skybetter & associates are preparing for their upcoming appearances at The Joyce on June 11th and 12th (matinees both days) as part of the Gotham Dance Festival. Ticket information here. Top image: Sydney Skybetter, photographed by Kokyat.
Kokyat and I dropped in at the Gina Gibney Studios earlier this week to watch a rehearsal of the two works that Skybetter will be performing at The Joyce: HALCYON and a new quartet, TEMPORARY MATTERS.
Kile Hotchkiss and Jordan Isadore in HALCYON. I first saw this work in July 2009 and thought it one of the finest dance creations of my experience. Set to music of Carlos Paredes, this ensemble piece is finely structured and has the feel of a contemporary ritual. I had a second chance to see HALCYON at The Skirball last year and it held up brilliantly. I'm so glad that Skybetter is keeping it current, though it requires a lot of rehearsal to perfect the unison passages. Really looking forward to seeing this work on The Joyce stage.
Kristen Arnold, Gary Schaufeld
Jile Hotchkiss, Jennifer Jones.
HALCYON ensemble, above.
Above: from the new work, TEMPORARY MATTERS. This intimate, restless quartet is set to a score by the Icelandic composer Johann Johansson. The dancers are Gary Schaufeld, Kristen Arnold, Jordan Isadore and Jennifer Jones. Costumes are being created by Karen Young.
Dancers participating in Skybetter's performances at The Joyce are Kristen Arnold, Jennifer Jones, Gary Schaufeld, Dana Thomas, Jordan Isadore, Kile Hotchkiss, Norbert de la Cruz, Liz Beres, Delphina Parenti and Wheeler Hughes. Sharing the bill at The Joyce for the two matinees will be Julian Barnett and Ashleigh Leite.
The DASH Ensemble appear at the Festival June 4th and 5th, on which dates I'm unfortunately previously engaged.
A gallery of Kokyat's images from our afternoon at Lydia Johnson's studio on May 22, 2011. Read about the rehearsal here. Above: Kaitlin Accetta and Sarah Pon in LAMENT.
Sean Patrick Mahoney of the Paul Taylor Dance Company will appear as a guest artist with Lydia Johnson Dance this season.
Sean Patrick Mahoney and Jessica Sand in LAMENT
Lisa Iannacito McBride
Blake Hennessy-York and dancers in LAMENT
Sean Patrick Mahoney and Eric Vlach in LAMENT
Laura DiOrio in UNTITLED BACH
A premiere work set to music of Philip Glass, SUMMER HOUSE will feature Jessica Sand, Laura DiOrio, Robert Robinson and Lisa Iannacito McBride.
Laura DiOrio & Robert Robinson: SUMMER HOUSE
Natalia Wodnicka & Blake Hennessy-York in ZERO HOURS
Laura DiOrio & James Hernandez
Kaitlin Accetta
Sarah Pon
Blake Hennessy-York
Sean Patrick Mahoney and Jessica Sand: ZERO HOURS
Shannon Maynor and Devon Kelly in ZERO HOURS
In the studio: Sean Patrick Mahoney and Robert Robinson.
Lydia Johnson Dance will be at Ailey Citigroup Theater June 17th - 19th. Information and tickets here.
Sunday May 22, 2011 - Kokyat and I spent the afternoon down at Battery Dance studio where Lydia Johnson Dance were working on the four pieces they will be presenting at their performances at Ailey Citigroup Theater June 17th - 19th. Ticket information here. Top image is from a new work, SUMMER HOUSE, set to music of Philip Glass. The dancers are Lisa Iannacito McBride, Jessica Sand, Robert Robinson and Laura DiOrio.
This studio and these dancers have become almost like home and family for us. Oddly enough, as well as I have gotten to know Lydia's work and the individual characteristics of her dancers, they can still surprise me with the beauty and commitment of their work. It's not often in a studio rehearsal that dancers will give you the full emotional spectrum in addition to executing the choreography. But that is what happened today; it was really like being at a performance.
