Finished uploading pictures just in time to go back to Brooklyn for tonight’s round of fun! Here are the pictures I’ve added to the album thus far, of last night’s two main championships, Professional American Smooth and Amateur Latin. I still can’t believe Jonathan Roberts and Valentina won Smooth. They had excellent choreography — lots of variety with beautiful leg lifts and dramatic drops, but overall I still think J.T. Thomas and Tomas Mielnicki (current national champs in this event) moved with more fluidity and polish, and Jonathan had a couple of little, very minor fumbles with his footwork. I’m thrilled for J & V, but just a little surprised. J.T. and Tomas had a minor mishap in which J.T. was elbowed in the nose pretty badly. Caused quite a bit of bleeding and she had to take a little time out to tend to it. Certainly shook them up a bit at the moment, but didn’t seem to hamper their final round at all. It can be dangerous out there on the dance floor though!

When I was leaving the bar during a break, I heard someone call out “Swan Lake Samba Girl.” I initially thought it was my friend Parker being silly. But it wasn’t; it was a reader, named Ching, who nicely introduced herself and told me she reads my blog regularly and really likes it. She dances both ballet and ballroom as well — I think there is a lot of crossover — and is a professor. Anyway, it’s always so wonderful (albeit surreal!) to be noticed, and to receive such nice compliments. So, thanks, Ching, you completely made my night!

Jonathan roberts & valentina won smooth!

Originally uploaded by swan lake samba girl via mobile.

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Beating even j.t. Thomas and tomas mielnicki. Val & val won amateur latin

Chmerkovskiys are in the house

Originally uploaded by swan lake samba girl via mobile.

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And dovolani is a judge, and jonathan roberts has a new partner and is competing in smooth. Very sexy tango!

I went back to ABT last night for another Merry Widow with Jose and Julie in the leads. Couldn’t resist! And I’m glad I did; I ended up meeting Roslyn Sulcas, writer from the New York Times, who is really nice and down to earth, and elegantly beautiful.

Anyway, I already wrote a bit about this ballet earlier, and have to get ready for a pre-competition dinner, but I quickly just want to mention a few other tidbits about Jose that make him so great, that I noticed last night. He keeps in character throughout, even when he’s not center stage. I mean, they all do, but Jose really keeps in character. As Julie’s rich widow was dancing with the Pontevedrian men, each man trying to curry her wealthy available favor, Jose was sitting off to the side flirting devilishly with Misty Copeland. And he was really flirting, not just chatting. At one point he raised his eyebrows at her in a way that made me nearly fall out of my seat.

And the way he struts around stage, like a cocky, spoiled, at times drunk, misbehaving boy … it’s not at all balletic, the way other dancers might do, but perfectly in character (and somehow on him, mischievous as it is, becomes so endearing).

I also noticed that when he spots as he’s doing a slow turn, carrying his ballerina in his arms, he looks at each spot on the floor with intent. During his pas de deux with Julie when he was remembering happy times with her in the past, he looked down at each point on the floor like he was lost, forlorn, wondering where they all went. With most dancers they look like they’re doing exactly what they’re doing — spotting so they don’t lose balance. He turns simple technique into art.

(The pair dancing together in “Apollo”, photo by Gene Schiavone; all photos from ABT website)

I also wanted to point out how fantastic Joseph Phillips was, as leader of the Pontevedrian men, with his spectacular bravura-embellished folk dancing, and Craig Salstein as he sweetly but sadly unsuccessfully vied for Julie’s hand. And Julie as the widow was sweetly flirtatious, her smiles and raised eyebrows infusing her prolonged flexes of the foot into quick, snappingly sharp points, with added sexual meaning.

The couple behind me were confused during first intermission because this photo of Irina and Max (by Fabrizio Ferri) was shown on the Playbill’s cover, and yet, they weren’t in the cast.

Anyway, I’m very excited for Giselle next week!

(photo of Julie Kent in “Giselle” by Roy Round)

Happy 4th of July, everyone!

