Oberon's Grove

US Open 2009 - Qualifying Tournament

Tuesday August 25, 2009 - Above, Columbia's Alejandro Falla.  The US Open qualifying tournament week has always been something I've looked forward to but this morning I found myself with mixed feelings as I got ready to take the long trek out to Flushing. It was a beautiful morning and the idea of watching tennis all day really appealed to me, but the thought of the crowds, the baby strollers, the cellphones and the indifference to the actual game that seems to be the pervasive element of attending the Open these days made me think seriously of just staying home.

The absence of certain players this year has made the Open less attractive to me than in the past. This will be the third tournament without Paradorn Srichaphan, the Thai guy whose matches were always the centerpiece of the Open for me. The idea that he might make a comeback seems to have faded away and apparently he is happy being married to a former Miss Universe and not having to damage his wrist further by slamming a tennis ball around the courts. The Korean Hyung-Taik Lee has retired, the Japanese Kei Nishikori who was so exciting last year has withdrawn, and I do not see the name of the Pakistani Aisam Ul-Haq Quereshi anywhere in the single's lists (but he was there today watching...so he must be playing doubles). Bjorn Phau and Steve Darcis are in the main draw this year, meaning that in order to see them play I'd need to buy a ticket (something to consider carefully in this economic slump) and brave the even larger, more indifferent crowds of the actual tournament.

Wei noted my lack of enthusiasm and suggested this was the perfect Open to look for new favorite players. By the end of the day I had found one, and also rediscovered a player I'd liked in the past but who I'd lost track of a bit recently.

I was still feeling a bit down as I headed out to Queens but an edifying experience on the #7 train put me in a different frame of mind. Don't ask, because I'm not going to tell. Feeling pretty blithe when I arrived at the Tennis Center, I bought a ticket for Monday (I'd been debating whether to go or not) and went out to Court 6 to watch Alejandro Falla in a close match vs. India's Prakash Amritraj.

Alejandro had been on my A-list for a couple seasons but the last time I saw him play he seemed a bit lethargic and uninspired. At today's match he seemed controlled, almost cold, and played efficiently with streaks of brilliance. He and Amritraj were well-matched in terms of skill and power so the momentum of the match shifted back and forth a few times. Each player won a set, then Alejandro just got down to business and pulled off the win.

On Court 17, a much faster-paced match between Japan's Tatsuma Ito (above) and the Czech Pavel Snobel showed me again all the things I love about watching 'live' tennis. Within seconds I was totally intrigued by Ito's dynamic game, his steady and well-placed shots and his occassional magic tricks. Court 17 is an end court and since the two players are not 'names' there was not a large crowd of spectators. I found myself running up and down the sideline as Ito changed ends, silently sending him mental energy. It worked: he won in straight sets.

I do love the way Japanese TV are always there for the Japanese players: Ito was interviewed courtside, glistening with sweat, and beseiged by a horde of eager Japanese fans including some very pretty young girls who were clearly smitten with the handsome tennis player. Smitten. That's a good word.

Another thing I liked about Ito: when he was 2 games away from the win, he changed to a red tee-shirt. Paradorn always did that when he sensed victory was near.

After that my day at the Open went downhill somewhat. Every match I sat down to watch was ruined by yapping people, unruly kids, cellphones going off. There is a huge food court area and a nice courtyard with fountains. You want to talk? Go get a beer and find a table and sit down and talk your fucking head off. If you are going to sit in on a match (duh...it's a tennis tournament, after all) could you at least have the common courtesy not to talk during play?  And what is the point of bringing small children to the US Open? Has the cost of a babysitter suddenly gone astronomic? 99% of children under age ten have no clue what tennis is about nor do they care; they simply want to eat, drink, pee and fuss. Yet year after year parents come dragging toddlers, strollers, and all the accoutrements that go with parenthood to the Open and then they wonder why their darlings are unruly. Well, it gets HOT on the courts and when it gets hot, kids get cranky. Oh well, the triumph of indifference...that's what it is: people who don't care spoiling things for people who do. 

So after a while I just gave up. I had seen two very good matches in relative peace and I guess maybe that is all one can expect now that the Open has become an event rather than a place to enjoy serious tennis.

On the #7 coming home, the setting sun emerged from behind clouds drifting just above the horizon and for a few moments the sky over Gotham was a tumult of silver and gold. I love New York, don't you?

Who Is Tatsuma Ito?

TAKE Dance Summer Intensive: Gallery

Saturday August 22, 2009 - At Takehiro Ueyama's Summer Intensive, my photographer/friend Kokyat inevitably found himself focused on certain individual dancers. Above: Audra Bailey.

