The big event of the season is the return to the Trocks of choreographer Peter Anastos after a quarter century of disaffection. His signature pieces for the company—Go for Barocco and Yes, Virginia, Another Piano Ballet, parodies of Balanchine and Robbins—are probably the Trocks’ best-known works, and rightly, because they don’t simply mimic the mannerisms of their targets; they stand, as it were, as seditious new works by these masters.
The new Anastos piece, La Trovatiara Pas de Cinq, is relatively minor, because its target is less challenging, but it’s a real comic ballet, not just a joke. The giant and gorgeous Nadia Rombova (Jai Williams), with her far-flung extensions and the softest toe shoes ever seen—she’s all knuckled over—dominates as a kind of harem or pirate girl, swirling her skirts and beaming her relentless grin. Two other big wild hussies and two teensy guys flashing teensy swords fill out the pas de cinq with the help of Verdi. It’s all pure fun and games in the backwash of Le Corsaire, a spoof by a true choreographer who knows how to put a ballet together.
The New York Observer
AUGUST 26, 2002
Twyla Tharp Takes Over Broadway
TWYLA THARP once said to me, “George Balanchine is God.” She herself doesn’t seem interested in being God; the universe, the nature of man and love, the future of the art—these aren’t the things that concern her. On the other hand, she’s just accomplished something that God clearly hasn’t had time for: With Movin’ Out, she’s revitalized Broadway. Call it a musical, call it a show, call it a ballet, call it a dance extravaganza, call it the story of America from pre- to post-Vietnam, call it a tribute to Billy Joel, call it an act of megalomania—why not just call it a hit? Hits are what Twyla Tharp has always been about, even as she’s also been about expanding what dance can do and what she can do. Yes, she’s ambitious, both for herself and for her art, and yes, her reach on occasion exceeds her grasp. But so what? Who else has her reach? And who else has her authority? Movin’ Out has dozens of first-rate dancers and musicians, plus a brilliant backup team of designers, but—trust me—it’s a one-woman show.
A lot of print has been expended on the story Tharp is trying to tell here—the story of Eddie and Brenda and Tony and Judy and James, pals back in high school, whose lives are shattered by Vietnam and then, slowly, repaired, except for James, who is killed in battle at the end of Act I. (He makes a comeback appearance in a visionary scene in Act II, and a good thing, too, considering how compelling Benjamin G. Bowman is both as a decent young kid and as a dying grunt.) For the record: Eddie and Brenda break up, Brenda and Tony fool around, James and Judy get married (there’s a wonderful touch when he gets down on one knee to propose and one of his hands flutters for a moment against his heart), Vietnam, post-war degradation—dope, orgies, panhandling, disco—and finally healing and reconciliation, with Tony and Brenda back together and friends reunited.
I call this a story, but it isn’t one, actually, and it certainly isn’t a plot; it’s a series of generic situations linked by the sensibility and sound of Billy Joel’s songs and the fecundity of Tharp’s dance language. The dances don’t illustrate the songs as much as embody them—and, at times, leave them behind. Yet the songs give Tharp a chance not only to return to her lifelong obsession with American youth as expressed in the way it dances and moves, but also to extend her range into war, death, and regeneration. The initial Vietnam sequence is harrowingly effective, all tracer bullets and explosions, bravado and terror; no one has done this better. The orgy scene is much less original; it seems to be just going through the motions (which include shooting up, humping, and the odd whip).
The more storylike moments of renewal—Judy and Eddie run into each other while jogging, everyone gets together at a reunion in the final scene—are far less convincing than what is the real climax of Movin’ Out, a tremendous outburst of joyous dance energy from Eddie and the ensemble to “The River of Dreams,” “Keeping the Faith,” and “Only the Good Die Young.” From the opening words—“In the middle of the night”—this number blasts the theater apart, not only through its daredevil lifts and throws and slides, the nonstop propulsive excitement of all these terrific dancers going all-out, but because Tharp makes us accept that in her world—and, for the moment, in ours—what really heals is dance itself. The jogging, the reunion, the hugs, the uncorked bottle of champagne—these are sentimental clichés that are Tharp’s accommodations to the genre she’s embracing, the Broadway show.
