The 60 Best Dance Sequences in Film
March 14, 2010
Last week, Flavorwire posted thirty-five of the best dance scenes in film, with all thirty-five videos embedded in the post and arranged in chronological order. The list includes scenes from Swing Time, Saturday Night Fever, The Red Shoes, Dirty Dancing, and three scenes from West Side Story, choreographed and co-directed by Jerome Robbins. After receiving so many comments about scenes that didn’t make the list, Flavorwire posted another twenty-five best dance scenes in film. Here are a few of my favorites, along with a personal favorite that didn’t make the list, from the 1960 film version of Peter Pan. This scene (which has its fair share of Native American stereotypes) features the dynamite Sondra Lee as Tiger Lily and choreography by Robbins.
From Many Mouths, From the Horse’s Mouth
February 24, 2010
- photo by Tom Brazil
Over 75 dancers will gather at the 92nd Street Y this weekend to perform in From the Horse’s Mouth, a celebratory dance-theater piece that blends storytelling and exceptional dancing. The performances and stellar roster of performers kick off the 92nd Street Y Harkness Dance Festival. Created by Tina Croll and Jamie Cunningham in 1998, From the Horse’s Mouth will feature 25 different dancers at each performance, all of whom will share personal stories from their lives and movement of their own choosing. The lineup of performers includes Wendy Perron, Deborah Jowitt, Arthur Aviles, Carmen de Lavallade, Grover Dale, Martine Van Hamel, and Monica Bill Barnes.
Jowitt, who has known Croll and Cunningham since the 1960s and has previously performed in From the Horse’s Mouth, wrote about the creation of the piece in this month’s Dance Magazine. Here’s an excerpt from the article:
It’s fascinating to watch performers with very different aesthetics and backgrounds share the stage. During those first 1998 performances, choreographer-teacher Viola Farber, who’d been a founding member of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company, ended up improvising with Carmen de Lavallade, who had danced in Lester Horton’s group in the 1950s and later performed with Alvin Ailey’s company, among many others. Farber was ill with cancer and never knew for sure whether she’d feel strong enough to show up for the performance. To see these two tall, slim, gorgeous women (both born in 1931) quietly mingling their very different artistry could stop your heart.
Tickets to From the Horse’s Mouth are just $15 and can be ordered online. Performances are this Friday and Saturday at 8 PM, and on Sunday at 3 PM at the 92nd Street Y at Lexington Avenue.
Rail Writing
December 13, 2009
I recently started writing for The Brooklyn Rail, an arts, culture, and politics publication that began in 1998 as a pamphlet distributed on the L train. Since then, the Rail has expanded and is now online and available around Manhattan and Brooklyn. The dance section in the current December-January issue is filled with nine fabulous articles. I reviewed last month’s 75th Anniversary Gala of the 92nd Street Y Harkness Dance Center. Check it out!
Fall for Dance: Program Four
October 5, 2009
Mark Morris Dance Group in Grand Duo, photo by Marc Royce
Expressions of civility and primitivism were evident throughout the penultimate Fall for Dance program last Thursday. In many instances, tension between the two created an intriguing, unconventional dynamic.
Ballet West performed Bronislava Nijinska’s 1924 Les Biches – meaning “the darlings” and “the hinds” – as part of the festival’s tribute to the Ballets Russes. Considered to be one of the first feminist ballets, this satire is set at a 1920s party in the south of France. A corps of women in candy pink flapper dresses frolicked about, performing demanding but unexciting movement in which they angelically framed their faces with their arms and hands. When a trio of muscular male athletes appeared, the women became the predators as they eyed the men and showed eagerness to pounce upon them. This gender type reversal was also evident when the teasing Hostess twirled her long string of pearls at the athletes as she seductively waltzed around the room. In spite of the provocative female characters and this ballet’s direct response to more conventional works created around the time it premiered, Les Biches did not stand the test of time. Similar to Nijinsky’s Afternoon of a Faun, it is tame by 2009’s standards, and the overly long work did not sustain the audience’s interest, partly due to the lack of a focused narrative.
