Emio Greco: Double Points: Hell at ImPulsTanz 2011

August 22nd, 2011 § 0

The Odeon is one of the most magnificent performance spaces anywhere in the world. A dance company need only take the Odeon down to sandy bricks and Corinthian columns to create an atmosphere of impending wonder.

Emio Greco when he brough Double Points: Hell to ImPulsTanz went one step further. He opened up not just the main theatre space but the wings. The performance space was massive. He chose to use the light pushing in from side windows and skylights as the principal lighting. Starting time very strang though: 19:30, too late for the daylight to really dominate the lighting, too early for artificial lights to work their magic.

The absence of coherent lighting weakened the spell Greco tried to cast with his two dancers Sawami Fukuoka and Dereck Cayla (in an role originally created by Greco on himself). On the other hand, the deep klang soundscapes resonate (uncredited).

Double Points Hell Sawami Fukuoka
Double Points Hell Sawami Fukuoka and Dereck Cayla
Photo Floriaan Ganzevoort

Cayla is clad all in black stocking, as a shadow. One cannot even see mouth or eyes. To open Double Points: Hell, Kayla offers a kind of neo classical frenzied solo. Anticipation is high.

What follows are solos by Sawami Fukuoka and sequences where she is shadowed by Cayla. Sometimes she seem coherent, other times she seems to rave. She pulls at her clothing, flaunts her sexuality. Fukuoka's initial oriental doll charm falls away entirely when she rips the black wig off her head and reveals the shaved head of psychiatric patient.

Double Points Hell Sawami Fukuoka Emio Greco
Double Points Hell Sawami Fukuoka Emio Greco
Photo Anna van Kooij

Fukuoka is the incarnation of a girlfriend gone wrong, a woman gone mad.

Yet strangely her monologues in Japanese failed to touch any emotional chord. I just felt a distance from someone with whom one would not want to share a space. Later when Fukuoka and Cayla dance an extended duet to Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, Double Points: HELL hints at taking wings again.

Double Points Hell Sawami Fukuoka 2
Double Points Hell Sawami Fukuoka 2
Photo Anna van Kooij

Yet somehow the night I saw Double Points: HELL even that duet remained relatively flat emotionally. Something happening to two strangers, a good idea unfulfilled, a promise not kept.

The existential questions about sexuality and violence which Double Points: HELL strives to raise remain unanswered and for me unilluminated. The whole piece seems a strong concept (similar to the Roland Petit's Le Jeune Homme et la Mort) in neither original nor virtuouso execution.

Double Points: HELL is only forty minutes long and there are passable steps hence as a spectator you don't have the time to be bored. In the end, I felt just lightly disappointed and somewhat empty leaving the miniature. Much of the general applause felt perfunctory in honor of Fukuoka's effort and Greco's reputation rather than an overwhelming spontaneous combustion. But the applause rang on long enough that I might be wrong.

Death and water: Choreographers Guido Markowitz and Nikolaus Adler Jump Start Oper Graz

June 20th, 2011 § 0

For the final Oper Graz dance work in June, ballet director Darell Toulon brought two promising choreographers to Graz to create new works.

The lucky pair: Vienna's budding star Nikolaus Adler lately of Homunculus and Villach born Guido Markowitsch, best known for his choreography for musicals and his work in Darmstadt Staatstheater.

While both pieces were part of a coherent evening, as separate and nearly full length works, I have divided this review into two sections.

Resurrection or the Alienation of Humanity - Nikolaus Adler

At first glance Resurrection appears to be a reprise of Törte für Alle, which premiered at Choreolab in 2006. Adler has brough back the cakes, the clowns, the brutal music from the Tiger lillies, a statue of the Virgin Mary next to a dead man and even a little girl singing a beautiful song at the end.

But in fact Resurrection is more a complete remake of the original with a little more time and a dedicated cast. The last piece was created at Choreolab where the dancers are just borrowed from Staatsoper between rehearsals for the main stage. Very happily Adler has made some of the explicity intellectual pretensions of Torte fur Alle (billboard style references to Sartre and Fox news) implicit and reinvested the returns in the dancing.

Nikolaus Adler Resurrection oder die Befremdlichkeit der Zwischen Menschlikeit
Nikolaus Adler - Resurrection oder die Befremdlichkeit
der Zwischen Menschlikeit: Cakes and Clowns again

Resurrection opens very strongly with high speed deep bending dancing with grinding rhythms. The opposite of what one could expect from the usually austere Adler. What is remarkable about his choreography are the contrasts. Even during a powerful energetic duet, Adler will stop to show delicate work with fingers. Without being afraid of movement, Adler has always shown an unusual fineness of gesture.

I've always wondered how and why Toulon chooses his performers for Oper Graz. His auditions go on for weeks and in the end, he usually chooses not particularly tall nor superficially attractive dancers in what is frankly a buyer's market. Now I've found out:

Opera Graz dancers can really move. Particularly astonishing are Laura Fischer, Michael Munoz and Bostjan Ivanjsic.

Bostjan Ivanjsic Laura Fischer duet Resurrection
Bostjan Ivanjsic Laura Fischer duet Resurrection:
wonderful movement and powerful duets based on contact

After the opening burst of energy, Resurrection quickly slows down to Adler's usual ironic sadness: Adler's macabre clowns stand in a line and push a cake in one another's faces.

Adler takes us through a sinister pantomime of funeral by a group of clowns, complete with statue of Virgin Mary by the head of the deceased. Adler's clown-faced brutes kick the poor corpse in the head. Wtih all the cellars in contemporary Austria filled with the corpses of unwanted lovers and incest's children, Adler's wanton brutality seems part of daily life here in Austria.

The pace doesn't relent with a spectacular duet between Ivanjsic and Fischer without music: swinging arms writ large, difficult lifts and kinetic gyration. Stunning dancing: mesmerising enough to only notice the absence of music when sound reappears in the next duet.

