Oberon's Grove

Lubovitch Rep Class with Attila Joey Csiki

Tuesday November 30, 2010 - At Peridance this week, Attila Joey Csiki is presenting a series of master classes in Lar Lubovitch repertoire. Attila invited me to come and watch one of the sessions. Unfortunately both Kokyat and Brian were working their regular jobs so I didn't have a photographer with me. However, Attila has sent me some photos by Kevin Thomas Garcia from his recent solo appearance at the Trevor Project Gala at the Church of St. Paul the Apostle on November 22nd so the photos in this article are from that evening.

The high-ceilinged studio was filled with about two dozen students who came for this second of five classes. Attila told me that about half the dancers present had come the day before and the other half were new faces. There were two guys, both very fine dancers, and several really impressive girls including Emily SoRelle Adams, a dancer I've known from her appearances with New Chamber Ballet.

Many of the students had just taken a ballet class in a studio down the hall; Attila told the dancers he was not going to give them a warm-up per se but that the first piece they would be working on - an excerpt from Lar Lubovitch's 1976 work MARIMBA - would provide a warm-up in itself. He then began to demonstrate the phrase, without music. The series of counts seemed very complex to me but the dancers jumped right in, picking up the moves and port de bras from Attila; his innate musicality turned the demonstration into something of a performance. While I was sitting there trying to remember the initial arm gesture, the dancers had the entire phrase nearly nailed down. They ran thru it a few times and then Attila played the music, telling the dancers to allow the trance-like repetitions to flow thru their bodies. They moved like waves of tall grass in the breeze. 

From there he added the second phrase of the excerpt and then the third. In the meantime I had completely forgotten the first phrase. But the dancers didn't; soon they were all moving in sync thru the extended passage. Attila split them into two groups and they continued running the piece until it was in their muscle-memory. And...they were now thoroughly warmed-up.

Attila then turned to a very different Lubovitch work, a luminous excerpt from Lubovitch's 2007 DVORAK SERENADE. Again in demonstrating the phrases Attila's fluid style was so clear. Turning on the rhapsodic music, he had the whole group work the phrase and then broke them into four smaller groups. "This is classic Lubovitch!" he called out as he let the energy of the music flow thru his limbs: "One step bleeds into the next, the movement never stops."

"Easy...easy!" he cautioned one set of dancers who were poised to start moving across the floor in too aggressive a manner. "It's lyrical!" 

Outside the windows, another crowd of dancers were waiting for the studio. The class had literally zoomed by and the students came forward to curtsey and bow to Attila. One of the fringe benefits of watching a master class is getting to see world-class dancers in action up close. Thus in recent weeks I've seen Wendy Whelan, Matthew Rushing, Attila today and with Alex Wong coming up in January.

Attila's classes continue thru Friday at Peridance, with an 11:30 AM start time. You can take an individual class for $20.

A final photo from the Trevor Project Gala: Attila with pianist Kathy Tagg. Read about the visit Brian Krontz and I made to Attila's rehearsal for the gala here. 

Photos: Kevin Thomas Garcia

 

Catching Up With Edwaard Liang

Seeing Stanislav Belyaevsky's photo of the Mariinsky dancers Leonid Sarafanov and Oleysia Novikova in Edwaard Liang's FLIGHT OF ANGELS (above) reminded me that it was time to check in wth Edwaard to see what he's been up to and what's in the future for him.

Here is another image by Mr. Belyaesvsky from Edwaard's Mariinsky ballet with Novikova and Sarafanov. Earlier this year, Edwaard created FLIGHT OF ANGELS in St. Petersburg and he shared this experience  on my blog here and here. Then in May he was in Singapore and then it was Summer and...now it's Autumn and an Edwaard Liang update is definitely overdue.

Portrait of Edwaard by Hauser & Fredda.

Edwaard Liang was the subject of my first Oberon's Grove interview and it has been one of the most-read and most-Googled articles on my blog ever. A lot has happened for Edwaard since this interview, but the story of a wonderful dancer who became a wonderful and much-in-demand choreographer is a really good read - which I can say, since he did most of the writing.

Edwaard sent me a basic list of his upcoming choreographic engagements:

"I'm currently working with Joffrey Ballet, choreographing a new work for spring 2011.
 
This Winter: re-working a piece for Yuan Yuan Tan and Damian Smith  
for the SFBallet Gala in January.
 
