful to see an increase in online dance criticism – in the form of personal blogs as well as ones associated with newspapers – this boon seems to correlate with a decrease in paid positions in the print journalism world, which is unfortunate for dance critics like Jowitt who have been in these positions for years. Many of my fellow bloggers have posted about this, as well, so here are the links to their postings:
Elizabeth Zimmer from Stage Write: http://www.artsjournal.com/stagewrite/2008/03/everything-at-once.html
Danciti: http://danciti.com/post/30088875
Taylor from Off Center: http://turnedin.blogspot.com/2008/03/another-one-critics-going-going-gone.html
Jeff Weinstein from ARTicles: http://www.najp.org/articles/2008/03/dance-critic-deborah-jowitt-fi.html
Dangerous Beauty: The Orchid Show
March 23, 2008
A 2006 NY Times Magazine article about Wendy Whelan, a principal dancer with New York City Ballet, included several comments from Christopher Wheeldon, who has choreographed many of his best works on Whelan (She’s often referred to as his muse). The following is a quotation from Wheeldon that I’ve always remembered:
“Wendy can take your breath away and you don’t understand why – you don’t understand why watching a leg unfold can speak volumes, or how she can make you feel there is something inexpressibly beautiful about it. Something about Wendy reminds me of the dangerous beauty you see in an orchid.”
This quotation sheds light both on Whelan’s dancing and the rare beauty of orchids, which I thoroughly enjoyed today at the NY Botanical Garden’s orchid show. I think that anyone who has seen Whelan dance and can appreciate the beauty of an orchid would agree with Wheeldon’s striking comparison. As I walked through the exhibit today and marveled at the different colors, shapes, and varieties of orchids, I thought about how dangerously beautiful these flowers really are. They aren’t as cheerful as daffodils or pansies. Nor do they have the obvious, traditional beauty and romance of roses. Orchids are elegant and graceful, but also seem to be more reserved and guarded than other flowers. There’s a sharpness to them that is dangerous but also intriguing. These all happen to be qualities that I notice in Whelan’s dancing, as well. As Wheeldon suggested, it’s difficult to understand and express what about Whelan’s dancing is so beautiful and unique. She is certainly not the traditional Balanchine ballerina. Her dancing is always complex and layered, and often edgy, graceful, reserved, and inviting – all at the same time. This makes her the most intriguing and interesting dancer to watch on stage. I always find something new in her dancing that I hadn’t previously noticed. So, this post has turned into a tribute to Whelan – my favorite dancer – and to orchids, and the dangerous beauty in both. Here are some of my photographs from the exhibit.
Rockwell Matters: “Doing His Thing”
March 20, 2008
John Rockwell, former chief dance critic of the NY Times, hopped on the blogging bandwagon a few months ago with Rockwell Matters. Here’s an excerpt from his “about” section:
A nagging problem with mainstream print journalism is the continual need to coddle the reader – or coddle editors who blithely assume that their own limitations and prejudices speak for the reader. To be asked to tell the story of an opera every time you review a new performance, or to explain supposedly obscure references to readers who wouldn’t be reading you if they didn’t already know and care about the subject, grew real tiresome in the latter years of my journalistic life. What I like about the idea of a blog is that I can do my thing and others can jump on for the ride or not.
And if they don’t? What is success for a blog, anyhow? Is it pugnaciously outrageous opinions or insults that provoke an equally intemperate response? Is it the number of hits, or comments? I hope this blog interests enough people to count as some kind of tangible success. But if it doesn’t, tant pis (a phrase edited out of my latest book introduction as too obscure).
It sounds like Rockwell felt rather limited by print journalism, and is looking forward to the freedom that blogging offers.
Check out this post, on the value of historical re-creation of ballets.
Lee Friedlander: A Ramble in Olmsted Parks
March 17, 2008
(“Central Park, 1992″ - Lee Friedlander)
Yesterday’s rain and windy weather made it a perfect afternoon for a museum visit, so I headed to the Metropolitan Museum of Art to see two photography exhibits and the “Jasper Johns: Gray” exhibit. The highlight for me was the Lee Friedlander photography exhibit, entitled “Lee Friedlander: A Ramble in Olmsted Parks”. The gallery was filled with forty of Friedlander’s black-and-white photographs, taken from 1988 forward, of parks and outdoor spaces designed by Olmsted in the 1800s. Many of the photos show long, elegant branches or thick tree trunks in front of a bridge or other human-made structure; others capture the shadow that a majestic tree casts upon a large open field; and still others show sunlight filtering through the branches and leaves of a tree in full bloom. While the majority were taken in Central Park, there are also several from Brooklyn’s Prospect Park, Boston, Wisconsin, and upstate New York. I think Friedlander excelled at capturing the varying personalities and moods of the trees – other-worldly, haunted, regal, and proud, among other descriptions – and suggesting how they contrast with (or at times, can be threatened by) human-made bridges and buildings. The exhibit is on display until May 11, so I highly recommend you make a trip to the Met to see it.
Read more about the exhibit here, and see several of Friedlander’s photographs in this NY Times slideshow.
