I will be doing my best to get down to Philadelphia for the first season by Pennsylvania Ballet chosen by Angel Corella. Weather will play a factor between December and March, but I have no burning desire to see Balanchine's version of Nutcracker, as that's one of my least favorite stagings. High on my list will be the world premiere of Don Q staged by Angel after Petipa. I can understand why he's been advertising for a new ballet master, because this ballet is all about the footwork and the flair, and that takes a lot of polish. Not just technical expertise, but an expertise that has become ingrained in the muscle memory. When you can do the footwork without thinking, you're mind is free to concentrate on the flair, to add the flourishes that are so important in this ballet.
I will also make an effort to see the Jerry Robbins classic New York Export: Opus Jazz. The odds are against me, as this is on the February rep program. My attempts to get down the road last year were thwarted by ice storms and transportation cancellations. I've only ever seen still photographs of this work, and I'm very curious about it. The Broadway show On the Town flowed from the ballet Fancy Free, and West Side Story premiered on Broadway about one year before New York Export: Opus Jazz had its World Premiere at the festival in Spoleto, Italy. I'm interested in seeing if the flow reversed this time, and the Broadway work fed into the ballet. Classical this piece is not. The dancers are wearing sneakers. Deck shoe style sneakers, like vintage Keds, not your modern split sole dance sneakers.
If you're curious about young choreographer Justin Peck, a corps dancer with NYCB, Netflix is currently streaming the film Ballet 422, which follows his creative process from making the work on the company to the world premiere.
I saw Liam Scarlett's With a Chance of Rain, made on ABT, during their season last fall. I was not familiar with Scarlett, who seems to be the hot choreographer du jour, but I found the piece interesting, if a bit self-conscious in places. Dare I say it was nice to see the dancers of ABT actually have to be with the music? In any case I was surprised, when I looked him up online, to find that he was older than I had expected from that sense of self-consciousness.
I will also make an effort to see the Jerry Robbins classic New York Export: Opus Jazz. The odds are against me, as this is on the February rep program. My attempts to get down the road last year were thwarted by ice storms and transportation cancellations. I've only ever seen still photographs of this work, and I'm very curious about it. The Broadway show On the Town flowed from the ballet Fancy Free, and West Side Story premiered on Broadway about one year before New York Export: Opus Jazz had its World Premiere at the festival in Spoleto, Italy. I'm interested in seeing if the flow reversed this time, and the Broadway work fed into the ballet. Classical this piece is not. The dancers are wearing sneakers. Deck shoe style sneakers, like vintage Keds, not your modern split sole dance sneakers.
If you're curious about young choreographer Justin Peck, a corps dancer with NYCB, Netflix is currently streaming the film Ballet 422, which follows his creative process from making the work on the company to the world premiere.
I saw Liam Scarlett's With a Chance of Rain, made on ABT, during their season last fall. I was not familiar with Scarlett, who seems to be the hot choreographer du jour, but I found the piece interesting, if a bit self-conscious in places. Dare I say it was nice to see the dancers of ABT actually have to be with the music? In any case I was surprised, when I looked him up online, to find that he was older than I had expected from that sense of self-consciousness.