Sean Patrick Mahoney of the Paul Taylor Dance Company is appearing as a guest with Lydia Johnson Dance this season. I've always enjoyed Sean's performances with Taylor, and it is really exciting to watch him in this up-close setting. Sean stood quietly on the sidelines, studying the structure of Lydia's work and taking notes. Then he would step in to dance, his remarkable focus and intensity so compelling to behold. The other dancers seem freshly inspired by Sean's presence.
Four works will be presented at Ailey, starting with UNTITLED BACH (above, Shannon Maynor and Eric Vlach with Laura DiOrio)...
...SUMMER HOUSE (above: Laura, Lisa and Jessica), an intimate evocation of a shared summertime idyll filled with desires, daydreams and recollection...
...LAMENT (above, with Blake Hennesey-York aloft), to a powerful and spiritual score by Henryk Gorecki...
...and a new, upbeat finale for the full ensemble, entitled ZERO HOURS and set to honky tonk tunes by Pete Johnson and Albert Ammons. Above: James Hernandez and Lisa Iannacito McBride.
More of Kokyat's photos from this rehearsal will be found here.
One of the things I love most about living in New York City is discovering links to the past - especially to the history of music and dance - that unexpectedly turn buildings we walk by often into places of significance. The above building at 66 5th Avenue (now part of The New School) is one block from my dentist's office. I've passed it a hundred times and never given it more than a cursory glance. But if you'd stood in front of this building on an afternoon in 1940 you might have seen a lot of dancers coming and going because three legends of the dance world - Martha Graham, Ruth St Denis and La Meri - each had a studio in the building, referred to as the School of Natya.
I'm reading Suzanne Shelton's DIVINE DANCER, a biography of Ruth St Denis, and by sheer chance was reading the chapter about the early 1940s this morning just before I left for my dentist appointment. I allowed an extra moment of time to snap the above photo before my hour of oral torture.
Although St. Denis and Graham are far more widely known, it was actually La Meri (above) whose name I heard first. During that summer (1974) that I spent on Cape Cod - the year I realized (too late) that dancing was what I was meant to be doing - the name of this iconic high priestess of dance was frequently mentioned in hushed tones. People traveled from afar to work with her and to enjoy her annual Festival of Ethnic Dance. There is a video of her performing at The Pillow here.
I danced in a production of COPPELIA at Harwich, Massachusetts during that summer of 1974 which now seems like ancient history. We were told that La Meri had been invited to one of our performances but I never heard whether she was actually in the audience or not. Things got chaotic during the week of the performances with tempers flaring on all sides, fanned by various jealousies. TJ and I left the Cape right after the last show and the whole scene faded into memory. By the time I started going to the Cape regularly, in the late 1980s, TJ was ancient history.
It's funny how the mere mention of the studios on 5th Avenue in the St Denis book and of La Meri's working there has brought back so many visions from that Summer. At the time La Meri was famous on the Cape for being so firmly ensconced there that it was thought nothing could ever lure her to cross the Bourne Bridge again. I was surprised to learn that she actually died in San Antonio in 1988, at the age of 89.
The School of Natya did not last long; St Denis - who frequently had trouble finding sufficient money to pay the rent - felt she needed more space and moved uptown to a studio once used by Isadora Duncan.
The postcard announcing Lydia Johnson Dance's upcoming performances at Ailey Citigroup features one of Kokyat's images. Kokyat and I spent the post-Rapture Sunday afternoon at Lydia's studio watching a run-thru of the programme which took on the feeling of a performance, thanks to the emotional commitment of her dancers. Kokyat's rehearsal images will follow shortly.
From June 27th to July 1st, Lydia Johnson will offer a workshop at Peridance. Details here. Read about Lydia's wintertime classes at Peridancehere.
