Kyra Nichols in George Balanchine’s “Mozartiana”, photo by Paul Kolnik, 2004
On May 5th, former New York City Ballet principal dancer Kyra Nichols returned to the stage. Not to perform, sadly – it was a pleasure to watch her until she retired in 2007 – but rather to lead a free seminar along with Peter Martins about similarities and differences between the choreography of George Balanchine and Jerome Robbins. The hour-long discussion was filled with anecdotes and reflections on the two choreographers along with excerpts performed by current company members.
Musicality and partnering were both popular topics. While Robbins wanted the man to fully support the woman, Balanchine preferred for the woman to move independently for as long as possible until the man would swoop in and assist her. Company members Ana Sophia Scheller and Gonzalo Garcia showed an excerpt from Balanchine’s Tschaikovsky Pas de Deux during which she does a series of pirouettes. At first Garcia stepped in right away, but Peter Martins repeatedly told him to wait until the last possible moment to support her. The hesitation and slight discomfort among the two dancers was visible as they experimented with Martins’ instructions.
That evening, it was a treat to watch Scheller and Garcia perform the ballet on an all-Balanchine program. I had hoped to see the changes from the afternoon demonstration incorporated into their performance, but alas, they stuck with their old habits and didn’t take the riskier approach that Balanchine preferred.
Another interesting point that Martins and Nichols emphasized was that Robbins wanted his dancers to mark his ballets in rehearsals (meaning not perform them to the fullest), while Balanchine expected the dancers to perform at 100% in rehearsals. This surprised me, as I remember reading and hearing stories about how Robbins was a tough grader and always pushed his dancers for more, which seems to lend itself to the opposite of marking a ballet. “Easy! Easy!” said Martins, imitating the tone that Robbins would take with his dancers. What a joy it was to see Sterling Hyltin perform an excerpt from Robbins’ Dances at a Gathering with such ease and fluidity. I think Robbins would have approved of her relaxed demonstration.
These seminars are always eye-opening. The stories about Balanchine and Robbins as told by the people who were fortunate enough to work with them are priceless. Nichols and Martins shared far too many to list here, but they certainly offered some insight into working with the company’s two most significant choreographers.
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Dance Crazes on WNYC’s Soundcheck
May 1, 2012
"King of Twist", Chubby Checker
Tune in to WNYC’s Soundcheck this week to learn about dance crazes throughout history. Soundcheck, WNYC’s daily music and conversation program, has kicked off a week-long series dedicated to the subject. On the first show, host John Schaefer discussed the twist with dance historian and Florida State University professor Sally Sommer. The second half of the show was devoted to TV’s important role in dance fads, along with the impact of icons like the late Dick Clark. Additional topics will include US dance crazes that were inspired by African-American social dances, the evolution of moshing and mosh pits, and the wave of Cuban and Latin dance crazes. The full audio of the segments can be found here. Enjoy!
New York City Ballet: All Wheeldon
February 11, 2012
New York City Ballet in Christopher Wheeldon's "Polyphonia", photo by Erin Baiano
From 2001 to 2008, Christopher Wheeldon was New York City Ballet’s first-ever resident choreographer, providing him with a home for creating dances (not to mention a company of talented dancers) and offering NYCB new work from the man that many considered a promising heir to Balanchine. Though Wheeldon departed in 2008 to start his own company, Morphoses, he returned to NYCB often. On January 28th and February 4th, the company honored him with an all-Wheeldon program.
This is the first time that NYCB has created such a program, but it has popped up elsewhere in the past. Miller Theatre presented three of his works (all set to music by Gyorgy Ligeti) in 2005. Each ballet on that program was fascinating on its own, but when placed side by side, certain choreographic habits became apparent. NYCB’s program suffered in a similar way: by the third ballet, there was repetition in his choice of movement and shapes. Angular arms that carve through space and women held aloft with spread limbs make frequent appearances in his work. Last week’s program was further proof of this, and it revealed Wheeldon’s limitations – making each piece look less striking on a Wheeldon triple bill.