Ballet West in Bronislava Nijinska’s Les Biches, photo by Andrea Mohin
Perhaps audiences will have to wait another eighty-five years to see if the second work on the program is timeless, but for now, Dendy Dancetheater’s Afternoon of the Faunes (from Dream Analysis) should be praised for its innovative concept and driving energy. In 1996, Mark Dendy drew upon Nijinsky’s revolutionary 1912 ballet Afternoon of a Faun (performed by Boston Ballet on the first Fall for Dance program) and a section in Nijinsky’s diary about running to create a work for two men. Set to Debussy’s slow, dense score, Dendy’s dynamic interpretation showed the bare-chested Lonnie Poupard, Jr. and Alex Dean Speedie in an idiosyncratic jog with pumping arms. Two-dimensional gestures, reflecting Nijinsky’s Faun, were woven into the work, which shifted between boyish playfulness and erotic, animalistic interactions. At one point, the men gradually pressed their bodies together, starting at their heads and working their way down to their knees. The final, tender embrace extended beyond the music, and their delightfully awkward jogging continued against the silence, echoing a line from Nijinsky’s diary: “A mysterious force was driving me forward.”
Dendy Dancetheater’s Afternoon of the Faunes, photo by Michael Wakefield
Another compelling work was Mark Morris Dance Group’s Grand Duo, a dramatic exploration of the primitive urges of sixteen dancers, accompanied by Lou Harrison’s “Grand Duo for Violin and Piano.” Michael Chybowski’s lighting and Harrison’s score, played by Jesse Mills on the violin and Colin Fowler on the piano, combined to create a haunted, eerie effect as the piece began with the dancers moving slowly, randomly, from one pose to the next. As the pace quickened, the audience witnessed a series of combative group dances and refined solos that grew increasingly rigorous with the music. In one section, two groups alternately lunged at each other with intensity that matched that of the varying piano chords. It demonstrated Morris’s ability to beautifully illustrate music through movement. The dancers’ precision and musicality was impeccable throughout the performance, but was most thrilling and memorable in the final polka section.
An equally musical work was Jerome Robbins’s 1974 ballet Four Bagatelles, performed by New York City Ballet dancers Tiler Peck and Gonzalo Garcia. At the piano, Nancy McDill played the four Beethoven pieces of this gem of a ballet. Peck’s strong but delicate quality matched the sweetness of the music, while Garcia’s movement was buoyant and generous. In both the solos and partnering, they showed sensitivity to timing and strong command of the work’s nuances. On a program that displayed voyeuristic women, a thrilling reinterpretation of a classic ballet, and the animalistic qualities of humans, Four Bagatelles was the freshest, purest, and most refined work of the evening.
Tiler Peck and Gonzalo Garcia in Four Bagatelles, photo by Paul Kolnik
Crowd-Pleasers, Inspiration, and History at Fall for Dance
September 27, 2009
Iyar Elezra and Bobbi Smith in Ohad Naharin’s B/olero, photo by Andrea Mohin
The sixth annual Fall for Dance festival, where all seats are just ten dollars, kicked off this past week at City Center. Not surprisingly, the opening program, performed on Tuesday and Wednesday, included easily digestible crowd-pleasers that bring audiences to their feet and (hopefully) persuade them to attend dance performances more than once per year. But the evening also offered an inspirational work by Israel’s Ohad Naharin and a history lesson: This year’s festival honors the centennial of the Ballets Russes and is presenting recreations and reinterpretations of some of the company’s original works.