Adler was able to go to complex, dangerous movement with these dancers experienced with one another and with enough rehearsal time. Much of the movement seemed polished versions of very good contact improv. Contact improv is about communication with the partner so refining it for the stage is to choose communication through movement.

All good things must come to an end and they do with a little girl on stage with another dancer. Tatjana Wiesenhofer sang extremely beautifully:

My papa was a wonderful clown. My father was a beautiful man.

All children are charming on stage. Wiesenhofer has a great voice and seems a natural.

Sometimes it is not nice to be me - Guido Markowitz

The simple narrow black stage was divided into three with two ten metre silk like transparent black curtains. Two men begin the action with an extended duet. Neither Mathias Strahm nor Gyorgy Baán much impress. Their movements are exaggerated and false, parodic. Not nearly so fine as the work Adler just showed us. The tall Strahm reminds one of typically world weary Nicolas Cage.

Happily enough the next duet between Michael Munoz and Shaohui Yi brought some real intensity back to the stage. Munoz seems to woo Yi to no avail. Yi's persistent rejection is relentless. Munoz's grimace of fury sears us.

On the curtains, water drops are cleverly projected. I'm as tired of projection as the next contemporary theatre-goer: most projection is mainly a worn out trope but here the moving drops felt real and right. Sounds of rain and water justified the visual. Stagecraft which works and is not expensive: you can see that Markowitz worked hard to bring light, sound and texture together to support the water theme.

Occasionally the antics to extend the water metaphor consume art, leaving only device: the dance with a full glass of water trying not to spill it was either pretentious or something from reality TV.

But then suddenly an astonishing solo from Dianne Gray stroking her own body with handfulls of ice offers a breathtaking visual and moves us with its strong emotional text.

Dianne Gray Guido Markowitz Sometimes it is not nice to be me
Dianne Gray's exceptional solo with ice cubes in her hands

Action now takes place in all three stages, with two sets of action on the left. The drama in the center, solos and duets on the sides while Munoz still weeps as the Japanese ex-girlfriend slaps him around. The effect is symphonic.

On both sides, there are ice solos while in the middle a trio dance: Michal Zabavik and Ivansjic with Fischer between them. The two men beat each other senseless for Fischer's favours. The scene ends with Michal Zabavik drowning Ivansjic. Ivansjic's head is held under water several times for up to as long as a minute. Even two of the girls come in to help hold a struggling Ivansjic upside down. When Ivansjic's comes out of the water wet and gasping, it is not play acting.

The music splinters between klang effects, the crash of ice against metal (live) and vocal lullabies. The contrast makes each more effective in turn. The two men fighting on a wet floor means real danger, a sort of Ultima Vez light (Wim Vandekeybus's company will likely hold the record for the highest career threatening injury per dancer forever).

Now six of the girls lie on stage and gargle together, extending the water metaphor to undreamt extremes. Ivansjic is strapped by the men into a trapeze on the left. As he hanges there helpless, Fischer comes and dances the most astonishing passion with him.

At times she climbs up onto Ivansjic to embrace him. At times Fischer is on the floor and Ivansjic pulls her limbs up to him as she somersaults or hangs upside down in his arms. Fischer's long tresses cascade in the light, shiny and feminine and beautiful. They kiss kisses of passion. Finally Fischer rides Ivansjic like a broken horse.

Bostjan Ivanjsic Laura Fischer trapeze
Bostjan Ivanjsic & Laura Fischer on and off the trapeze together
one of the best duets I've ever seen: perfect conception
with touching performances from both dancers

For the last ten minutes into the golden age of Rosas and Ultima Vez. We don't often see dancing or choreography as raw and passionate as what Ivansjic and Fischer have just shown us. The duet is like all of Romeo and Juliet distilled to seven minutes.

Michael Munoz is still to go mad, spat on from all sides by seven comrades or ex-lovers. The ice crashes louder and louder. In the end, he slaps his own leg out from under himself in an amazing acrobatic and symbolic fall. Like Munoz, sooner or later we all slap a leg out from under ourselves. It is only human.

Still, Sometimes it is not nice to be me piece slowly disintegrates after the trapeze duet. There is nothing Markowitz or frankly nearly any other choreographer can offer to maintain the intensity after such a moment. Perhaps the piece should have gone out on a high. Perhaps it's better that it winds down with a slow thud. The last performers are not nearly as interesting as Munoz, Ivansjic, Fischer, Yi and Dianne Gray.

Envoi

A spectacularly successful evening on a very small and narrow stage. Markowitz, Adler and Toulon demonstrate you need neither large stage nor large budget to mount ambitious work. A will to create, strong dancers and the time to do it (rehearsals were spaced out over months and the premier date was moved a month later) are all it takes.

If you are tired of the Vienna silent non-movement conceptual scene, if you still love dance, if you'd like to see passionate movement, get thee hence to Graz while you still can. Jump Start is not an evening to be missed.

There are Jump Start performances on Tuesday 21 June, Wednesday 22 June, Saturday 25 June, Sunday 26 June. Keep in mind the performances are not in Oper Graz but StudioBuhne Wilder Mann Jakomimistraße 3-5 about ten minutes walk from the Opera. Photos © Werner Kmetisch/Oper Graz: frankly both shows are much more exciting than the photos show.

Rumi in Flammen: Jochen Ulrich at Landestheater Linz

June 19th, 2011 § 0

The stage is a wooden arena, with benches on all sides including one before the audience. Above the arena sits a drummer who immediately begins to beat a large skinned drum. Talented deep rhythms, slightly foreign to our ears.

A man in a blue martial arts costume stands in the center. Drift in various young men and women in combative poses. The fight begins.

Long bouts of shadow fighting eventually bring in some long legged blondes in the back to watch the combat (Marietta Kro, Lucia Patoprstá). The dojo atmosphere moves towards that of film noir. The long legged blondes end up in writhing embraces with bands our half naked fighters. Very sexy, moving us quickly towards B movies and Russ Meyer and Tarantino.

