New York Notebook—Giselle and Symphonie Fantastique

Giselle. Photo: John Hogg

By Susan Yung

Dada Masilo's Giselle

Dada Masilo has come up with a way to make classical ballets relevant and meaningful to audiences who are both interested in the romantic canon, and likewise concerned with contemporary dance and ideas. Her Giselle at the Joyce Theater draws on basic plot elements, characters, and musical themes, but reinterprets the essential story line to hew to a more satisfying, feminist ending in which the guys get their comeuppance.

As she did with Swan Lake in 2016, besides tweaking the plot, the dance is freshened in inventive ways. Foremost, the movement mixes snippets of ballet with steps from African and contemporary dance. Each scene's emotional temperature, or message, receives a different treatment of this mixture. So when Bathilde, an aristocrat, moves haughtily through a group of workers, her group's primary language is balletic; the same goes for Albrecht, her two-timing beau. Their costumes made of bright white fabrics and navy brocades. The corps members, comprising the company of 12, wear peasant-style blouses and beige skirts, and when Albrecht poses as a peasant, he slips off his bright white leggings revealing beige ones.

While many of the key plot points from the traditional Giselle remain, Masilo pivots in several places. Giselle (Masilo) attracts Albrecht's (Xola Willie) eye; they flirt and dance hungrily, enraging the hapless suitor Hilarion (Tshepo Zasekhaya) who bears flowers for Giselle. The Wilis appear in a prevision; led by a fierce and terrifying Myrtha (Llewellyn Mnguni) as a Sangoma—a traditional healer—bearing a whip, and thrashing his long hair as well. The mixed-gender Wilis, in maroon dresses, evoke bitter vengeance with a more violent intent than the originals, who merely danced men to death. Giselle is humiliated and ostracized— not shown as being mentally and physically weak, as is traditional—but by being stripped nearly naked by her mother in one scene, and later by baring herself before taking the whip to Albrecht. She tries to cover her bare body in shame, but she also uses it as a strength, to show her true state of mind and her pure, strong self. Giselle undoing her hair and flinging it about typically signifies the passage into insanity, but the bald-pated Masilo instead communicates only through her movement (and the occasional vocal exclamation).

Traditional African beliefs, embodied in the Wilis, stand in opposition to more Western ideology, represented by Albrecht and Bathilde, in their European-style garb. At one point, Giselle is offered a book—presumably a bible—and rejects it. This tension is parlayed into a debate between preserving South African cultural traditions and adopting Western forms, which Masilo's work deals with. The score, by Philip Miller, combines pulsing percussion overlaid with musical themes from Adolphe Adam's original score for Giselle. Artist William Kentridge created the artwork for the backdrop, a charcoal drawing of a marsh with splashes of color. (Masilo choreographed and appeared in Kentridge's Refuse the Hour at BAM in 2015.) Masilo questions and revamps icons of dance while paying homage to them, and greatly expanding potential audiences.

Photo: Richard Termine

Symphonie Fantastique

Hard to believe it's been two decades since Basil Twist's Symphonie Fantastique took New York by storm, running far longer than thought possible. The production is back at HERE Arts Center, its original venue, presumably freshened with updated technology (well, LED bulbs anyway), but otherwise using the same analog techniques to visually illustrate Berlioz's passionate piano score, played live by Christopher O'Riley. The "puppets" that the performers move through a 1,000 gallon tank range in materials from sequined fabric, glittered circles, tinsel, and bunched fabric, with "screen wipes" made by rising bubbles and cross-swept flags. Drama is created in the musicality, and the shifting lighting adds emotion.

O'Riley plunges wholeheartedly into his piano-playing, coming across as a thespian-like character brimming with emotion. The theater remains tiny, and the tank itself is no bigger than a big large-screen tv. They give backstage tours after the show; it's miraculous how tiny the workspace is, and how many dripping wet props hang from every surface. But most incredible is seeing the banal items that come to life when mixed with music, water, and our ability to anthropomorphize sheets and bubbles.

It's worth revisiting Symphonie Fantastique, and if you missed it back when, tickets are available (albeit not exactly cheap) to see what launched Twist as one of our generation's most accomplished theater artists. Coincidentally, and simultaneous to Symphonie Fantastique, 

Note: Basil Twist's brilliant, tiny puppet person has come to life once again in a retrospective of Jane Comfort's work. Aided by four humans, it stars in Underground River through this weekend at La MaMa.

