Pathos and bathos: two shows

Anyway, here's part of the review of Baryshnikov et. al., which appeared in the Financial Times Tuesday:

Unrelated Solos is meant as a low-key affair: a dancers' pot luck, with everyone - Mikhail Baryshnikov, who organised it, Judson Dance Theater legend Steve Paxton and comic dancer-choreographer David Neumann - contributing solos. But the Russian, now 62, has too much history and too little future left onstage for the occasion not to be charged. The choreographers for his solos understand this, and ask the forward-looking artist to look back a bit for us.

Ubiquitous ballet choreographer Benjamin Millepied's Years Later juxtaposes film footage of Baryshnikov as a teen with him dancing live. The portrait is so generic that it could apply to any famous dancer. But the film clip is incredible. The boy's honeyed pliés alone could inspire a whole mysterious dance.

Alexei Ratmansky, American Ballet Theatre's resident choreographer, forgoes a portrait of Baryshnikov for one of Glinka - of all things! To the composer's waltz fantasy, Baryshnikov plays Glinka falling in love, then in despair, before realising that the "gun" he is aiming at his temple is only his fingers and his love is also pretend. Baryshnikov whips through stock ballet gestures - for "I saw a beautiful girl" or "I must marry her" - with the insouciant deftness of a master. A giddy pleasure.

Baryshnikov telling Glinka's sad story. Photo by
Julieta Cervantes.

The most touching and intimate of the Baryshnikov solos is modern dance choreographer Susan Marshall's For You, in which he invites three people....

For the whole review, click here.

And here's a bit of today's Financial Times review of the Neumeier:

Lady of the Camellias, which American Ballet Theatre premiered on Tuesday, begins in silence, with the house lights on and the cast milling about the stage. This pedestrian start seems perfect for the tawdry end that the "lady" courtesan of the title has come to - dead from consumption, with her deluxe effects being auctioned off. But then the lights lower, the music begins and the milling, now in the form of dance, continues. Choreographer John Neumeier - artistic director of the Hamburg Ballet since 1973 and a big name in Europe - has created a real oddity: a ballet where the steps don't much matter.

There are reams of them in this three-hour costume drama in flashback to endless Chopin arpeggios - and some are even imaginative. But what counts is that they repeat until they shed meaning. In the first duet for our principals, for example, the appealingly boyish Roberto Bolle swirls Julie Kent, always excellent in sombre roles, around his body in an exhilarating corkscrew that ends with her on the floor. It seems a glorious representation of the hapless lovers' slide into incurable passion - until the corps does it too, for more humdrum reasons.

Swooning: Julie Kent in Roberto Bolle's arms. Photo by
Gene Schiavone for ABT.

The plot also repeats, with pas de deux piling up to the beat of the Lady's wishy-washy heart....

For the whole review, click here.

For more on Neumeier, who seems to be winning over the hearts of artistic directors lately (what has come over them?!), here is friend and Foot contributor Paul Parish's take on the Little Mermaid premiere at San Francisco Ballet a couple of months ago.