The two Blondes Marietta Kro Lucia Patoprsta
The two Blondes Marietta Kro Lucia Patoprsta

Group sex where one woman submits to multiple partners against her will appears to be a recurring them in Ulrich's work. Lots more of it tonight. These fighters and ravishers carry around life size plush lions on their shoulders to amuser themselves between sexual assaults.

A lady in white enters with face hidden behind a wide brimmed hat, followed by the firsts man in a frightening wooden tribal mask. The first amazing dance of a man behind a mask follows. Flinging, lifts, flips. After a struggle nearly to the death an exhausted Fabrice Jucquois is revealed.

Our first clue as to the true nature of the evening has dropped. There is neither story here nor conventional characters. These figures on stage are symbols as in the Life of Man or Tsar Hunger of Leonid Andreyev or later the epic theatre of Berthold Brecht. Death, Life, Despair, Hunger, Desire. Nouns with capitals are come to reveal to us the meaning of life.

An enormous man in a death mask and dreadlocks follows the woman in white into the dojo. As a dreadlocked leather jacketed biker Wallace Jones gives the dance performance of the evening. The speed and grace and power of his long limbs terrorised the audience in his nightmare appearance.

Jones's overhead lifts of Anna Sterbová astonish.

Rumi in Flammen lifts Anna Sterbova Martin Dvorak
Rumi in Flammen lifts this time Anna Sterbova flies
in the arms of Martin Dvorak

The next character still mystifies me. Mickey Mouse comes on stage. Yes, really, Disney's guy, the one from the top of mother's cookie jar from the fifties. Big ears, big eyes, big round smile. But Mickey's spoiling for a fight tonight and he gets it.

On beat the drums boombity-boom-boom in the steady hands of Mohammad Rez Mortazavi an alternately spellbinding and oppressive rhythm.

We storm the boundary of kitsch here with the mouse and go right over the other side with our next warrior. A downhill skier complete with skis and tall boots. He trudges into the center of the fighting ring and then stops. It turns out there are dancing moves you can do only in ski boots and Emilijus Miliakus does a good job showing how you can lean further forward and back than humanly possible and writhe in spellbinding ways. He throws a woman or two over his head before finally Sterbová pulls the skis and boots from his feet.

At that point the other fighters gang up on Miliakus and beat him to death.

Martin Dvorak is a curious choice for the Master as Ulrich has more overtly charismatic dancers to carry this lead. But Anna Sterbová does great work as his apprentice who is regularly tossed into poses foreign to flesh and blood.

Irene Bauer provides an atmospheric shadow across the back of stage, head to toe in black chiffon. Sarah Deltenre is a convincingly macabre lady in white.

I thought Bauer and Deltenre were Death and Life but they turned out to be Day and Night.

Apparently this symbolic dance drama began with the work of a Persian poet who died about a thousand years ago, Rumi. Rumi's full name is Jalāl ad-Dīn Muḥammad Balkhī. Rumi took his nickname from the part of Anatolia where he lives and which used to belong to Byzantium, aka Eastern Rome. In 2007, Unesco celebrated the year of Rumi, with international conferences with as many as 450 presentation. The guy is a big deal: think Persian Chaucer or at least William Wordsworth.

There's nothing in his writings to suggest a martial nature or a fascination with combat. Rumi was more into long walks and philosophical talks. His idea of love seems to have been more Platonic than consumed with trashy blondes and group sex.

Once again with Ulrich's work, we are left more impressed with the strength of the conception and the musical choice and performance than the choreography. Nearly two hours of live drums is an impressive sonic experience. The musical score and the performance are the work of a handsome young Persian musician, Mohammad Reza Mortazavi. His stamina and energy delighted both dancers and audience.

The choreography is more focused than Ulrich's preceding piece Winterreise: the combat area engendered a string of dance and movement events. As well as the action on the center stage also background notes which appear and reappear. Bauer as the night goes up and down the stairs and brings Mortazavi more into the performance. The other fighters/disciples remain on the stage actively observing the action when not participating.

Simon Corder's lighting is more consistently detailed than the lighting in Winterreise. Again, the tones tend towards the strong, apparently a consequence of the planned outdoor performanes of Rummi in Flammen. In open air, the dojo is to be placed among the spectators and the dancers will circulate freely in the audience.

Rumi in Flammen will be even more effective with the dancers among the audience. It still won't have much to do Rumi's poetry and will owe more to B movies than Persian literature, but can survive on its own merits. If Ulrich has managed to expose Jalāl ad-Dīn Muḥammad Balkhī's work and Persian literature to more Austrians, his appropriation of Rumi's name will have done no harm and much good.

Regardless of what the rest of the world and modern Persia may think of Rumi in Flammen at its premiere, Linz stood and applauded Ulrich and Mortazavi's work for over fifteen minutes of curtain calls.

More info about Jochen Ulrich's Rumi in Flammen, more photographs and tickets can be found on the website of Landestheater Linz. Photos courtesy of Landestheater Linz (uncredited). Do not miss the open air performance on July 2 on the  MainDeck of the Ars Electronica Center (July 3 in case of rain).

Winterreise Linz: Jochen Ulrich and Heinz Winbeck

June 18th, 2011 § 0

Winterreise is one of the best concerts you will ever attend. A splendid evening of Schubert music. Choreographer Jochen Ulrich worked hand in hand with composer Heinz Winbeck to develop a full length score of the best of Schubert's music for orchester and a singer.

The singer Martin Achrainer fills each song full of portent and passion. Fans of German lieder would swoon. I hope there's a compact disc for sale. In his dramatic performance, Achrainer often takes the role of the composer Schubert himself, writing out sheafs and sheafs of music on stage in the first act.

