(no subject)
City Ballet of San Diego, 'Just Balanchine' (Serenade, La Source, The Four Temperaments), Birch North Park Theatre, 5 March 2009.
I will forgive the City Ballet a terrible (really) website - as in, they don't actually tell you what specific things you'll be seeing until your tickets arrive - because their performance of three classic pieces of Balanchine was really a treat. I suspect Balanchine himself would've taken a dim view of the weight of some of the dancers, but overall it was a lovely performance.
I was especially taken with Serenade, a signature NYCB piece that is set to Tchaikovsky's Serenade in C Major. La Source recalls Romantic ballets, with lovely light footwork and little vignettes of dance (the costumes here were especially fantastic). And The Four Temperaments - while I wasn't crazy about the music - really illustrates the wickedly modern nature of many of Balanchine's pieces.
Really a visual treat - the fact that these were storyless ballets allows for a lot of really neat visual effects that would be hard(er) to enact in, you know, Swan Lake. I could've sat and watched several performances of Serenade quite cheerfully, just to watch how the bodies worked together.
I'm going to see their version of Apollo in May. Which - if I hadn't happened to attend this performance - I would have had no idea was on the schedule, since 'Myths and Magic' tells me nothing. Harrumphumphumph.
I will forgive the City Ballet a terrible (really) website - as in, they don't actually tell you what specific things you'll be seeing until your tickets arrive - because their performance of three classic pieces of Balanchine was really a treat. I suspect Balanchine himself would've taken a dim view of the weight of some of the dancers, but overall it was a lovely performance.
I was especially taken with Serenade, a signature NYCB piece that is set to Tchaikovsky's Serenade in C Major. La Source recalls Romantic ballets, with lovely light footwork and little vignettes of dance (the costumes here were especially fantastic). And The Four Temperaments - while I wasn't crazy about the music - really illustrates the wickedly modern nature of many of Balanchine's pieces.
Really a visual treat - the fact that these were storyless ballets allows for a lot of really neat visual effects that would be hard(er) to enact in, you know, Swan Lake. I could've sat and watched several performances of Serenade quite cheerfully, just to watch how the bodies worked together.
I'm going to see their version of Apollo in May. Which - if I hadn't happened to attend this performance - I would have had no idea was on the schedule, since 'Myths and Magic' tells me nothing. Harrumphumphumph.