She goes really wrong only once, when she has Judy—in an ugly black dress with little slits in it and an even uglier hairdo—bourréeing and jetéing through the Vietnam vision scene while tormented soldiers convulse around her. This is not only mawkish and pretentious, it’s the one place where the marriage of Tharp’s modern-dance vocabulary and classical-ballet vocabulary fails to work: The two styles fight each other, and ballet loses. Judy’s trajectory from official Nice Young Girl to tragic emblem—that is, we might say, from jitterbugger to ballerina—isn’t earned. I suspect it has to do with the casting of Ashley Tuttle, a core member of Tharp’s regular company, who happens to be an exquisite classical dancer (she’s a principal at American Ballet Theatre—an exemplary Giselle). You can put Tuttle in a cute teenage outfit and have her hanging out with the local grease monkeys, but the Giselle comes through; beneath the hip-hop, her movement is irredeemably refined.
You can also spot the classicist beneath the prole in the performance of the two lead men, John Selya as Eddie and Keith Roberts as Tony. Both are refugees from ABT, and both are the beneficiaries of Tharp’s unerring intuition about what a dancer’s strengths may be—in this, she does resemble Balanchine. In the last several years, she’s revealed these two as tremendous technicians and profound interpreters of her kind of dance. The same is true of her leading woman, Elizabeth Parkinson, a red-haired beauty who can be both dominating and lyrical. These three are so powerful, so secure, so convincing as they toss off the wickedly demanding feats Tharp requires of them that you wholly accept them as the characters they’re meant to be portraying.
And yet when you watch the alternate dancers who perform the leading roles at matinees, something interesting happens to the show. They don’t have the total dance authority of the first cast, and that may be why they seem closer to the actual world of Billy Joel—you can imagine them emerging from a youth of broken-down convertibles, cheerleaders, jukeboxes, acne. William Marrié, the excellent substitute for John Selya, is a little less convincing as a dancer and a little more convincing as an Eddie. Karine Bageot (Alvin Ailey, The Lion King, currently on the screen in Frida) softens Brenda—she’s all smiles and sex appeal—whereas Parkinson is as spiky, as tough, and as demanding as … Twyla Tharp herself. Ron De Jesús, the substitute Tony and another first-rate dancer, could have come out of the projects, while Keith Roberts, with his all-American good looks and impeccable technique, could only have come out of ballet school. So although it would be a serious loss to miss Selya, Roberts, Parkinson, and Tuttle (luckily, Bowman plays every James), don’t feel cheated if you find yourself at a matinee. And in one regard, you’ll definitely come out ahead: Good as Michael Cavanaugh is as the piano-and-song man in charge of the music side of things, Wade Preston is better—the voice is deeper, more emotionally charged, more affecting. He even looks more like Billy Joel.
Movin’ Out, then, is a landmark Broadway event, though it may also prove to be a dead end. There are no other Twyla Tharps out there—just compare her work to, say, Susan Stroman’s in the insanely overpraised Contact, which serves up one cliché after another without mercy or remission. Tharp’s only competition is her friend and onetime collaborator the late Jerome Robbins (years ago, they made a piece together, Brahms/Handel Variations, for City Ballet). Like Robbins, Tharp has large, ambitious concepts; and, like him, she’s not only an obsessive worker but a tyrant, demanding the best out of everyone, starting with herself, and usually getting it. You could say that Movin’ Out is the first real successor to West Side S
tory, although that show had the advantage of a clear and powerful story line—Romeo and Juliet, remember? But watching this new show, I thought of Robbins more specifically in relation to his Dances at a Gathering. There’s a famous moment at the end of that ballet when the central male dancer—Edward Villella, originally—bends down and reverently touches the floor, which is where all dancing begins. Toward the end of Movin’ Out, Tharp—in homage? going Robbins one better?—has Keith Roberts bend down and seem to kiss the floor. I guess the stakes are higher these days. But then, with Twyla Tharp, the stakes are always high. Like all real artists, she’s a gambler, and this time she’s hit the jackpot.
