Andrew Bartee & Vincent Lopez in Olivier Wevers’ Monster, Whim W’him. Photo: Bamberg Fine Art

The Joyce Theater’s Ballet 6.0 is a unique festival at that has been running from Aug. 6^th  and continues till Aug 17^th. With Ballet 6.0, the Joyce Theater has gathered six small companies from around the United States that are pushing the envelope in regards to the expected of ballet. The six companies selected have or will be presenting works that range from Neo-classical to the Contemporary.

The Seattle-based company Whim W’him, founded in 2009 by former Pacific Northwest Ballet Principal Oliver Wevers, describes itself as both “entirely classic and entirely now.” The company presented three works on Aug. 12^th and 13^th, all choreographed by Mr. Wevers, Monster in 2011, Flower Festival and The Sofa in 2012.

Monster is a triptych in three duets, Society, Addiction and Relationship. It is an intriguing work that asks the question what is a monster and what does the word conjure. Seattle rap artist RA Scion wove chilling poetry with a compilation of music by Max Richter, Alva Noto and Ludovico Einaudi.

Lucien Postlewaite & Melody Mennite in Olivier Wevers’ Monster, Whim W’him. Photo: Bamberg Fine Art

The each of the three duets was beautifully danced, but it was the duet between Melody Mennite and Lucien Postlewaite that was emotionally rocking. Ms. Mennite was anguished and torn, wrapped in a love that hurt. Mr. Postlewaite would leave only to return, his fist in his mouth, afraid to speak or afraid of the words that may come out. Ms. Mennite would run and throw herself into Mr. Postlewaite’s arms, sometimes from trust and sometimes from an unhealthy need. Excellent performance by both dancers……….

The pas de deux from August Bournonville’s Flower Festival in Genzano is part of a one-act ballet created for Denmark’s Royal Ballet in 1858. Set to a score of by Edvard Helsted and Holger Simon Paulli, it is a charming love duet and a sacrosanct piece of ballet history. The pas de deux is often performed in Ballet Competitions and can be found in the repertory of some of the world’s greatest ballet companies.

Oliver Wevers’ Flower Festival is a slight reworking of that classic pas de deux. Two men, Andrew Bartee and Lucien Postlewaite, come on stage wearing business suits, each dragging a chair to their perspective corners like a pair of prize fighters. In a show of manliness, each tries to out dance the other, often with witty and engaging choreography that had me smiling ear to ear throughout.

Lucien Postlewaite & Andrew Bartee in Olivier Wevers’ Flower Festival, Whim W’ him. Photo: Bamberg Fine Art

Andrew Bartee’s comedic timing was perfect and his ability to stretch his leg up to heaven created long lines that just added to everything. Mr. Postlewaite’s response to Mr. Bartee’s silliness was to be somewhat insulted at his obnoxious behaviors.

This is a genius of a work, Mr. Wevers’ witty choreography and musicality blend here into the perfect marriage. He dissects the pas de deux, especially the partnering and then reassembles it in the most unexpected of ways. Partners move each other, maneuvering the other by their foot or with arms around their waist while the other is off-balance and fighting to regain it.

My only problem with the duet is that I had expected a stronger ending to the piece. It has been so strong that at the end, instead of a grand moment it seemed to just fizzle out.

Mr. Wevers’ The Sofa set to Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 9 was another quirky and delightful romp. The music brings to mind the great symphonic ballets as a purple velvet sofa is lifted, carried and rearranged by six dancers who acts as a Greek chorus.

Yuka Oba and Nicholas Schultz came on stage; both elegantly dressed as if going to ball. They fit together like a pair of gloves, he handsome and gallant while Ms. Oba is flirtatious and teasing.

Mr. Wevers’ choreography is organic, nothing is forced. The energies momentum would flow intrinsically through the torso and into the limbs to create smooth transition of the body in space. His use of the classical vocabulary is not academic, but instead he relies on his balletic foundation and the way his body was trained to implement, mix and blend movement into his own artistic statement.

BalletCollective’s Taylor Stanley. Photo: © Lora Robertson

There is just something special about BalletCollective that goes beyond the exquisite dancers and brilliant choreography of Troy Schumacher. There is a collective spirit, the joined endeavor of artists from different genres that come together and produce a work of shared vision. Founded in 2010 by Mr. Schumacher and the architect Kevin Draper, this collaborative idea is the heart of BalletCollective, the combined process.

On Aug. 14 and 15, as part of the Joyce Theater’s festival, Ballet 6.0, the BalletCollective’s newest work the impulse wants company was given its World Premiere. This new ballet was created via a collaborative process between Mr. Schumacher, composer Ellis Ludwig-Leone, poet Cynthia Zarin, and new music ensemble ACME.

Mr. Schumacher trained with the School of American Ballet (the official school of New York City Ballet) and he has danced with the New York City Ballet since 2005. Therefore it is with reason that Mr. Schumacher’s choreography is colored by the influences of George Balanchine and Peter Martins. Nothing is overt; you cannot say “Oh, this is a product of a NYCB trained dancer”. It is much more subtle than that, it is in his patterns, musical phrasing and choreographic choices where you see these influences.

BalletCollective Photo: © Lora Robertson

When entering the theater you are handed a card that you’re instructed to read before the piece starts, it is a poem by Cynthia Zarin, the impulse wants company. The poem embodies the sight and sounds of a day spent on a sunny, summer beach. Breaking, curly waves, the wind’s breeze, the sand curling around your toes, the singing of whales.

Mr. Schumacher’s choreography reflects these images in his movement, seven dancers break apart as a wave would when hitting the shore. They sit around the stage, individual and in rows, and with a slight motion here, an arm adjusted there, you see a ripple move across water. Mr. Schumacher is not afraid to take chances, he is more than willing to bend or blend the classical vocabulary into his unique statement.

Kaitlyn Gilliland is first seen on stage, she assumes an attitude derrière and then an arabesque, her long majestic line is perfection seen. David Prottas, who I have long wanted to see dance, bounded on stage with a youthful exuberance. He is a dancer with a rare sense of lyricism, he does more than move across the stage, he flows through his movements with seamless transitions.

BalletCollective Photo: © Lora Robertson

Taylor Stanley’s ending solo was a moment of such moving emotion. Mr. Stanley has the ability to portray both fragility and strength in the same moment. He dances with such tender emotion you are pulled into his performance. His solo became a conversation of intimacy between him and the audience. Bravo Mr. Stanley, indeed!

Mr. Schumacher and BalletCollective are creating new definitions as to what is ballet and in how ballet trained dancers
can explore and redefine movement using the classical vocabulary.

BalletCollective and Mr. Schumacher’s the impulse wants company has become one of my favorite works seen this year. My only complaint, it ended too soon…..I could of sat there half the night in undeniable joy…

BalletCollective assembles artists, poets, composers, choreographers, and designers to collaborate as equals, exchanging ideas to absorb each others’ influence throughout the creation of distinctive works of art. Founded by Troy Schumacher in 2010 and originally known as Satellite Ballet and Collective, BalletCollective has produced the collaborative work of 27 artists.

At the heart of BalletCollective lies process. Artists from different genres come together and gather ideas that are important to them as a group, a collective encouraged to think outside of what it is they usually do. In multiple combinations a composer considers graphic art, a choreographer the structure of a poem, a photographer the rhythm of a piece of music.