Winter: Start my second work for Singapore Dance Theatre
 
Spring 2011: - Premiere Joffrey new creation

   - create and premiere a new work for Washington Ballet
 
Early summer: premiere Singapore Dance Theatre new creation
 
Fall of 2011 - start a new work for San Francisco Ballet for 2012
 
2012- Full length Romeo and Juliet for Tulsa Ballet
 
        - New creation for Houston Ballet"

Then I had a few questions to ask him:

What music are you using for your new Joffrey piece?

          "I'm using 4 different composers: Ravel, Michael Galasso, Britten, Gorecki." 

How far in advance do you pick your music?

          "I am always looking and researching.  I sometimes have music already set aside... sometimes I'm searching for a certain project."

Do you have a list of musical works you would like to set and then wait for the right company to choose from the list or is it more spontaneous?

          "I always have a wish list of music.. but it really has to fit with the company and the ballet I have in mind.  So its half planned and half spontaneous."

Do companies ever ask you to use specific music or is that always up to you? 

         "Yes.. certain companies have hired me for a specific project or piece of music.  But that is always a bit harder."

Do you find your mind racing ahead to all these projects or are you taking it one thing at a time? 

         "I try not to focus on too many things at once.  I'm really just doing one project at a time."

How great that you go back to Singapore...those dancers look so young,..and serious!

         "I'm so happy to go back and work. I love working in Asia. I really want to do more in China, Hong Kong, etc."

Photo: Hauser & Fredda. Although officially 'retired' as a dancer, Edwaard has obviously maintained his dancing form.

The Day I Met Tom Gold

Kokyat's photo from the day I met Tom Gold at his studio; Tom was preparing to take a troupe of New York City Ballet dancers to Tel Aiv. Seated at left are artist Luma Rouge and NYCB's principal ballerina Abi Stafford. Read about the afternoon here. Click the above photo to enlarge.

A gallery of Kokyat's rehearsal photos here. Photos of Tom and Abi rehearsing a Twyla Tharp duet here. Link to a portfolio of Tel Aviv performance images here. Watch a brief excerpt from Tom's ballet SHANTI here.

Bennyroyce Royon Contemporary Workshop

One of the New York City dance scene's smoothest movers, Bennyroyce Royon gives a workshop in contemporary style and improv at Peridance from January 3rd - 7th, 2011. Watch a trailer here, which features Kokyat's photography. Above picture of Benny teaching at The Rover earlier this year is also by Kokyat.

Joy Womack

Ballerina Joy Womack photographed by Vihao Pham. Kokyat and I met this young dancer this past summer at Avi Scher's studio while she was in New York City. 

Lubovitch Rep Workshop @ Peridance

Attila Joey Csiki of Lar Lubovitch Dance Company will be giving a workshop in Lubovitch repertoire at Peridance from November 29th - December 3rd. Information here. Photo of Attila above by Brian Krontz from our recent visit to Attila's studio rehearsal.

Amy Marshall Dance Company: Rehearsal

Wednesday November 24, 2010 - The dancers of Amy Marshall Dance Company are preparing for a studio showing on November 29th for friends of the Company at which Amy will unveil a new logo and announce the launch of their new website which features a collaboration with designer Norma Kamali and photographer Lois Greenfield. I dropped in at City Center studio for an hour today to watch the dancers running thru Riding the Purple Twilight, a section of which will be performed at Monday's fete.

During a break, Chad Levy gave me a sneak peek at the new website. It's stunning. I look forward to 'introducing' it on my blog.

Having my camera with me was of little use when the choreography is as fast-paced as this. Most of my images were just blurs of motion. A least in the above picture you can tell who that these are people.

Shannon MacDowell and Louis Acquisto, above.

More about Amy Marshall Dance Company after Monday's event.

Nai-Ni Chen Dance Company: Rehearsal

Tuesday November 23, 2010 - I went down to Harlem today to watch part of a rehearsal of the Nai-Ni Chen Dance Company in preparation for their upcoming performances. The Company will perform at the Harlem School of the Arts from December 2nd thru 5th. Details here. The performances are a collaboration with the Ahn Trio and composer Kenji Bunch. In addition, dances set to works by Pat Metheny and Ronn Yedidia will be premiered.

