My colleague Devin Alberda captured some beautiful shots of Teresa Reichlen and Russell Janzen in rehearsal for Swan Lake. They make their debut as a tragic couple in just a few hours!
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When someone asks me what I do, and I respond that I am a ballet dancer, invariably the first thing they want to know is, “have you seen Black Swan?” The answer is yes, yes I have. All dancers have. The second thing they ask is if the ballet world is like the movie. Not exactly. I think Darren Aronofsky’s Black Swan is a great horror movie, and I think Natalie Portman is fantastic in it. But it is a film that wraps every single ballet stereotype up in one woman, which is not very realistic. However, this inevitable line of inquiry with strangers does make plain that when most laypeople think about ballet they think of Swan Lake. Therefore, I think it is safe to conjecture that the dual role of Odette/Odile is probably the most famous in all of ballet.
The fame is justified. The role is incredibly difficult—both technically and emotionally. The Swan Queen dances throughout three of four acts of the ballet—the only one she gets off is the first, which isn’t very helpful! She must excel in the lyrical adagio passages of the White Swan—the plaintive backbends, the languorous passés and attitude balances. The she must tackle the brisk challenges in the third act Black Swan pas de deux, including its treacherous 32 fouetté turns—which come at the point when she is at her most tired. The acting demands are no less daunting. She must convincingly act out a preposterous story: that she is the princess Odette trapped by the evil sorcerer Rothbart in half woman/half bird form who falls in love at first sight with a man who is trying to shoot her. Then she must become the villainous and seductive Odile (who is pretending to be Odette) who convinces the prince to swear his love to her instead. While she embodies Odile she must be enough like Odette so that the Prince is sold, but different enough so that the audience buys that she is a different woman entirely. Then she does another about-face and turns back into Odette, mourning her prince’s betrayal by the cold dark lake. In the finale she must not appear schizophrenic as she quickly reunites with her lover, forgives him, and pledges undying love to him which vanquishes her captor. For her efforts she is damned to an eternity of lonely swandom. To say that this is not the easiest of character studies would be an understatement. Natalie Portman rightfully won an Oscar for the task. Michael Keaton was nominated for an Oscar for a rather similar feat in Birdman. My friend NYCB Principal Dancer Teresa Reichlen has been kind enough to answer a few questions about dancing such a demanding and storied role. Tess is one of those rare birds (sorry!) who is a perfect fit for the role. She has the height, length, and flexibility for the adagio work, as well as a sensational jump and the smooth turns requisite of the Black Swan. Next week Tess returns to the role of Odette/Odile in Peter Martins’s Swan Lake. She will be dancing with soloist Russell Janzen who is making his debut as Prince Siegfried. I’ve had a few glimpses and they are killing it in rehearsals. I cannot wait to see their shows! Q: First of all Tess, have you ever seen Black Swan? If so, what did you think of it? (wink wink) A: I have seen Black Swan. I think that it is a psychological thriller that happens to be based in the world of a ballet company and like any movie of that sort should not be accepted as a relevant representative of what happens in the real world. Q: Great, moving on. Swan Lake is so iconic, but it is not exactly what the NYCB is known for. Did you dream of dancing Odette/Odile as a young dancer? Or was this something that came as a surprise in your career? A: When I was younger I just wanted to be a dancer, I didn’t have any overarching dreams about specific companies or roles that I wanted to do. After I joined NYCB and started to do a few solos and began to realize how much I loved what I was doing there were specific things that I started to hope that I would one day get to do, including Swan Lake. I actually understudied the role for quite I caught Frederic Leighton’s Victorian masterpiece, Flaming June, at the Frick Museum over Labor Day weekend. The painting’s shock of orange, the palpable heat of the sun, and the dreamy languor of the lady create a stunning effect. The woman’s furled positioning is beautiful, as is the way her crossed foot juts out through her translucent gown. She made me think of Jerome Robbins’s too seldom performed ballet Antique Epigraphs. She also reminded me that there’s nothing quite like a ginger beauty in a bright color. I thought of so many iconic redhead moments: Nicole Kidman in chartreuse Dior at the Oscars, Ann Margaret in yellow in Bye Bye Birdie, and Rita Hayworth and Lucille Ball in so many blazing, technicolor images.