I’ve been so busy lately trying to juggle various things I got very behind on my reading, particularly dance reading. So I spent part of my weekend browsing the online arts sections of my old favorite magazines and newspapers and found a few interesting things. I’m really loving some of Claudia La Rocco’s recent reviews. This Bayadere piece is really beautiful in her descriptions, and this one had a poetic charm to it as well — look at the Ravel simile! Made me wonder what her background was — if she was a fiction writer or poet. So, I did a Google search and found several of her poems, like this one and this one, and this one on Shen Wei. (At least I assume this is the same Claudia La Rocco!) It does make perfect sense; poetry, fiction, and dance (and perhaps music) writing have a good deal in common. It’s so hard to write about something so inherently visual or sensual and it really makes you strive for that perfectly specific adjective or metaphor or simile that will convey to your readers as precisely as possible what you saw and what it felt like, how it touched the senses and the soul, without resorting to cliche (which tells the reader nothing). Of course you also need analytical faculties, but I personally find the most challenging part is just getting a well-written, apt description down without over-using the “amazing”s and “beautiful”s, etc. etc.

I was also looking through Time Out, after Ariel pointed out a few Gia Kourlas pieces, and found this interview with Tom Gold, who recently retired from New York City Ballet, particularly interesting. About halfway through he talks about how City Ballet has changed over the years and how technique now seems to be stressed over developing the dancer’s personality, conveying the humanity of the dance. I think that’s all important. I feel like, with a few definite exceptions, dancers are focusing so much on the steps, on making them perfect without thinking about what’s behind them, what they’re trying to convey to us with those steps. Didn’t Damian Woetzel recently say people don’t go to the ballet to see technique? We don’t! Gold said he hopes we return to the age of Romanticism soon and I couldn’t agree more. He also has a few amusing expressions of annoyance at artists who are so insistent on being the “new thing,” on being original, that they seem to lose focus on what they’re doing, on the joy and spontaneity of dance, and their work ends up being contrived and derivative anyway. There’s nothing new under the sun, but there are new ways of bringing things to light and exploring them.

Here’s a little preview I wrote for HuffPost about the Manhattan Dancesport Championship coming up this July 4th weekend. Oh, and by the way, thanks so much for commenting on my posts there, those of you who have!

Jose carreno is dancing again!

Originally uploaded by swan lake samba girl via mobile.

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Although hopefully with all this drunken choreography he won’t reinjure himself.

Update: So, this week’s ballet at ABT is “The Merry Widow,” created in the 1970s and originally an opera. When I first read the synopsis I thought, this plot is so intricate, like an Oscar Wilde-ish comedy of manners, how are they ever going to pull it off without words. They didn’t really — and so you need to read that synopsis — but it’s still a lot of fun to watch the dancers try to mime everything.

(Jose headshot from ABT website)

I love Jose Carreno with all my heart. Every little emotion, no matter how subtle, registers thoroughly on his face, every perceived rejection, every memory. When he wrapped his hands around Julie Kent’s waist, finger by finger, before lifting her, when he traced his hand from her wrist to her shoulder, when he looked as if he was biting at her neck — just sends chills!

Julie was beautiful, Xiomara Reyes did a great acting job, the whole cast was excellent. I thought the very modern choreography had great humor and was a lot of fun, but I must warn you, this is this season’s Cinderella, so purists are likely not going to be too happy.

Oh and the sets and costumes on this one — extremely lavish. Don’t think I’ve ever seen such elaborate sets for an ABT production; they put a lot of money into this one.

Photo by Fabrizio Ferri, of Irina Dvorovenko and Maxim Beloserkovsky dancing “Merry Widow” leads, from ABT website.

The Ballroom Dance Channel (a social networking site for ballroom enthusiasts founded by Dancing With the Stars’ Maks Chmerkovskiy and Tony Dovolani) is doing a series of podcasts. In their upcoming one, they’re going to be interviewing Melanie LaPatin and Tony Meredith, who choreograph for So You Think You Can Dance. Here’s a little preview, where they talk a bit about what it’s like to work on the show.