©️ 2018 Susan Yung, Ephemeralist.com

ABT—Dark the Soul, Bright the Stars

Julie Kent & Marcelo Gomes in Othello. Photo: Gene Schiavone

We love ballet because it can defy mortality. The grace and ease with which the pros do the most difficult steps refutes gravity and the way most of us clump along, meat bags with a few muscles and bones. On the other hand, many of the full-length ballets in ABT's current Met Opera House season underscore the frailties and downfalls of being all too human.

Lar Lubovitch's Othello is revived every so often in part to showcase a powerful male dancer at the peak of his powers, and ABT has no better embodiment than Marcelo Gomes. Although the role was set on Desmond Richardson, it seems built for Gomes. As the curtain rises, simply sitting on his throne, clutching its arms, head bowed, he commands attention. The muscles on his bronze breastplate may not be his, but we don't doubt the power implied (we're also familiar with Gomes' strength).  

Xiomara Reyes, soon galloping into the sunset, in Rodeo. Photo: Gene Schiavone

It never hurts to have a good tale behind a story ballet, and Shakespeare's deeply troubling examination of loyalty and deceit reveals the darkest side of man's nature. James Whiteside made for a believably sinister Iago, slithering and scything his way around the stage's perimeter like an angry shadow. Julie Kent's Desdemona is effectively naive, and Stella Abrera, as Emilia, perfunctorily foreboding. The addition of Bianca (Misty Copeland) and Cassio (Joseph Gorak), who become vehicles for betrayal, flesh out the stage action while clouding the narrative. Still, these two magnetic dancers have some of the best sections of dancing, unchained from the text. The white scarf becomes a searing emblem of love; the more hands that touch it, the more tainted it becomes as a symbol of devotion. 

Agnes De Mille's Rodeo, on the other hand, begins with its lead cowgirl, Xiomara Reyes, longing for the camaraderie of the posse of cowboys, but being ignored until she accedes to at least some feminine conventions. Xiomara Reyes is retiring this season, but her lead performance makes that hard to believe. She's as sassy and tomboyish as ever, in this, one of her best dramatic vehicles. It highlights a buoyant sense of humor that can be buried in formal ballets, albeit where she excels technically. She will be missed in this role. James Whiteside danced the role of the cowboy who moves from buddy to beau, including a lighthearted tap segment.

Isabella Boylston as Giselle. Photo: MIRA

Giselle as well ponders the foibles of the heart, both figuratively and literally. Albrecht falls for, and guilelessly deceives, the frail Giselle, who after death is consigned to join the Wilis (basically, ghosts of unmarried women who taunt men and make them dance to death). Certain ballerinas are born to perform the role of Giselle, and Isabella Boylston is one of them. Her size, her ballon, and flexibility all contribute to a fine characterization. But it is her sublime delicacy that distinguished her rendition in May 23's matinee. When she lifted her leg in an arabesque early in the Act II duet with Alex Hammoudi (Albrecht), the movement was barely perceptible, floating upward steadily, like a feather on the slightest pulse of wind. Battus resembled the beating of a hummingbird's wings. Other dancers—particularly Russians, it seems—milk the drama more, or emphasize athleticism, but Boylston gives a nuanced, quietly magical performance free of histrionics.

Hammoudi, a soloist, is maturing into his princely physique. He is on the way to becoming a much needed leading man of a large size. His long legs only accentuate the height of his grand jetes, and he can finesse the details in traveling steps with beats. It can't hurt to play against the company's finest character dancer, Roman Zhurbin, who succeeded in bringing some empathy to the beleaguered second fiddle, Hilarion. This young cast supplied rewards of a different kind than expected from the company's headliners—a variety of stars populating ABT's galaxy. 

A company is always in transition, but it feels as though ABT is going through more changes than in recent memory, with three principal women retiring (Kent, Herrera, and Reyes), a recuperating David Hallberg out for the season, the oft-cast Polina Semionova injured, and young dancers being groomed for promotions. So while there is Gomes, a fully matured artist in complete command of the repertory, we watch for greatness to emerge from surprising places. 

Evidence and Mikhailovsky Ballet—Surprising Similarities

Mikhailovsky Ballet in Flames of Paris. Photo: Costas

Ronald Brown's Evidence: A Dance Company, from Brooklyn, and the Mikhailovsky Ballet, from St. Petersburg, Russia, couldn't be more different. Or could they? Both have had recent/current runs in New York. And both, in their own ways and on vastly different scales, told stories of the past with unique communicative genres of dance. 

