ballet (also starring: ballet on dvd)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cyC4X6aGn_M

Saw this last night, was floored:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EetjgQUdrfI

Is anyone going to see the new Wayne McGregor / Steve Reich piece?

http://www.roh.org.uk/mixed-programmes/chroma-new-wayne-mcgregor-carbon-life

Also looking forward to seeing Osipova in the revival of Woolf Works:

http://www.roh.org.uk/productions/woolf-works-by-wayne-mcgregor

The McGregor programme was so much fun! Life gives limited opportunities to see Steve Reich and Brody Dalle on the same stage within ten minutes of each other.

Chroma is marvellous, I'd never seen it before. It's liquid and punchy at the same time.

The new piece with Reich was nothing hugely special and dipped close to trenchant commentary a bit but carried attention.

Carbon Life is odd - a collaboration with Dalle, Mark Ronson, Sam Sparro, Rose from the Pipettes and others, who were there performing live. It started off a little busy but thinned out into an excellent set of pairs. The music was surprisingly good too.

I probably only see four or five contemporary dance things a year but should make more effort. As far as vfm goes you can't really beat decent seats for £10.

Didn't expect to find another McGregor fan here! Shari, are you still posting/into ballet?

Still posting, yes. I haven’t seen much recently though. I need to start going again.

My last ex-boyfriend was very, very much into ballet, studying it at a high school for the arts and dancing professionally for a few years. One of his heroes was Mikhail Baryshnikov and another was George Balanchine; in fact, one of his main mentors and someone he was very close to was a ballet instructor who studied directly under Balanchine. I really wish I could remember said instructor's name; he died not all that long ago and I remember my ex being very devastated by that loss. Anyway, my ex's interest in ballet lent itself greatly to his love of Russia/Russian culture, because in Russia it's considered very manly to be a male ballet dancer; my ex was originally from rural Maine and the exact opposite was the case where he came from. Anyway, all I know about ballet is due to that prior relationship and I'm glad he expanded my horizons in that direction.

The thing with Balanchine, especially with respect to ballet in the US, is that he's pretty central to its development (I will mention as an aside that SF Ballet, which I love and go to several times a year, is actually the first ballet company in the country), and because of the difficulty in notating dance, a lot of the American repertory that has been has come straight from people who've learned the specific choreography from Balanchine himself. So it becomes like Gregg Popovich's coaching tree: since Balanchine is so influential AND because his creative output spanned such a long time, ballet still has a lot of people who've interacted with him personally.

And that's the last I'll ever talk about Balanchine, because I actually don't care for the neoclassical stuff. Contemporary is my jam, 100%.

a lot of the American repertory that has *survived*

Fair enough! I don't know much else, but I did manage to figure out the name of my last ex's beloved mentor: Samuel Kurkjian. Does this name ring a bell to you?

Oh, and you've got an awesome memory, remembering my Spurs fandom and name-checking Coach Pop like that.

Die Toteninsel by Liam Scarlett was awesome! Doomy underworld intensity never let up, my inner Goth was duly thrilled. Shostakovich score was great, too.

Die Toteninsel by Liam Scarlett was awesome! Doomy underworld intensity never let up, my inner Goth was duly thrilled. Shostakovich score was great, too.

And a much better introduction to Shostakovich than the Shostakovich Trilogy was.

Nearly 4 years since I attended any performances, and I went in back-to-back weeks to the new works festival, and largely speaking it's been a total triumph. However, one work in particular deserves highlighting:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wb7_wzxaUWU

I was completely riveted from curtain to curtain, and I never wanted it to end.

Broken Wings, aka the Frida Kahlo ballet, is astounding. The choreography, the makeup, the costumes, the music, it's such a sensory feast, if you have the chance to see it, absolutely do.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iNrBioYAHiU