The stage is dramatically decked out with a huge round mirror overhead, about 15 metres across, which can flutter in moments of dramatic importance offering a strange through the looking glass feel. At the front corner of the stage there is an impressionist painting of Schubert's time. Alas, the painting at 1.5 metres wide is too small to be intelligible and too large not to notice. Most of the lighting is strongly green tinted for some reason. Alas for most of the piece, the lights are also just too bright. I'm no fan of watching dance in the dark, but until the last half hour of the two hour performance, one felt that one was under rehearsal lights and the light technicians went off duty while the choreographer and dancers worked.

Jochen Ulrich Winterreise ensemble
Jochen Ulrich Winterreise ensemble

With such bright lights, the large atmospheric candelabra arrangements on stage had little effect.

In spite of the interrogation lights, the dramatic development is extremely difficult to follow. In the beginning there is a stream of beautiful women wandering on stage only to be accosted by pairs of men and disappear. Later when the women reappear on stage they are inebriated and stumbling. Now they are out and out ravished by packs of four and five men. Looking into the program one learns that there's a bride (Clara Pascual Martí) and her mother (Irene Bauer). Bauer changes costume more than anyone else in the production, strutting gorgeously in high heels and a tight tiny white skirt in her first appearance and with a long spell in the second act in a long black evening gown, an elegant precursor to the flappers. I've rarely seen someone dance so well in high heels but as the mother, Bauer is sadly often left to just wander around.

Fabrice Jucquois Irene Bauer Clara Pascual Marti
Fabrice Jucquois Irene Bauer Clara Pascual Marti

The cast list continues with a father (Fabrice Jucquois), a sister (Anna Sterbová), a brother in law (Wallace Jones) and an uncle (Daniel Morales Pérez). On the other side we have a groom (Matej Pajgert), his mother (Sarah Deltenre), his father (Alexander Novikov), his brother (Emilijus Miliauskas), his female cousin (Lucia Patoprstá) and his sister-in-law (Marietta Kro). Who all of these people are we really have no idea. They spend a lot of time kissing one another and pulling up the women's skirts. Kro is particularly winsome in her long dress with her attentive lover Daniel Morales Pérez. Wallace Jones impresses with his tender attentions to his partners male and female in his appearances. Jucquois convinces as a sufficiently dominant patriarchal presence.

Schubert's personal life was difficult, he often lived abroad. Towards the end of his life he suffered from severe illness and near blindness. But there is no direct equivalent in the Ulrich's libretto. Ulrich's starting point was of course Schubert's music and curiously wedding scenes from the films of Fellini and Kusterica.

Fellini's mad weddings are difficult enough to comprehend on film. In the theater, one doesn't have the same chance to change viewpoint or perspictive, unless its via selective light of which we saw little. I'm not quite sure how an early death to syphilis at 31 (Schubert's fate) is equivalent to incest and rape among the gypsies.

Still the lyrics of the Winterreise songs (the words were not written by Schubert but rather by a poet he admired, Wilhelm Müller or for some of the songs by composer Heinz Winbeck) do support Ulrich's dark vision:

Heart be still
Why do you hammer relentless
It's the will of the heavens
That I must leave you now.

Of course, with dancers as luscious as Bauer, Kro and Patoprstá one doesn't always need a linear libretto. The men don't look too bad stripped to the waist and in black trousers either. Whatever the story, there is far too much walking and too much pantomime. Why they wander and wander in circles is a mystery to me. I can understand that Ulrich wants to experiment with gait, but that doesn't seem to be his intention. It's as if we are watching an early walk through where the steps haven't all been set and the dancers are just finding their places.

Nearly all of these episodes could be energetically danced and bridged with dance. Grigorovich told stories through dance in his ballets, particularly Romeo and Juliet, I don't know why Ulrich doesn't want to take the final step and insist the movement tell his story.

No matter how fed up one gets with strutting dancers and the incoherently episodic story, one can always return in the end to Achrainer's singing.

Besides Achrainer's fine singing, the musical side had solid support from a good orchestra performance under conductor Takeshi Moriuchi's energetic leadership. Maaki Namekawa's solid piano solos.

The final half-hour picks up when the lights go down and something approaching a marriage and the family photo afterwards slowly devolves to surrealistic spinning of the stage while a figure in red silk lies crucified. At one point the feathers are thrown up in the air over the group as dancers pose in the middle giving us the effect of one of those glass snow scenes shaken up as the snow floats down. Later Achrainer plays with a wooden rocking horse in the foreground with dark glasses, slowly going blind and losing his mind.

One wonders why Ulrich waited for the last half hour to do something with the lights and to really work his story.

In the end, no harm is done. For the languid stretches, one can close one's eyes and just listen to Schubert's astonishing songs beautifully renderd by both orchestra and singer. Yet if it weren't for the wonderful music, Winterreise might be judged confusing and over long.

In spite of it all, there is great pleasure in Winterreise. At least Ulrich's dancers are doing something and there's great music to hear. Dance life can be much worse: one could be stuck in the Vienna contemporary dance scene, watching dancers sulk in the corner in dirty jogging suits, picking at scabs on their arms. Go to Landestheater Linz instead.

While you're at Landestheater Li, don't miss the Promenadenhof next door. There's a fabulous garden and the traditional Austrian pastries are top-notch.

Having seen Winterreise here in Linz, I'm very curious about the Hamburg Ballet's version by John Neueimeier from 2001.

For more information about Jochen Ulrich's Winterreise, including performance dates, photographs and tickets, visit the Landestheater Linz website.

Béjart’s Le Concours at Vienna’s Volksoper: A Sweet Confection

May 31st, 2011 § 0

Le Concours is an amusing confection of a ballet put together by Maurice Béjart at the height of his fame in 1985. Béjart's own Ballet of the XXth Century danced the premiere of Le Concurs in Théâtre du Châtelet, a temple of contemporary dance.