Click on each image for an enhanced view.

Danielle Vialpando

Sophie Bromberg with TAKE Dance's Sharon Park.

Jessica LaChance.

Kristi Smith.

Sarah DeBiase.

Adam Gold & Patricia Chen.

Kei Tsuruharatani & Danielle Vialpando.

Stephanie Amurao & Kei Tsuruharatani.

Adam Gold & Angelica Stiskin.

TAKE Dance Summer Intensive: Rehearsal II

LOOKING FOR WATER was created by Takehiro Ueyama in 2007 to a score by Damian Eckstein. The dancers in long white skirts move in calm paces thru a desert landscape employing a gestural language to communicate with one another. Kokyat, who took these photos, loved the sound of thunder in the score which reminded him of the summer storms in his native Kuala Lumpur.

Click on each photo to enlarge.

Take used the opening movement of LOOKING FOR WATER as a performing experience for the young dancers of his Sumnmer Intensive. I must say they looked beautiful dancing this piece and they seemed to capture the spiritual quality of the adagio passages; but there are sudden bursts of almost frenetic energy woven into LOOKING FOR WATER as well as partnered sequences.

Above, the opening moment.

I thought Kokyat's rehearsal photos were so striking that I have included several of them here. Click on each image for an enhanced view.

TAKE Dance Summer Intensive: Rehearsal

Saturday August 22, 2009 - For his Summer Intensive, Takehiro Ueyama devised a really nice brief 'dance-fragment' for which Marlon Cherry provided live music; the students were broken down into small groups for this and later for the hypnotic, ritualistic opening movement of Take's poetic work, LOOKING FOR WATER (score by Damien Eckstein). Musically, the entire afternoon had an exotic Eastern feeling. Dancers from Take's Company - Jill Echo, Sharon Park, Gina Ianni, Kristen Arnold and Kile Hotchkiss - were helping to set the works to be performed at a studio showing on Sunday.

When you are not dancing, you are observing.

Marlon Cherry provided the music for Take's class and rehearsal. Marlon's vibrant style kept the dancers at a high energy level all day.

TAKE Dance Summer Intensive: Saturday Class

Saturday August 22, 2009 - Takehiro Ueyama invited Kokyat and me to watch a session of his 2009 Summer Intensive at the Morocco Studio, located on West 20th Street just off 5th Avenues. Kokyat liked the space immediately and spent nearly five hours padding around the room finding different spots to shoot from. One wall is all-window and another all-mirror; two large columns interrupt the floor space and posed an impediment once the combinations started to flow but the dancers managed very well.

The afternoon began with class, the dancers on the floor. The opening exercises are almost meditative; slowly the limbs begin to move with a more expansive feeling and the pacing quickens.

A pianist would have seemed too formal, so instead Take has brought in a wonderful musician named Marlon Cherry (above).

Marlon's instruments included his djembe drum, a tambourine which he ingeniously played with his left foot, and the above-pictured 'chime box' which I at first thought was a Bible (!) but from which Marlon was able to draw a tinkling sound interspersed above the drummed rhythms. The dancers seemed to revel in Marlon's music which makes you feel you are in an oasis cafe somewhere on a magical voyage between Africa and Asia. 

Take had about 30 students this Summer; as always the girls outnumbered the boys. As a group they were beautiful to watch for their energy and commitment. By midway thru the class, certain personalities were attracting attention even though it's a bit awkward to single people out in a classroom environment.

After the class. which lasted nearly two hours, there was only a brief break and then Take began working with the students on two pieces for Sunday's presentation: one passage specially developed for the Intensive, and the evocative opening movement of LOOKING FOR WATER from the TAKE Dance repertoire.

All photos: Kokyat. Click on each image to enlarge.

TAKE Dance Summer Intensive

Kokyat and I spent Saturday and Sunday afternoons at Takehiro Ueyama's Summer Intensive: technique class and rehearsal on Saturday and a showcase performance for friends on Sunday at the Morocco Studio, a spacious and nicely lit room where Kokyat very much enjoyed shooting. He's processing the photos and I will be posting many more of them over the next couple of days but here are a couple of shots from the end of the Intensive as the young dancers took a collective bow, and Take took a final sweeping video shot of the participants.

Click each image to enhance the view. And stay tuned for more.

Summer Afternoon

 

"Summer afternoon - summer afternoon; to me those have always been the two most beautiful words in the English language."

-  Henry James

Never Forever

Gina Kim's 2008 film NEVER FOREVER resonated deeply with me on many levels. An unusual and somewhat improbable story, it translates beautifully onto the screen thanks to a very believable trio of leading actors, atmospheric cinematography and an emotional musical score.