Each collective work develops its own organic cross-pollination process as work goes forward on a piece, with each artist asked to contribute to the work of the others and physically and digitally share what they are doing as sketches, concepts, writings, ideas, movement or measures of music. The collective effort is combined and refined, and ultimately presented to audiences. Each work’s creative life does not end at performance, but continues to be re-conceived as long as the work remains performed.

the impulses wants company

World Premiere

Choreography: Troy Schumacher

Music: Ellis Ludwig-Leone

Poem: Cynthia Zarin

Lighting: Brandon Stirling Baker

Costumes: Aritzia

Dancers:

Kaitlyn Gilliland, David Prottas, Ashley Laracey,

Meagan Mann, Lauren King, Harrison Coll, Taylor Stanley

Music Performed by ACME

BalletCollective

Filed under: Ballet Tagged: ACME, Aritzia, Ashley Laracey, Ballet 6.0, BalletCollective, Brandon Stirling Baker, Cynthia Zarin, David Prottas, Ellis Ludwig-Leone, George Balanchine, Harrison Coll, Joyce Theater, Kaitlyn Gilliland, Kevin Draper, Lauren King, Lora Robertson, Meagan Mann, New York City Ballet, NYCB, Peter Martins, Satellite Ballet and Collective, Taylor Stanley, the impulse wants company, The School of American Ballet, Troy Schumacher

Maria Tallchief in George Balanchine’s Le Baiser de la Fée, one of many ballets in which the choreographer explored woman as muse and as unattainable object, a theme that is interwoven with his marriages to dancers for whom he created works, including Tallchief, who was married to Balanchine from 1946 to 1951. (Photograph by Maurice Seymour. Ann Barzel Dance Research Collection, The Newberry Library, Chicago.)

Maria Tallchief is an American Indian prima ballerina who became one of the seminal stars at New York City Ballet and went on to nurture ballet in Chicago. Born on January 24, 1925, in Fairfax, Oklahoma, Tallchief began studying dance with Bronislava Nijinska in Los Angeles. She joined the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, where she caught the eye of choreographer George Balanchine, who would become her husband in 1946 and who would choreograph many significant works for her. She was a vital presence in the early years of New York City Ballet in the 1950s, originating the role of the Sugar Plum Fairy in Balanchine’s Nutcrackeras well as her signature role, the Firebird, in Balanchine’s version of the ballet. She was hailed by critics and beloved by audiences for her seemingly effortless grace, her dedication, musicality, and a stage presence described by both Lincoln Kirstein and critic Walter Terry as “electrifying.” After leaving NYCB (and divorcing Balanchine), she danced with the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo and American Ballet Theatre, retiring in 1965. She went on to become artistic director of the Chicago Lyric Opera Ballet in 1975, and the founder and artistic director of Chicago City Ballet in 1981. Since 1990 she has been associated with the Chicago Festival Ballet.

Maria Tallchief in George Balanchine’s The Four Temperaments. Tallchief danced the role of Sanguinic in early performances of the ballet, which featured elaborate costumes later replaced by plain leotards. Tallchief recounted how Balanchine worked intensively to develop and transform her technique, making her one of the first ballerinas to embody the choreographer’s trademark style. (Ann Barzel Dance Research Collection, The Newberry Library, Chicago.)

Matthew Bourne’s SLEEPING BEAUTY – Photo by Simon Annand

Matthew Bourne stated “I am delighted to announce that we will be bringing the entire original cast with us on this much anticipated tour of the USA. I am passionate about fresh, young dance talent and this company of New Adventures performers represents the finest actor/dancers working in the UK today. It has been my dream for many years to complete this Tchaikovsky trilogy of masterworks, and I couldn’t be more proud to share this particular piece with American audiences, as part of my company’s 25th Anniversary celebrations.”

Matthew Bourne’s Sleeping Beauty, set to the music of Tchaikovsky complete the trio of the composer’s ballet masterworks that started in 1992 with Nutcracker! and includes the 1995 international hit Swan Lake.

Mr. Bourne’s has reworked Tchaikovsky’s Sleeping Beauty into a gothic tale for all ages; the traditional tale of good vs. evil and rebirth is turned upside-down, creating a supernatural love story, set across the decades, that even the passage of time itself cannot hinder.

Matthew Bourne’s SLEEPING BEAUTY – Photo by Simon Annand

Matthew Bourne’s new scenario introduces several characters not seen in Petipa’s famous ballet or Grimm’s fairy tale. The Royal Family is headed by King Benedict and Queen Eleanor. Princess Aurora’s romantic interest is not a Prince, but the royal gamekeeper, Leo and representing the central forces of good and evil are Count Lilac (“the King of the Fairies”) and the Dark Fairy Carabosse. In another innovation, Bourne has created the character of Caradoc, the sinister but charming son of Carabosse. Princess Aurora’s Fairy Godparents are named Ardor, Hibernia, Autumnus, Feral and Tantrum.

Creating the central role of Aurora in this new production are Hannah Vassallo and Ashley Shaw.

The leading role of’Leo will be performed by Dominic North and Chris Trenfield.

Count Lilac will be portrayed by Christopher Marney and Liam Mower.

Matthew Bourne’s SLEEPING BEAUTY

Oct. 23 – Nov. 3, 2013

New York City Center

West 55th Street

BTW 6th & 7th Aves.

To commemorate the 12^th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the New York City Ballet at dawn on September 12 released a film, New Beginnings, of two of its principals dancing at sunrise on the 57^th floor terrace of Four World Trade Center, now under construction in lower Manhattan.

In the film, two NYCB principal dancers, Maria Kowroski and Ask la Cour, perform an excerpt from After the Rain, Christopher Wheeldon’s pas de deux.  Their backdrop is the New York City skyline and One World Trade Center, which was formerly known as the Freedom Tower, and which, upon completion, will be the tallest skyscraper in North America, 1,776 feet high with its mast.

New Beginnings has an international team of collaborators–including director Davi Russo, a native New Yorker; Christopher Wheeldon, a British choreographer; Maria Kowroski, an American dancer; and Ask la Cour, a Danish dancer—as well as a score by Arvo Part, an Estonian composer.

Sergei Polunin’s first rehearsal in Siberia. Picture: Viktor Dmitriyev, Novosibirsk Opera and Ballet Theatre

Leaving Ukraine at the tender age of 13 to join London’s Royal Ballet School, Sergei Polunin became the youngest-ever principal dancer in the history of the Royal Ballet at 19, earning him comparisons to 20th century greats Mikhail Baryshnikov and Rudolf Nureyev.

In this touching portrait by artist and director Jem Goulding, Polunin reflects on early triumphs, autonomy and “playing with journalists” while performing at Moscow’s Stanislavsky Theatre. Known for his visceral, adrenaline-charged technique and emotive style, the dance prodigy is making a return to ballet since his controversial departure from London’s Royal supertroupe last year.

Goulding assembled footage from a week spent with Polunin on and off the stage in Moscow, where he is currently under the mentorship of Igor Zelensky, the artistic director of the Stanislavsky Ballet. “Sergei was in the middle of an intense rehearsal schedule for his tour of Coppelia, and I sat in on rehearsals every day,” explains the filmmaker, “though I always planned to catch him outside of ballet; sometimes we would be at a restaurant, other times he was fresh out of the shower after training, and tired.”

Shooting on Super 8 and her 16mm Bolex camera, Goulding depicts a seldom seen side of Polunin: From candid moments in Red Square to a spontaneous tour of the Bolshoi. “Sergei is an adrenaline junkie, a thrill-seeker and fearless in many ways,” she adds, “even if some of it comes from youthful naivety, it’s still compelling.”

Matthew Golding in Paquita, with the Dutch National Ballet © Angela Sterling

Canadian dancer Matthew Golding is to join The Royal Ballet as a Principal in February 2014. His first performance will be on 27 March, dancing alongside Natalia Osipova in The Sleeping Beauty.Canadian dancer’s first performance will be in The Sleeping Beauty later this Season.