Le Concours Olga Esina Gregor Hatala Erika Kovacova
Volksoper Le Concours: Olga Esina, Gregor Hatala, Erika Kovacova
Photo © Vienna Staatsoper

But Le Concours is no work of high art, but rather a simple theatrical murder mystery told in the language of dance. Cleverly Béjart sets his murder mystery at a dance competition which easily explains the constant pirouettes and the lifts. Curiously in real life Béjart turned down every invitation to do dance jury duty, finding ballet competition barbaric. In line with the dance theme, music is a very arch pastiche of Giselle, Sleeping Beauty, La Bayadère, Swan Lake and Coppelia bound by atmospheric orchestration from Hugues Le Bars.

At 58 years of age, irony is a more natural expression than passion. Béjart is one of the last of the great choreographers to feel that ballet and modern dance would become a mainstream art form, taking a place in the daily newspapers beside music, fashion, television and film. And so Le Concours was created: not as a masterwork or a deep expression on life but an ironic glance at life's beautiful surfaces.

Le Concours owes a deep debt to pop culture, with a protagonist drawn directly from Alain Delon's incarnations of trench coated police inspectors and Peter's Falk's Columbo. Do not search for any more meaning in Le Concours than in a good detective drama: there are only moments.

As ballet contestant Ada and murder victim, Olga Esina is a revelation. Esina has comedic talents one would not expect after seeing her as various Giselles, Swans and Bayadères. Perhaps our long armed sylph has wearied of perishing to heartbreak or schizophrenia every night in the grand ballets.

Given some passable dramaturgy and some delicate attention, Esina truly comes to life. Esina was particularly delightful as a lithesome showgirl to Igor Milos's masterful magician.

Other noteworthy performances: squared jawed Gregor Hatala certainly looks the part of a stocky cop but lacked intensity and focus the night I saw him.

Samuel Colombet as the French juror and chairman of the jury seemed drawn from life. He's ready for cinema. Serbian dancer Gala Jovanovic nearly stole the show as the American jurist. Many of her excessive enthusiasms apply just as well to certain Austrian balletomanes. But Jovanovic did not need to work so hard on letting us know that she finds her character kitsch and silly. She needed only be the character herself and let us find the humour ourselves.

As the celebrity TV choreographer, Eno Peci falls doubly into the same trap himself. In love with himself and his own work, his character's actions are funny. Absolutely no need to ham his episode up relentlessly. What should have been an ironic delight slanted towards tiresome shallow parody.

Ketevan Papava as Ada's mother, grande ballerina La Brambilla measured her performance more carefully, convincing as both a dancer and a terrifying mother. With every show, Papava gets better. If they could find a tall enough partner for her, there's more and more reason to rescue Papava from various gypsy and Mirtha rolls and offer some of the leading roles she danced in the Marinsky.

Kamil Pavelka acquits himself passably as Ivy, Ada's boyfriend although his passion seemed a bit too measured for first love. Former Staatsoper ballerina Susanne Kirnbauer had no difficulty portraying Miss Maud, Ada's frustrated first ballet coach. Serb dancer Igor Milos was a fabulous magician, with good dance technique and solid magic tricks. Milos straight performance allowed the comedy to arise from the situation and not from exaggerated grimaces.

As Ada's best friend, normally staid Slovak dancer Erika Kovácova frightens the entire house with an unrestrained bout of madness on stage. Her straight performance helps keep Le Concours on track.

Le Concours is a perfect piece for Vienna's Volksoper, well chosen for the public of that venue, who loves a good laugh and an easy evening in the theatre. Performances should be full and Le Concours could easily go into permanent repertoire. It's a nice respite for the dancers in a season of high art Staatsoper premieres.

As has become a habit, ballet director Legris made sure that the same level of coaching was available to his stagings as would be at Paris Opera. It's very likely hotel and coach's fees are a step higher than the accountants at Vienna Staatsoper would like to see for the ballet. But the results are worth it.

Dance director of Ballet du Rhine Bertrand d'At came into town to work with Esina and the rest of the cast. d'At danced and worked directly with Béjart for 15 years. Manuel Legris himself had danced the role of the inspector with Aurélie Dupont in 1999 in Le Concours premiere at Opera National de Paris, under Béjart's own firm hand.

One starts to see a pattern in Legris' relentless premieres in Vienna. He doesn't feel he has arrived yet - Legris is still on his way. Vienna is a dress rehearsal for the directorship of the Opera de Paris. If not in the next few years, then in ten. Better for us, that Legris' time in our heavenly purgatory stretches on and on and on. And good for Legris too: the water is better in Vienna, the air not so smoggy, the sidewalks not so crowded as in Paris.

Vienna Staatsoper’s Homage to Jerome Robbins: Broadway meets High Art

May 15th, 2011 § 0

In his latest dance confection for Vienna, Staatsoper ballet director has brought us three hiterto never danced in Vienna pieces from master showman Jerome Robbins (née Rabinowitz). Robbins has the most eclectic collection of awards of any of the great choreographers, from an Oscar for film direction (West Side Story) to Tonys for Broadway musicals (Fancy Free, The King & I, West Side Story, The Pajame Game) through a French Legion of Honour.

Robbins likely does not deserve the last one, as the most active namer of names in his testimony before the House Committee on Un-American Activities in 1953, leading to the blacklisting of dozens of colleagues and acquaintances (effective professional death).

Fundamentally a showman, first as a performer and then as a creator, Robbins felt that there should not be a divide between commercial artists and high art, i.e. a successful Broadway choreographer should be allowed to set ballet. The three works chosen by Legris showcase Robbins' work as an avant-garde choreographer, a Romantic ballet master and a Broadway showman in turn.

Glass Pieces

Who has one time heard the trombone of Glass Pieces from Philip Glass will never hear the trombone the same again. Each puff resonates through twenty beautiful figures moving at speed, changing the world with a precise gesture.

Homage to Jerome Robbins Vienna Staatsoper Glass Pieces 2
Homage to Jerome Robbins at Vienna Staatsoper. Glass Pieces.

Glass Pieces drives the viewer into a profoundly meditative state. Colours, some light, sound, we are children again staring into a xylescope.