One of these works was Vaslav Nijinsky’s Afternoon of a Faun, as performed by Boston Ballet. When this landmark work premiered in Paris in 1912, it caused a controversy and shocked audiences due to its erotic undertones, sexually explicit themes, and the final masturbatory gesture. The original program notes summarize the simple plot: “A faun dozes; nymphs tease him; a forgotten scarf satisfies his dream. The curtain descends so that the poem can begin in everyone’s memory.” Moving with the two-dimensionality that Nijinsky drew from Greek and Egyptian reliefs and vase paintings, Altankhuyag Dugaraa shifted between boyish flirtation and an animal-like prowl as he pursued the nymphs. His brief encounter with Lorna Feijoo, during which they barely touched, lacked nuance even though it was filled with erotic tension. In 2009 the piece seems remarkably tame, but Faun was considered revolutionary and is now viewed as one of the first modern ballets. It certainly deserved to be included in the festival, but on Wednesday evening, it didn’t provide the rousing effect that one expects from a festival’s opening piece.
Altankhuyag Dugaraa and Lorna Feijoo of Boston Ballet in Afternoon of a Faun, photo by Andrea Mohin
Paul Taylor Dance Company has appeared in the festival every year, and this time they performed a silly, often irritating work from their repertoire, Taylor’s Offenbach Overtures (1995). Blending theatrics and clumsiness, the cast of fourteen dancers mocked French manners and stuffy classical ballet. Laura Halzack and Orion Duckstein continually switched roles during their pas de deux, frequently leaving one of them hanging precariously in suspense while the other indulged in a solo. In another section that involved a duel between Michael Trusnovec and Sean Mahoney, mutual respect and adoration quickly replaced their machismo attitudes. Each section of the work is far too long to sustain interest, but this flashy, balletic spoof won the crowd over, and it certainly was an effective advertisement for Taylor’s three-week engagement at City Center this February.
Paul Taylor Dance Company in Offenbach Overtures, photo by Paul B. Goode
The other standing ovation of the evening went to tap sensation Savion Glover and the OtherRz in The StaRz and StRiPes 4EvEr for NoW. One by one, the four musicians emerged from the wings, with each adding another layer to the John Coltrane-inspired jazzy sounds. The instrument that was center stage, however, was Glover, whose tapping seemed to take on a life of its own. While conducting and interacting with the musicians (his back was to the audience for the majority of the piece), Glover explored the rhythms and intricacies of the music to phenomenal effect. He was briefly joined by two other tappers, Marshall Davis Jr. and Cartier Williams, and their trio and solos showed innovation and a wonderful sense of musicality. It was delightful to see the tappers and musicians in such good spirits, clearly thrilled to be at the festival and engaging with one another throughout their performance.
Savion Glover and the OtheRz, courtesy of Savion Glover Productions
Without a doubt, the most challenging – and thrilling – piece on the program came from Batsheva Dance Company. Choreographer Ohad Naharin’s B/olero is a richly textured duet for two women. To the unique sound of Isao Tomita’s synthesized version of Ravel’s well-known “Bolero”, Iyar Elezra and Bobbi Smith shifted between unison movements and phrases in which they echoed or fed off of one another. Soft, fluid torsos and moments of calm abruptly changed to aggressive, full-bodied attacks that ate up the space. The women were effortless as their articulate bodies transitioned between restraint and release. Although they remained deadpan throughout the work, the emotion embedded in their movement bubbled to the surface, eventually overflowing and captivating the audience along with the increasingly physical, interactive choreography. The catalyst for B/olero might have been unclear, but upon being swept up into this riveting work, it was impossible not to feel ecstatic. If only every Fall for Dance performance could be so inexplicably, wonderfully transformational.
On the Set of Opus Jazz: The Film
September 24, 2009
photos by Yaniv Schulman
Last week, I had the privilege of visiting the set of Opus Jazz: The Film, which recently resumed and completed filming after shooting the third section, “Passage for Two”, on the High Line about two years ago. The new film version of Jerome Robbins’ 1958 ballet is scheduled to debut on PBS’s Great Performances/Dance in America series in the spring of 2010 (for updates, visit the film’s website). For the past several weeks, the cast and crew worked at various locations throughout Manhattan and Brooklyn, including McCarren Park Pool and a school gymnasium in Carroll Gardens, and wrapped up filming in a beautiful 1929 Loews movie theater in Jersey City, where I had the opportunity to observe everyone in action.
