Tuesday, April 16, 2024
My first reaction to Good Morning America anchor Lara Spencer's insensitive remarks about young Prince George taking ballet lessons was primal outrage. Ballet is one of my "things" - despite the entitlement and snobbery I still encounter because, well, someone from a suburban working class home doesn't belong. That she and her GMA audience think ballet is laughable is something else. Mocking a six-year-old's participation in an activity combining physical fitness and aesthetics or anything else is alarming. Is it okay for girls to rightly emulate the world champion U.S. Women's Soccer team but boys can't aspire performing The Nutcracker Prince?
Month: August 2019
Joyce Ballet Festival Program C, or The Art of the Arabesque
Arabesque: "One of the basic poses in ballet, arabesque takes its name from a form of Moorish ornament. In ballet it is a position of the body, in profile, supported on one leg, which can be straight or demi-plié, with the other leg extended behind and at right angles to it, and the arms held in various harmonious positions creating the longest possible line from the fingertips to the toes. The shoulders must be held square to the line of direction. The forms of arabesque are varied to infinity...Arabesques are generally used to conclude a phrase of steps, both in
Yang Liping Contemporary Dance’s ‘Under Siege’ at Mostly Mozart
Since there is no longer a Lincoln Center Festival (the moral being never hire a former college president who believed locals could summer in Salzburg or other pricey European festivals just like ex-colleagues and students/alums can), Mostly Mozart successfully transitioned to a more inclusive schedule. Choreographer/Director Yang Liping's Under Siege, an entertaining retelling of the Ancient Chinese Chu-Han Contention may seem a bit of a stretch, but at its conclusion when pieces of red paper symbolizing dead warriors and one fiercely loyal maiden fell, its message is very clear: a world without harmony.is dangerous. Audiences filing in to the Koch Theater saw the
THE BLACK CLOWN Theatricalizes the Experience of Black Americans at the Mostly Mozart Festival
The triumphant, masterful production of The Black Clown—that performed its New York City premiere from July 24-27th as part of the 2019 annual Lincoln Center’s Mostly Mozart Festival—offered a theatricalized glimpse into the journey and experiences of a Black person in America. When I encountered what bass-baritone Davóne Tines—who performed the title role and adapted the piece along with composer Michael Schachter from Langston Hughes’ poem about a Black man’s resilience against a legacy of oppression—said about The Black Clown, I knew had to witness it firsthand: “When I first read The Black Clown it was like receiving a revelation that