I was sitting in front of my air conditioner engrossed in an essay by Edwin Denby called “Dancers, Buildings, and People in the Streets” — I know, brilliant Saturday night — when my cell phone did the little chirp it does when I have a text message. I wondered who could be calling at midnight. Thinking it may be an emergency I jumped up and ran to my dresser to see it was my friend, Parker Sanchez, telling me she was just crowned Mrs. New Jersey!!! I’m so excited! I’ve never known a real beauty queen before! Go Parker! I think she’s now going to go on to Mrs. America or Mrs. USA. Yay

More reviews up: here is my SYTYCD piece on HuffPost, and here is my review of the Christopher Caines Dance Company performance I saw recently at the Rose Hall in Jazz at Lincoln Center. Many people were lukewarm about it, and most hated the venue (see here, here, here, and here), but I thought the ballet was really quite charming and the venue was nice and intimate and made me see ballet in a new way. The whole thing REALLY made me want to take up dance again myself, especially the last waltzy section…

Also went to NYCB last night for their Dancers’ Choice Program (a variety of excerpts from favorite ballets all selected by the dancers, and including a little video footage), which was excellent. Sat next to Mr. Artiste And LOVED Flit of Fury — the Monarch, the new ballet by NYCB dancers Adam Hendrickson and Aaron Severini. One of the best new ballets I’ve seen in a while. Review coming soon!

I have been getting a good number of visitors to my blog through Google searches from this little ole mobile post I did when I was in Blackpool. I’ve also gotten several comments. Damn, I wish we could see the show here! Perhaps American networks should take notice of its popularity… sounds much more interesting than that “Who’s the Biggest Loser” we have now.

(photo by Paul Kolnick)

I’m behind on my dance writing again. Here is my piece on V&M’s Bayadere in HuffPost, and several reviews are upcoming on Explore Dance. Just so people know, since I’m so backed up on my writing, it’s very difficult for me to get to emails right now.

On Tuesday I went to see Joaquin De Luz’s Prodigal Son debut. His was the most passionate, most intense, most pathos-driven prodigal son I’ve seen yet. He had all the high jumps in the beginning, but they weren’t about the acrobatics; he used them to show his character’s pent-up frustration with his parents, his youthful angst, his need to leave home and go out and explore the world. You could see that both on his face and with his body. Later, when encountering the Siren, danced fine by Kaitlyn Gilliland (Mr. Martins, could you please show me Georgina Pazcoguin in that role!), you could really see his seduction, his becoming completely entranced by her. After their sex scene, he runs up this ladder (which later becomes a cross to which he is tied) with such speed and in such a burst of fervor, it’s as if he’s simultaneously still in the throes of rapture and beginning to realize how dangerous she is.

(photo by Paul Kolnick, of Damian Woetzel in the lead role, from the New York Times)

I noticed that De Luz also, just like a very skilled actor, brought you into the world he created by making you “see” props and scenery that the stage simply can’t hold. The way he crawled about the stage after being beaten, the way he looked around and suddenly shielded eyes when glancing upward, the way he scooped his hands along the ground then brushed his body with them, it all made you feel like you were in a vast desert with him, blinded by the sun, blinded by your own shame, and looking desperately for whatever small pools of water you could find, to splash over yourself, washing off your sins. I haven’t seen any of the other dancers be that specific. And then at the end the way he crawled after his mother and sister, grasping at their skirt tails, then, on first seeing him, shielding his face from his father, as he did from the sun, it drove home the drama and pathos of it all so profoundly.

Nearly equalling Joaquin in intensity, albeit with a much smaller role, was Antonio Carmena, who danced one of the son’s servants. At one point he gets into a fight with the other servant, Kyle Froman, and while his jumps over and leaps at Froman are astonishing in their power and precision, they’re almost animalistic. He uses them to show how vulgar and inhuman and corrupting this world of the Siren, which they’ve entered into, really is.