Matthew is currently a principal dancer with Dutch National Ballet. He trained at the Royal Winnipeg Ballet and in Washington D.C. at the Universal Ballet Academy. In 2002 he was awarded the Grand Prix from the Youth American Ballet Competition and received a prize scholarship at The Prix de Lausanne to attend The Royal Ballet School. Graduating in 2003, he joined American Ballet Theatre before moving to his current company in 2009. Matthew first danced as a Guest Artist with The Royal Ballet, partnering Zenaida Yanowsky in La Bayadère, earlier this year.

Speaking about the appointment, Kevin O’Hare said:

I have very much enjoyed watching Matthew dance over last few years, and in particular, when he made his UK debut with us last Season.  I am very pleased he is joining the Company and we look forward to welcoming him next year as the latest addition to our world class roster of Principals.”

The Sleeping Beauty is on stage 22 February – 9 April 2014. General booking opens 14 January.

The Forsythe Company: Fabrice Mazliah Photo Credit: Julieta Cervantes

William Forsythe’s Sider takes place in universe unbeknownst to the average human. It is a place of defined rules that are known only to those who live in that universe. To us mere spectators, it is a place of mystery, sometimes confusion and seemingly fueled by the unexpected.

The stage is stripped bare, anything extraneous has been removed. Large pieces of cardboard are used to define space, shield the body, kicked and pounded upon to create complex rhythms and sometimes pushed sideways across the floor to create a squeaky-sliding noise. The cardboards are a definition of space; geometric planes used as movable perimeters that can are utilized to create architectural imagery and structure.

The Forsythe Company: (foreground) l-r, Dana Caspersen, Fabrice Mazliah, Frances Chiaverini Photo Credit: Julieta Cervantes

Above the stage is a light object created by Spencer Finch, fluorescent lights hung in a series of rows, all are white but flicker briefly, like fireflies, with different colors, magenta, blue, red. The actual lighting design is by Ulf Naumann and Tanja Rühl. In the beginning the stage is very bright, more like standing in the sun at noon. But throughout the 70 minute piece the lighting becomes an aspect to the work that is fundamental to the whole. It is a transient element, like breath, the lighting rises and dims, sometimes almost to a full blackout only to resurge to full brightness. It is akin to a body that holds its breath, only to release it and then breathe deeply.

It would be unfair to attempt to compare Sider to any of Mr. Forsythe’s previous works such as Artifact (1984) or Impressing the Czar (1988), both of which redefined ballet for the 21^st Century. That is not a product of Forsythe from the past, this is the present Forsythe, the Forsythe that pushes boundaries, explores new forms of movement and challenges the concept as to what is expected of dance.

The Forsythe Company: l-r, Josh Johnson, Yasutake Shimaj Photo Credit: Julieta Cervantes

Sider is based on the rhythmic inflections of Elizabethan theater. Unheard by the audience, the rhythms of a 16th-century Elizabethan tragedy is delivered to the dancers via earphones. (I was told that in a pre-show talk Mr. Forsythe revealed the play to be the 1969 film of Hamlet with Marianne Faithfull as Ophelia and Nico Williamson as Hamlet.)

Longtime Forsythe collaborator Thom Willems performed the “public” score live. Mr. Willems live score is ominous, it slides in and out of the work like a waves on the breach. On moment it is crashing, loud, cannot be ignored and other times it is like the gentle lapping of soft waves, present but not the center of your attention, just a part of that moment in time.

The Forsythe Company: l-r, Brigel Gjoka, Ander Zabala, David Kern Photo Credit: Julieta Cervantes

At first the work is fascinating, a controlled chaos of moving bodies and created sound, the unexpected is novel, the kicking of the cardboard, the arbitrary aspects of dancers enter and leaving the stage. The mind seeks to establish patterns, regularities, consistency, but none are found. Voices are heard, an ongoing dialogue in German (I think…) tossed between the dancers, fragments of thought made vocal.

David Kern is the messenger, his pieces of cardboards have printed words, in disarray or is and is not are just two. Mr. Kern is the crazed bag man who lives down the street or in the sub-way; all New Yorkers have seen him. He stands in the middle of a crowd and has a rather contentious disagreement with himself. As his two alternate selves argue, Mr. Kern uses his piece of cardboard as a door, on the right side he would be this person, on the left the other person, each character had very strong opinions complete with different voices. He was absolutely brilliant….

The Forsythe Company: l-r Yasutake Shimaji, Cyril Baldy, Josh Johnson Photo Credit: Julieta Cervantes

A light board in the upper rear right-stage corner periodical shows cryptic statements such as …she is to them as they are to us, he is to that as this is to him, these are to them as they are to us, what are these to them or they to her, they were and they weren’t…

At the thirty minute mark, all the confusion and disarray has lost its novelty and the work has becoming boring and I worry this will go on for  another forty more minutes, but then a change in intensity happens. Energy is upped and dancers are going everywhere.

Dancers angle their cardboard pieces into something resembling the bow of a ship and slowly move forward, all the way to the edge of the stage, then past the edge of the stage. The mystical fourth wall has been shattered. Dancers are in the aisle, Fabrice Mazliah is sitting on a woman in the first row’s lap, and seemingly the two are caring on a very polite conversation.

The Forsythe Company: l-r Yasutake Shimaji, Cyril Baldy, Josh Johnson Photo Credit: Julieta Cervantes

William Forsythe’s Sider is a work that has to be allowed to stand on its own merits. Is it truly dance or is it Movement Theater, I think that was just Mr. Forsythe’s goal, to have us, the audience question what is and what is not dance. A lot of the choreography seems more improvisational than actual choreographed steps, I not saying it is improvised, I’m just saying it looks like it.

“If dance only does what we assume it can do, it will expire. I keep trying to test the limits of what the word choreography means.” —William Forsythe in The New York Times

With the founding of The Forsythe Company in 2005, William Forsythe established a new, agile structure through which he is able to further pursue the multi-faceted creative work he began with Ballett Frankfurt. Together with an ensemble of 17 dancers, Forsythe carries forward the intensive collaborative processes developed over 30 years, producing works in the areas of performance, installation, film, and educational media. Forsythe’s most recent works are developed and performed exclusively by The Forsythe Company.

Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet in Johan Inger’s “Rain Dogs”; Photo by Jim Stott. Courtesy of Cedar Lake, Inc.

My admiration for the Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet  is no secret. So I was thrilled when I received an invitation to the first Work In Progress for the 2013/2014 Passport Series, featuring the restaging of Swedish choreographer Johan Inger’s Rain Dogs.

Performed to the richly textured music of Tom Waits, Rain Dogs is an homage to “the urban dispossessed.” Each song brings another scene, linked through movement, that captures both parody and sympathy for the myriad of characters who populate the work. Portraits of men and women and their relationships evolve through movement that explores both graceful suppleness and grotesque dislocation. In a series of intimate vignettes, Mr. Inger creates a quirky study of what it is to be human.

Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet’s Acacia Schachte in Johan Inger’s “Rain Dogs”; Photo by Ally Duffey. Courtesy of Cedar Lake, Inc.

Rain Dogs is work that is complex in its simplicity. There is an element of the everyday, a study of the human condition that allows for parody and intense honesty that underlies that parody. That which is inherent and innate to being human gets dissected and then brought into microscopic view.

The stage had become a smoky world where shadows can conceal but never truly hide the realities of life. A line of dancers, all facing forward explore Tom Waits’ Step Right Up with arms and upper body only. A couple breaks loose to perform a duet of fast moves that utilizes the whole body. These two then run back through the line of dancers and in doing so gather a third to become a trio.

Gender roles are as interchangeable as costumes, while dancing in a group, one dancer runs off and returns in his underwear and this continues till all dancers are in their underwear. Then Jon Bond runs of and reappears in a red dress. Ebony Williams, as if refusing to be outdone by Bond runs and reappears in a man’s coat and trousers. Eventually everyone has changed to the opposite genders’ clothing.