Vera Farmiga plays Sophie Lee, a rather fragile-looking American blonde with poignant blue eyes who is happily married to Andrew, a successful Korean businessman based in New York City. The only thing missing in their marriage is a child. Despite many attempts to conceive, it has turned out that Andrew is unable to father a child - or so it seems anyway. 

David McInnis (Andrew) is desolate over his inability to have a child with Sophie. As they observe the children of their friends and relatives, the couple become increasingly despondent and Andrew attempts to take his own life. Realizing that only by producing a child can her marriage (and her husband's life) be sustained, Sophie pursues a course of action that seems both brave and foolish. 

Jung-Woo Ha portrays Jihah, an illegal Korean immigrant working two jobs and trying to scrape enough money together to bring his girlfriend to the USA. He is at a fertility clinic attempting to donate sperm to raise some cash, but his illegal status disqualifies him. Sophie, waiting for yet another consultation, observes the Korean man's situation and sees in him a possible solution to her own problem.

Following him, she makes an unusual business proposition: she will pay him $300 a shot for sexual encounters on a regular basis and $30,000 in cash if she gets pregnant. Desperate for the money, he agrees. Their first liaisons are silent and detached; they do their thing without speaking and without emotion. But of course as time goes by the inevitable closeness develops.

The unsuspecting husband tries to assure Sophie that it will be alright if they do not have a child; he is resigned to the reality of it. But in a startling revelation, she tells him that she had become pregnant by him prior to their marriage and had aborted the child. It's unclear whether this is true or whether she simply tells him this so that he will not suspect anything if and when she actually does conceive. The game continues for while and then Sophie discovers she is pregnant and comes to pay Jihah the promised fee. What should mark the end of their arrangement instead sets off a series of incidents which lead to the film's climax.

Ms. Farmiga's quiet intensity and the surprising power of her passion as the emotional focus of the film shifts make her portrayal truly impressive. Mr. McInnis is handsome and brooding as the husband, with moments of unguarded tenderness. But it is Jung-Woo Ha's performance that gives the film its most memorable scenes. Swept into an unlikely situation - getting paid to have sex with a beautiful woman who otherwise wouldn't give him the time of day - the actor makes the harried Jihah so appealing in his discovery of his own romantic depths. His affair with Sophie ends with an unexpected intrusion of reality.

But there is one more scene in the movie, poignant and enigmatic. Is it reality or a dream? We are left to ponder.         

In the Studio with Sydney Skybetter: Dancing

Having been truly impressed by Sydney Skybetter's choreography at a recent Dance Theater Workshop performance, Kokyat and I really enjoyed this opportunity to watch Sydney and his dancers in the studio. Above: Bergen Wheeler, Sky, Jennifer Jones and Kristen Arnold. All photos: Kokyat. The images (most of them) will enhance if clicked on.

Parts of three works were rehearsed and then, after a break, were presented for a small audience of friends. Above: Jennifer, Kristen, Sky and Elliott Reiland. With the chamber ensemble GROUP THERAPY providing an especially glowing and full-bodied account of the Dvorak string quartet #12, we saw POTEMKIN PIECE. This was followed by part of Gorecki's Quasi Una Fantasia for the work entitled COLD HOUSE YOU KEPT: interestingly, this was the third setting of this music I have seen this year since it was used earlier by Benjamin Millepied for a New York City Ballet premiere and also by Lydia Johnson for her season at the Ailey. Finally, an excerpt from Skybetter's FUGUE STATE was shown, set to Shostakovich.

Sydney's choreography flows freely on the music, and his musical choices are impeccable. There is urgency without melodrama, and there are beautifully sustained lyric passages. The dancers, each with a unique personality shining thru the movement, have ample opportunity for personal expression and to revel in combinations which demand great energy but never appear strenuous. Partnered sequences have a nice sense of naturalness and in ensembles one feels each dancer's individuality underpinning the sense of unity. The more Skybetter I see, the more I like. And the presence of the musicians adds immeasurably to the beauty of what we experience: both ear and eye are constantly satisfied and sustained. 

Elliott Reiland and Kristen Arnold.

Bergen Wheeler and Kristen Arnold.

Jennifer Jones, aloft.

Kristen and Sydney.

Sydney, Jennifer, Bergen and Kristen.

A Skybetter work will be featured on a mixed bill at Dance Theater Workshop on September 8th and then the Company take up residency at Joyce SoHo.

Kokyat and I express our joint gratitude to Sky, his dancers and the musicians for letting us watch them at work.