Thoughts from the paint
  • Thoughts
  • About
  • Bio
    • My Bio
    • Guest Bios
  • Contact

Sneak Peek: American Rhapsody

5/4/2016

0 Comments

 
Picture
Unity Phelan practices backstage, photo by Janie Taylor
Picture
Tiler Peck in rehearsal for American Rhapsody, photo by Janie Taylor
I am not able to attend the NYCB Spring Gala this evening, but this afternoon I did make it to the dress rehearsal of Christopher Wheeldon’s American Rhapsody—to George Gershwin’s familiar Rhapsody in Blue—which premieres tonight. I don’t have much time to write about it, and I don’t exactly think rehearsals should be reviewed—since I know from experience that live performance alters and adds to any ballet—but I thought I’d jot down a few fleeting impressions here to promote the hard work of my colleagues before their big debut. I was also eager to see the costume designs of my good friend Janie Taylor. This piece is her second ballet as a costumer for the company, after Justin Peck’s Everywhere We Go.

First of all, I thought Janie’s costumes were gorgeous! She has a gift for taking staid ballet silhouettes and tweaking them so that they seem radically new, and her designs for this ballet are no different. In this case she took a typical skirted bodice and gave it a bump at the hip—not exactly a peplum—but a little exaggerated shelf. Thus the dancers’ waists appeared flatteringly nipped. The pale pink skirts were bias-cut with a darker tomato red underneath which was also cool. The men had a refreshing, asymmetrical twist on a vest and tie. Her colors were strikingly unconventional, with deep blue playing off pink, tomato, and teal. Unity Phelan and Amar Ramasar were stunning in the solid tomato color.  And the ballet’s leads, Robbie Fairchild and Tiler Peck, stood out in a deep mallard. The backdrop by Cuban painter Leslie Sardinias was also stunning. It had a lot of energy and it seemed to almost move with Mark Stanley's different lighting changes. I liked the twilit effect it produced during the central pas de deux.

This ballet marks a post-Broadway reunion for Chris and Robbie (and Gershwin!) after
An American in Paris, and I thought it served as a nice transition back to the realm of ballet. It is plotless but it evokes an atmosphere of playful jazziness. Tiler Peck has to be one of the silkiest movers ever, and from her first entrance of smooth chaîné turns straight down the center line, to her sultry wallowing on the floor, she nailed the Gershwin vibe. Robbie seemed equally at ease in the vocabulary, and their fluid partnering was a pleasure.

Amar and Unity jetted in and out of the proceedings with happy poise. I liked when Amar was temporarily distracted by a twirling Kristin Segin while he rested against the wing in the front corner. Chris made the sea of blue corps dancers into many sculptural tableaux—something I feel he hasn’t done as frequently before. It was a lovely effect. I also liked a superman lift motif—in which the men lay on their backs and floated the women horizontally over them like in a child’s game. A lot of the vocabulary was more pedestrian than I’m used to with Chris—in a good way. He had the dancers slouch over, sit on the ground, and strut around.

The ballet climaxed with a rousing group marching step to the score’s bass-heavy musical peak, which always reminds me a bit of Prokofiev’s ball music in
Romeo and Juliet. It was fun and rousing before the ensemble settled into one final chained tableau to Gershwin’s dying strains. I will be curious to see the piece in performance, and to see how it is formally reviewed. But from my early glimpse I thought it succeeded at what it aimed to be: a pleasant romp through a famous score.
Picture
The American Rhapsody production teamat the Gala, photo by Marguerite Mehler
0 Comments

An American in Paris

3/16/2016

0 Comments

 
Picture
Robbie Fairchild and Leanne Cope, photo by Matthew Murphy
I finally made it to see An American in Paris on Broadway last week, right before my NYCB colleague Robbie Fairchild ended his Tony-nominated run in the lead role of Jerry Mulligan. I’m afraid I can’t claim much objectivity where this production is concerned—I’ve danced with Robbie often, I’m friendly with his co-star Leanne Cope, and I’ve known the show’s director/choreographer Christopher Wheeldon since I was 15 years old (I was also a beatnik in the original cast of his An American in Paris ballet in 2005)—but with that partiality established, I thought I’d share some of my impressions from the performance anyway.

Overall I had a wonderful time at the show, and I would recommend it to anyone.  It made me so happy to watch Robbie, who clearly was having a ball. I fully expected him to be good, from years of watching him excel in Jerome Robbins’s West Side Story Suite and George Balanchine’s Who Cares?, and he did not disappoint. He looked like he was born to be up there, and his all-American look was perfectly suited the part of the yankee in Paree. Robbie is taking a breather from Broadway at the moment, but I suspect he’ll find his way back to The Great White Way someday.

Leanne Cope danced the role of Lise Dassin, his love interest, and I was completely blown away by her too.  She has a luminous face with large, doll-like eyes and beautifully shaped legs and feet. Her British lilt was replaced with a convincing French accent, even in song, and her voice rang out crystal clear in “The Man I Love.” In the climactic ballet sequence towards the end of the show she was as confidently sexy as she was shyly sweet in her earlier scenes, an impressive display of range. She had the miserable task of switching back and forth between character heels and pointe shoes between nearly every scene, and I don’t know how she managed to do it so quickly and so often!

​Robbie and Leanne’s balletic dream pas de deux was the highlight of the performance. That an intimate ballet number was the capstone in a big production (competing with splashy ensemble tap numbers, etc.) is a testament to Chris’s skill in partnering choreography, as well to the 

Read More
0 Comments

    Author

    Faye Arthurs
    - Faye Arthurs

    Categories

    All
    ABT
    Albert Evans
    Alexei Ratmanksy
    A Midsummer Night's Dream
    An Introduction
    August Bournonville
    Benjamin Millepied
    Beyonce
    Broadway
    Carla Korbes
    Carnegie Hall
    Che Malambo
    Chopiniana
    Chris Wheeldon
    Concerto Barocco
    Craig Hall
    Crystal Pite
    Death Of Klinghoffer
    Devin Alberda
    Donizetti Variations
    Duo Concertant
    Firebird
    George Balanchine
    Georgina Pazcoguin
    Glass Pieces
    Goldberg Variations
    Gwyneth Muller
    Hamilton
    Harlequinade
    In The Night
    Janie Taylor
    Jared Angle
    Jerome Robbins
    Jewels
    Joshua Beamish
    Kaitlyn Gilliland
    Katy Perry
    LADP
    La Sonnambula
    La Sylphide
    La Valse
    Leanne Cope
    Le Baiser De La Fee
    Liebeslieder Walzer
    Lin-Manuel Miranda
    Maria Kowroski
    Mariinsky
    Mark Morris
    Martha Graham
    Martin Harvey
    Miami City Ballet
    Mick Jagger
    Moira Shearer
    Mozartiana
    Opus 19/The Dreamer
    Pictures At An Exhibition
    PNB
    Pontus Lidberg
    Raymonda
    Robbie Fairchild
    Russell Janzen
    Saratoga
    Sebastien Marcovici
    Serenade
    Swan Lake
    Symphony In C
    Symphony In Three Movements
    Teresa Reichlen
    The Four Temperaments
    The Nutcracker
    Tiler Peck
    Troy Schumacher
    Twyla Tharp
    Wendy Whelan
    William Forsythe
    Without

    Archives

    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014

    Related

    New York City Ballet
    Oberon's Grove
    BalletCollective

    Globe Dancer
    Kaitlyn Gilliland
    Bachtrack​

    RSS Feed

©2014 Faye Arthurs - Thoughts from the paint
Thoughts         About          Bio         Contact