The New York Observer
NOVEMBER 11, 2002
Robert Altman at the Ballet
THE COMPANY, Robert Altman’s new ballet film, is a sharp reminder of how one can forget to be grateful for small blessings. In the years since the Joffrey company has given up its New York seasons, I had managed to forget just how trite and dated the basic repertory of this company is; how slick and empty the work of its artistic director, Gerald Arpino; how numbing the sight of all those earnest young dancers trying to make art out of straw—or do I mean bricks out of sows’ ears? Thank you, Robert Altman, for reminding us of what we’ve been spared—although a world that’s come up with Boris Eifman on an annual basis (and at the City Center, the very place where the Joffrey reigned long before it became the Joffrey Ballet of Chicago) is not a world we can really be thankful for.
What a bizarre movie this is! Unlike most ballet movies, whose plots are relentlessly predictable (a Rocky in tights or a tutu making it against all odds), The Company has no plot at all. Although the story is credited to Barbara Turner and Neve Campbell (who also stars and co-produces), there is no story; instead, there are slices of ballet life (the physical hardships, the pain, the anxiety, the camaraderie, the exultation) and yards and yards of dancing, almost all of it bad. There are characters who are never characterized, situations that are never resolved. It’s often hard to tell who is who. Or why.
And then, of course, there is Altman’s famous darting camera, shooting through, around, above the dancers. Clearly, he’s in love with the world of ballet. And there’s Neve (Scream) Campbell herself, who’s bravely got herself back into shape years after abandoning ballet for acting. She’s worked hard, and is rewarded by looking no more or less adequate than her colleagues. It’s fortunate that this is the repertory she’s being seen in: As with much of what the Joffrey dances, it really doesn’t matter who does what as long as everyone just keeps going.
At least two of the works on view are new. The first is a lugubrious and pointless duet set to “My Funny Valentine” by the ubiquitous Lar Lubovitch. Campbell, equipped with a pushy ballet mother and a nice smile, is on her way up the company ladder and lands this plum role. The ballet itself is so forgettable that you’ve forgotten the beginning before you get to the end, but it does provide two bits of amusement. First, the way the great choreographer is greeted when he arrives at the studio: “Do you know how long this company has waited for a Lar Lubovitch ballet?” (My guess is that it didn’t have to wait more than ten minutes after asking.)
Then there’s the premiere. It’s at an outdoor Chicago theater, and a storm is whipping up. The audience sits there hypnotized by the genius of Lubovitch and Campbell while lightning and thunder gather. Then, up umbrellas when the deluge strikes! But nobody thinks of leaving. How gratifying to see so many dedicated balletomanes in Chicago, a city that has famously withstood every attempt to make it available to ballet.
The other new work is by Robert Desrosiers, and it’s a hoot. It’s called The Blue Snake because it features a giant blue snake. Dancers cavort around in costumes designed to reduce them to special effects. Desrosiers, like Lubovitch, is shown in the Act of Creativity, and he can make fun of himself, so I don’t have to bother. This work is closer to Cirque du Soleil than to ballet, and it’s harmlessly silly. Poor Neve Campbell falls and hurts herself during the premiere, but hunk interest James Franco is on hand with flowers to cheer her up. (He’s some kind of chef in a fancy restaurant—and he’s creative, too; with shrimp, if I remember correctly.)
We get a second-rate ballet by Alwin Nikolais, a snatch of Laura Dean, and three helpings of Arpino, whose endless parade of cheap, trendy works has held the Joffrey back for decades. He inherited the company from his friend and partner, Robert Joffrey, none of whose work, by the way, turns up in this film. There’s a moment from the company’s reconstruction of Saint-Léon’s La Vivandière pas de six—suddenly, real steps. But it’s over before any permanent damage can be done to the reigning aesthetic.
Why movie and dance critics are taking The Company seriously, I can’t imagine. Are they impressed by Altman’s reputation and naive sincerity? By the fluid semi-documentary approach? Are they enjoying Malcolm McDowell’s fakey but enjoyable performance as Mr. A (for Antonelli), the egotistical and cowardly stand-in for Arpino? Or are they just relieved to see a ballet movie in which the heroine neither dies (The Red Shoes) nor has an overnight sensational success (most of the others)? The Company certainly does propose that dancers have a hard time of it. It’s true that Neve Campbell’s character has a largish, habitable place to live in, but it’s right next to the El, with trains roaring past. That’s hardship.
