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Ben Lerner Essay/ A Personal Announcement

5/19/2016

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Russell Janzen and I recently went to hear Ben Lerner read at the New School. Russell turned me on to Lerner’s writing a few years ago, and since then I have become a little obsessed.  I loved his novels Leaving the Atocha Station and 10:04, but I was quite surprised when I read an excerpt from his new essay “The Hatred of Poetry” in the April edition of Poetry Magazine (to be published in its entirety on June 7th) and found myself analogizing several of his thoughts on the stigmatization of poetry to the ballet world. Lerner writes in the excerpted essay that, “some kids take piano lessons, some kids study tap dance, but we don’t say every kid is a pianist or dancer.” I have to disagree with Lerner here. For at least in the latter case, people most certainly do!

“If you are an adult foolish enough to tell another adult that you are (still!) a poet, they will often describe to you their falling away from poetry:
I wrote it in high school, I dabbled in college. They will tell you they have a niece or nephew who writes poetry….There is embarrassment for the poet—couldn’t you get a real job and put your childish ways behind you?” Lerner writes.  I laughed as I read these lines, for if you switch out poetry for dance it becomes a conversation that most professional dancers have frequently.

Often, when I explain that I am a ballet dancer people will say “oh yes, I did that” or “my daughter is a dancer too.” In reality, they took dance when they were five and their daughters are fourteen and on cheerleading squads or in competitions—which is great, but it is not quite the same as performing seven shows a week for years! Sometimes people ask me what my day job is, or what I will do next. There is little consideration that ballet dancing could be a real occupation. Though of course, they are correct in that one cannot practice ballet forever, as one could potentially write poetry well into old age. But still, their dismissal ignores the fact that dance could be a multiple-decades long, quite serious (if not very lucrative) endeavor.

Lerner continues: “when you are foolish enough to identify yourself as a poet your interlocutor will often ask you to name your favorite poets. When you say, “Cyrus Console” he squints as if searching his memory and nods as if he can almost recall the work and the name, even though of course he can’t (none of the hundreds of non-poet acquaintances who have asked you this sort of question ever can).” This passage also resonates, for unless I respond with Baryshnikov or Nureyev I will get a blank stare. Perhaps current ABT principal Misty Copeland is becoming one such household name, but the truth is that the general public is not well educated on trends in the field. Obviously if you follow this obscure blog you are not the random airplane seatmate, for example,  to whom I am referring!

If I can make it clear that I am a dancer, and that it is my sole source of income and it is indeed a full-time job, they will become skeptical again when I reply to further inquiry that my favorite ballet is not
Swan Lake but Serenade or Concerto Barocco. Naturally they have never heard of it, and then they think I must be in some amateur troupe. (Balanchine and neo-classicism are not in common parlance outside of New York.) There is nothing wrong with that, in the same way that I enjoy poetry, read it sometimes, and had no idea who Cyrus Console was either. But I was not surprised that a working poet did not respond with Keats.

It is wonderful that so many people take ballet classes in childhood, yet I find it unfortunate that their conception of an entire art form is frequently crystallized in that fledgling experience. I also believe that people intuitively respond to movement and can find aesthetic pleasure in it, but somehow that appreciation is not widely cultivated in our society. I was taught the difference between Impressionism and Mannerism in public elementary school, but there was not much in the way of dance education.  Dance fandom becomes a study in esoterica if that passion survives into adulthood. 
             
At the reading, Lerner did not select an excerpt from his new essay but instead chose one from
10:04, perhaps because he is far more famous for being a novelist than for being a poet. But during the Q&A session afterwards he spoke about how he will always describe himself as a poet, because he feels that it is who he truly is, even if he is now known for something else. He spoke of poetry the way dancers speak of dancing—like it is a calling or an identity rather than a hobby or a livelihood.

