Way to bury the lead....

Yes, I have been quite delinquent in blogging about the American Ballet Theatre performances I've seen the past few weeks.  I'll get there - still forming my thoughts a bit.  

HOWEVER, in case anyone missed it buried at the end of the exciting Ratmansky/ShostakovichABT news item today (3 new 1-act ballets), ABT's NY City Center "season" has been reduced from the shameful six days last fall to now only FIVE days this year (October 16th-20th).  And, it's the same week the wonderful Aspen Santa Fe Ballet is coming to the Joyce Theater.

How I miss the 2-3 week fall seasons that ABT used to do when I first moved to NYC not that long ago.  That's where so many of ABT's non-principal, non-guest artists have their chance to shine - and where ABT gets to show off its contemporary strengths.  Is Kevin McKenzie just not a fan of this genre of ballet?  Because without it, in my opinion ABT's relevance is greatly weakened, and so many of its dancers wasted.

City Center is where I first came to love dancers like Stella Abrera, Marian Butler, Alex Hammoudi, Nicole Graniero, Skylar Brandt, Kristi Boone, and so many more.  City Center is where I fully appreciate the talents of Gillian Murphy, and further fall in love with Marcelo Gomes, Julie Kent, Simone Messmer, Misty Copeland and Herman Cornejo.  

I understand that City Center is an expensive theater for ABT - but there have to be better solutions than limiting the run to 5 days.  

Well, just another reason ABT is making me sad in 2012, I guess.

What Fools These Mortals Be (ABT La Bayadere, May 26, 2012 Matinee)

No matter how many times I see American Ballet Theatre's production of La Bayadere, I still don't love it (more on that below) as a whole even though there are perennially wonderful and unique elements.  Also on the plus side, each performance seems to have different highlights, each dancer brings something different to each of the lead roles. And, like in this performance, when someone brings something special to one the non-dancing character roles - it can become a more balanced, slightly more credible story.

The End of the World as We Know It: Cedar Lake at the Joyce (Saturday, May 19, 2012 evening)

Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet is one of my favorite companies out there, with some of the most athletic-yet-graceful dancers I have ever seen and a multicultural ensemble that always strikes me as a microcosm of humanity. Usually boundary-pushing, neither of the two programs presented at the Joyce this May offered the same exceptional alternating savagery, solemnity and whimsy of the past programs I've seen from Cedar Lake, but the wonderful Cedar Lake dancers, and the always stellar Cedar Lake artistic design team, still managed to deliver some moments not soon to be forgotten.  Program A, which I saw the evening of Saturday, May 19th, skipped the whimsy entirely and went straight for the solemnity.  It seemed as though someone wanted to warn the audience of something - but I wasn't sure what.

Bridesmaids (ABT La Bayadere, May 23, 2012)

Thanks to a stroke of luck and no will to resist the desire to see Stella Abrera's only Gamzatti this season (and Jeff Golladay's last soloist role on the Met stage), I impulsively raced up to Lincoln Center, hit the box office with 7 minutes to spare and settled myself into a fabulous center orchestra seat for American Ballet Theatre's La Bayadere.  Never one of my favorites, La Bayadere is lighter on plot than most and doesn't boast the richest of scores.  As a result, I've never seen a full principal cast bring it entirely to life, and this viewing was no exception.  It did, however, have its moments.  And most of those were delivered by Stella Abrera.

A little love letter to the ballet.

For those of use who love ballet, it can be so hard to understand why the rest of the world doesn't see what we see, can't feel what we feel.   How do most people not experience the same overpowering physical exhilaration we feel when merely sitting and watching, yes watching, a ballet dancer living their dream on stage?  The freedom when technique meets ability meets passion in just one human being on the stage ripples out into the audience and fills every muscle, every cell in my body with energy and implausible possibility.  

Perhaps this what other people feel when watching athletes like Michael Phelps, Michael Jordan, Larry Bird, Nastia Liukin or Dara Torres.  But while I root for these athletes and love to watch them strive, the feeling I get as a spectator is so different than watching ballet.  I feel nerves and hopes for these athletes, I feel the stress of pretending my will as a spectator can help them win, but still I don't feel their work with them.  But when I watch Marcelo Gomes in an abstract contemporary piece (or almost anything really), or Alessandra Ferri as Manon, or Julie Kent's sheer strength during the endless, countless overhead lifts in Lady of the Camellias, or Ethan Stiefel as Albrecht in Giselle, or Simone Messmer in this November's Volpi pas de deux, or Stella Abrera in Meadow or as Emilia in Othello, or Ulyana Lopatkina as Giselle, or Michael Trusnovec from Paul Taylor Dance, or so many more....I can't explain how but I think I get just a little bit of what they must be feeling while flying or turning, while forcing extreme tension into their limbs to make the tiniest moves important, while living so inside the music that it appears to be emanating out of their bodies rather than the orchestra pit, while letting everything go, to make the biggest leaps soar.