Johan Inger’s Rain Dogs is surprising in its unexpectedness. The whimsy of the choreography is true to the remarkable stories that makeup Tom Wait’s songs. Mr. Waits’ deep raspy voice is matched by choreography that is as thought-provoking as his lyrics. The movement is intrinsic, an exploration of the inner landscape, the body’s portrayal of emotion, of thought, of irony.

Johan Inger made his breakthrough as a choreographer in 1995 after a very successful dancing career at the Nederlands Dans Theater (NDT). Inger’s choreographies have won numerous prestigious awards. Between 2003 and 2008 he was the artistic director of the Cullberg Ballet. Since autumn 2009 he holds the position as Associate Choreographer with Nederlands Dans Theater.

Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet in Johan Inger’s “Rain Dogs”; Photo by Ally Duffey. Courtesy of Cedar Lake, Inc.

Cedar Lake’s Passport series creates a window into the process of creation and the work of the dance company. The series includes events such as Work In Progress showings and Previews that take you behind the scenes and offer you unprecedented access to Cedar Lake’s internationally renowned guest choreographers.

Be sure to catch Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet at the BAM, June 11-14, 2014.

TICKETS & INFO

The National Ballet of Cuba (BNC), directed by prima ballerina assoluta Alicia Alonso, will begin on September 6 a tour of the main theaters of Spain, to be run until December.

By Ivette Leyva Martinez (Café Fuerte)

HAVANA TIMES — Members of Cuba’s National Ballet Company (BNC) – currently on tour in Spain – have approached director Alicia Alonso with an urgent petition calling for improvements in work conditions and denouncing favoritism and irregularities in the handling of the company’s budget.

An email sent by BNC members to numerous officials at Cuba’s Ministry of Culture describes the poor living conditions dancers endure during performances abroad, demands raises in salary and denounces the privileges enjoyed by the company manager Oscar Perez.

The letter, dated November 18, was prompted by Perez’ decision to withhold a bonus for the dancers on tour and was also addressed to the company’s Human Resources Department.

This week, the text of the letter, forwarded via email, began to circulate around Cuba’s cultural sphere.

No Cut of the Profits

“In a threatening and far from humble tone, [Perez] told us that ‘no one will get any gifts, so stop asking’, as though the money belonged to him and we were not entitled to a cut of the profits made by the company, like the 26,000 euros paid for the Cadiz performance, for instance,” the message reads.

The “gifts” the dancers refer to consists in around 50 euros for each performer, to be paid at the end of the tour, in dependence of the earnings.

“What huge damage could it cause the company to destine 4 or 5 thousand euros to give us a tiny gift, after a three-month tour, where we made our country and, most importantly, our company proud, and without the most ideal working conditions?” the authors add.

A source who worked with the dancers in Spain confirmed the authenticity of the message and said the young performers simply got fed up of waiting for work conditions to improve.

“They used a group strategy. Since no one wants to be the one who rocks the boat, fearing they will be expelled from the company, they did it together. The management has neglected the main performers in the company for many years,” the source, who asked to remain anonymous, said.

National Ballet of Cuba – Shakespeare and His Masks

A Long Tour

The letter also reports that Perez’ wife traveled as a member of the company. According to information obtained by CafeFuerte, Mrs. Perez was in Spain from September 7 to October 28, when she returned to Havana.

“Does anyone ever hear that Oscar [Perez] has bought something at the “souvenir shop”? No, no. But you will certainly see him or his wife shopping at luxury malls, going to boutiques like Fossil, Zara, Massimo Dutti and others, stores where 98% of the company has never even set foot in,” the message adds.

The BNC’s Spain tour began on September 7 and will come to an end on December 2, when the company is scheduled to return to Cuba. The performances include Swan Lake, Coppelia and Giselle (the Alicia Alonso versions), as well as Shakespeare and His Masks.

The dancers have performed in Barcelona, Madrid, Alicante, Granada, Murcia, Seville, San Cugat, Pamplona, San Sebastian, Bilbao, Albacete, Valladolid. They are scheduled to perform at the Niemeyer Center in Aviles this coming Friday.

The main dancers on tour are Anette Delgado, Viengsay Valdés, Yanela Piñera, Dani Hernandez, Jose Lozada, Arian Molina, Camilo Ramos, Victor Estevez, Grettel Morejon and Jessie Dominguez.

Eating, Shopping and Saving

“Alicia, we have had to dance under conditions you can’t even imagine. We’ve had 14-hour trips in horribly uncomfortable buses and God knows we eat terribly, because the 30 euros we get a day do not remotely give us enough to eat, shop and save up a bit, things we have to do because, as you know, life in Cuba is not free,” the letter reads.

The 92-year-old Alonso was on an international tour, in celebration of the 70th anniversary of her debut in Giselle with the American Ballet Theater Company in New York on November 2, 1943. She returned to Havana this past November 10.

Desertions by BNC dancers are ever more frequent. In May, seven company members crossed the Mexican border to request asylum in the United States. The dancers immediately joined ballet companies in Florida.

The promising young dancer Osiel Gouneo also (though more discretely) left the company while on tour and is today a member of Norway’s National Ballet company, as are his fellow dancers Yolanda Correa and Yoel Carreño. An additional five dancers left the company while on tour in Canada in 2011.

Alicia Alonso, with American Ballet Theater in 1955. She gave her final performance in 1995, when she was 75. Photo: Walter E. Owens

TEXT OF THE LETTER BY CUBAN BALLET DANCERS TO ALICIA ALONSO

Dear Alicia,

Our respectable director, the authors of this letter are members of Cuba’s ballet company. We apologize for choosing to remain anonymous. Common sense and the need to maintain the benefits that the tours afford us have forced us to conceal our identities.

We won’t make this letter long or tedious. We will go straight to the point and try to be concise.

We write you this letter and take up your time this way because, since the beginning of our meetings in Havana, Mr. Oscar Perez has been telling us he will not give us the “gift” which dancers have been receiving in recent tours, which we both want and need.

Alicia, all of the members of the company on tour in Spain almost unanimously beg you to intervene and convince Oscar Perez to agree to give us the “gift.”

You should know that we have had to grin and bear how Mr. Oscar Perez, with all the nerve and arrogance in the world, boasts of how his wife (the prima donna, we call her) is taking part in tour. I hope he doesn’t think anyone buys the story that she was invited by so-and-so and all that business.

We would be interested in knowing how many times you’ve heard Mr. Perez talk about what he cooks in his hotel room to be able to save some money, as most of the dancers on tour do. We can assure you that he has NEVER done this, and that he does not return to Cuba penniless, no, no. We can also assure you that Solano [businessman] and Mayda [Bustamante, former BNC official who has been residing in Spain since 1992], are not exactly the most generous people in the world and that they do not pay for all his lunches and dinners.

Does anyone ever hear that Oscar [Perez] has bought something at the “souvenir shop”? No, no. But you will certainly see him or his wife shopping at luxury malls, going to boutiques like Fossil, Zara, Massimo Dutti and others, stores where 98 % of the company has never even set foot in

Nor are you aware that, in a threatening and far from humble tone, [Perez] told us that ‘no one will get any gifts, so stop asking’, as though the money belonged to him and we were not entitled to a cut of the profits made by the company, like the 26,000 euros paid for the Cadiz performance, for instance, or the huge earnings made from ticket sales in Sevilla and many other places.”

We won’t overwhelm you with more details.

Alicia, we have had to dance under conditions you can’t even imagine. We’ve had 14-hour trips in horribly uncomfortable buses and God knows we eat terribly, because the 30 euros we get a

day do not remotely give us enough to eat, shop and save up a bit, things we have to do because, as you know, life in Cuba is not free.

We do not know and do not care about the large sums of money that anyone with a bit of brains knows our “great” manager earns – let everyone fend for themselves as they can. But, Alicia, we ask you, what huge damage could it cause the company to destine 4 or 5 thousand euros to give us a tiny gift, after a three-month tour, where we made our country and, most importantly, our company proud, and without the most ideal working conditions?