The piece opens casually enough with an army of colourfully dressed pedestrians crossing back and forth across the stage. Periodicaly the crowd are interrupted by pairs, pink, emerald, blue. Each pair tunes its affection in a different way.

Natalie Kush and Shane A. Wuerthner were particularly touching in pink. She so small and fragile and optimistic, Wuerthner taller and cool. The last times I've seen him dance he's been paired with dancers like Olga Esina who overwhelm him. His own talents shine brighter with a more petite dancer.

Kiyoka Hashimoto and Masayu Kimoto dance well together, in what has been a season of revelation for Kimoto.

Olga Esina makes her own appearance late in the lead role opposite Roman Lazik. Glass Pieces is written just for her kind of awesome ballerina. Esina's endless limbs, noble carriage and schooled movements bring grace to the piece and she glildes across its surface as if on wings. Glass Pieces demands of a dancer to be one with the music and this Esina masters. She is the perfect muse, here no emotional demands to distract her from herself.

In darkest shiniest bordeaux Roman Lazik partners Olga Esina. Once again, Lazik shows himself a perfect partner attentive to her every step but one wishes that one day he himself would dance his own steps for himself.

Homage to Jerome Robbins Vienna Staatsoper Glass Pieces 1
Glass Pieces: Olga Esina and Roman Lazik

In the corps-de-ballet, Andrey Teterin is easily the most impressive of the men when in the middle or the back of the pack. He is let down only by his uncertainty when front and center, a strange lingering stage inhibition. If he ever overcomes it, Teterin will be a force with which to reckoned, with his strong lines and forceful jump.

In The Night

In the Night is guided by a piano solo, a rather limpid Chopin Nocturne. This is art of the simpering kind. Across a starlit stage, Robbins reveals three couples, in purple, in brown and in pink. Each dances a tender pas, with the occasional ethereal lift. The piece never really took off, as none of the pairs grabbed any hearts.

Andrej Teterin returns to adequately partner Natalie Kush who is radiant at her second leading role of the evening. Teterin is again let down by the uncertainty of his steps at the most important moments.

Olga Esina and Roman Lazik take the stage second. Again, Lazik is attentive. Again he fails to participate in the piece himself, a cipher for his ballerina. Esina struggled with the trite emotions, ending up as in the first piece, like glass. The long flowing gown from In The Night hides her natural attributes and Esina is a dancer like another.

The final couple Irina Tsymbal and Vladimir Shishov match one another perfectly, Tsymbal's gentle curves fold into Shisov's powerful arms. Shishov lifts Tsymbal like a feather. Always a passionate performer, Tsymbal shines with a strong emotion to communicate.

It appears Vienna Staastoper still does not have the right partner for Esina, one who would push her to the next level. The closest physical match would appear to be ex-husband Shishov but both are dancing better since separated. Perhaps Eno Peci could do Esina justice.

The Concert, or the Perils of Everybody

In the final piece, The Concert or the Perils of Everybody we see a lot of Peci.

He delights the audience as the murderous and adulterous husband. Behind a false nose, Peci is unrecognisable. He wears the role of an unhappy husband like his own dressing gown.

Homage to Jerome Robbins Vienna Staatsoper The Concert 2
The Concert: Franziska Wallner-Hollinek and Eno Peci

He is well-paired with Irina Tsymbal as the ballerina, object of love. Franziska Wallner-Hollinek incarnates his grande dame wife perfectly, her native Vienna upbringing and aristocratic profile serving her well.

Denys Cherevychko plays against character for once as the shy young man. Ludmila Trayan inspires no end of laughter as the energetic young woman, whether sitting next to the pianist or pushing people off their chairs

Igor Milos, Gabor Oberegger, the lovely Maria Alati and Marta Drastiková round off an excellent comic ensemble performance.

Homage to Jerome Robbins Vienna Staatsoper The Concert 3
The Concert: Marta Drastiková, Dumitru Taran, Irina Tsymbal, Gabor Oberegger

The Concert is a very strange piece oscillating from straight parody to Prufrock-like dark reflections on existence. The funny moments seem rather silly at first until the unhappy husband kicks his would-be lover the ballerina, shortly after pantomiming the murder of his wife. The women are moved around like inanimate furniture.

There seems to be some curious underlying mysogeny in the piece bubbling just under the surface. Women are beautiful but annoying. Probably true. But then men are annoying too and don't even have beauty to redeem them.

Parody of dance fills The Concert: whether in the Hungarian dance of the men or the extended ballet episode where the energetic girl can't hold her place in the corps-de-ballet.

Dancers get so tired of Swan Lake, Giselle and Sylphides that there is nothing they love more than a good bout of dance parody, whether in Don Quixote or Robbins's The Concert. They were all delighted to perform here and in the end, Robbins does have a point.

It's damn hard to live and wherever you look, whether at a concert or a ballet or even in your own home, everything and everybody is annoying. Even your own mistress.

Hopefully we can see another side of life but in this dance version of the Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock there is much to enjoy. Tart like the fizz on champagne but like champagne best consumed in moderation.

All Photos Copyright: Wiener Staatsballett/Dimo Dimov

Staatsoper will be performing Jerome Robbins's work throughout September 2011 and March 2012. For specific performances, see The Staastoper website

Guest Post: Migrants Must Eat Cats and Dogs

January 10th, 2011 § 4

[This shocking tale comes from Nikos Rapti's weblog at Zdnet. It sounds more like the plot of a horror film but alas it's real life in 2011.]

As mentioned in some of my ZNet Commentaries, during the 1941-1944 Nazi occupation in Greece there was a famine in Athens, in 1941, that claimed the lives from starvation of about 200,000 Greeks. At that time there was a rumor [?] that the Italian occupiers were eating the cats of Athens as a ... delicacy. I do not think that Greeks, in general, ate cats or dogs, even while dying of starvation. I did not and I survived.
 