I have been thinking a lot about this lately because I am pregnant. I am so incredibly excited about my new role as a mother, but it is funny to feel utterly divorced from my dancing life as my body changes and my waistline expands.  Unlike some dancers—notably NYCB principal Ashley Bouder, who was able to take ballet class in pointe shoes past her due date!—I was forced to stop dancing before the end of my first trimester. My baby and I danced through some hectic weeks of
Nutcracker, but by the time the Winter Season began I became so nauseous ("morning" sickness can apparently be a 24 hour affair) and exhausted that it was impossible to keep up a healthy gestational weight. Ballet dancing in peak physical form is hard work, ballet dancing on an empty stomach is nearly impossible. My doctor—and my instinct—told me it was necessary to bow out and take it easy.

The pregnancy books recommend that women disclose their pregnancies to their employers at four or five months along. Ha, as if that could be possible for a dancer! Even the indomitable Ashley could not perform too far into her second trimester, and there was definitely no hiding the fact that she was pregnant much earlier than that. Since I had to stop dancing before I wanted to announce my pregnancy to the company and the public, I was in a tough situation. Luckily ballet mistress Rosemary Dunleavy helped me to drop out quietly midway through the season. I am forever grateful to her for being so understanding and supportive. I was sorry that my little one did not get to be a part of such moving, iconic works as
The Four Temperaments and Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto #2, but clearly he or she—my partner and I have decided to leave it a surprise—wanted no part in dancing!

Tricky logistics and a lousy first trimester aside, the experience of being pregnant has been absolutely fascinating to me. I am sure most mothers feel that way, but I think for dancers—who are so attuned to their bodies—it is a time of particularly heightened sensations. I knew right away that I was pregnant, before a urine test would work, because my body felt immediately different. Even while I was able to perform through my first few months, everything felt wonky. My muscles were looser, my center of gravity was constantly shifting. My partner David Prottas kept asking me during
Symphony in C: “are you on your leg? I can’t tell.” Hehe, I couldn’t either. My pelvis seemed to be in a different place every day. My colleagues claim not to have noticed a difference in my appearance, but my tutus certainly fit differently. Even as I was losing pounds my breasts and abdomen were growing and I was loosening the hooks of stiff bodices.

Even more bizarre was the inability to control my own eating habits. As a dancer, I must consciously plan my meals around maximizing nutritional energy. By my third month of pregnancy, I could not stand the sight of meat. I was having all sorts of odd cravings and (mostly) aversions; it was so hard to ensure that I was getting enough protein. I found it incredible that something the size of a blueberry could dictate so many aspects of my life. Now that I am further along I am loving the feeling of the baby dancing around on its own all day, and all through the night!   

It seems that there are as many different pregnancy experiences as there are pregnant bodies. I know that Ashley, as well as new NYCB mothers Maria Kowroski and Abi Stafford, had very little morning sickness throughout their pregnancies. Some dancers have come back from childbirth very quickly, for others it takes much longer. Many women have told me that the experience was radically different with each child they had. The first lesson in motherhood seems to be that you cannot control everything, and it is a humbling one.

I am doing more reviewing on this blog now that I am not performing, as many of you have noticed. Thank you to everyone who has inquired about my absence! For now I am taking it day by day and listening to my body, which is essentially what I do when I am dancing anyway. So maybe these identities—mother, dancer—are not so incongruous after all.
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Miami City Ballet

4/25/2016

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Heatscape, photo by Gene Schiavone
I wasn’t planning on writing about the Miami City Ballet performance that I saw last week, but I kept thinking about it and decided that the dancers were too good to go unmentioned. I caught the second program the troupe offered during their weeklong run at the Koch Theater, and all three pieces—including a vintage Balanchine ballet—were new to me.