We hope you will not disapprove of this letter. We have tried to avoid taking this step, but, believe us, we very much need this more than deserved “gift.”

We apologize for bothering you with this and have full confidence you will help us in this matter.

The members of your company.

Canto Vital

(Song of Nature)

Performed during the

Havana International Ballet Competition 2012

Presentación de «Canto vital» en el Gran Teatro de La Habana, el 7 de noviembre de 2010, durante la Gala de clausura del 22 Festival Internacional de Ballet..AIN FOTO/Roberto MOREJON RODRIGUEZ

Choreography: Azari Plisetsky

Music: Gustav Mahler

Rondo finale from 5th Symphony in C

 Dancers

Naturaleza :Arián Molina in Red

Fiera: José Losada in Yellow

Ave: Osiel Gounod in Blue

Pez: Yanier Gómez in Green

 The program notes described the work as an “exploration of expressive possibilities within male dancing.”

Choreographer Azari Plisetsky, brother of the great Bolshoi ballerina Maya Plisetskaya, is from a family of Russian actors and dancers. Mr. Plisetsky danced with the Bolshoi Ballet and joined the Ballet Nacional de Cuba after the Alonsos toured the Soviet Union. The Alonsos had requested that a dancer from there join the Bolshoi Ballet join the company as well as teach at the school. Mr. Plisetsky assumed the responsibility of teaching the men’s classes and helped develop the program at Cubacán (the First National School of Arts in Cuba), while at the same time partnering Alicia and setting choreography on the company.

Zhao Ruheng, Artistic Director of the National Ballet © Photo courtesy of the National Ballet of China

In the last act of Swan Lake, the Black Swan must perform 32 fouettes — in other words, spin 32 times on one toe and do it gracefully.

Zhao Ruheng, China’s star dancer in the 1960s, surpassed that count and made it to 35. It is one of the most difficult and famous finales in ballet, and the last Western ballet Zhao would ever perform before China’s Cultural Revolution drew the curtain on her career as a dancer.

“My teacher stood below the stage because she was afraid I would fall. I kept turning and they were shocked,” Zhao says of her final act in 1963.

Zhao, now retired at 66, was one of China’s first prima ballerinas. At the age of 11, she began her career when the Beijing Dance Academy scouted her hometown in the northern port city of Tianjin in search of young talent. She soon graduated with the first class at the National Ballet of China, the country’s premier ballet company, founded in 1959.

Zhao Ruheng (the current company director) in an old version of Swan Lake © Photo courtesy of the National Ballet of China

“The history of ballet in China is not long, but it has gone through a lot because China is not like other countries. Its history has made us who we are. We did not replicate the West. Chinese ballet tells its own stories,” Zhao tells CBS News.

Along with performing traditional Western ballets — Swan Lake and Sylvia, for instance — the company also references the country’s tumultuous history through performances of distinctly Chinese shows like the “Red Detachment of Women” and “Raise the Red Lantern.”

“The first time we performed outside of China was in Burma in 1961. It was an amazing outdoor stage under the big golden spires,” Zhao recalls.

Although she devoted her entire life to the company, Zhao’s career peaked when she was just 19, when she was named the principal dancer for Swan Lake in 1963.

“The happiest moment for a ballerina is when she is chosen to be the principle dancer. That was my greatest wish.” But Zhao’s luck was soon eclipsed by Mao’s fervor to uproot longstanding cultural, economic and social norms in China. Ten days after Zhao’s first performance of Swan Lake, the Cultural Revolution began. “You could say that my happiest moment quickly became my saddest moment.”

During the Cultural Revolution, everything reminiscent of the West was reviled. People deemed intellectuals or bourgeois were sent to “reeducation” camps to do hard labor. The country spiraled into complete chaos for more than a decade until Mao’s death in 1976.

he Peony Pavillion by the the National Ballet of China at the Edinburgh Festival

“It was a very stressful time. It’s not like now, where young people have all these choices. We had absolutely no choice back then. We had no computer, no television and we just listened to propaganda,” Zhao said, “We were not allowed to perform Swan Lake.”

Many in her ballet troop became easy targets for criticism by the government, according to Zhao. Mao mobilized the Red Guards to police those who did not follow his mandate of creating a classless society.

“During the Cultural Revolution everything was regimented. We could not wear tight fitting clothes to practice. Every day before practice we would read Mao’s works. After practice we would have to sing songs praising Mao.” While the ballerinas practiced their form, the Red Guards stood watch.

With the frenzy of the Cultural Revolution overtaking the country, the troop was ordered to perform only the Red Detachment of Women, a ballet towing the Communist Party line.

The National Ballet of China rehearses “The Red Detachment of Women” at the Kennedy Center. (Daniel Schwartz/)

The group of dancers, musicians and actors were forced to walk from township to township, hauling their instruments and costumes on their backs. After performing in one town the ballerinas would set out on dirt roads to get to the next town by nightfall and the routine would start all over again.

“At that time we would wear our ballet shoes performing on the snow covered ground. Today you would never think of doing such a thing, but back then we had no choice-we had to do it.”

For many in the countryside, this was their first encounter to the traditionally western art form. The ballerina’s wore cotton peasant clothes and danced in their hand-crafted ballet slippers that their Russian teachers taught them how to make.

“In every town 20,000 to 30,000 people sat below the stage and watched us perform in the freezing cold weather,” Zhao said, “It was all outdoors in the light of day.”

These poor working conditions along with the long treks from one township to the next eventually led to the demise of Zhao’s dancing career. By 1971, Zhao had permanently injured her right leg.

“My injury ultimately was the embodiment of that time. I had become a sacrifice of the Cultural Revolution,” said Zhao, who underwent two operations to save her leg-both attempts were unsuccessful.

Despite the dark past of the National Ballet of China, Zhao speaks with pride about the troop’s contribution to the world of ballet and the respect it has gained from performing original works expressing China’s history.

“The other lasting memory in my career was in 2008 to2009. This feeling of (…the National Ballet of China…) being respected and compared to the English National Ballet and Paris Opera Ballet was a very proud moment for me,” Zhao said, “Looking back it now, you could say it was fate.”

This story was written by CBS News’ Connie Young in Beijing.

Complexions Contemporary Ballet’s Edgar Anido, Photo: Melissa Bartucci

If I were Dwight Rhoden, after reading Gia Kourlas’ review in the New York Times, I would find it very hard to even contemplate getting out of bed, ever again. If I were Dwight Rhoden I would make like an ostrich and just pull the blankets over my head and moan…insistently! But I am not Dwight Rhoden! Dwight Rhoden is made of much firmer stuff then I!

First and foremost, I WANT TO ASSURE MR. RHODEN….not everyone agrees with Gia Kourlas. (…I mean does she ever like anything…). The Complexions Contemporary Ballet’s two week run at the Joyce Theater, Nov.19 – Dec 1, 2013 presented some of the most amazing dancing and intriguing choreography I have seen this year! Point blank, period!

It must be stated that what makes Complexions Contemporary Ballet Company so unique, besides the exceptionally gifted dancers, is the make-up of those dancers in the company. There is no uniform look to the dancers. The dancers range in height from the wonderfully tall Terk Waters to the compact but powerful Edgar Anido. There is the magnificence found in every move and gesture of Jourdan Epstein, who is not a small woman and then there is Samantha Figgins who cannot be categorized except as brilliant in everything she does. The company’s makeup is much like the name, Complexions, all types; the thread that unifies the company is the exceedingly gifted dancers the company employs.

Complexions Contemporary Ballet’s Mark Caserta in Jae Man Joo’s “Recur”, Photo: Paul B. Goode

Jae Moon Joo, the company’s Associate Artistic Director and Ballet Master presented two works this season, the New York Premier of his 2013 work, Recur and a reworking of his 2012 work, Flight.