As it turns out, the action involves a lot of waiting. Just as I arrived in mid-afternoon, a crew member announced that the sixteen dancers could take five, so they scurried off the stage and into the seats of the theater to check voicemails and text messages, nap, stretch, and re-caffeinate (they had been in the theater since 8 AM). The five minute break turned into a half hour delay as the crew worked on camera angle adjustments – the film is being shot from one camera – and consulted with Ellen Bar and Sean Suozzi (the film’s creators and executive producers), but the downtime gave me an opportunity to chat with some of the dancers, all of whom are members of New York City Ballet.
Cast members Amanda Hankes, Georgina Pazcoguin, Adam Hendrickson, Rebecca Krohn, Tiler Peck, and Andrew Veyette
I quickly learned from Craig Hall, an NYCB soloist, that the greatest challenge of filming was exactly what we were doing at that moment: waiting. The go-stop-go nature of shooting was an abrupt change from performing on stage, where the show must go on no matter what happens. Hall added, “The choreography is ingrained in our bodies and the dancers know what the ballet looks like”, but the film version is still a mystery. Between filming out of chronological order and the endless process of editing, the dancers have no idea what to expect. Other dancers agreed that filming doesn’t offer the instant gratification that comes with live performances, where the dancers are in control of the outcome, but Hall proudly stated, “I’m honored to be a part of this, and we’re all really lucky to have such a unique collaboration between dancers and the filmmakers.”
While sipping coffee, Adam Hendrickson added that the cast and crew have become a big, loving family, especially bonding during overnight shoots in a dirty warehouse (On his informative and entertaining blog about the filming process, he wrote, “To call it hazardous would be the understatement of the decade. It will be the craziest place ever danced in.”). He explained, “We’re normally sheltered at NYCB, but here we’ve had the chance to meet new people, watch them work, and be a part of it.” Aside from Sunday rehearsals in the studio and some guidance from Jean-Pierre Frohlich, an NYCB ballet master and member of the Robbins Rights Trust advisory committee, the film project is entirely separate from the company and the dancers used their summer vacation time for filming (they returned to their regular NYCB work schedules this week). Hendrickson admitted that it’s nice to feel distanced from the company, because when working with film directors Henry Joost and Jody Lee Lipes, “You want to do the ballet a certain way for them that might not be the same way you do it on stage at NYCB. The choreography hasn’t changed, but the vision is different.”
Rebecca Krohn
When the crew announced that they were ready to start again, the dancers headed toward the stage, all laughing and in good spirits in spite of the long hours and choppy schedule. As soon as the camera was rolling and the jazzy rhythms of Robert Prince’s score were audible, the dancers’ youthful energy, angst, and rebellious spirit – all at the heart of the ballet – were palpable. As an ensemble, their dancing reflected the description that appeared in the program when the ballet first premiered in June 1958:
Feeling very much like a minority group in this threatening and explosive world, the young have so identified with the dynamics, kinetic impetus, the drives and ‘coolness’ of today’s jazz steps that these dances have become an expression of our youths’ outlook and their attitudes toward the contemporary world around them, just as each era’s dance has significantly reflected the character of our changing world and a manner of dealing with it. N.Y. Export: Opus Jazz is a formal, abstract ballet based on the kinds of movements, complexities of rhythms, expressions of relationships, and qualities of atmospheres found in today’s dance.
