Missy | November 7, 2004
Last night I saw ABT at City Center in New York. This is a part of their season when they perform a mixed bill of shorter works rather than full-length costume- & scenery-heavy story ballets (plus, the small stage won’t allow for the grand stuff). The program started with Ballanchine’s Mozartiana, which is actually set to Tchaikovsky, music which shares the same name (which I just found out because it baffled me). Julie Kent was the ballerina of the evening (her debut in this work), and despite a bobble finishing a turn sequence towards the end (and did I actually hear someone boo when she took her curtain call?), it was lovely to see her dancing again post-baby. In a role made famous by Suzanne Farrell, there are few ballerinas I’d probably enjoy seeing performing this piece, and Kent (although lacking the same dramatic musicality but not the beauty) was the right person in this part. Next was the whole reason I went to New York in the first place: William Forsythe’s workwithinwork. I don’t think it’s his best piece (that I’ve seen), but the dancers looked spectacular. At the risk of slighting our local ballet company here, ABT has the depth to thrillingly carry off a large & complicated ensemble piece (though I was quite fond of the Washington Ballet’s performance of in the middle, somewhat elevated). For as challenging and weirdly gestural as Forsythe’s choreography is, dancers I’ve seen seem to excel in it. One of the male roles (was that wunderkind Herman Cornejo? I couldn’t tell) featured its own unusual & extremely difficult choreography…sort of like a cross between the fluidity & precision of breakdancing mixed with the speed of “Flight of the Bumblebee”. Seriously, it was a stunner. The audience went nutso for the last piece, Kirk Peterson’s Amazed in Burning Dreams. Let’s just say that the music (Philip Glass) was strike one for me against it. Strike two was the bizarre red-streaked make-up. And the third was the fact that the piece lacks any sort of notable aesthetic. There’s an sense of personality in the works of Balanchine, Forsythe, and Tudor (among others) that often takes much rehearsal, if not years of working within the the choreographic elements to cultivate. Granted, I am unfamiliar with Peterson’s work, I didn’t get any real sense of identity from it. Sure, the ensemble cast looked great, but overall, I found it forgettable.
Meanwhile, how much do I love the City Club hotel’s bathrooms? I took three showers while I was there. Also, the hotel is staffed by hot young men who remind me of Smith Jared from Sex and the City. (Please, there are no dots to be connected between the previous two sentences.)
Yesterday morning I got into town just in time to rush up to the UWS to Steps on Broadway (I realized I’d never been further north than Lincoln Center. I had no idea the UWS was such a nice area…actually, I’m not surprised, but I had no concept of the neighborhood before now). Immediately upon walking in (it’s been awhile since I’ve taken any dance classes in New York), I had a moment of panic seeing all the women bustling about in pointe shoes with true ballerina’s bodies and I thought, what the hell am I doing here? But that quickly passed. I took a Horton class with a teacher I knew, and I had a great class, if I do say so myself. (Lately, I’ve been feeling not so good about myself, my technique, my ability to adapt myself to hard choreography, and my musicality. After this weekend, I am totally inspired. I am going to dance better.) This teacher gives fantastic corrections and I felt myself improving dramatically over the course of 90 minutes. (Who knew too much tucking of the pelvis instead of lengthening through the back above it causes an overdevelopment in the muscles of the front hips? Not me. And now you know, too. Also, one of the reasons I strongly believe in music and dance education for children–not only to develop an appreciation for the arts and for them to find ways to express themselves–is because it teaches people–children and adults alike, actually–how to take the right kind of criticism the right way, and how to use it to better oneself, to know how to be smart about one’s efforts.)
Yesterday afternoon I had some time to kill, and I figured the right kind of counterbalance to the swankiness of my hotel was to wander over Hells Kitchen way to Rudy’s, a dive bar on 9th. As far as dive bars go, this one set a new standard. The bar maid, the interior, and the clientele all look like they date back to the days of Prohibition. And you can get a Maker’s Mark for $4. As I had my drink (while whiling away the time with a crossword puzzle), I started to become depressed at the environment and knew I had to get out of there as soon as my drink was drunk. Not for, I might add, the loud rowdy blues music mixed with Bon Jovi on the jukebox. Of the 8 or so patrons, half had white hair and most were slumped over their drinks. I felt like I had stumbled upon a real life set of Barfly.
The rest of the time, I walked. The weather was superb. I walked along Central Park from class to my hotel, which was like 30 blocks, until one remembers that the north-south blocks in New York are pretty short. (Although there was no way I was willing to walk the ten blocks from City Center to my hotel in three inch heels, despite the amount of time it took to get a cab.) This morning, while the city seemed to still sleep (or maybe they were gathered along the marathon route), I strolled around relatively empty streets in Greenwich Village and Union Square. It’s a lonely city, New York, and I felt lonely in it. It’s easy to disappear. I still love it, though.
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