Recur is 32 minute work with lighting by Micheal Korsch and music by Kieth Kenniff, Nils Frahm, Max Richter, Valentine Silverstrov and Zoe Keating. The work played with light and shadow, when the curtain rises the dancers are moving slowly about the stage, their backs facing the audience. They moved with shuffling steps, shoulders hunched over like overly medicated inmates of an insane asylum.

The imagery in Recur is haunting, it is not a disturbing work, but instead it is a work that does not leave your mind’s eye quickly. The choreography varies from intensely beautiful lyricism to rapid, mesmerizing uses of the body in space.

Complexions Contemporary Ballet’s Terk Waters, Photo: Jae Man Joo

Terk Waters performed a solo of such amazing agility and focus that your eyes are glued to his every move. He possesses such a wonderful facility for dance with his towering six-foot plus frame, but it is the inner fire that brings him to prominence. There is greatness in Terk Waters; you see it in the smallest of motions, the tilt of the head, the breath in-held at just the right moment, a gesture of the hand. This is an artist to watch……

Now about the reworking of Jae Moon Joo’s Flight…..I have to say I was greatly disappointed. I remember the work from last year’s season and I had made it a priority to see it again this year. I was really looking forward to it. I remember the beauty of Mark Caserta’s back muscles moving as if of their own accord and the shadows created by overhead lighting.

Last year’s Flight consisted of an interconnected pair of solos for Mark Caserta and Norbert De La Cruz III, this year’s Flight is a trio of interconnected solos for Jourdan Epstein, Samantha Figgins and Terk Waters. The dancing was fine and if the work had been given another name and said to have been a completely new work I might have enjoyed it. Where last year’s Flight, a work for two men, was so memorable; I cannot say the same for the 2013 reworking.

I realize that the beginning and ending solos were the same choreography as in last year’s version, just performed by women while Terk Water’s solo was new material. I just missed the powerful, but concise work for two men, I can only hope Mr. Joo does not discard the 2012 version entirely.

Dwight Rhoden’s Moon Over Jupiter, with music by Rachmaninov, was the only work in the evening’s performance with the women en pointe. It begins most mysteriously, three women up stage, partly in shadows and three men downstage, their body’s bent over, almost into a ball but lifted off the floor by only their hands. The men, very slowly, straighten their legs making a wide V, still lifted off the floor by only their hands then roll backwards, inverting their body so their feet are straight up into the air.

As in most of Mr. Rhoden’s work, Moon Over Jupiter possesses a mysterious sense of mysticism, a deep probing of the divine, a searching of the inner findings of the spirit. But, it is Mark Caserta’s solo that takes your breath away. He begins with swiping arms into a turn, then his leg is thrown back into an arabesque that somehow becomes a pirouette en attitude.  He has a rare quality not often found in male dancers and that is the flexibility of his upper back. The way he uses his upper back muscles in his dancing is a thing of beauty, the sudden arch of his back at the top of turn that propels him forward.

Complexions Contemporary Ballet, Photo: Melissa Bartucci

There is something almost Balanchine in Mr. Rhoden’s use of the body in space for this piece. It is found is the way the women, when partnered with the men, move independent of them but still remain engaged. Terk Waters may guide Jordan Epstein, but is Ms. Epstein that allows the guidance. It is a display of independent energies that become united by joint decision.

I have seen Ms. Epstein dance many times, but it was in this performance, as she was dancing en pointe that I recognized what a gifted technician and how emotional of a dancer she is. Bravo Ms. Epstein.

Ashley Mayuex is a new company member that joined Complexions this year and a very exciting addition I think she will become. Ms. Mayuex dances with a lyricism and strength that was wonderful to witness.

In Moon Over Jupiter, Mr. Rhoden applies the classical vocabulary via a strong abstract approach, both in the actual construction of the choreography as well as the architecture of the work. When several dancers are on stage, two are moving in unison up stage, three are moving in chorus, but from different positions around the stage and a duet between a man and woman are all occurring within the same phrases of music. It is a non-linear work of same theme fragments, but connected in such a way I am reminded of the steam of consciousness writings of Gertrude Stein, William Faulkner or William S. Burroughs.

I was able to see Mr. Rhoden’s Innervision with music by Stevie Wonder twice. The first time was the second night of the two-week season at the Joyce, I thought it a fun work, but a little too long. But, that was the first time I saw the work…

The second time I saw the work was the next week, after the dancers had performed the work several times and what a difference. When a choreographer displays a new work, that is not the finished work, it goes through many incarnations, with many notes given. This was a perfect example of that process.

Edgar Anido and Complexions Contemporary Ballet, Photo: Melissa Bartucci

The dancers came alive during the second performance. They were dancing from the sheer joy of dancing. Edgar Anido, one of my favorite male dancers on the scene today was so amazing, so enticing, I wanted to get up and dance with him. He shamelessly flirted with the front row beckoning people to come dance with him. His solo received loud applauds and some yowzers when he ran off stage. His turns were spot on and his leaps soared through the air. But, it was the simple fact that Mr. Anido displayed such unbridled joy in his dancing that was so contagious. Bravo indeed Mr. Anido.

Dwight Rhoden’s Innervision is a fun work, a perfect way to end an evening of superb dancing….

But, it has to be stated that though the women are exceptional, it is the men who are the stars of this company. Remember this company began as a vehicle for fellow Artistic Director/Co-Founder Desmond Richardson. One of the great male dancers of his generation, and I hear he is often the one teaching company class, so the training of these dancers is impeccable…

Deadline  for  Applications:  March  30,  2014

Deadline for applicants is March 30, 2014 and instructions may be viewed on the website.  Kozlova has produced three very successful ballet competitions, and now goes modern with a competition for contemporary dancers and choreographers. The competition will take place….

April 28 & 29, 2014

Symphony Space

2537 Broadway, NYC.

Dancers and choreographers may submit 2 solos, not more than 2 1/2 minutes each in length, or a pas de deux, not to exceed 3 1/2 minutes.   For group dances of 3 or more, time limit is 4 1/2 minutes.    Dancers may perform either barefoot or in soft shoes and, unlike the ballet competition, there is no age restriction.

Judges:

Andris Liepa

Honorary Chair, Former Principal Dancer with the Bolshoi Ballet

Patricia Aulestia

President of the Mexican Federation of Dance Professional

Nina Buisson

Internationally Known Choreographer

Tracy Inman

 Co-director, Alvin Ailey Dance School

Hae Shik Kim

Founding Dean of the Korean National University of Arts, School of Dance

Virginie Mecene

 Director, Martha Graham Dance School

Wendy Perron

 Dancer/Choreographer, Former Editor of Dance Magazine

Igal Perry

 Choreographer & Director of Peridance School & Peridance Contemporary Dance Company

Risa Steinberg

Associate Artistic Director, Dance Department at The Juilliard School

Margo Sappington

Internationally Known Choreographer

Septime Webre

Artistic Director, Washington Ballet

Prizes will include
Scholarships at the Graham School, the Ailey School & Peridance.

For information or the application, please visit www.vkibc.org
phone: 212.245.0050
250 West 54th Street, 5th floor
New York New York 10019

David Donnelly in La Destinee. Photograph : Johan Persson

David Donnelly is a phenomenally talented young dancer that I first saw when he performed during the finals of the 2012 Youth American Grand Prix. His technical abilities combined with his unique artistry brought him to the attention of the competition’s panel of international judges and was awarded the Outstanding Contemporary Dancer Award for his performance of Susie Payne’s Ch’i.