Also on the program was Peter Martins’ Thou Swell, a modernist ballroom-style dance that takes place in a dance hall replete with crazy cool Art Deco mirrors and flashy, sharp-patterened Twenties-style ballgowns. I was excited to learn, via a Joseph Carman article in the Playbill, that Mr. Martins (also Director of the company) was once a champion ballroom dancer in Denmark! No wonder I like this ballet so — it’s not just ballroom through the eyes of a ballet maker, but an authentic combination of the two. Denmark has really produced a lot of ballroom champs throughout the years.

And the program ended with this sweet little late-eighteenth-century-French-styled ballet, Brahms-Schoenberg Quartet, by Balanchine, replete with ballerinas in decadent, cotton-candy-colored multi-layered tutus, plush, champagne-colored curtains, and a backdrop featuring the palace and gardens at Versailles, one of my favorite places.

“Shortly after the article [in the New York Times, about murder convict Gary Gilmore] caught his eye, almost immediately in fact, Susskind’s old friend and associate Stanley Greenberg called, and they had a good conversation. Stanley had written a TV story fifteen years ago about a man awaiting execution. The man had been so long on Death Row that he changed in character, and the question became, “Who was being executed?” Metamorphosis the play had been called, and Susskind always felt that it had had some effect on the end of capital punishment in New York State, and maybe even a little to do with the Supreme Court decision that saved a lot of men’s lives on Death Row.”

From The Executioner’s Song, by Norman Mailer.

Intelligent lawyers leave the law because they know art produces social change, not legal arguments.

Last night’s La Bayadere was ABT’s best night at the Met yet. They had the largest, most enthusiastic audience, many of whom seemed to be Marcelo fans! He got lots of ‘bravos’ and huge applause throughout, and he sensed early on the crowd was really with him so he kind of took it over the top with the enormous jetes and those interesting running-in-the-air jumps, whatever they’re called. I thought he may throw his back out after he landed a tour jete on one knee and dramatically arched back, his fingers gracing the ground behind him. And when he lands a jete it’s almost earth-shattering because of his size. But of course those huge leaps fit in with the role too since his character here is a warrior. It’s funny; it was like he was on a mission to really deliver - -it seemed his dancing was even fuller-bodied and more theatrical than usual. He’s always my favorite no matter

Dancers are definitely very sensitive to how the crowd is reacting to what they’re doing — or at least Marcelo and Angel are, which is probably why I like them so. You can read their feelings all over their faces. Or at least you can if you kind of “know” them from seeing them so many times.

And Veronika Part really owns this role. Her expressive wrists, those luscious developes of which she is the queen (lift of the leg at the knee, then slowly unfolding to a full extension), and her gorgeously almost tragically poetic arabesques (back leg lifted). Oh, by the way, Bayadere is set in ancient India, and tells the story of Solor the warrior who falls in love with a temple dancer, Nikiya, but is betrothed to the princess Gamzatti. Veronika (as Nikiya) got loads of applause during her solo curtain calls at the very end of course. This is how the ballet should always be; the crowd going nuts like that.

But Marcelo and Veronika weren’t just great on their own; they were a perfect partnership as well, which to me is really everything, more important than the solo dancing. I really believed they were hopelessly, tragically in love. She was so forlorn, I wanted to cry for her when it was clear she wasn’t going to get her love. And Marcelo as always was the perfect actor, making perfectly clear how truly torn he was between his beloved and his betrothed, especially after the latter’s sexy, seductive whipping fouette sequence, and then how distraught he was on realizing he was in love with Nikiya but had to marry the princess.