One of the journalistically most honest papers in Greece is the satirical weekly "To Pontiki" [The Mouse]. It was started in 1979 by Kostas Papaioannou as an almost one-person endeavor and it evolved into the most authoritative paper of Greece. Three of the ZNet people have already met Kostas on the island of Aegina where he now lives in retirement. I had been writing for "To Pontiki" during its first two decades of publication. The paper was taken over by other people after Kostas' retirement.
 
Today, January 6, 2011, seventy years after the Nazi instigated famine, I went to the kiosk in my neighborhood and bought "To Pontiki" of this week. On page 3 the title reads: "SHOCK: They grab and eat dogs". 
 
The article describes the unbelievable situation in a neighborhood of Athens where the immigrants who have flooded the area having reached the lowest point of misery and hunger grab and eat the cats and the dogs in the neighborhood; the stray or the pets of the Greek residents. The Greek residents became aware of this gradually, as they noticed that the stray cats and dogs were disappearing.

Guest Post: Migrants Must Eat Cats and Dogs Continues »

The Economist editors November 20 advice: Act Unfriendly, Cater to Businessmen, Encourage Usury to the Poor

December 11th, 2010 § 4

The Economist logo

I'm probably just going to let my Economist subscription lapse at the end of January.

While I do having access to the whole world in a single news publication, sorting through the corporate disinformation is awfully tiresome.

Their editorials are particularly poorly thought out.

Let's take the week of 20 November:

Saving The Euro

The Economist position: The Irish are wrong to fight receiving bailout money and the Germans are wrong to insist they raise the absurd corporate tax rate of 12.5% which got the Irish into this bind in the first place.

Too much of the EU’s motivation seems to be to punish Ireland for its Anglo-Saxon ways—especially its highly competitive 12.5% tax rate on corporate profits, which helps it attract foreign firms. Raising this would be madness....A new generation of firms, including computer-gaming outfits like Activision Blizzard and Zynga, are joining the established operations of Intel and Google. Ireland’s workforce is young, skilled and adaptable. Rents are coming down even faster than wages.

Guys, the Irish have been busy selling the family silver faster than the Germans can replace it. Corporate tax rates of 12.5% in a single member state, only betray the whole Eurozone. Low rents for starving Irish potato farmers is not why we set up the Euro zone.

The Economist editors November 20 advice: Act Unfriendly, Cater to Businessmen, Encourage Usury to the Poor Continues »

Jewels of the New World | Jewelen der Neuen Welt: Vienna Staatsoper Ballet

October 25th, 2010 § 0

When Manuel Legris retired as an étoile at Paris Opera last year, he immediately took up residence in Vienna as the artistic director of the Vienna State Opera ballet. While the Staatsoper Ballet outside the Renato Zanella years has always been a very classical company, the Paris Opera has always danced both modern works and classical works with equal aplomb – and many would argue, the finest mixed repertoire company in the world.

With his first rate credentials there as a dancer, hopes are high that Legris will be as fine a director in Vienna. Until last year, the preceding artistic director Gyula Harangozo had been building a very good classical company with a strong Russian accent in Vienna.

Curiously Legris has kept most of the Harangozo dancers while shuffling around the designations with a new étoile designation to which only two ballerinas have been elevated, Olga Esina and Maria Yakovleva and two dancers, Vladmir Shishov and Roman Lazik. The dance world is dying to know what he has made of them in his first premiere Jewels of the New World.

Quite sensibly, Legris has brought the repertoire of the Paris Opera with him. In Jewels of the New World, we saw Balanchine, Twyla Tharp, William Forsythe and more Balanchine. All of these choreographers and all of these works have been staples of the Paris Opera repertoire since at least the eighties. No brave experimentation here, but it is high time these modern classic names returned to Vienna's main stage.

The theme of the evening was New World as Twyla Tharp and William Forsythe are both American born, while George Balanchine after stints at the Marinsky Theater and Serghei Diaghilev's Ballets Russes founded the finest and most influential dance company in the United States, New York City Ballet.

With the magic of Legris can the Vienna State Opera compete with the Paris Opera on the same repertoire? The short answer is no. The longer answer is not yet. Despite some exceptional highlights to the evening from Elisabeth Golibina and Kirill Kourlaev, Nina Polakává and Maria Yakovleva, the Vienna company does not yet have the same depth or consistency of schooling as Paris. Comparative inconsistency is not unexpected as Paris has its own school supplying most of the Opera dancers while Vienna's ballet school has offered just a half dozen dancers good enough to last at the state opera in the last ten years.

Theme and Variations opened the evening on the Tschaikovsky's Orchentral Suite 3 in G Major and with costumes from Christian Lacroix. The look was ornamental and bombastic, Parisian frippery at its best. To carry off as flamboyant a piece, the corps-de-ballet has to be perfect and the soloists should be spectacular. Alas night they were not. The corps-de-ballet was constantly out of sync, while Vladimir Shishov and Olga Esina sometimes seemed uncertain and on several occasions made flagrant mistakes. With a little bit more rehearsal, both they and the corps should be able to make amends. Apparently Esina and Shishov indeed had little time to rehearse as until another dancer's illness Shishov was to partner Nina Polakova in the second cast.

 

Balanchine Thema und Variationen Olga Esina Vladimir Shishov
Balanchine Thema und Variationen Olga Esina Vladimir Shishov

 

 

The two do suit Theme and Variations as danseurs nobles. Esina is a classic Marinsky ballerina with long arms and legs and neck. Shishov has grown into manhood in his time in Vienna and appears to be working harder at either the gym or the rehearsal room. Although the women looked quite good, the men of the corps-de-ballet looked more like boys than the jaded rakes of the Paris Opera, to the detriment of Balanchine's work.

