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"Traditions"
"Square Dance", "Prodigal Son", "The Four Seasons"
New York City Ballet
New York State Theater
New York, NY
January 29, 2008
By Mary Cargill
Copyright 2008 by Mary Cargill
The marketing department has apparently decided there is more than one Tradition to be celebrated in the Balanchine and Robbins program, but the tradition of great choreography coherently danced is the most important tradition of all, and fortunately this program had that to offer. The inevitable tradition of dancers retiring was also, quietly, celebrated, as Nikolaj Hübbe gave his final performance in “Square Dance”, proving yet again that dancing is not just about bounding high and leaping energetically. There are many dancers, some in the corps, who can jump higher and land cleaner than Hübbe at this stage, but no one can run on to a stage and generate such excitement just by looking at his partner and offering her his hand.
"La Bayadere"
The Kirov Ballet of the Maryinsky Theatre
Opera House
The J.F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts
January 21 and January 26 (matinee), 2008
by Alexandra Tomalonis
copyright 2008 by Alexandra Tomalonis
The Kirov brought Marius Petipa's oldest extant ballet save one for its yearly visit last week. Unlike other Petipa works, "La Bayadere," created in 1877, still has much of its 19th century glories: processions, character dances and extended mime scenes. The story is complicated, but clearly told: a bayadere (temple dancer) lusted after by her High Priest, loves a handsome young warrior who becomes betrothed to the Rajah's daughter as a reward for killing a tiger. After much eavesdropping, skulking about, and vows of revenge, the daughter (Gamzatti) kills the bayadere (Nikiya) by concealing a poisonous snake in a basket of flowers given to Nikiya as a gift as she dances. Solor, the warrior, then dreams of being reunited with Nikiya in Paradise. Originally there was a last act in which Nikiya came as a guest to the wedding and toppled the temple, destroying all assembled, but that act disappeared in the Soviet era, and the ballet ends with the most exquisite display of classical dancing in the repertory: the Kingdom of the Shades scene, where 32 members of the corps de ballet dance the work's soul (love enduring after death) and shows the purity of one of the world's greatest ballet styles.
“Le Tombeau de Couperin,” “Tarantella,” “Bugaku,” “La Sonnambula”
New York City Ballet
New York State Theater
New York, NY
January 17, 2008
January 19, 2008 matinée
by Leigh Witchel
copyright © 2008 by Leigh Witchel
Visit France, Japan and Italy without ever leaving your seat! New York City Ballet appealed to the armchair traveler contingent of ballet-goers with “Balanchine’s World,” a varied program of four of his far-flung works from the exotic to the serene.
“Le Tombeau de Couperin” was created for the 1975 Ravel Festival; its subject is the corps de ballet. The current cast at NYCB (it was the same both performances) is mixed with more senior and junior corps dancers. All of the women have danced with the company half a decade or more. Among the men, company stalwarts Henry Seth and Kyle Froman danced with several younger men; the long legged newer crop includes Daniel Applebaum, Allen Peiffer and Austin Laurent. Troy Schumacher and Vincent Paradiso, both getting some featured parts recently, are shorter and more muscular. Block programming seems to have led to more efficient casting. At least in this program many of the corps dancers performed in the other ballets as well, a few in all three.
Franklin Talks
American Ballet Theatre--
An Evening with Frederic Franklin
Works & Process
Peter B. Lewis Theater
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum
New York NY
January 14, 2008
by David Vaughan
copyright 2008 by David Vaughan
As anyone knows who has ever spent any time with him, for Frederic Franklin to talk for a mere evening is nothing. Leslie Norton, the author of the recent biography of him and one of the panelists on this occasion, said that the first time she went to see him, he talked for eight hours. Franklin seems to remember every step of every ballet he ever danced in, and not only his own part but everyone else's, which has enabled him to stage 19th century classics and ballets from the repertory of 20th century Russian ballet companies, but he also apparently has total recall of his own career, from his early days in vaudeville and at the Casino de Paris (as one of the back-up chorus boys for Josephine Baker and Mistinguett), through cabaret in London and the first Markova-Dolin Ballet to Massine's Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo and on to the various companies for which he has been director or co-director. At the age of 93 (and a half, as he put it), he shows no sign of slowing down, whether as a régisseur or as a performer of character parts such as Friar Laurence in "Romeo and Juliet" or the Charlatan in "Petrouchka."