The 2012 Youth American Grand Prix awarded Mr. Donnelly the Richard and Julia MacDonald Scholarship which allowed him to study at The Royal Ballet Upper School. Roles while at the School included Man (Mark Annear’s La Destinée) in the 2013 annual matinee. After completing his studies at The Royal Ballet School he graduated into the Royal Ballet Company in 2013.

Mr. Donnelly’s repertory with the Royal Ballet Company has included roles in Don Quixote, Romeo and Juliet and The Rite of Spring.

The Royal Ballet School was established in 1931 and is one of the most respected ballet academies in the world. Some of the School’s most acclaimed alumni include Dame Margot Fonteyn, Darcey Bussell, and Alessandra Ferri.  Kevin O’Hare became Director of The Royal Ballet on the retirement of Monica Mason in July 2012.

The Richard and Julia MacDonald Scholarship was established in support of the world-renowned Royal Ballet School to help promote the dreams of aspiring and talented dancers pursue a career in ballet. American sculptor Richard MacDonald has devoted his career to figurative art, which celebrates the beauty of the human spirit and has a close affinity with the expressive qualities of dance.

American Dancer David Donnelly joins the Royal Ballet in 2013.

Youth America Grand Prix (YAGP) is the world’s largest student ballet scholarship competition that awards over $250,000 annually in scholarships to leading dance schools worldwide. The competition is held annually around the world and in New York City, and is open to dance students of all nationalities 9-19 years old.

Featuring 3 Original Works By Acclaimed
choreographer & former American Ballet Theatre (ABT) dancer Brian Reeder

Live music will be provided by the BalletNext Ensemble led by noted Israeli cellist Elad Kabilio&
featuring Julliard pianist, Ben Laude

Dancers:

Jens Weber (Former Ballet Nacional De Monte Carlo Principal)

Kaitlyn Gilliland (Former New York City Ballet Dancer)

Steven Hanna (New York City Ballet Principal)

Sarah Atkins (Former Morphoses Dancer)

Tiffany Mangulabnan (Balletnext)

Brittany Cioce (Balletnext Apprentice)

Tickets Available Online

http://www.newyorklivearts.org

or Call 212.924.0077

& In Person At The Box Office

Dance of the Blessed Spirits

Choreography: Frederick Ashton

Dancer: David Hallberg

Music: Christoph Willibald von Gluck’s 1774 “Orphée et Euridice,”

Frederick Ashton’s Dance of the Blessed Spirit  was originally created for Sir Anthony Dowell in 1978. Sir Anthony staged the ballet on Mr. Hallberg and he is the first dancer after Sir Anthony to perform this work.

Frederick Ashton was born in 1904 and spent his childhood in South America. He studied with Leonide Massine and Marie Rambert, who also gave him his first opportunities as a choreographer.

New York’s  premiere of Jean-Christophe Maillot’s personal vision of Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake. It is a vast challenge for any choreographer to tackle this legendary piece which is so well-known throughout the world. For this project which has been dear to his heart for ten years, the choreographer wanted to work with the writer Jean Rouaud, 1990 Prix Goncourt winner, to bring a new drama to this pillar of the classic repertoire. Together they have adapted the timeless story of Siegfried and Odette so that this narrative resonates with our own questioning. The visual artist Ernest Pignon-Ernest, a long-time associate of Jean-Christophe Maillot will design the scenery for this Lac and Philippe Guillotel will be responsible for creating the costumes.

131 W 55th St (btw 6th & 7^th Aves.)
New York, NY 10019
CityTix® 212.581.1212

Presented by
Les Ballets De Monte Carlo
Under the Presidency of H.R.H. the Princess of Hanover
in association with
New York City Center & Ardani Artists

Filed under: Ballet, Dance Tagged: Ardani Artists, Ernest Pignon-Ernest, H.R.H. the Princess of Hanover, Jean Rouaud, Jean-Christophe Maillot, Jean-Christophe Maillot’s LAC (after Swan Lake), LAC (after Swan Lake), Les Ballets de Monte Carlo, Philippe Guillotel, Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake

Kino Lorber

Presents

Afternoon of a Faun: Tanaquil le Clercq

Premieres in NYC on February 5^th, 2014,
at the Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center at Lincoln Center

This is two weeks prior to the New York City Ballet’s scheduled performances of “Afternoon of a Faun”, choreographed by Jerome Robbins.  These performances will be dedicated to Tanaquil Le Clercq, for whom the ballet was originally created.

Metaphorphoses, Tanaquil Le Clercq & George Balanchine

Of all the great ballerinas, Tanaquil Le Clercq may have been the most transcendent. With a body unlike any before hers, she mesmerized viewers and choreographers alike. With her elongated, race-horse physique, she became the new prototype for the great George Balanchine.

Because of her extraordinary movement and unique personality on stage, she became a muse to two of the greatest choreographers in dance, George Balanchine and Jerome Robbins.  She eventually married Balanchine and Robbins created his famous version of Afternoon of a Faun for her.

She had love, fame, adoration, and was the foremost dancer of her day until it suddenly all stopped. At the age of 27, she was struck down by polio and paralyzed.  She never danced again.  The ballet world has been haunted by her story ever since.

Directed by Nancy Buirski

Produced by Nancy Buirski, Ric Burns

Editor: Damian Rodriquez

Director of Photography: Rick Rodgers

Tickets & Info

Ivan Nagy, Cincinnati Ballet artistic director, 1986-89. (Publicity photo from the 1980s.)

Ivan Nagy was artistic director at Cincinnati Ballet for a short few years but his tenure was critical to the Ballet’s development. He brought talent to Cincinnati, elevated women’s salaries to match men’s and conceived Cincinnati Ballet as an independent, professional company.

By David Lyman, Enquirer contributor

Ivan Nagy, the charismatic and globally famed dancer who was Cincinnati Ballet’s artistic director from 1986 to 1989, died Saturday in Budapest, the city where he began his rise to global prominence in the dance world. He was 70 years old.

Nagy’s career would include the artistic leadership of three ballet companies on three continents. But he remained best-known as elegant and regal partner to many of the world’s greatest ballerinas, including Dame Margot Fonteyn, Natalia Makarova, Cynthia Gregory, Carla Fracci and Gelsey Kirkland.

His dancing never had the technical pyrotechnics of Mikhail Baryshnikov or Rudolf Nureyev, two of the more popular male ballet luminaries of his time. But for all their popular fame, neither of those dancers could compare with Nagy’s extraordinary skills as a partner.

van Nagy, who defected to the United States from Hungary.

“I danced my first ‘Giselle’ with him,” Cynthia Gregory reminisced Sunday. Regarded as one of the United States’ finest ever ballerinas, Gregory was, like Nagy, a principal dancer with American Ballet Theatre (ABT). “It’s a performance that is still emblazoned in my head and in my heart. I felt I was floating with him. That’s when I fell in love with him. He was so dreamy.”

It’s the sort of refrain heard over and over again from women who danced with him. To dance with Nagy was more than just to perform side by side with him. It was to be consumed by an intimate relationship, if only for the few hours a ballet might last.

Though Nagy created roles in many new ballets, he was best known for his work in the “white ballets” that many audiences gravitate to: “Swan Lake,” “Les Sylphides” and, as Gregory noted, “Giselle.”

But at the age of 35, at what many regarded as his peak, Nagy announced he was retiring. He said he knew far too many dancers who danced so long that they did permanent damage to their knees or backs. He wanted to avoid the physical ailments that plague so many dancers as they get older.

Four years later, in 1982, Nagy and his wife, ballerina Marilyn Burr, took over the artistic leadership of the Ballet de Santiago in Chile. Nagy’s dashing looks and flamboyant style — he was rarely seen in public without a long flowing scarf – made him a favorite of Chilean President Augusto Pinochet.

Within three years, Nagy had raised the stature of the company markedly, bringing in a host of noted guest choreographers, recruiting gifted international dancers and even bringing the company to New York to show the world what the company – and he – had achieved. It was a triumph.