Twyla Tharp's choreography of Brahms Variations on a Theme by Haydn

Variations on a Theme by Haydn Vladimir Shishov Elisabeth Golibina
Variations on a Theme by Haydn
Vladimir Shishov Elisabeth Golibina

 

 was an excellent choice to follow Balanchine. The further development of Balanchine's art in Tharp's work is crystal clear in apposition. Brahms' music is exceptionally moving and a welcome relief from the rather strident Tchaikovsky suite. The dark sand simple costumes and lyric variations of Tharp's piece allowed the dance to shine through.

 

 

 

The cast was very strong including many of the very best dancers of the State Opera ballet. Long limbed Georgian Ketevan Papava acquitted herself well while Nina Polakova is quietly on her way to becoming an étoile in the firm hands of Kirill Kourlaev. These two were certainly the best pair of the night. Polakova’s movements were fragile and graceful, each infused with that strange tragic intensity that is hers alone. Kourlaev was both strong and suitably discreet, not overwhelming either his partner or the piece. Hopefully we will continue to see them together.

Shishov returned immediately to the stage to partner Elisabeth Golibina who was absolutely brilliant. With all her skills in classic ballet, Golibina showed an astounding flexibility and energy in Tharp's more modern steps. She looked like she stepped out of the original creation or the Paris Opera. Stunning. Shishov continued to show better form than past years as a manly and certain partner, strong enough to handle Golibina's tall form.

The normally radiant Maria Yakovleva was uncharacteristically dull in the reliable if prosaic hands of Roman Lazik. He seems both too tall and too diffident to suit Yakovleva as a partner. Happily enough, it turned out Yakoleva was saving herself for later that evening.

Alas, after the intermission the premiere here of Forsythe's exciting piece The Vertiginous Thrill of Exactitude was not as successful. The Paris Opera performances are many levels above what happened in Vienna. What went wrong?

 

William Forsythe The Vertiginous Thrill of Exactitude Ludmila Konovalova Masuyu Kimoto Kiyoka Hashimoto
William Forsythe The Vertiginous Thrill of Exactitude Ludmila Konovalova Masuyu Kimoto Kiyoka Hashimoto

 

 

The angular geometric costumes fit Ludmila Konovalova's attractive figure badly, while the ballerina had neither the speed nor the sharp angles to carry the role. Konovalova spared no effort to try to entrap Forsythe's steps but here she was miscast for her major debut on the Staatsoper stage: I anticipate excellent performances from her in other roles. We will see Elisabeth Golibina dance this role next week and wish her more success.

The other two women Franziska Wallner-Hollinek and Kiyoka Hashimoto were unremarkable but adequate. After a slow start Masayu Kimoto and Denys Chervychko caught fire in the men's solos. Chervychko has an unpleasant tendency to try to draw the audience's attention to himself and not to the piece or his partner. One day one might hope that he learns that the artist is subservient to the art and not art to the artist.

Legris chose well to save Balanchine's Rubies for the finale. Karinska's original costumes from 1967 were magnificent: light gleaming in all directions from the jewels. After seeing Karinska's spectacular raiment, I don't understand why so often new costumes are created for Balanchine's Jewels.

Ketevan Papava was at her best as the first ruby, her long limber legs and arms nearly endless. Despite her Circassian origins in Georgia, Papava is unusually cold on stage. Despite almost perfect steps, she leaves herself too far out of the equation. She is an ice princess: one hopes one day she will warm. With Plissetskaian passion, Papava would be a dancer to reckoned with internationally.

 

Balanchine Rubies Ketevan Papava
Balanchine Rubies Ketevan Papava

 

 

On the other hand Maria Yakovleva hit the stage like a shining hurricane. None of the earlier languour or indifference of her performance in Variations to be seen. She leapt, she smiled, she piroutted as if she were born to be a jewel. At the end of the piece, her appearance brought the most vigorous applause of the night. Her partner Mihail Sosnovichi was a fine pairing but Sosnovichi was simply unable to keep up with Yakovleva. She showed up the entire stage and brought the house down with roaring applause at the end.

 

Balanchine Rubies Maria Yakovleva Mihail Sosnovschi
Balanchine Rubies Maria Yakovleva Mihail Sosnovschi

 

 

All in all, a debut of which Monsieur Legris may be very proud. Many fine performances, a nice shift in the repertoire. Legris carefully chose some of the best teachers of these ballets to bring to Vienna. When William Forsythe couldn't make it, Legris sent an expedition of the first cast to Frankfurt for a week. Clearly Legris will spare no expense or energy to put first-rate dance on our stage. The talk among the dancers is of a positive and encouraging atmosphere. The rest of the season continues to offer good new works to the Vienna State Opera with an original premiere based on Marie Antoinette's life choreographed by Patrick de Bana in November. Premieres of works from Béjart, Jerome Robbins, Elo, Kylian still to come in the New Year.

Paean to the Oceans: Dark Side of the Lens

October 4th, 2010 § 2

dark side of the lens whales
dark side of the lens whales
dark side of the lens gulls
dark side of the lens gulls
dark side of the lens diver
dark side of the lens diver

This film is supposed to be about surfing and underwater photography.

For me it is about the sea and it is a paeon to this monument of beauty spanning most of the planet.

I see this and I wonder how we continue to relentlessly despoil this unrepairable wonder with oil spills, deslickers, polluted rivers, radioactive waste.

The wickedness of civilisation, at least in its capitalist extant, is to borrow the profit of today against the misery of tomorrow. Man has been at this a long time though. The folk of Easter Island expired when they consumed their entire food chain.

Even archeology has not been enough to sober world leaders apart from that fleeting glimpse of a president Gore.

But back to the film and the ocean. Don't miss the splendid soundtrack and the free poetry of the voiceover. Here's a few strong phrases.

i never set out to become anything particular, only to live creatively...

my heart bleeds celtic blood and I'm magnetised to familiar frontiers...

if i only scrape a living it's a living worth scraping..


DARK SIDE OF THE LENS

Both words and music strongly wrought by subject and filmmaker Mickey Smith. 

A small SEO thanks to energy drink Relentless for making this possible. Via ISO50.

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