The Mikhailovsky performed Giselle and Flames of Paris in its first week at the Koch. Its production of Giselle feels familiar to the production performed by ABT. The backdrops are painted a little more realistically, and the foliage rises and falls, revealing and hiding Myrta and Giselle, and also alluding to the supernatural setting of the woods. (The elegant Borzois seem to be the same pair, however.) Natalia Osipova is the epitome of a Giselle, radiating innocence and sweetness at the beginning, and descending into a catatonic state of madness. Famous for her ballon, she appears weightless in jumps and when lifted by Leonid Sarafanov (the Count), who spears the air like an arrow when he leaps. 

Flames of Paris (1932) is an oddity—to Americans, in any case. It was commissioned to mark the 15th anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution. Set in 1792, in a suburb of Marseilles, and in Paris, it's a simplistic account of the clash between classes. It switches locales from a marquis' ballroom to the streets of Paris, and from swanning bourgeoisie in velvet to peasants in clogs bearing the tricolor. One problem with the concept of the revolution is that it's supposed to be about the people, so pulling out principals to perform impressive solos and duets goes against principle. And yet, Angelina Vorontsova and Ivan Zaytsev led the cast with, respectively, delicate pizzicato steps and flying, muscular leaps. The peasant crowd scenes were the most energetic, with rousing folk dances (including an adorable little girl who kept up with the steps) and representatives from different ethnic segments of the country. The ballet will most likely not be adopted by non-Russian companies, so its rarity gave a viewing all the more urgency.

One Shot. Photo: David Andrako

Turning to Evidence, in residence at BRIC in Brooklyn, on the surface, the company and its repertory is the polar opposite of ballet, right? But it has a good deal in common. Brown's choreography, an inventive amalgam of African and all manner of modern dance, is a constant stream of communication to the audience. There are several kinds of steps in his vocabulary, which he combines and mixes to create continuously fascinating dance: 

* The emphatic statement, which can be a phrase that includes some gesture to convey specific concepts. In One Shot, one example was two hands clawing the air plus a fishing rod gesture.
* The bass line, when the lower body marks the rhythm while the upper does its own thing
* Traveling moves, which get the dancers from one place to another; these can feel ceremonial or just fun. 
* Marking time, providing a breather in action while reinforcing the music's pulse.

Broadly, ballet is not all that different. Mime and gesture play a big part and are used to denote a specific action. Waltz steps can behave in a similar way to the bass line, following the music while the upper body has its own set of complementary moves. There are many traveling steps in ballet, some small, like bourées; others big, like grand jétés. 

Brown's One Shot (2007) is an homage to Charles Teenie Harris, who documented life in Pittsburgh. It includes many of his photos of his projected behind the dancers. We get a glimpse of prosperous folks in the mid-20th century—beautifully dressed, and sometimes downright glamorous. Most of the subjects are black, although there are several group shots that include whites as well. There's a feeling of elegance and conviviality. Evidence's dancers are dressed in an approximation of the photographs' feel. They showboat, flirt, social dance, enter the military, and return. To Lena Horne singing, Coral Dolphin has a lovely solo, showing her silky style and a burning intensity the radiates through her cucumber-cool exterior. Annique Roberts, as always, rewards viewers with a boneless, impressively economical way of dancing. The company, clad in denim, led off with Come Ye: Amen (2002), an energetic work to the music of Fela Kuti.

Brown's choreography is wondrously consistent in connecting with the audience and conveying a constant stream of storytelling. The grand spectacles of the Mikhailovsky (which continue through this week) similarly grasp viewers' attention, with the help of lavish sets and dozens of dancers. Both in one week is a major gift for dance fans. 

David Hallberg, Home Again

Gillian Murphy & David Hallberg in Cinderella.
Photo: Gene Schiavone

It's been a year since we've seen principal dancer David Hallberg perform with ABT, as he began dancing with the Bolshoi and splits his time between Moscow and New York. I guess we should feel lucky that he keeps one elegant foot here, even if it means a reduced spring ABT season workload and no fall/winter New York dates. It would be unthinkable to lose him completely.

In any case, it's wonderful to see him again in well-suited leads in Cinderella and Giselle. He is a natural-born prince (despite—because of?—his South Dakota provenance), with his statuesque height, noble profile, blond locks, and his innate hauteur. In his months with the Bolshoi, he has added welcome upper body strength to make overhead ballerina presses look easy, particularly with the sparrow-sized Alina Cojocaru in last Saturday evening's Giselle (he stepped in for an ailing Herman Cornejo), but also in the case of the substantially taller Polina Semionova earlier in the week.