We discovered Nai-Ni Chen earlier this year when a dancer we'd met, Jamison Goodnight, joined Nai-Ni's company. Both Kokyat and I so thoroughly enjoyed the programme we saw and have been looking forward to seeing the group again. Kokyat's photo of Jamison, above.

At today's rehearsal I watched a preview of the works to be shown at the upcoming performances. Each piece is like a visual poem; certain stylistic elements run like silken threads thry the tapestries of dance but each work is also a unique response to the respective musical composition. Above: dancers Riyo Mito and Justin Lynch.

Central to the Chen/Ahn/Bunch collaboration will be a piece entitled CONCRETE STREAM. The work - which begins with a finely-wrought solo for Jamison Goodnight - will feature the musicians' participation onstage. For another Kenji Bunch composition, GROOVEBOXES, the choreographer departs from her signature style of spacious, lyrical movement and has the dancers sailing thru fast-paced, energized combinations with perfect grace.

I am not sure who has the finer fortune here: the dancers who have Nai-Ni's entrancing choreography in which they can give wing to their expressive artistry, or Nai-Ni Chen herself in having such an appealing and polished roster of dancers to turn her visions into danced reality. It's an ideal situation for all concerned.

The dancers were kind enough - at the end of a long day in the studio - to pose for some photos which of course made me wish that Kokyat had been there. It does seem that he will be photographing one of the performances next week so then I should really have some exciting images of this radiant Company to share. Above: Riyo Mito and Justin Lynch.

Wei Yao and Jamison Goodnight...

...performed an impromptu adagio for me.

Jamison and Wei

Francisco Silvino...

...tries on a new costume, and he looks great.  

Lar Lubovitch Dance Company @ BAC

Sunday November 21, 2010 evening - The culmination of one of my busiest fortnights since I started blogging: a truly enjoyable evening of works by Lar Lubovitch, beautifully danced by his beautiful dancers. This was the Company's final performance of a sold-out run at the Baryshnikov Arts Center.

I suppose North Star would be considered early Philip Glass. He'd been composing for about ten years when he wrote this in 1977. (The ballet premiered in 1978). The music seems denser and less ethereal than many of Glass's later works, but still very enjoyable to hear. The dancers swirl and flash about the stage individually or in quartets which join and then splinter as the music ebbs and flows. The restless energy of the score is visualized by the choreographer to perfect effect. Photo above: Todd Rosenberg.

Katarzyna Skarpetowska and Brian McGinnis (above, Christopher Duggan photo) performed the duet from MEADOW. Dating from 1999 and originally set on ABT, this work is set to an intrinsically luminous work by Gavin Bryars entitled Incipit Vita Nova.To the uneartly sounds of the counter-tenor voice, the dancers create sculptural shapes as one pose flows into another with silken smoothness. For the perfection of their performance, Skarpetowska and McGinnis were warmly cheered.

THE LEGEND OF TEN is a tribute to the ten members of the Company and - all clad in somewhat ominous but elegant black - the dancers turned it into a tribute to Lubovitch who is surely the king of lyricism among current choreographers. With a central adagio couple (Jenna Fakhoury and Reid Bartelme) surrounded by a lively octet of dancers who often step in unison and sometimes bring gypsy flourishes to their movements, the piece is structurally propelled by the music of the Brahms piano quintet Opus 34. The Lubovitch dancers mesh into a cohesive ensemble but the individual personalities of the dancers also shine thru in this, the latest success in the choreographer's long catalog of works. (Photo above: Sasha Fornani)

All was going well as I saw the finish line of my 2-week dance marathon approaching, but on standing up for the second intermission tonight, my left knee finally rebelled in earnest. I realized that if I sat for another twenty minutes it would tighten further so I hobbled down to the street and after a few minutes of walking it loosened up enough to limp to the subway. I felt bad missing the last piece on the Lubovitch programme though it was one (Coltrane's Favorite Things) I'd seen not long ago. My grandmother always told me: "It's hell to grow old!"

Columbia Ballet Collaborative @ MMAC

Sunday November 21, 2010 matinee - The Columbia Ballet Collaborative under the artistic direction of Elysia Dawn gave an afternoon of dance at Manhattan Movement and Arts Center with a new work by Pennsylvania Ballet’s Choreographer in Residence Matthew Neenan starring New York City Ballet principal dancer Amar Ramasar, as well as a premiere work by CBC’s resident choreographer Emery LeCrone. The programme also featured new works by Zalman Grinberg, NYCB soloist Adam Hendrickson, Summer Jones and Amanda Lowe. Photo at the top: from a rehearsal of Emery LeCrone's new CBC work entitled Palindrome; photo by Kokyat.