I enjoyed a couple of short scenes in which a steely senior ballerina stamps her pretty little toe shoes and gets her way. And, of course, the moment when someone says, “Margot Fonteyn—she was a dame.” (It’s the only reference I can recall to any ballet name or subject not connected to the Joffrey. Talk about product endorsement!) And finally there’s Gerald Arpino’s remark in the press release: “Robert Altman really directs the way I choreograph.” That says it all.
The New York Observer
JANUARY 5, 2004
The Disgrace of New York City Ballet
BORIS EIFMAN’S Musagète may not be the worst ballet ever put on by New York City Ballet—the last twenty years have offered it lots of competition—but its premiere last Friday was without question the lowest point in the history of the company (and I’ve been following its fortunes since the beginning, in 1948). Forget the fact that Eifman is unmusical and vulgar, and that his dance-dramas are overwrought exercises in hysteria; these things can come as no surprise to anyone who, lured by the hyperbole of the daily press, has attended his psychosexual assaults on the great ballerina Olga Spessivtseva (Red Giselle), Dostoevsky’s famous brothers (The Karamazovs), Tchaikovsky (Tchaikovsky), et al. In fact, Musagète is comparatively tame compared to those flights of high garishness—no dry ice, no flashing red lights; no suicides, no rapes. The only rape was of the memory of George Balanchine, whose centenary Musagète was commissioned to celebrate.
Was it naïveté or deliberate effrontery that led Eifman to choose as his subject Balanchine himself? He writes in a program note, “This ballet is dedicated to George Balanchine. It is an expression of my admiration of him.… It is not a biographical ballet, but there is the personality of the choreographer.… I was absorbed in the world of Balanchine’s ballets and, fascinated by the personality of the choreographer, was unable to free myself from this spell.” It’s all nonsense: The subject of an Eifman ballet is inevitably the Anguish of the Tormented Artist—and it doesn’t take much stretch of the imagination to figure out who that tormented artist really is. (Oddly, in person Eifman emits a cherubic, untormented sweetness.) As for Balanchine, in real life there was never a less anguished artist; he just got down to whatever job was at hand and did the necessary, with a total absence of agony or ecstasy.
Eifman’s Balanchine suffers, suffers, suffers. He’s impersonated by the affectless Robert Tewsley, who is new to the company and possibly unaware of the presumption involved. We see him in a white polo shirt and black pants. He’s at the end of his rope, or his tether, or his life, looking back. There’s a lot of business with a straight-backed chair—he’s either sitting in it (a wheelchair? a
hospital chair?) or being pushed around in it by a grim attendant, or lying on the floor and manipulating it with his foot. Chair play is replaced by cat play: Wendy Whelan is Mourka, the cat famously owned by Balanchine and his wife Tanaquil Le Clercq (she published a book about Mourka). There are a few ingenious moments in the man-cat duet—the only bearable moments in the proceedings. Whelan, a dancer (and person) of integrity, has been quoted as saying she was relieved to be playing a cat rather than any of the people represented in this ballet, and how right she was!
There’s a large corps who dart in and out in various changes of costume, but everything they do is generic and pointless. Balanchine-Tewsley thrashes around in distress—arching his back, collapsing to the floor. And then we’re shown Le Clercq herself, in the person of Alexandra Ansanelli, who must be aware of the mortifying position Eifman and the company have put her in.
Le Clercq, a much-loved dancer of incomparable wit, style, and glamour, contracted polio in Copenhagen, in 1956, while the company was on tour. At first it didn’t seem that she would survive; eventually she recovered, but was confined to a wheelchair for the rest of her life. Balanchine essentially abandoned the company for a year, to tend to her at home. To dramatize this horrible and traumatic episode involving two people who were as intensely private and dignified as Le Clercq and Balanchine, to show Le Clercq suddenly staggering and lurching around the stage and then being dragged off on a long piece of black cloth, and to do this on the stage of Balanchine’s own theater, under the auspices of his own company, and with the excuse of celebrating him, can only be described as disgusting. People in the audience whom I recognized as old Balanchine hands were gasping in disbelief; one man was murmuring, “Oh no!” I found it as painful a moment as I’ve ever spent in the theater.
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