In Cinderella, he confidently lifted Gillian Murphy above his head and gracefully descended a set of stairs. He has burnished other elements of his partnering studies—the feather-soft placing of the ballerina back on point, firmly gripping her waist as she tilts downward in arabesque, arranging his gaze to complement hers. It's somewhat ironic that the better partner a man is, the more he disappears, but in a good way.

Hallberg in Giselle. Photo: Gene Schiavone

Hallberg's demeanor is less that of an innocent youth now, and grounded with more maturity and intent. When he ponders his fate, it reads as concerned instead of unclear. And his technique remains paradigmatic, amplified through an emphasis of certain details. A leg held at 90º for an added second or two projects into infinity through his gloriously pointed, high-arched foot. As he circles in the forest, a small scissor step has become far wider and bolder, expressing ecstasy but also ferocity. (Has he learned to outwardly savor those moments when he approaches the sublime, as his fellow dancers often do?) And as always, he floats in perfect split grand jetés, defying gravity. One drawback is that he is so long-legged that the Met stage seems too small for him in these leaps.

I would not have predicted that Semionova would be such a profoundly moving Giselle; her rather tall height doesn't lend itself to the girlishness that in part makes the character's illness and death so terribly sad. But she moves with such tenderness and delicacy that she appeared to be moving through water at times. Hallberg is the right height for her, and together they were heartachingly gorgeous. He is tall for Cojocaru, with whom he danced on Saturday, but she gives a powerful portrayal of the broken ingenue. (Plus, how can one quibble with him as a substitute, despite missing Cornejo's only Giselle?) She is a natural fit for the role, seamlessly transitioning from a demure coquette to a tragic spirit. Again, it is a lovely gift that Cojocaru, one of the luminaries of the current generation, guests with ABT.

Alina Cojocaru as Giselle. Photo: Gene Schiavone

David Hallberg will perform in Swan Lake and The Dream in the final weeks of ABT's season at the Met, and in July, with the Bolshoi during the Lincoln Center Festival. When it rains it pours, but don't hesitate to seize the moment as he is a singular talent in a generation of fine dancers.

Paris Opera Ballet Visits Gotham

Mathieu Ganio and Aurélie Dupont in Giselle.

The Paris Opera Ballet came to New York with a production of Giselle—one of my favorite story ballets—with a version that's new to me. Exciting, right? Yes, but it's also slightly irritating, because while watching it, I spent half my mental energy comparing it to the version done by regularly by ABT (staged by Kevin McKenzie after Coralli/Petipa/Perrot). Ooh, the cottages are painted flats rather than built structures. The costume palette is primarily warm with the exception of Giselle and the Count. Hilarion is more masculine and wears nearly the same costume as Albrecht, making the playing field more level. There are no Borzois or kids! And so on, one relatively small detail after another.


But there were some significant differences. While Giselle is being feted by her friends on the occasion of her birthday, she is placed on the seemingly mandatory hay cart and in addition to receiving a flower headband, is given a sprig of flowers, with which she gaily conducts her friends—the same one used by Myrtha later on to dispense her magic. This dramatic foreshadowing strongly links Giselle to the consigned fate of becoming a resurrected spirit of an unwed dead woman, perhaps even a successor to Myrtha, and gives this carefree scene a shot of gravitas. In contrast, in ABT's production, there are some oddly out-of-place children in the cart, merrily waving their beer steins back and forth as Giselle watches. In general, the POB production (same roots, restaged by Patrice Bart and Eugene Polyakov in 1991) is more somber in the first act, emphasizing less Giselle's girlishness and youth, and more her mutability and mortality. She's less happy-go-lucky and seems conscious of her fate. 


The company uses a shiny floor surface, so that in Act 2, the Wilis are reflected as if in water, adding to the supernatural illusion. They are arrayed more like an army, in neat columns, to be deployed by Myrtha efficiently and ruthlessly when a man strays into the area. And when Hilarion does, he is banished down the line of Wilis with flicks of their hands, one at a time. The lighting is particularly effective, with white tones that read as silvery moonlight. The schemes particularly contrast with those by both NYCB (same house) and ABT (across the plaza), which are murkier. 


And yet I was less moved by this production than ABT's. In fairness, I saw one of the most heartfelt performances ever at ABT, featuring Marcelo Gomes and Diana Vishneva; their technical prowess combined with their range of expressivity was simply alchemical. POB's cast was led by Aurélie Dupont and Mathieu Ganio. Dupont is serene and confident, but I felt that she was too mature to play the teenage Giselle, and I don't mean old. She worked her lovely feet to best advantage; the womens' toe shoes appeared to be slightly more flexible than their American counterparts, with more care given to rolling through the foot. Ganio fit the bill as the callow prince, yet didn't explore the movement and expand on its potential.