Standing breathless on the stage of Loews after a full shoot of the final section, the dancers certainly embodied the spirit of the ballet, but Opus Jazz: The Film is not just a restaging of Jerome Robbins’ piece. It’s a reinvention – one that preserves the choreography and music while offering new costumes, a new backdrop, and a new medium that can reach a much broader audience than a theater can. The film wouldn’t exist without Robbins’ ballet, but the creative team is doing much more than simply transferring the steps to film. By showing respect to their predecessors while building on this timeless ballet with their own ideas and vision, the producers, directors, cast, and crew are making N.Y. Export: Opus Jazz their own and offering a unique contribution to dance and film.
All photos by Yaniv Schulman
NY Export: Opus Jazz (The Film)
September 1, 2009
After performing in Jerome Robbins’ NY Export: Opus Jazz in 2005, New York City Ballet soloists Ellen Bar and Sean Suozzi were inspired to put the 1958 “ballet in sneakers” on film. Two years later, a movement from the piece, entitled “Passage for Two”, was filmed at the High Line shortly before it was closed for renovation in order to build the newly elevated park. The brief but beautifully shot excerpt, featuring New York City Ballet dancers Rachel Rutherford and Craig Hall, was included in the NY Public Library for the Performing Arts’ 2008 exhibition celebrating the life and work of Jerome Robbins, and was also presented at the Guggenheim’s Works & Process series in January of 2008.
Last month, after years of planning and fundraising, the film was acquired by Channel Thirteen/WNET for its 2010 Great Performances/Dance in America series, which means it will be coming to televisions everywhere sometime in spring 2010! I most recently saw the ballet during NYCB’s 2008 spring season, and it seems natural to reinvent Opus Jazz with present-day NYC as a backdrop while preserving Robbins’ choreography and the lively jazz score by Robert Prince. With a cast of sixteen dancers from NYCB and the streets and buildings of New York as the set, the film has tremendous appeal and demonstrates how a timeless ballet can become more accessible and engaging to a younger, broader audience.
Filming is currently underway to complete the remaining four movements of the ballet. Check the film’s website for more information, photos, and video clips. Plus, you can read all about the filming process by following NYCB dancer Adam Hendrickson’s blog and becoming a fan of the film on Facebook. Just search for “Opus Jazz”.
Remembering Edward Kennedy (1932-2009)
August 27, 2009
The following is a statement from Robert Lynch, the President and CEO of Americans for the Arts, on Senator Kennedy’s dedication to the arts (originally posted on ARTSblog):
Senator Edward M. Kennedy was a titan for the arts, and I know the national arts community joins me in mourning his passing.
Ever since The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts was opened as a living memorial to the late president, Senator Kennedy has carried forth the arts and humanities legacy that his brother began. He powerfully advocated the need to nurture creativity and to broaden access to artistic excellence in the U.S. Senate, and his leadership extended to co-founding and co-chairing the Senate Arts Caucus.
Throughout his work, he carried strong messages of freedom of expression, tolerance, and creative rights. He spoke staunchly of the central role of the federal government in supporting American cultural life, inspiring bipartisan cooperation among his colleagues. Senator Kennedy was the recipient of our own 1999 Congressional Arts Leadership Award, and in 2004, introduced his friend Doris Kearns Goodwin as our Nancy Hanks Lecturer on Arts and Public Policy at The Kennedy Center.
Each year for Arts Advocacy Day, he welcomed a small group of our advocates to his hideaway office on Capitol Hill and hosted a lunch that brought us together with Congressional leaders. One year he even met up with us on the steps of Capitol Hill, enthusiastically joining in as Peter Yarrow led a rousing sing-a-long on behalf of the arts.
I’ve had the personal pleasure of working with Senator Kennedy on federal arts issues on a number of occasions, and as a native of Massachusetts and longtime admirer, let me say how deeply his warmth, humor, empathy, and fierce passion will be missed by me, as well as the board and staff of Americans for the Arts. We are all diminished by his loss.
-Robert Lynch
Memories of Merce
July 31, 2009
Merce Cunningham, photo by Annie Leibovitz, 1994
The memories of Merce Cunningham, who died on July 26 at the age of 90, continue to pour in.