The evening commenced with
Heatscape by Justin Peck to a piano concerto by Bohuslav Martinu. I liked it. It was energetic—even the slow second movement contained frantic tosses and partnering which ran over the adagio melody—and the Miamians know from energy! The ballet was set before a big Shepard Fairey backdrop which, curiously, reminded me of a biker bandana. The lovely white shift dresses for the women and grayish shorts for the men were designed by Reid Bartelme and Harriet Jung—I thought Tricia Alberton’s long-sleeved version with black piping was especially pretty. Jeanette Delgado danced her thorny solo passages with real flair. Like her sister Patricia, Jeannette has an easy-going, joy-of-dance quality in performance which is so infectious. My favorite moment in the ballet was when the corps joined Albertson in the second movement for slow hops en pointe in fifth position. It was a nice riff on the second movement of Balanchine’s Concerto Barocco.

Liam Scarlett’s
Viscera followed, and it suffered from having a similar structure to Heatscape. It was also set to a piano concerto (by Lowell Liebermann), it also featured a cast of 16, Jeannette Delgado was back in a tricky soloist role, and the corps ran in and out in noodle-y formations like in the Peck piece. The overall feel of Viscera was much darker, but that aspect conferred ponderousness instead of drama. The long central pas de deux looked rather like a rip-off of Christopher Wheeldon’s iconic Polyphonia at times, with its purple leotards, dark lighting (by John Hall), and upside-down swastika lifts. Scarlett—like Wheeldon—has some innovative partnering ideas, but this was not his best effort.

The evening’s finale was Balanchine’s infrequently performed
Bourrée Fantasque from 1949. I have always been curious about this ballet, since it is the source of the famous, glamorous photo of Tanaquil Le Clercq wielding a fan over Jerome Robbins perched on his rump. The music is by French composer Emmanuel Chabrier and the ballet reflects Balanchine’s years in Paris watching the can-can dancers at the Moulin Rouge. I can see why it has fallen out of NYCB’s repertory, for it resembles a mash-up of many of Balanchine’s other works: particularly Western Symphony (1954), Danses Concertantes (1972, after 1944), and the third movement of Brahms-Schoenberg Quartet (1966). But it was so thrilling to see a brand new (to me) Balanchine piece! And the gorgeous Karinska costumes! The witty tone and the complex geometries and musical counterpoints made by the corps de ballet were refreshing. The craftsmanship of the whole piece, which was staged for MCB by Suzy Pilarre, was excellent. Incredibly, even second-tier Balanchine is superior to the top-shelf works of many others.

The first movement was led by Jordan-Elizabeth Long and Shimon Ito in the roles created by Le Clercq and Robbins. Their pas de deux was a variation on a favorite Balanchine joke: the small guy/tall gal pairing. They were spot-on in their technique and their humor. The crisp precision of the corps was outstanding. And the short, sassy tutus worn by the women were adorable. The second movement, a lush adagio in romantic tutus, was well-danced by Simone Messmer and Rainer Krenstetter. It was so good to see Simone back onstage in NY!

The massive finale unfolded much like that of
Theme and Variations, with accumulating corps couples meeting on center and parting, followed by demi-soloists couples (Zoe Zien and Ashley Knox were back again, having changed out of their 1st movement costumes), and finally the cheery principles Nathalia Arja and Renato Penteado. But then the dancers from every movement returned for one of the biggest Balanchine finales I’ve ever seen. Tutus short and long were swirled about in kaleidoscopic patterns and the Koch’s massive stage was full to the brim. It felt a bit everything-but-the-kitchen-sink, but it was exhilarating.

​The Miami City Ballet dancers must be commended for their passionate dancing throughout the evening. The troupe is not as big as the NYCB, and both programs they brought to NY contained large-scale ballets. This meant that many dancers were doing double and triple duty: like the tirelessly committed Jeannette Delgado and Shimon Ito, and the scene-stealing Zoe Zien—who was featured in the first two ballets and popped up in two more movements in the closer. I hope these talented dancers got a good rest after their tour, they certainly earned it!  
    