Dupont was far better suited to Béjart's Bolero (1961), on the French program. Occupying the center of a round red table, she was surrounded by men seated on red chairs on three sides. There was nothing unpredictable in the way she pulsed seductively to the inexorable rhythm, rocking foot to foot, the movement building in scope as the bare-chested men increasingly gathered around her, echoing the primal beat. Here, her maturity commanded and intrigued. At times, the strikingly modern imagery evoked The Green Table by Kurt Jooss, driven by games of love rather than war. 

and... Dupont and Ganio in Suite en Blanc

This program led off with Suite en Blanc (1943) by transplanted Russian Serge Lifar, which displays the academic accomplishments of a large company by showing each dancer's strengths in sections of varying dynamic and mood. Its striking black and white aesthetic (uncredited, oddly) gave it a flat, dramatic appearance underscored by numerous MGM spectacle-like tableaux and stage compositions. Emphasizing ballet's artificiality to an extreme, it's a fragmentary representation of what Balanchine's counterparts abroad were producing in the post-Romantic period. 


L'Arlésienne, by Roland Petit (1974), utilizes Bizet's catchy, familiar music. Petit drew on folk dance motifs that, when paired with the marriage theme, brought to mind the feel of Nijinska's Les Noces—flat shapes, lines of peasants underscoring the Van Goghesque painted panels. Only a too-long solo for the lead male, toward the end, put the brakes on this charming short ballet.


Paris Opera Ballet will further reveal its scope this week with Pina Bausch's Orpheus.

American Ballet Theatre Achieves Perfection with Giselle, 6/2/11

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American Ballet Theatre Achieves Perfection with Giselles starring Marcelo Gomes, Diana Vishneva, David Hallberg, Hee Seo

http://www.thirteen.org/sundayarts/blog/ballet/american-ballet-theatre-achieves-perfection-with-giselle/1334/

Diana Vishneva and Marcelo Gomes in Giselle. Photo by Gene Schiavone.

Perfection is a dangerous word, especially when applied to a subjectively perceived art like ballet. But I have no doubt that it applies to ABT‘s Giselle as performed by Diana Vishneva and Marcelo Gomes on May 27. These two artists have worked together many times in different roles, so a bit of complacency might be expected. On the contrary, they seemed to inspire one another to reach deeper into their characters, tapping their formidable technical and artistic skills. As their roles dictate, they united in spirit, and worked together physically as one. When he partnered her in a series of bounding lifts, it was impossible to tell whether she was aloft or standing. Gomes has long been the company’s finest partner (you may recall me using the term “Gomes bump,” a guaranteed increase in duet quality for any lucky ballerina), but here, he surpassed previous performances with an attentiveness, and framing of, Vishneva. How he manages to essentially reflect and illuminate her while commanding the stage space himself is one of the great, euphoric mysteries of this dancer.

Getting the Wilis: Pacific Northwest Ballet at the Guggenheim, 1/13/11

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Pacific Northwest Ballet at Guggenheim Works & Process with excerpts from the new Giselle

http://www.thirteen.org/sundayarts/blog/ballet/getting-the-wilis-pacific-northwest-ballet-at-the-guggenheim/1020/

Carla Korbes and Seth Orza. Works & Process at the Guggenheim – Pacific Northwest Ballet – Giselle Revisited. Photo by Jesson Mata.

It’s hard to come up with a brand new dance, but what might be even more difficult is to create a new version of a classic, as Pacific Northwest Ballet is doing with Giselle. The painstaking, fascinating process was brought to light in a Works & Process at the Guggenheim last weekend. (Perhaps you caught itstreamed live? (Excerpts from the series are also accessible through YouTube.) Artistic director and stager Peter Boal, Marian Smith (historical adviser), and Doug Fullington (choreography reconstruction) discussed the sources used to piece together the original choreography, by Jean Coralli, Jules Perrot, and Marius Petipa. They explicated themes and passages in Adolphe Adam’s music, so that even if you’ve seen it many times, there was something new to gleaned.

Four dancers from PNB demonstrated sections whose precise meanings were explained to the audience. These included many mime sections that, to untrained eyes, might look goofy or a waste of time (and are really easy to mock), but pay homage to ballet’s canon and provide essential groundwork to move the story along swiftly. Smith matched musical passages with words, which reside in the score alongside more obvious character-specific  melodies. When phrases were repeated, the second watching was immediately far more rewarding.