IN `ANDALUZ,' BALLET SHOWS EXOTIC, SAVVY SIDES: NYC DANCE

This article originally appeared in the Culture section of Bloomberg News on October 30, 2006.

Oct. 30 (Bloomberg) -- A dozen Ballet Hispanico dancers, rehearsing in their studio for their new season at the Joyce, tomorrow through Nov. 12, disguise bodies trained for svelteness and power in the motley rags common to the practice room. Hair is left any which way. Makeup is minimal to absent. Faces turn into blank masks as the dancers concentrate on balance, stretch, speed and seamless lyricism.

But a striking, fanciful series of color portraits by photographer Richard Corman, shot for Ballet Hispanico's season brochure, portrays these same dancers as sensuous and exotic -- like wild dreams of their everyday selves.

They become strange, beautiful people in costumes evoking religious rites, seduction and mysterious transformations. Bizarre, alluring makeup glamorizes their faces. They sport audacious hairdos straight out of the fashion glossies. Their gaze meets yours with attitude.

The Spanish choreographer Ramon Oller's new ``Corazon Al- Andaluz'' (Heart of Andalusia), featured in the engagement, promises to reveal both aspects of these performers. It uses them as the able technicians they are, trained in classical ballet, modern dance and Hispanic idioms, as well as purveyors of irresistible fantasy.

The dance was inspired by Washington Irving's ``Tales of the Alhambra'' and hopes, according to the company, to capture the book's ``intrigue, romance, and grandeur.''

This looks likely. Tina Ramirez, founder and leader of the 36-year-old troupe, explains that a key quality she looks for in selecting her performers is ``dramatic intensity.''

Ballet Hispanico is at the Joyce Theater, 175 Eighth Ave., at 19th Street, Oct. 31 through Nov. 12. Information: +1-212-242-0800 or http://www.joyce.org. To request the free brochure: +1-212-362-6710 or coliveras@ballethispanico.org.

© 2006 Bloomberg L.P. All rights reserved. Reprinted with permission.

October 30, 2006 6:47 PM |

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. . . and while I know a woman who learned Greek at ninety there are nevertheless some skills, like ballet dancing and gum chewing, which can only be mastered by the very young.
-- Jean Kerr, Penny Candy

Now that my hair is white, and my years of life ahead are growing fewer, I think that the pains I have taken over dancing have not really been pains, and I must study harder, much harder.
-- Onoe Kikugoro VI (familiarly called Rokudaime), in Ben Bruce Blakeney, "Rokudaime," Contemporary Japan, 18

When people grow old they must be dull. Dancing can't go on for ever.
-- Anthony Trollope, Can You Forgive Her?

When you do dance, I wish you / A wave o' the sea, that you might ever do / Nothing but that.
-- William Shakespeare, The Winter's Tale

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The RÉUNION DES MUSÉES NATIONAUX (The National Museum Association's Photographic Agency) offers a photographic catalogue of some 200,00 holdings of French museums. It can be searched by artist, country, period, subject, and so on. You can make a personal album of your favorites on the site. New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art and D.C.'s National Gallery have similar services, but the French one is the most ambitious and extensive. Text in English as well as French.

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About this Entry

This page contains a single entry by Seeing Things published on October 30, 2006 6:47 PM.

TWO FRESH VARONE MASTERPIECES EMBODY LOSS AND JOY OF COUPLING was the previous entry in this blog.

THARP'S DYLAN CIRCUS RETURNS HER TO AN OLDER STYLE OF DANCE is the next entry in this blog.

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