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JARED'S GUEST POST: Liebeslieder Part II

1/28/2016

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Jared and Wendy Whelan, photo by Paul Kolnik
​Liebeslieder: Public/Private
 
As the curtain closes on the first section of Liebeslieder and the ballerinas rush away backstage, the ballet shifts from a public experience to a private one.  It reminds me of that point in the television show Downton Abbey when, after dinner, the women disappear to another room and the men are left to drink and smoke cigars at the table.  But instead of cigars and brandy, the men in Liebeslieder only take off their gloves, possibly grab an Altoid from the ready supply kept at the stage manager's desk, and use a tissue to dab the sweat off of our brows.  We then reconvene onstage to talk, and to wait for our ballerinas.  
 
The ballerinas, meanwhile, are working much harder.  They rush to their dressing rooms, take off their gloves and shoes, change dresses, and hastily put on pointe shoes.  Careful preparation of the pointe shoed-foot is a ritual repeated many times daily in a ballerina's life, but during this pause they have to wrap the paper towel around their toes, shove their foot in, and tie the ribbons as fast as they can because we're all waiting for them.  It’s always a contest with the stage manager as the judge: "who will come back to the stage ready to dance first?"
 
After the last ballerina rushes to place, the curtain rises but the mood is changed.  We see the couples in their same starting positions as in the opening of the first section, but the lights are dimmer, and the women are now wearing romantic-length chiffon tutus whose layers of tulle reach to mid-calf, and the aforesaid pointe shoes.  Again we start dancing in a circle and lifting the women, but almost immediately Balanchine has the ballerinas weaving away from their partners and back again.  You get a sense that this is a more tempestuous world, where the couples relate to one another and themselves in a more unguarded manner.  Finally each ballerina starts to run offstage, her original partner catches up with her and escorts her off, and one couple is left onstage to dance a pas de deux.
 
While the pas de deux in the first half are danced in front of the rest of the cast, in the second half each couple’s pas de deux is danced alone onstage.  This, in addition to the pointe shoes and exposed legs of the ballerinas, conveys a sense that the couples are finally able to express their true feelings—which were perhaps only alluded to in the first section.  So instead of polite embraces and distanced waltz positions (one of the favorite corrections in the first section that we always receive is to hold the girl as far away from us as we can), the couples give each other full 

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KAITLYN'S GUEST POST: The Pontus Chronicles III

1/19/2016

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Pontus and the fates of Snow, photo by Nir Arieli
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Barton Cowperthwaite, Christopher Adams, and Kaitlyn rehearse Snow, photo by Nir Arieli

​                                                                           SNOW
Havana ended abruptly with a hug from Pontus but no set plans for future work. After some silence and one cancelled visit to Stockholm (mine) to see the premiere of a new Raymonda for The Royal Swedish Ballet (his), I was relieved to find a message from pontus@lidberg in my inbox, inviting me to join his company once again for a brief tour in April followed by a weekend at The Joyce Theater in June. We would bring four dancers to three cities with two dances and one puppet.
 
                                                                          The Cast
Rehearsals resumed in February as I was fighting major burnout: I had just completed my first three weeks of rehearsal with Twyla Tharp and her dancers and had then barreled straight into classes for my final semester as an undergraduate student at Columbia. I taught uptown, danced downtown (at St. Mark’s Church, mostly) and resented what felt like a constant and inefficient commute. I still never said “no” to any and all gigs that came my way, stubbornly scheduling events 30 minutes apart and arriving for nearly every obligation fifteen minutes late and frazzled. Frigid late-winter weather necessitated a large, puffy coat that allowed me to keep my bizarre but efficient wardrobe choices to myself while in transit. And, while I was out—always—the March issue of Dance Magazine had arrived in the mail. There I was on the cover: a “renegade freelance star” wearing my ribbon-less Capezio pointe shoes, a sexy midriff top, and a large hat of teased curls.

For my first day of rehearsals with Pontus, I arrived in my more familiar freelance uniform: sweatpants, thick socks, baggy shirt, and cap-flattened hair. I first greeted my old colleague Christopher Adams. He was already digesting new phrases, and I watched as he spun and dropped gracefully to the floor before bounding quickly to his feet again to give me a hug. I was glad to be in the studio again with Chris, an always thoughtful, positive, and well-paced partner. Pontus would dance with the new kid.

[Enter “new kid:” the young Barton Cowperthwaite. Kaitlyn introduces herself, shakes his hand, and the dancers all gather around Pontus’s laptop, where they watch the choreography they will reconstruct that day. When they have seen the movement only once, Barton gets up to try it; Kaitlyn follows his reflection in Pontus’s computer screen, immediately wary of his enthusiasm. Pontus sees too, and he is impressed. He shows Barton the rest of the phrase. Barton parrots it with ease and finishes with a flourish, adding a goofy body roll, a wink, and a theatrical flip of his long hair. Everyone in the room is laughing, Kaitlyn more reluctantly than the others as she goes to 

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Last Looks

1/4/2016

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Twas the night before Christmas for the last time yesterday evening at the Koch Theater as the New York City Ballet wrapped its annual Nutcracker production for the year. After 49 shows—beginning the day after Thanksgiving—dancers were thrilled to cut off yellow and blue pointe shoe ribbons, peel off fake mustaches, and wipe off big red circles of doll blush for the very last time. Enthusiasm ran high, as demonstrated in the photo above by Mary Liz Sell letting her hair down post-show in the dressing room! I captured some last-day backstage moments before I too packed out my theater case and attempted to outdo Mary Poppins by stuffing as much as I could into my locker. Many of the younger dancers in the company danced in every single show and I congratulate them all on a job well done!    
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Gwyneth Muller, as Frau Stahlbaum, finally makes peace with the mouse invasion which besieges her living room in the Act I Battle Scene.
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By the last day even stressful quick changes are super casual. Bailey Jones and hairdresser/wigmaker Suzy Alvarez find time to joke during Bailey’s fast metamorphosis from Party Scene Grandmother into Snowflake.  
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    Faye Arthurs
    - Faye Arthurs

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