The Nureyev documentary that I mentioned last week was shown on PBS this past Wednesday, (thanks KCET for showing it at the same time the rest of the country got to see it!) and though it was a slow moving hour and half, the archival clips of his early dancing were thrilling for a dance fan. Through them, there was a fascinating glimpse into where the Nureyev "legend" came from: I'm mostly only familiar with his later dancing, in the Romeo & Juliet film with Margot Fonteyn, and an even later film of Swan Lake, also with Fonteyn and accompanied by the Vienna State Opera Ballet - the R&J is okay, but the Swan Lake borders on the weird, with way overdone makeup and technically weakened dancing from both Fonteyn and Nureyev. The clips in this new documentary showed the thrilling virtuosity and glowing, animalistic stage presence that Nureyev had when he first burst onto the Western stage - I was captivated. The documentary mostly focused on his early years as a young dancer in Russia, leading up to his defection from the Soviet Union while the Kirov was on tour in Paris, and the immediate aftermath. Pierre Lacotte - who most recently choreographed grand stagings of "forgotten" classics like The Pharoah's Daughter at the Bolshoi and Paquita at the Paris Opera - was a good friend of Nureyev's, and he walks us through the famous defection at the Paris airport. We're told how the Soviet government, angry and embarassed by this high-profile defection, hatched a plan to loudly boo him during his first performances after defection - and even mentioned breaking his legs to destroy his Western career. His friends and family back in Russia bore the brunt of the consequences as they were interrogated and spied on for years following the defection.
As far as documentary filmmaking goes, this wasn't the most captivating film, especially for non-dance people - the recent Ballet Russes documentary, I felt, was a more compelling "film" in general. Watching it with my roommates, their attentions drifted while I enjoyed former ballerinas describing minute details of their partnership with the young Nureyev. I kept telling them that last week's episode of Damages will still be on the DVR when the Nureyev docu was over, but KCET showing ballet doesn't come around all that often so I have to watch it! (Speaking of Damages, we're obsessed: Glen Close is giving one of the most nuanced, thrilling performances on television right now, and oh yeah, the legal mystery is fun too).
The LA Times article (which made Tonya angry!) made this whole thing sound much more salacious than it ended up being in the documentary. Perhaps Segal was referring more to the upcoming biography by Julie Kavanaugh; she has previous written about figures such as Frederick Ashton, going deep into their sexual histories and drawing all sorts of debatable correlations between their stage works and personal relationships. It will be an interesting read when that biog comes out...
The Nureyev documentary is set to repeat on many PBS stations. Check your local listings to watch.
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A generous Ballet Talker sent me the Mark Morris Live from Lincoln Center broadcast (on a very nicely authored DVD-R, including chapter breaks!), so I finally got to watch it the other night. It was a good watch, though I'm going to have to reserve judgement on Mozart Dances as a ballet until I see it live in October. What I got on TV was the TV version of the ballet: Doug Fox at Great Dance complained about the hyper-active camera work and aggravating cuts away from the stage to the orchestra pit - I agree with his frustration to a certain extent, but also found that, being unfamiliar with the the stage version, the camera director created an individual TV-version of the ballet for us. We were given bits and pieces of Morris' movement themes, and the camera followed dancers around the stage space the way our eyes might pick up on individual dancers. Except we were forced to accept the camera director's choices instead of being able to make our own viewing choices of the ballet at large. There's got to be a lot that I didn't end up seeing of the ballet, but what I did see I liked. The dancing was sensitive to the music, and the choreography effortlessly rose and fell simultaneously with the Mozart piano music: I was certainly able to "feel" the music by watching the dance, which I liked.*
Details of Los Angeles Ballet's new season are starting to trickle in, which piques my interest because I did like their performances last year a lot. The LA Times and the OC Register Artsblog report that the spring repertory season will include several intriguing premieres from LA-based choreographers: one from Jacques Heim of the daredevil dance company Diavolo (who will be at the Bowl next Tuesday), another from former NYCB corps member Melissa Barak, plus a piece by Jennifer Blackhaus. It's great that the company is turning to contemporary work in addition to the staple Balanchine. In LAB's winter repertory program, presumably occuring after thier Nutcracker run in December, will include Balanchine's Four Temperaments- one of my favorite ballets. Since the company did so well with Agon last season, I can only imagine that 4Ts will be wonderful as well. They'll also be doing Mr. B's Allegro Brillante, the short Tarantella pas de deux and extracts from Bournonville's Napoli. The company will also perform at more venues this season: in addition to the UCLA and the ALex Theatre, they will also do the Irvine Barclay and the Ahmanson Theatre. No details yet as to what/when they will perform at any of these venues. Waiting, waiting...*
There's madness in my non-blog world right now, so I apologize for the low levels of blogging. It's busy season at work, and for some insane I reason decided to take the GRE at the same time - PLUS volunteer to help a small arts organization write their season brochure. Things should calm down by the weekend though, and I'm celebrating by going to the Tchaikovsky Fireworks Spectacular at the Hollywood Bowl - and Tonya tagged me WEEKS ago in this meme, so I will eventually respond to it, too!
1 comment:
Hehe, well, I just thought that Segal seemed to keep saying Kavanagh didn't go far enough, and I thought the whole "Nureyevna" thing was his. That's really what ticked me off -- his saying Nureyev was a liar in part because of his effeminate stage presence. Why can't he be what he wants? Not that I think he was -- I actually find him more erotically androgynous, but even if Segal interprets his stage presence as effeminate, why is that wrong? And I just felt like there was underlying homophobia there too. But I'm glad you linked to the article or I wouldn't have seen it -- I always like to know what's out there, and Segal's a big voice in the dance world. I'm definitely going to read Kavanagh's book though -- I can't wait actually!
Good luck on the GRE!
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