The afternoon started well and built from there; each choreographer's voice was clearly expressive and there was a fine variety of musical styles to keep the ear as content as the eye.

Summer Jones presented Sound in One Movement to a violin solo composed and played 'live' by Philip Wharton. Structured with an opening duet followed by a quartet and then an ensemble passage featuring a prominent pas de deux couple the choreographer showed an interesting grasp of having different people doing different things at the same time; the attractive music helped to blend these elements into a cohesive whole.

Matthew Neenan, resident choreographer of Pennsylvania Ballet, set the andante of Vivaldi's Cello Concerto in A minor as a pas de deux for Elysia Dawn and New York City Ballet principal dancer Amar Ramasar. Both dressed in black, the dancers performed this duet with a quiet tenderness that never became saccharine. With his inherent star power, Amar could easily have turned this adagio into a personal showpiece but instead he gallantly kept the focus on his beautiful partner.

"A wonderful voice, not suited for singing" was my initial thought on hearing Joanna Newsom for the first time singing Sawdust and Diamonds as the score of Amanda Lowe's Then and Never. I'd had the same reaction the first time I heard Alanis Morisette - til she won me over with The Uninvited. Anyway, after a few moments Ms. Newsom and her harp started weaving a spell. And the choreographer took up the thread and wove it into a really impressive piece for nine women which had an Isadora Duncan feel (or was I having a Duncan hangover from last night?) but which also had a clarity of structure that was refreshing in its appeal. The nine girls took the music and the choreographer's vision and gave the piece a transportive feminine energy.

Last week Zalman Grinberg set Debussy to very appealing effect at the Young Choreographers Showcase. Today he scored again using a familiar piece (Chopin Impromptu #4) and creating a trio for three sylphs on pointe (The Impromptu Fantasise) that seemed on the face of it to be a reverie in romantic-style classicism; by incorporating subtle contemporary touches here and there Zalman gave the piece a unique quality. His three ballerinas - Caitlin Dieck, Kara Buckley and Katie Kantor - were attractive components of the work's success. I look forward to following Zalman's choreographic work in the coming months; he seems to have something unique to say and he isn't afraid to use the classics as a basis for expression.

The afternoon was on an impressive roll and New York City Ballet's Adam Hendrickson took up the torch with a wonderfully satisfying piece entitled Sun Will Set. The gently rhythmic score by Zoe Keating evoked cradles, rocking chairs or the endless thrum of a spinning wheel as this Americana ballet evolved with imaginative clarity. Four women in plain soft-coloured shifts gather, glean and weave in a gestural language of repetitive tasks. From their busywork, each has a solo phrase just long enough to make a personal impression before stepping back to the collective. Music, movement and mood were finely integrated; the piece really drew me in. Kudos to the four girls - Sophie Alpern, Lauren Alpert, Lauren DeMaria and Alexandra McGlade - who gave life to Adam's vision. Past works of Adam's that I've seen tended to feature virtuoso passages for male dancers; in extending his range here, I felt that Adam's moving steadily along on a unique choreographic path. I will be watching to see where it leads him.   

Above: Kokyat's photo of Erin Arbuckle rehearsing Emery LeCrone's Palindrome. Here Emery has produced another intriguing dancework to add to her treasury with Palindrome, a dark work set to an often ominous-sounding score culled from music of Chris Clark and Venetian Snares. Four dancers - Erin Arbuckle, Rebecca Azenberg, Paul Busch and Richard Isaac - move thru this stark soundscape with powerful individual performances.There are duets - Erin and Paul, Rebecca and Richard - and a passage of communal  port de bras that seems to communicate some ancient language. The choreography flows forward and then at a point everything flows in reverse. Kokyat and I had seen a developmental rehearsal of this piece early on in the process, and a second rehearsal when it was fully set (photo of Erin Arbuckle above by Kokyat) but in the costumed and lit final product there was still a lot to discover.

Manhattan Movement and Arts Center is becoming one of my favorite destinations in the New York dance world. From ballet classes taught by Deborah Wingert to watching Joy Womack rehearsing an Avi Scher solo, Kokyat and I have had some great times at MMAC in recent months. I always look forward to going there.