Miami City Ballet at The Kennedy Center

[Cherilyn]

So, I'm bummed that The Kennedy Center ballet season is over, but glad that it closes with Miami City Ballet - as a company, they are super strong. My favorite piece by far this afternoon was Walpurgisnacht Ballet - I love the music and choreography  Here's my thoughts about the whole program.

[Bruce Wall]

Thanks, as ever, Cherilyn, for sharing your thoughts - and in a format so beautifully presented.

 

I'm sure your comments about MacMillan's Carousel PDD might arise some commentary hereabouts I think:  

 

' ... in fact, I even question its place in any ballet company’s current repertoire. .... This “quintessential expression of ecstatic – and dangerous – young love” (program notes) feels chauvinistic and aggressive; is this the model of love? Was it ever?

 

Have you ever seen Mayerling?  You would have a field day methinks.  I am reminded of Balanchine's comment in light of such:  'Our boys don't fight'.  Still, after his death, you had Robbins' West Side Story Suite' added to NYCB's active rep - much as you had the Robbins/Tharp Brahms/Handel gloriously pinned to this MCB programme.  Perhaps it is surprising that Lopez did not choose to employ Wheeldon's version of the same (e.g., Carousel PDD) that was created for Damien Woetzel (surely one of the great dancers of the late 20th Century - although only seen in one movement of one ballet in the UK in the year of his retirement) and a then largely unknown girl Wheeldon plucked from the corps, one Tiler Peck.  Once seen in a principal role (and I remember being at the opening) she would NEVER be forgotten.  

 

I so wish a programme like this - inclusive of one of Peck's ballets performed by the company that originated it - we're getting one of his sneaker works with SFB next week - could be seen in the UK.  The only real venue now where such could be realised (given that the Coliseum is understandably now largely given over to musicals or other commercial fare when not filled by one of its two core companies) would be Sadler's Wells.  The emptiness of that venue (certainly the Second Circle) during the opening week of San Francisco Ballet who have been dancing fare that includes surely one of the masterworks of first quarter of the 21st Century, Ratmansky's Shostokovich Trilogy (last performance of that here will be this afternoon at 1600) does not bode well I fear for this ever happening - certainly in London.  As I sat in one of those hugely long Sadler's Wells rows last night with only three people in it, I wondered if they might not have fared better in the UK if they'd gone to the Lowry or the Edinburgh Playhouse.  Perhaps not.  Perhaps the time for that effective education which would provide for such has passed.  It is - not a better or worse one - simply a different world.  

 

 

 

 

[Cherilyn]

You're welcome, Bruce - I appreciate the feedback.

 

No, I haven't seen Mayerling. It's a ballet that carries a mysterious shroud for me as it's not one seen often - or well-known - here in the States. I look forward to having the opportunity one day, although I may have to make my way across the Atlantic in order to do so.

 

And you bring up an interesting question about Lopez choosing MacMillan's version of Carousel over Wheeldon's (which, I believe was choreographed on Alexandra Ansanelli not Tiler Peck), especially since the ballet was only recently added to MCB's repertoire (January 2017). Curious.

 

It really was so wonderful seeing a Peck pointe-shoe ballet, especially on the company for which it was created; it was lovely. I saw Hurry Up, We're Dreaming here at The Kennedy Center last fall (along with many of the other ballets from Unbound that SFB is performing in London), and it wasn't quite my cup of tea. I'd love to hear your thoughts about the ballets I wrote about - they're linked on this page. I hope the theatre fills up for the rest of the run.

[Bruce Wall]

Thanks for the correction, Cherilyn.  Perhaps it was because the Wheeldon take on Carousel (a Dance) was the first time I really registered Tiler Peck - and that was over a decade ago.  She made such an impact - her capacity for ease in speed that allows her to toy with music in a manner that is oft uniquely her own - that I became a fan from the get-go.