Les Carillons, a world premiere this season, is chock-full of movement – particularly arm gestures – that seemed detached from the music. The endless footwork and changing formations were too excessive for Georges Bizet’s regal score. Although the choreography tapped into the principal women’s individual strengths (Tiler Peck’s musicality, Sara Mearns’ lyricism and supple back, and Maria Kowroski’s long limbs), the ballet suffered from a “more is better” mentality and appeared thematically disjointed. Wearing brown costumes with a hint of color, the corps of ten swept on and off the stage between solos and duets for the principals in a dizzying rush of movement.
New York City Ballet in Christopher Wheeldon's "Les Carillons", photo by Andrea Mohin
Even though Les Carillons felt chaotic, it looked rather calm compared to DGV: Danse à Grande Vitesse, a 2006 work for The Royal Ballet that was making its NYCB premiere. Set to Michael Nyman’s propulsive but eventually repetitive score, which was created to commemorate the 1993 inauguration of the north European train line known as TGV, twenty-four dancers were on a journey of their own that rushed from one place to the next. Jean-Marc Puissant’s thin sheets of metal peeled upward from the stage, creating a sense of motion. Arms and legs carving through space; bodies suspended in geometric shapes; and countless lifting of women overhead – the dancers’ lightning-quick bodies were part of DGV’s powerful but frustratingly busy engine.
Sandwiched between the two works – a smart choice – was the spare and haunting Polyphonia, to a piano score by Ligeti. With architecturally rich movement set within an environment that shifted from tense to meditative, the ballet looked as inventive as it did when it premiered in 2001. The four couples, in simple purple costumes, are sublime. Sara Mearns was poignant in her slow duet with Craig Hall, and Tiler Peck and Gonzalo Garcia’s waltz was quietly profound. Wendy Whelan, performing in the role she originated, was otherworldly. In her second pas de deux with Jared Angle, the final image of Whelan rotating overhead and crawling underneath one of Angle’s legs to end in a sitting position, was chilling. She looked so at home in the choreography, filling every shape and line with spectacular dimensionality. On a program with two large-scale, fast-moving works, Polyphonia is even more gratifying for its minimalism and severe beauty.
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A Farewell to Cunningham
December 26, 2011
Merce Cunningham Dance Company in "Roaratorio" at BAM, photo by Julieta Cervantes
One of my college professors told me that letting your eyes focus in different ways while watching dance can offer endless enlightenment. Zoom in on something, then zoom out, or let everything blur together and then come into focus. I tried this approach many times while watching Merce Cunningham Dance Company perform Roaratorio on December 7th at BAM. Whether everything was crystal clear or swirling together, I was mesmerized from start to finish. The company’s Legacy Tour comes to an end on December 31st, but this was my very last Cunningham performance. I was clinging to everything on stage – the colors, the sounds, the dancers’ gorgeous lines and shapes and patterns, the eerily beautiful, disorienting score by John Cage. It was momentous, riveting, and then all too soon, over.
I haven’t enjoyed everything I’ve seen by Cunningham, and the first few performances I saw by his company several years ago left me confused, perhaps even irritated. But with every performance that I’ve watched, I’ve felt more and more certain of two things: 1. These dances are extraordinary and unlike anything else, and 2. Cunningham is the most groundbreaking choreographer of our time, and absolutely brilliant. On the 7th, it was exciting to witness such a monumental performance, and simultaneously heartbreaking to witness the end of the company at a time when I’m so eager to see more of Cunningham, to keep reveling in his brilliance.