I also thought immediately of Moira Shearer, whose saturated crimson tresses matched her red satin slippers in the film The Red Shoes. I love this movie, as I think so many dancers do. Coincidentally, this summer I stumbled across Moira Shearer’s 1987 biography of George Balanchine, Balletmaster. It is an odd piece of literature. She barely knew Balanchine, and she quotes frequently from Bernard Taper’s definitive biography from three years prior. She fully admits her outsider status, though, like when she recounts an awkward tête á tête with Lincoln Kirstein. He demanded of her: “How can you write? What do you know? You don’t know the repertory.” The book is out of print and it’s easy to see why. Although there are several details that were new to me, it is often a regurgitation of other sources. She is at her best when she tells stories from her (clearly extensive) interviews with Balanchine’s exes Alexandra Danilova and Brigitta (Vera) Zorina, and longtime secretary Barbara Horgan. She is at her worst while hypocritically criticizing critics like Edwin Denby. She even rewrites a passage of his “excessively flowery” review of Apollo in Summer vacation is over and I have started back to work. Someone asked me today: “what was the best dance performance you saw this summer?” After thinking about it for a while—because I saw a lot of excellent dance this summer—I realized it was Mick Jagger! Yes his moves are legendary, as various SNL spoofs and the Maroon 5 song attest. But I was completely unprepared for how truly vibrant a mover he is in the flesh. And I certainly did not expect to be so dazzled by the dancing at a rock concert.
I went to see the Rolling Stones play at Heinz Field in Pittsburgh at the end of June. My parents generously organized it as a family trip. (Keith Richards is sort of a deity to my dad.) I was excited about the concert, for I grew up on the Stones and I love them. But I expected the show to be a watered-down, nostalgic victory lap; after all, the bandmates are mostly septuagenarians now. And though Charlie Watts, Ronnie Wood, and yes, even Keith seemed a little worn at times, about Mick Jagger I couldn’t have been more wrong! The man is a kinetic force. At 72 years old he was able to sing in a clear strong voice while dancing more than any frontman I’ve ever seen. He danced the whole show straight through, taking only Christmas in August anyone? I had what was probably the first Nutcracker gig of the year over the weekend, when I returned to Saratoga Springs to perform with renowned British maestro Bramwell Tovey and the incredible Philadelphia Orchestra. On a sunny 90 degree day, with some bonus humidity in the form of an evening drizzle, the PO and the NYCB teamed up for a program called “Winter Tales.” The orchestra performed Rimsky-Korsakov’s suite of The Snow Maiden, Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf, and Waldteufel’s Skater’s Waltz before Rebecca Krohn, Ask la Cour, Anthony Huxley, and I came out for a visual assist on selections from Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker. Anthony danced the Hoops trepak, I performed the Arabian solo, and Rebecca danced the Sugarplum Fairy solo and then the grand pas de deux with Ask. The orchestra played other excerpts from the Nutcracker Suite including the Act I March, Marzipan, the Pine Forest Scene, and the Waltz of the Flowers as a stirring finale.
It felt bizarre to perform the Nutcracker in the summer, but it was somehow fitting—for my role at least. After all, the skirted Arabian bikini is infinitely more appropriate attire for August than it is for December. It was the first time I wasn’t shivering backstage beforehand! I also had a decent tan from a recent trip to Grand Cayman, so I didn’t feel like such a vampire for once. But even more fun was dancing such a sultry piece in the lazy days of summer. Balanchine’s Arabian choreography is a bizarre mix of heavy grand allegro jumps and sustained, adagio développés. Sometimes there are quick steps for every note in a triplet—like in the opening stage crossings which always make me think of Tina Turner in Proud Mary. But sometimes there is |
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