Saturday May 21, 2011 - Having watched various ballet classes in recent months here in New York City, an afternoon that I spent in the studio watching Francois Perron teach remains a memorable experience. Now Francois commences on a new adventure: his French Academie of Ballet. Today he invited Kokyat and me to a rehearsal; his dancers are in preparation for their upcoming appearance at the first NYC Festival of Dance Schools to be held at Ailey Citigroup Theater on June 15th and 16th. Details here.
For the Festival, organized by Kat Wildish, Francois will present a suite of dances from Bach's Goldberg Variations. Some of Kokyat's images from the rehearsal:
Jacqueline Schiller
Julia Keith, Charles Cooper, Siobhan Stocks-Lyon
Julia and Siobhan
Francois has a very sharp eye and is quite strict in handing out corrections, which is exactly what good dancers need to become great ones. Although they are young, the dancers took his critical remarks in the best sense and strove to deliver the desired improvements. His style calls for elegant, seamless transitions and he could immediately determine the source of any flaws and explain what the dancer needed to do to achieve the proper execution. One might think that that would be a given in ballet training at this level, but you'd be surprised at some of the things that have passed uncorrected in classes and rehearsals that I've watched.
The French Academie of Ballet will offer a Summer Intensive; auditions for the Intensive will be held on June 18th at DANY Studios.
Francois Perron biography:
François Perron is a graduate of the Paris Opera Ballet School where he studied under the direction of Claude Bessy. Before moving to the United States, François danced with La Scala in Milan, where Maurice Béjart invited him to Brussels as part of Les Ballets Du XXe Siecle. François has had principal contracts with the Northern Ballet Theatre of England and Ballet Du Nord as well as principal roles with the Joffrey Ballet in New York City. François danced with the New York City Ballet for six years and briefly with American Ballet Theatre. He has appeared with numerous companies worldwide as a guest artist and served as Ballet Master for New York Theatre Ballet as well as for Florence, Italy's Maggio Danza.
In 1997, François accepted a full faculty position at Studio Maestro (now Manhattan Youth Ballet) and from 2001- 2011 was Managing Artistic Director of the school and youth company. François is regularly invited to guest teach at major dance schools including Miami City Ballet, Central Pennsylvania Youth Ballet and American Ballet Theatre Young Dancer Summer Workshop. François' students have been accepted at the Paris Opera Ballet School and as company members at American Ballet Theatre, San Francisco Ballet and North Carolina Dance Theatre. François is part of the Julliard faculty and is currently coaching the boys for the Tony Award Winner Broadway show BILLY ELLIOTT.
Jennifer Muller/The Works have unveiled a new website. The Company are currently in preparation for the premiere of a new evening-length work entitled THE WHITE ROOM which will open at Cedar Lake Theater on June 22nd. Ticket information here. Top photo of Rosie Lani Fiedelman by Kokyat.
The development of THE WHITE ROOM has been traced here on my blog starting over a year ago, continuing with a second rehearsal visit and then a third. Photos from Kokyat and Matt Murphy are included in those articles.
Friday May 20, 2011 - I wouldn't have missed Janie Taylor's debut in LA SONNAMBULA for anything. The ballet itself doesn't rock my world, but Janie Taylor certainly does. Above: a Henry Leutwyler portrait of the ballerina.
On this night, the eve of the proclaimed Rapture, the House was far from full: perhaps people stayed home to prepare for the Big Day, but a more likely reason was the Cojocaru/Carreno DON QUIXOTE being offered next door at ABT. For those of us who gathered at the State, a nicely contrasted programme with lots of fine dancing was a great way to spend our last evening in the world as we know it.
DIVERTIMENTO NO. 15: King, Hyltin, *Scheller, A. Stafford, M. Fairchild, *J. Stafford, Applebaum, Peiffer
POLYPHONIA: Whelan, T. Peck, Mearns, Reichlen, T. Angle, *Garcia, Finlay, Ramasar
DIVERTIMENTO #15 has been such a joy to see (and hear) at NYCB this Spring. Tonight's bevy of ballerinas - led by an ebullient Megan Fairchild - served up one delight after another as the ballet progressed. I was particularly struck by the quiet joy that Sterling Hyltin and Allen Peiffer expressed in their duet: so elegant. Mlles. Scheller, Stafford and King were all on lovely form and so were the pretty girls from the corps de ballet; Jon Stafford and Daniel Applebaum along with Allen were the cavaliers.