Of course this ballet is so beautiful, many come regardless of who’s dancing, just for the story and the poetry of the choreography, particularly the breathtaking Kingdom of the Shades scene (which at first I have to admit I wasn’t so fond of because it’s so slow and there are few men ) but has really grown on me with its beauty. This is the part of the ballet where Solor sleeps and dreams of his Nikiya, whose image floods his subconsious by suddenly duplicating itself many many times over, as illustrated by a series of ballerinas all in white, emanating from the mountainside traveling forward in a pattern of lovely arabesques, then taking center stage and bourreeing in place, all in perfect sync, in perfect harmony, reminiscient of a spirit-world, and foreshadowing that this is the only place Solor and Nikiya will be together.

(all photos by Gene Schiavone, courtesy of ABT)

Finally, Michele Wiles was PERFECT as the princess Gamzatti. Throughout the first two acts she was icy cold bitchiness, which to me, she’s thus far excelled at. Critic Joan Acocella once referred to her as a sunny cheerleader type, but I’ve never seen that in her. I see her more as the spoiled rich girl who will have her way at all costs. She was pure golden-dressed evil when she puts the snake in Nikiya’s bouquet, basically casting a spell on her. Yet, when it’s clear Marcelo’s Solor is in love with Nikiya and is only going through the marriage because he must, you really start to feel sorry for Michele’s princess. She tries hard to maintain her power, but she can’t. She found the vulnerability in the character and made her sympathetic and that’s what makes this a true tragedy — for all.

It was also just such a great night because there were so many people there. I finally got to meet James Wolcott from Vanity Fair, and his wife Laura Jacobs who writes about dance for the New Criterion (and whose book I keep going on about — she writes so beautifully about dance)! I suspected they’d be there because they love Veronika so. I’m so shy, I always feel like such an oaf meeting famous people But they’re really nice and it was so cool to finally meet them!

Philip was there too and we hung out during first intermission, with friends and blog readers Susan and Philip’s opera buddy (whose name I keep forgetting…)

Great ballet, favorite dancers, very fun audience, meeting famous writers you admire, chatting with old friends — excellent night all around! I am happy.

I’ve had another full weekend of dance and am quite exhausted. Saturday and Sunday days I went to New York City Ballet for, sadly, my last of their programs celebrating Jerome Robbins. Until this season I’d only seen the very major works by Robbins, so it’s been really educational to see the others, although this season made clear why some of his ballets survived better than others.

Yesterday’s program was all set to Chopin (much of it to piano music) and included the famous DANCES AT A GATHERING, which I thought too slow-moving and long (the man needed an editor, big time!) to sustain my attention and one of my favorites OTHER DANCES, similar to GATHERING but much shorter and to the point. Julie Kent from American Ballet Theater, a favorite of mine, guest-starred in this one, with the very handsome Gonzalo Garcia. They were lovely together, and you can see why Julie is the star she is with the little things she does like holding her hands to her heart while regarding the onstage pianist, indicating hearing a beloved tune she just MUST dance to. And third was the comical, slapsticky THE CONCERT in which Sterling Hyltin and Andrew Veyette (fast becoming a favorite of mine) cracked me up so I nearly laughed out loud (naughty in such quiet atmosphere!!!)

Today’s matinee was the long, but far better (imo) THE GOLDBERG VARIATIONS set to Bach. It was long and similar to GATHERING in that it involved many couples, a combination of solos, duets and ensemble work in which the dancers interracted with each other, but there was so much more variation in the choreography, so many surprises — Andrew Veyette and Amar Ramasar doing handstands-cum-somersaults over each other, Andrew lying down and balancing Amar in the air only by his feet, Amar floating bird like above, boys exiting stage together disregarding girls, girls doing the same, playful wiggles of the behind for Andrew and Wendy Whelan, an astonishing series of turning leaps for Gonzalo and Jared Angle — a lot of great, fast, fun, original choreography during both allegro and slower adagio sections that made you keep your eyes peeled for what was coming next. Even costume changes from 18th Century to contemporary workout ballet garb helped keep your attention.