Culture Shuk, a project of the Foundation for Jewish Culture, posted some thoughts and a touching memory from Elise Bernhardt, the Foundation’s President and CEO. In spite of her “crazy idea” to present dance in Grand Central Terminal in the late 1980s, Merce apparently “had no airs, only quiet enthusiasm”. Read the entire post at Culture Shuk.
On Art.Cult, Claudia La Rocco shared an appreciation and also posted a note she received from choreographer Trisha Brown. Trisha and Merce shared Pacific Northwest roots.
Celebrate Merce’s life by joining Merce Cunningham Dance Company for site-specific performances this Saturday at 6 PM and Sunday at 2 PM and 6 PM in Rockefeller Park. The performances will include new material and movement from past and current repertory.
Remembering Pina Bausch, 1940-2009
July 1, 2009
Pina Bausch, who directed and choreographed for Germany’s Tanztheater Wuppertal beginning in 1973, died yesterday at the age of 68, just days after being diagnosed with cancer. She was known for coining the term “tanztheater” – dance theatre – and creating a new genre that wove together dance and theatre in both form and content.
I first saw Bausch’s Tanztheater Wuppertal perform in November 2004 at Brooklyn Academy of Music as part of an assignment for a dance course I was taking at Barnard. The nearly three-hour performance of Für die Kinder von gestern, heute, und morgen (For the Children of Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow) moved me to tears, and writing a paper about my experience was both challenging and rewarding. After learning of Bausch’s death yesterday morning, I re-read and reflected on what I wrote back in 2004. What follows are some excerpts from the paper (it was nearly six pages, so I won’t post all of it). This was not meant to be a review of the performance, but rather an analytical piece about what I observed and experienced while watching Bausch’s work. Throughout the paper, I often cited Norbert Servos, author of Pina Bausch: Dance and Emancipation, an article I read before attending the performance.
…With Bausch’s For the Children of Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow, “passive reception is impossible” (Servos 39). Indeed, from the moment I entered the theater and saw the white walls and bright lights, my experience as an active viewer began. The stage didn’t look like a venue for entertainment. The white walls with entryways and moving windowpanes transformed the stage into a large room, a place where the dancers were not just performers, not just entertaining the viewer, but also sharing their stories and experiences. “While dance theatre is recounting the universal history of the body, it is also always telling something of the actual life story of the people on the stage” (Servos 42). The stage’s transformation from entertainment space to “real” space immensely contributed to the actual life stories of the dancers, and the ability to relate to them.
…“Dance theatre does not anesthetize the senses. It sharpens them for that which ‘really is’” (Servos 41-42). One of the most prominent senses I used in viewing Bausch’s piece was touch. Although I did not literally touch anything on stage, I could feel the necessity for the sense of touch. Unlike in other productions, where props are often on stage to add to the aesthetic value of the performance, the props in Bausch’s piece were integrated into the dancers’ actions and movements. They were critical ingredients for me in experiencing the work. A sand castle, a piñata, and a jump rope – all props that the dancers used to depict child play. When I saw the dancers use them, it stirred my own childhood memories of playing with and rolling around in sand on a beach, hitting a piñata at a friend’s birthday party, or having jump rope contests with my sisters in our backyard. Bausch succeeded here in making her work a “theatre of experience”, a personal experience.
…Servos wrote, “The key [to Bausch’s works of art] lies with the audience, who are asked to question their interest and their own everyday experiences…Dance theatre, with all its physical, mimetic, and gestural possibilities, again sets theatre in motion as a communication of the senses” (Servos 38). I am certain that if I were to see For the Children of Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow again, I would have a completely different experience from when I saw it last Saturday evening. Likewise, the dancers probably have different experiences each time they perform the piece. This is the beauty of “theatre of experience”, a living and breathing experience that continually evolves and changes.