Created in 1983, Roaratorio pulls from Irish step dancing and is inspired by James Joyce’s “Finnegan’s Wake”. This lively, textured work shows couples coming together for festive social dancing featuring rapid footwork fused with dramatic tilts of the torso. The stage was busy yet clean, with dancers moving at different tempos or joining others to build something new altogether. John Cage’s richly layered 1979 score, ”Roaratorio: An Irish Circus on Finnegans Wake,” is remarkable on its own, but even more beautiful when paired with Cunningham’s choreography. Sounds from everyday life – a crying baby, traffic, a leaky faucet – blend with traditional Irish music. I strained my ears at times to identify the different sounds, to determine where one sound ended and another began. Running through the mesmerizing soundscape was text from “Finnegan’s Wake”, adding yet another dimension. Like Cunningham’s movement, the score was busy but never messy. It felt like a long, hazy memory – or strands from many memories – that was strikingly reflected in the lighting design by Mark Lancaster and Christine Shallenberg. At one moment the dancers are bathed in sunlight, at another shadows are cast across their faces. Whether encompassing a whole day, a week, or a year, Roaratorio reflects the passing of time.
Merce Cunningham Dance Company in "Roaratorio" at BAM, photo by Julieta Cervantes
Ballet Maribor’s Radio(head) and Juliet
October 23, 2011
Edward Clug's "Radio and Juliet", photo courtesy of 6-Prime
Take Shakespeare’s tragic love story, add music by the influential band Radiohead and some slick choreography, and what do you get? Radio and Juliet, choreographer Edward Clug’s 2006 ballet for the Romanian company Ballet Maribor. Performed on Friday and Saturday at NYU’s Skirball Center for the Performing Arts, the ballet drew dance and Radiohead fans alike, eager to see what would happen when Shakespeare is added to the mix.
Clug is both brave and foolish for marrying the two. Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet has been choreographed so many times that to add another version to the books – one that the choreographer thinks will be unique – is ambitious. And Radiohead is so universally appreciated (or perhaps detested, but I fall into the former category) on its own that it’s difficult to imagine the band’s music paired with the world’s best-known love story. Can the work of two distinct, global, and expressive artists not only compliment one another but also enrich each other? The answer in this case is overwhelmingly no. Radio and Juliet felt gimmicky: people love the tale of star-crossed lovers, and they love Radiohead. So they’ll love the two together, or at least, fill up a theater, right?
There are a few distinguishing factors in this version. The story begins with Juliet awakening to find Romeo dead beside her, and evolves in a flashback. The cast of seven includes one woman and six men, all of whom seem to represent masculinity more so than any particular character in Shakespeare’s play. And Juliet’s poison – both comical and strange – is a lemon, whose juice drips down her neck and burns her tongue. Initially, the ballet barely resembles Romeo and Juliet, but there are some familiar moments staged from the story, such as the violent death of Mercutio to Radiohead’s Sit Down. Stand Up, and the meeting of Romeo and Juliet at the masquerade ball, in which the men wear hospital masks.
Although the intention was to tell the story from Juliet’s perspective, most of the ballet focuses on the men who, while wearing black pants and open jackets, assert themselves in disconnected, aggressive, and often mechanical strings of movement. Juliet, in a corset and ballet slippers, moves with delicacy, rarely appearing alone but rather in the company of men. There is little insight into Juliet’s experience, besides the fact that clashing families and warring men overshadowed her life and conflicted with her desires, which we already know from the play.
Edward Clug's "Radio and Juliet", photo courtesy of 6-Prime
At its worst, the ballet relies too heavily on approximately ten Radiohead tracks for emotional expression and lets the characters rush through their angular, William Forsythe-influenced movement without any feeling at all. Shouldn’t such angst-ridden characters pause and reflect on their circumstances rather than depend on propulsive music – and often gut-wrenching lyrics – for expression? It was irritating to see the first pas de deux for Romeo and Juliet set to How to Disappear Completely, in which Thom Yorke sings, “In a little while, I’ll be gone, the moment’s already passed.” The music shouldn’t be telling the story, but rather deepening it.
Ending abruptly, it seemed like Clug either ran out of choreography or couldn’t find an appropriate Radiohead track for the conclusion. But the suddenness spoke volumes about the mismatched influences in Radio and Juliet. Together, Radiohead and Shakespeare were limiting, and the production suffered because of it. Pulling inspiration from many threads is, in theory, a good idea. But when tied all together without first determining how they align and augment one another, the outcome is flawed.