The second one on for today, entitled BRAHMS/HANDEL I didn’t like so much. It was co-choreographed with Twyla Tharp and it just didn’t seem to go anywhere. It made full use of the company and there was a lot of playfulness, mainly by, again, Andrew Veyette, who at times looked like a frog bouncing from one lillypad to another. He’s so cute. I really like him and I’m realizing it’s only partly because he’s such a great dancer who brings so much to the stage. I think it’s also that he reminds me of my cousin who died a couple of years ago. Just in his lightness of spirit, his ability to be funny, and his youthful enthusiasm and boundless energy, the way he throws himself so into everything he does.

Anyway, I have reviews of some of these programs upcoming, so won’t go on anymore here.

On Saturday night, I saw a small ballet company, Christopher Caines Dance Company, at the Rose Theater in the Jazz At Lincoln Center area of the Time Warner building. It was my first time both seeing this company and in that theater, and, man is that space small! It’s a tiny room, almost a studio, and they had little cocktail tables set up surrounded by chairs, for the audience to sit at. I’d sat in that kind of space for a Flamenco production at Baryshnikov’s Performing Arts Center, but never for a ballet performance. When they first began I thought, oh no, this is far too intimate for ballet, but then, when the program got underway, I began to forget my surroundings and became mesmerized by the dancing in a way I don’t think I’ve ever been before with ballet. It was really cool. Anyway, review coming up!

Michelle Vargo, my favorite dancer in the ballet, in a photo by Chris Woltmann, courtesy of Christopher Caines Dance Co.

Finally, I ‘ve managed to upload my pictures of Damian Woetzel’s farewell performance on Wednesday night. I liked best the picture I posted up top because it looks like he and Ethan Stiefel are about to have an intimate moment Anyway, here’s the rest of the album. Click on thumbnails for captions. Ethan Stiefel, Paloma Herrera, Gillian Murphy, and Angel Corella were there from American Ballet Theater, and they all, along with all of NYCB went up onstage at the end to join in the confetti storm. Angel and pals sat in the row in front of us (I sat next to Philip and in front of Evan) and I of course I couldn’t stop fixating. I was really nervous and I think it’s because I had just turned in my Angel write-up to HuffPost and then there he was right in front of me. Of course I only said glowing things about him, but it still made me nervous being around him like that. The man is like a human-sized doll, I swear. His skin is like milk, not a single flaw, his hair was gelled up into this almost Elvis-esque do, not a single strand out of place, and his long-lashed eyes, the way they blink open and shut and open and shut … just like a walking baby doll.

Anyway, I feel like everyone’s already said everything about Damian’s farewell, but it was a wonderful show. First on was FANCY FREE, Robbins’s character-driven classic about three sailors on shore leave trying hilariously unsuccessfully to pick up some girls in a bar. Damian danced the cocky one (also known as the Latin, or Rhumba sailor, but I call him the cocky shithead); Tyler Angle was the romantic, and Joaquin De Luz the short, high-jumping guy who tried to impress with his bag of tricks.

Next on was the Rubies section from Balanchine’s JEWELS, the Russian choreographer’s tribute to American jazz and sass. This one was fun because in this ballet there’s a main couple with lots of virtuosic partnering and alternating solos and the program had listed Ashley Bouder and Joaquin De Luz as that couple. But it was actually danced by three different couples, including, in the middle, Damian, partnering sweet Yvonne Borree. It was a nice surprise, and man, did he give his section some real gusto. At one point he went spinning off into the wings, like, in Sir Alastair’s nice simile (in his wonderfully-descriptive and informative review), “an accelerating tornado.”

And third on, was PRODIGAL SON, based on the Biblical story of a boy who tries to go out into the world on his own, only to return to his loving father beaten and nearly destroyed. So much pathos for his very final performance! I think the whole audience was in tears.

Four dance-dazed and star-struck bloggers during intermission! Thanks to Sarah (second from right) for the photo. Also, there’s an event tomorrow night (Monday) at the Jewish Community Center about Robbins. Some NYCB dancers will be performing and there’s a lecture. I can’t go unfortunately, it sounds really interesting. See Sarah’s post for deets or go here.