For all it's musical and choreographic perfection, DIVERTIMENTO #15 is also the ballet in which, over the years, I have seen an unusually high number of catastrophies, both large and small. Great ballerinas have fallen grandly on their faces in exposed solo moments; there have been huge partnering gaffes and numerous slips, slides and saves. In such a dignified ballet these incidents can be unsettling. There was another such passing cloud in tonight's performance but the dancers quickly recovered and the sun came out again and "all's well as ends better".
It was reported that Christopher Wheeldon was in the House tonight for POLYPHONIA (he's in town for his impending ABT premiere) and I feel certain he would have loved the way his Ligeti ballet is looking these days. Can POLYPHONIA really be ten years old? I was at the premiere and I remember the tremendous buzz the ballet created: it seemed to me to be the night that Wheeldon 'arrived' as a choreographic force to be reckoned with. Much has happened since since then, but POLYPHONIA still shines forth as a contemporary masterpiece.
Wendy Whelan remains the magnetic centerpiece of this ballet; in a role created for her, the great ballerina wears the Wheeldon style like a second skin. She and Tyler Angle (together in Paul Kolnik's photo, above) make their two duets dazzle with the possibility of what the human body can do. Sara Mearns gave a remarkable performance, handsomely partnered by Chase Finlay. In her solo, Sara seemed to cast a spell over us as she floated smoothly about the stage as if in a trance. Tiler Peck and Gonzalo Garcia gave their contemporary-styled waltz an intoxicating dose of charisma; they look great together. Filling the space with their long-limbed, vibrant dancing Teresa Reichlen and Amar Ramasar caught just the right wryly humorous quality in their duet. Cameron Grant and Alan Moverman played the quirky and often strangely beautiful Ligeti duos with a mysterious glow. POLYPHONIA triumphed again.
It's actually the music that is the big turn-off for me in LA SONNAMBULA. Using Vittorio Rieti's hokey arrangements of some of Bellini's most remarkable bel canto melodies strikes me as a surprising faux pas on the part of Balanchine, a choreographer usually so astute and spot-on in his musical choices. This is the main reason that I rarely go to see this ballet, but when Janie Taylor's debut was announced I knew I would be there.
The set and the narrative seem quite dated, but the costumes still look nice. A moustache doesn't suit Justin Peck but he caught the duality of the Baron - cool charm vs. seething jealousy - quite well. Jennie Somogyi was wonderful as the duplicitous Coquette, and it was great to see Robert Fairchild back onstage looking pale and lost as the Poet. In the Divertissement, the corps de ballet's Ashly Isaacs (a recent standout in FEARFUL SYMMETRIES) and Sarah Villwock seized the opportunity to shine centerstage with some lovely dancing; Devin Alberda and David Prottas (another very welcome comeback) were their lithe and handsome cavaliers. Alina Dronova and Vincent Paradiso looked exotic and styled their duet a l'Arabe with a darkish undercurrent. As an ultra-slim and supple Harlequin, Adam Hendrickson was able to offset the comic cliches in his solo with his brilliant dancing.
At last the Sleepwalker appears. Janie Taylor drifted hypnotically thru the long solo with an otherworldy mystique. In her gossamer gown and with her hair streaming, Janie seemed like a ghostly vision. With questing bourees, she searches for someone in her dream. The Poet cannot break the spell but for all her evasions his presence has registered in her subconscious; at the end after he has been murdered, she returns to bear him away.
Over the decades that I've been going to New York City Ballet there have been a precious few ballerinas who can bring an extra dimension to their roles which goes beyond the steps and gestures. Janie Taylor is one of them : there's no sense of theatricality or melodrama in her performances; she simply is. That's the greatest gift a dancer can possess.