Nat­alia Makarova & Ivan Nagy by Max Waldman

A few days after his company’s American debut, Nagy announced he was leaving to become artistic director of the Cincinnati/New Orleans Ballet.

Cincinnati a curious choice for star

It was a curious decision. Cincinnati isn’t the sort of high-flying, worldly city that you might expect for Nagy. But the relationship with New Orleans clearly fascinated him. The real appeal, though, was Nagy’s connection with Cincinnati Ballet’s then-acting artistic director Frederic Franklin, a former Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo member. Franklin, who died at the age of 98 in May 2013, assumed leadership of the company after the death of longtime artistic director David McLain in 1984.

It was Franklin who had “discovered” Nagy at a ballet competition in Bulgaria in 1965 and offered him a contract with the National Ballet in Washington, D.C., where he was artistic director. Franklin understood Nagy’s star power and he had the dance world connections to give it the boost it needed.

Kevin McKenzie was a student at the Washington School of the Ballet when Nagy arrived at the National Ballet. Today, McKenzie is artistic director of American Ballet Theatre, but he still has vivid memories of the dashing young Hungarian dancer.

“He was one of my heroes and I count myself lucky that I actually came into his personal sphere,” McKenzie emailed from Tokyo, where ABT is currently performing. “He was a big influence on me. He was one of those personalities that played a significant role in shaping the identity of ABT. Gone too soon from this earth.”

The moment he arrived in Cincinnati, Nagy set out to reinvent his new company.

Just as he had done in Santiago, Nagy brought in new repertory and recruited dancers from around the world.

Within a single season, he had hired dancers from Italy, Brazil, Spain and Hungary and accomplished the previously impossible feat of wresting away dancers from larger, more-established American companies.

Natalia Makarova & Ivan Nagy in ‘Swan Lake’ 1971

DeLeone: ‘A Golden Era’ / Bernstein Wilt: ‘The new Cincinnati Ballet’

“Ivan presided over a ‘Golden Era’ in the history of the Cincinnati Ballet,” says the company’s longtime music director Carmon DeLeone.

“Really, when Ivan and Marilyn got here, it was the beginning of the new Cincinnati Ballet,” says current artistic associate Johanna Bernstein Wilt, who joined the company as a dancer in 1981. “They changed everything.”

Nagy and Burr severed the company’s ties with the University of Cincinnati’s College-Conservatory of Music. Nagy wanted Cincinnati Ballet viewed as an independent professional company, not one that might be perceived as an adjunct to a university dance program.

He elevated the women’s salaries to match those of the men.

Ivan Nagy, Carla Fracci, John Prinz and Nat­alia Makarova as cap­tured by pho­to­grapher Jack Mitchell in the 1970s when all were part of the Amer­ican Bal­let Theatre.

At the beginning of his second season, he instituted a traditional system of ranks within the company; corps de ballet, soloists and principal dancers. His predecessor, David McLain, objected to such distinctions, believing that American ballet companies should be ensembles made up of equals rather than be defined by class-based rankings imported from European companies with imperial roots.

“Ivan was fantastic to me,” recalls Suzette Boyer Webb, currently the manager of Cincinnati Ballet’s second company, CBII. She was one Nagy’s first three female principal dancers. “I felt that he really had my back. We had a really good artistic connection. And he gave me opportunities that other artistic directors might not have.”

Audiences loved what they saw onstage. Nagy added ballets by a host of internationally noted choreographic superstars like John Cranko, Vicente Nebrada, Paul Taylor, Ben Stevenson, Mauricio Wainrot, Kenneth MacMillan and André Prokovsky.

But by the beginning of Nagy’s second season – 1987-1988 – the honeymoon was already wearing thin. Not onstage, mind you, where the new and expensive productions continued to attract better dancers and larger audiences.

Natalia Makarova and Ivan Nagy, in American Ballet Theater’s “La Sylphide”
Makarova has frequently coached and staged classics.

Nagy brought a new level of glamour to the company and its performances. But behind the scenes, those onstage highs were tempered by equally wrenching lows.

A new roster of dancers, breaking rules

Every new artistic director reshapes the roster of dancers to suit his own image. But Cincinnati Ballet’s turnover became so great that it was a little like trying to follow the roster of a modern-day professional sports team. In Nagy’s second season, fully a third of the dancers were new to the company, a number that would grow to 45 percent in his third season.

Nagy’s ability to attract gifted dancers was undeniable, though.

However excellent his judgment about dancers may have been, Nagy’s management style was painfully archaic. He often said that he was spoiled by his time in Chile, where Pinochet had helped him get anything he wanted.

“All I ever had to do was ask for something and it was there for me,” Nagy said in a 1988 Enquirer interview.

Company dancers had contracts governing rehearsal time, frequency of breaks, travel rules and so on. But Nagy paid little mind too many of the rules. After a series of particularly heavy-handed incidents, the dancers adopted union protection by voting to join the American Guild of Musical Artists in 1988.

Meanwhile, a global recession had seized the economy and the company’s New Orleans partner was unable to pay its bills. With Nagy continuing to stage expensive productions, the company’s deficit ballooned to more than $500,000.

After Cincinnati, dancing with Princess Diana

This was not the sort of atmosphere Nagy was accustomed to. In May 1989, he announced he was leaving to become artistic director of the English National Ballet in London.

Ivan Nagy and Mar­ilyn Burr

His directorship began with a grand flourish, with Nagy doing a fox trot onstage with the company’s royal patron, Princess Diana. It was the sort of glamorous spectacle that Cincinnati had not been able to give him. But the bliss was short-lived. With the ENB’s board consumed in a power struggle, “technical and artistic standards fell and he (Nagy) was dismissed in 1993,” Sanjoy Roy wrote in a brief history of the company in The Guardian newspaper.

Nagy returned to the helm of the company in Santiago where, despite Pinochet having left office, he met with some major success. But in 1999, the company’s dancers went on strike. And, in January 2000, Nagy resigned.

Nagy retired to his home on Mallorca, a Spanish-ruled island 160 miles south of Barcelona in the Mediterranean. He occasionally stepped into the world outside to stage a ballet or attend a company reunion. In October, he made an appearance in New York City at an ABT-sponsored memorial for Franklin.

It was obvious that life without the harsh battles of the increasingly commercial world of the arts suited him. Tanned, his grey-green eyes still flickering impishly, he still looked every bit the star he was 40 years earlier. Yes, his hair was whiter and thinner and he had added a bit of girth over the years. But Nagy never lost his matinee idol good looks or his effortless way of being the center of attention. Ivan Nagy could charm with the best of them.

Nagy is survived by his wife, Marilyn Burr and two daughters, Tatjana Harper of Austin, Texas and Aniko Nagy of London.

His daughter Aniko Nagy said in a telephone interview that Mr. Nagy had felt unwell after a flight from Majorca on Friday. He was visiting a cousin in Budapest for lunch when he died suddenly, she said. No cause was given.

Clive Barnes, the dance critic of The New York Times, summed up Mr. Nagy’s special gifts in 1976, writing, “He has such style and elegance — his manner is at once ardent and self-effacing — that any woman would just have to want to dance her debut with him.”

Ivan Nagy was born on April 28, 1943, in Debrecen, in eastern Hungary. He began studying dance as a child, with his mother, a ballet teacher. At 7 he entered the school of the Budapest State Opera Ballet (now the Hungarian State Opera House Ballet) and trained there until he joined the Budapest company in 1960.

In 1965, as a young soloist, Mr. Nagy was sent to the International Ballet Competition in Varna, Bulgaria, where he won a silver medal. Frederic Franklin, the former star of Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, was on the jury, and as artistic director of the National Ballet of Washington he invited Mr. Nagy to make a guest appearance with his company.