NY Export Opus Jazz; In the night; The Concert

Jul 21, 2010 11:35

Last ballet post!



ny export opus jazz- eeh, not impressed so much with this one. Mostly, kept wondering 'why are you setting this on a ballet company?' - this choreography might be cool for the company to perform at a street square something, but on stage? nah. Not enough ballet to be worth them doing it, and as it's not ballet, dancers trained in non-ballet would give it better expression. They're in sneakers and clothes from a few decades ago, and it's said to be inspired by the common street-culture dances of when it was choreographed, but- not really feeling it here. Half of it looked like it'd be improved if they stylised it into Gaga's monster claws thing- though being fair that association is hardly the choreography's fault. West Side Story (same choreorapher) is a million times better at the 'New York kids doing their dance thing on the street', i love that and this in comparison is so flat.
They recently made a movie of it, which I haven't seen, but from this it looks a lot better in these settings than on stage (actual dancing in second half):

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In the night - So nice. Four Chopin nocturnes (with the piano on stage); not bright lighting; lights scattered on top of the stage like stars outside at night; three couples in formal wear, with beautiful bits of sparkle and dressed having lovely long swirly skirts. All about the music and about playing off the couples' different types of relationships. The second couple's chorepgraphy was not something I would have thought to put with that music, but- their timing and articulation was perfect, and it *worked*. Also, this is the part where I need to shoot myself or something, but the third couple- totally made me crack/AUship Austria/Belarus, it was so them, in the version i saw. Quirky little relationship, not particularly smooth or happy, but they made me like it! Also the guy's costume had a cravat, and at the end when the pianist came out during the bows, he went to the wing to get her and kissed her hand. *3*
video of the whole thing, but it's some other company doing it, so some changes in style, costume, etc.
first couple :: all 3 couples at the end
second couple:

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third couple (to watch at least at 3:00-3:08 , for the dress if not for the dance. but it's maybe my favourite single dance to watch):

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The Concert -
"One of the pleasures of attending a concert is the freedom to lose oneself in listening to the music. Quite often, unconsciously, mental pictures and images form, and the patterns and paths of these reveries are influenced by the music itself, or its program notes, or by the personal dreams, problems, and fantasies of the listener." The ballet starts with the pianist coming on stage, and then the dancers come out with chairs to set up as the characters who make up this audience...
's a ridiculously self-indulgent (superficially, and academically-aesthetic-philosophically) ballet for anyone who's danced/worked backstage at a classical production or thought about audiences from the other side. But since the whole audience was laughing along, i suppose it's not the alienating or boring kind of sef-indulgence, so, cool! Cheered me right up, too. No point writing much, my words won't do it justice, but luckily there are videos though I'm sure it's most delightful when you're part of a live audience.
won't allow embedding, but this is the best single video to get some idea of all of it.
you can see at the beginning a bit with that girl at the piano- she's so in love with it- like, physically- clinging, stroking, draping herself on and into it, totally blissfully all over the thing. that's pretty much how i feel around a nice piano, orz.

setting up the ballerinas, and their dance:

image Click to view



pas de deux of the ditzy girl with the guy in the sweatervest

ballerina propped on piano. this is a different ballet company but i used to dance with this girl when we were both at NYCB's school, haha:


everyone standing with their umbrellas:


end of the umbrella scene:


then they all turn into butterflies (the ballet ends as the pianist gets up from the piano and runs around the stage chasing after them with a butterfly net):


I should write something happy, or at least non-complainingly neutral. So! Decent news from uni. They messed something up and gave me a 51 in psych, counting the exam I missed as 0. But as that got sorted out, they decided instead of having me sit the exam August as originally planned, they'll just give me an A for the course based on everything else and I can forget the exam. \o/ especially nice since i missed a multiple-choice thing but the resit's all essays
Went to Connecticut today to see my neurologist and he gave me something new to try, that's taken by dissolving a powder in water. That should be ...interesting? idk what i'm saying.
I'm noticing progress in yoga. I miss being young and in shape able to do new things without being achy for days after, but at least I can still do new things. Several, in the past few days, that I've never done before; an encouraging change from earlier this summer when i was totally unable to do stuff that was easy a few years ago. I might even dare hope that one day I'll manage a headstand.

dance

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