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Le Clercq and Robbins in Bourree Fantasque, photo by George Platt Lynes
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A One Temperament Toga

7/28/2015

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Adam Luders in Phlegmatic
Saratoga Springs was as idyllic and charming as ever this year, but I was more than a little distracted by the end. My 15 year old cat Eddie was hospitalized late Tuesday night of the second week of our Saratoga run, and I was aching to get back to Brooklyn to say goodbye to him for the rest of the tour. I raced back to the city on Sunday morning and arrived an hour before he died in my arms. I've lost a lot of pets over the years but this one was by far and away the hardest. What a summer.  I feel I have become an accidental eulogist on this site lately, and I would very much like to stop writing about death!

The saving grace of the week was dancing Balanchine’s The Four Temperaments.  I have been doing the First Theme in 4T’s for such a long time that it feels like it was made on me, though of course it wasn’t. (This is one of Balanchine’s gifts: his ballets are so effortlessly habitable.  A mere hour after learning his choreography one feels intrinsically rooted in the movement and the music.) Balanchine created 4T’s for the inauguration of Ballet Society in 1946. He had privately commissioned the Paul Hindemith score in 1940 and only later decided it should become a ballet.  

The First Theme feels more like yoga than ballet, which is probably why it was such a welcome distraction.  It consists of sustained, contorted poses—one for each note in the score. It is pure and literal: when the strings’ notes ascend, I get lifted up. When the piano is heavily clanged, I am accordingly dropped nearly to the ground and dragged offstage during its lingering rumble.  Extended notes for the strings become slow promenades in which my legs wrap around my partner’s ankle, thigh, and neck. It is an impassive, asexual Kama Sutra. It requires an intense focus 



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For Albert

6/23/2015

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Albert in Phlegmatic, photo by Paul Kolnik
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Maria Kowroski with Albert in Red Angels, photo by Paul Kolnik
I can’t believe that I am writing this, but Albert Evans has passed away. I am stunned and heartsick by the news. It makes me ache to think that no more blood courses through that once strong, beautiful body.  Albert was the kind of guy who would pass by a studio, notice a partnering issue, and step in to effortlessly hoist a girl in the air in demonstration.  He was incomparable in roles like Puck in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Ash, Bugaku, Herman Schmerman, Red Angels, Barber Violin Concerto, Stravinsky Violin Concerto, Agon, Fearful Symmetries, Jazz, Liturgy, Open Strings, the Russian pas de deux in Swan Lake, Symphony in Three Movements, The Waltz Project, and Russian Seasons. He was such an incredible artist, intense and a little mysterious. His noble mien contrasted with his animalistic power.  In my mind, nobody can top his Phlegmatic in The Four Temperaments.  Oftentimes when people perform the difficult attitude front balance in Phlegmatic they look like 

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City Ballet Goes Green

2/25/2015

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Le Baiser de la Fee, photo by Julieta Cervantes
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Symphony in Three Movements, photo by Paul Kolnik
George Balanchine famously said: “there are no new steps, only new combinations.” He neglected to mention that there are quite a lot of old combinations in his choreography too.  This does not diminish his genius—he was so prolific that it rather shows how savvy he was at stealing his own steps.  Most choreographers are avid recyclers. They borrow from others, and especially themselves. I get very excited when I spot a patch of repurposed material I hadn’t noticed before, and this week I happened upon two more.  

Balanchine’s Harlequinade (1965) cycles through our rep only rarely, and it has been absent for over a decade. I was an Alouette when it last ran, and since the birds don’t appear in Act I, I had never seen it before. So I sat in the audience and watched the dress rehearsal.  I was surprised to discover a cribbed verbatim sequence in the children’s choreography. The little girls who play the mini-Harlequins attack Columbine’s dopey suitor Léandre with the same choreography that the adult fairies in Balanchine’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1962) employ to attack Puck. Both groups wield sticks, encircle their prey, and go on the offensive with attitude sauté chassé drives. I guess when you have nailed a balletic stick assault you have nowhere else to go with it!

But this isn’t the only bit of recycling going on in Harlequinade. There are the Rouben Ter-Arutunian sets which were originally used for New York City Opera’s production of Cinderella. The plot is 


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