Dance: my Winter wrap-up and things to come in Spring

 

Balletomanes: can you guess which Balanchine ballet this series of pictures is from? (Read on - the answer will follow below!) 

I miss the New York City Ballet! They had a great winter season: wonderful ballets, wonderful dancing. Especially memorable, and sad, was the the departure of Nikolaj Hubbe. When ever he was on stage, whether he was Apollo, the poet in La Sonnambula,  or even just the friar in Romeo and Juliet, he was always magnificent.  His official retirement was on February 10 and he danced his heart out for us all at that fantastic and poignant performance. He is already in Copenhagen, as the new director of Royal Danish Ballet. But lucky for us, the rumor is that he will be returning in the spring specially to perform Watermill for the Jerome Robbins celebration. This piece hasn't been performed for a long time, and I've read that it has a controversial reputation. But I know that Hubbe has such mesmerizing presence on stage that he will make this ballet an exciting event no matter what!

For my personal wrap-up of this past season: I thought Sara Mearns grew more and more wonderful right in front of our eyes! She danced many roles and I especially enjoyed her in Wheeldon's new Rococco Variations, Davidsbundlertanze, La Sonnambula (with Nikolaj!), The Four Seasons, and Raymonda Variations.  I loved Erica Pereira as the doll in The Steadfast Tin Soldier - she is so petite and delicate and steely strong all wrapped up in one.  And it is great watching some of the newest corps members, looking so happy and beautiful on stage: especially Meagan Mann, Tabitha Rinko-Gay, and Sarah-Rose Williams. For me the overall stars at the top were Wendy Whelan and Ashley Bouder: ethereal Wendy as the tragic bird in Wheeldon's The Nightingale and the Rose, and Ashley in Tschaikovsky Piano Concerto No 2. Ashley is always incredibly exciting and technically, utterly in command. With her, I just sit back and enjoy!

With NYCB away on tour, first in Washington DC and now London, I have been missing my frequent dose of the company. But fortunately while I'm waiting for the spring season to roll around, there have been a few other dance and theater performances that I have really enjoyed. 

I was lucky enough to be able to see a performance of the New York Choreographic Institute . Affiliated with NYCB, this is a wonderful program in which choreographers come to experiment and try out their ideas, without the pressure of a large public performance. They each have two weeks, with 3 hours each day, to work on their pieces with their dancers, all advanced SAB students for this session. This year two current NYCB apprentices, Darius Barnes and Matt Renko, were choreographers, as well as a current SAB student, Michael Tucker, a SAB graduate, Kiyon Gaines, now dancing with PNB in Seattle, Daniela Cardim, a Brazilian dancer with Dutch National, and Alejandro Cerrudo, a Spanish dancer with Hubbard Street Dance. It was a wonderful group and they all did amazing pieces. My daughter was in two pieces, by Darius and Alejandro and she loved the whole experience! 

I saw Macbeth at BAM, with Patrick Steward. It was dark and grisly, but with fantastic theatrical effects that really impressed me. At the performance I attended, at the end, the jubilant cast announced that they had just received news that they had won two Olivier Awards for Best Lighting and Best Director. Well deserved! After the run at BAM, it is moving to Broadway at the Lyceum Theater for 63 more performances starting March 29.

I went to King Arthur, directed and choreographed by Mark Morris at the New York City Opera. There was singing of course, and wonderful Purcell music, but for me, the production was much more about the dancing, great theatrical effects, and entertaining, light-hearted vaudevillian comedy. It was all such good fun! After that last scene, dancing around the Maypole, with paper airplanes flying, it seemed to me that everyone left the theater broadly smiling! I can't wait to see what Mark Morris has planned for his Romeo and Juliet. I hear that it is going to have a happy ending, but is it also going to be a farcical hoot like King Arthur or the Hard Nut?!

And this past weekend I went to Paul Taylor at City Center. In contrast to ballet, modern dance takes a moment for me to adjust to. It is so much more earthbound! The extreme of this was in Esplanade in the final section when the dancers literally hurl themselves, falling, sliding, crashing across the stage. This piece was especially fascinating to me because it uses part of the same music as Balanchine's Concerto Barocco: the 2nd and 3rd movements of Bach's  Concerto  for Two Violins in D Minor. And how different Esplanade and Concerto Barocco are!  I had just been viewing several videos of Concerto Barocco (hence the photos above!) at the Library for the Performing Arts, and so it was fresh in my mind. It was so much fun to compare different performances (Suzanne Farrell in a 1968 recording is the gold standard for me!) and to compare the two choreographers.

Now that single tickets have gone on sale for the NYCB, for the spring season that starts April 29th, there are various programs that stand out and I just can't resist giving a few recommendations!

• The SAB students will be performing three Robbins pieces with the NYCB (2&3 Part Inventions on June 14, afternoon and evening, & 17, Fanfare and Circus Polka on June 10, 11 and 15). In Fanfare 34 dancers personify the different instruments of the orchestra to Benjamin Britten's music. Circus Polka is a 3 minute adorable piece with 48 little girls from the school. 2&3 Part Inventions is especially fitting because it was originally choreographed on SAB advanced students for Workshop 1994 and has since entered NYCB's repertoire. It will be thrilling to see the young dancers on the cusp of becoming professionals, including some who may begin at NYCB!
  
• The program called Symphonic Balanchine will be a glorious extravaganza with Symphony in C (Bizet), Symphony in 3 Movements (Stravinsky) and Western Symphony (Kay)
• Alina Cojocaru and Johan Kobborg from the Royal Ballet are going to be guests on June 6, Jose Manuel Carreno (I love him!) from ABT on May 4
• Nikolaj Hubbe in every performance he does of Watermill!
• Favorite Robbins pieces: Antique Epigraphs, Brahms/Handel (his collaboration with Twyla Tharp), Glass Pieces, The Concert
• And that is just for starters!

As much as I love other forms of dance and theater, I love ballet best of all and can't wait for the NYCB's spring season to begin!

(The pictures are from Birmingham Royal Ballet's website: www.brb.org.uk)

tags: ballet  sab  pereira  nycb  balanchine  workshop  concerto barocco  choreography  

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