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Attending ballet performances

48K views 202 replies 42 participants last post by  jegreenwood 
#1 ·
As a very new member, I have been really struck by the number of people who post that they enjoy ballet or ballet scores, but have never actually seen a live on-stage performance.

Why is that? Is it that no live performances ever take place in the region where they live? Is it that they fear that, although they enjoy dipping into and out of DVDs or CDs, sitting through two or three hours virtually uninterrupted might be too much? Does ballet have such an effete image that men, in particular, are deterred from going (it's certainly true that, whenever I go, men are a small minority of the audience)? Or is there some other explanation?
 
#53 ·
It is true unfortunately that not many ballets get to be performed live nowadays, especially not in a small town like here.. but i do remember my father taking me to see one nearby when i was 5 or so, that's pretty much all. Cant remember what it was called though haha :lol: I would just watch them on tv every sunday evenings.
 
#55 · (Edited)
So, yesterday afternoon was a mixed bag. Peter Martins' ballet to Stravinsky's "Jeu de Cartes" was quite entertaining, and Alexei Ratmansky's new ballet, "Odessa" to music Leonid Desyatnikov (derived from a film score) was fascinating. I've seen the Pas de Deux from "After the Rain" (set to Part's "Spiegel in Spiegel") several times before, and I had a difficult time trying to sever the work from its interpretation by Wendy Whelan in what was one of her signature roles. It just seemed created for her individual physicality - because it was.

The other two ballets were choreographed by dancers in the Company. The first, to Schumann's Introduction and Concert Allegro, had interesting moments but at times seemed overly busy. The final work to a jazz-like score did not catch my fancy, although I did enjoy the guitar centered jazz-like (Metheny-ish) score.
 
#56 ·
Back again last night for a very satisfying evening. Highlights were:

"Carousel (A Dance)" set to the music from the musical
"Year of the Rabbit" set to music of Sufjan Stevens
and best of all
"Pictures at an Exhibition" set to - oh, well, you know. The piano version.

There were two shorter works as well, one set to Ravel and the other set to music from Christopher Rouse.

I don't know if any other companies are performing Ratmansky's "Pictures at an Exhibition," but I can't recommend it highly enough. It is simply one of the most entertaining ballet's I've ever seen.
 
#66 ·
In a world without a rudder, one must find and keep ones that keep one's ship on course. The more I return to things of `tradition', the happier I, and my family, seem to get. There must be something of harmony to these things our forefathers deemed to be important. Something I do not find in what is sold as `music' or `entertainment/entrainment' today.
 
#67 ·
My season subscription tickets for New York City Ballet arrived yesterday. I am also looking forward to taking my grand niece to her first "Nutcracker" in December.

I checked out American Ballet Theater's NYC fall schedule, and I may try to catch something. However, the program I most wanted to see (Ratmansky's three ballets to the music of Shostakovich) is not being offered.
 
#70 ·
Attended the program at New York City Ballet last night. Four works by active choreographers.

Liturgy by Christopher Wheeldon to Fratres by Part
Polyphonia by Wheeldon to piano music of Ligeti
Odessa by Alexei Ratmansky to film music of Leonid Desyatnikov
The Times are Racing by Justin Peck to recorded electronic music of Dan Deacon

I'd seen all but Liturgy before. My favorite was Odessa. Ratmansky is a brilliant choreographer, the best living choreographer I know.
 
#72 · (Edited)
I've made my own seasonal tradition of trying to see as many different Nutcracker productions as possible. In the 2016/2017 winter months I took in performances by the English National Ballet, the Birmingham Royal Ballet and a touring production by a company from Siberia. This year I'll be checking out Scottish Ballet's production in Edinburgh just after Christmas.

Like all good ballets, Nutcracker lends itself to many wonderful interpretations. My favourite video version is from San Francisco Ballet. It looks fabulous in Blu-ray on a 50" screen and I'd love to see it in real life one day.
 
#75 ·
Back at the ballet this afternoon:

Square Dance choreographed by Balanchine with music by Vivaldi and Corelli (Corelli's Badinerie really does sound like square dance music just strangely scored)

Oltramare choreographed by Mauro Bigonzetti with music by Bruno Moretti

The Four Seasons choreographed by Jerome Robbins with music by . . . wait for it . . .







Verdi (ballet music mostly from the Paris version of I Vespri Sicilliana)
 
#79 · (Edited)
Not this year. I might have, had it fit in with my schedule. I’ve seen it before.

I only began to appreciate ballet about a decade ago, when I discovered NYCB’s plotless dances. I’ve started to go back to the story ballets. (I will see “Coppelia” for the second time this spring.)

There’s an interesting article in the Times about a change to the choreography. Juliet’s father will no longer slap her. Peter Martis approved.
 
#80 ·
Not this year. I might have, had it fit in with my schedule. I've seen it before.

I only began to appreciate ballet about a decade ago, when I discovered NYCB's plotless dances. I've started to go back to the story ballets. (I will see "Coppelia" for the second time this spring.)

There's an interesting article in the Times about a change to the choreography. Juliet's father will no longer slap her. Peter Martis approved.
To tell the truth,I also prefer story ballets to abstract compositions and contemporary dance.I love Coppelia,
 
#81 ·
I love going to the ballet. My mom was a ballet dancer, so I saw her many times as a kid dancing onstage (she was tall so she played a lot of comic roles) and it's still a treat to go. Sadly, it's also pretty expensive, at least as a hardscrabble millennial, but it's certainly thrilling. I particularly love new works, which often come with new music, but the classics are difficult to beat. Sadly my last trip to the ballet was interrupted by food poisoning - I managed to get through the entire performance (Swan Lake), but I was pretty miserable for the last two acts and bolted as soon as people stood to, uh, ovade. All that swirling tulle and the rich music going up and down...
 
#84 ·
My first trip here in Toronto - saw the new ballet Frame By Frame, about the animator Norman McLaren, directed by Robert LePage and choreographed by Guillaume Côté. I'm sort of familiar with LePage via his work in opera, totally unfamiliar with Côté, and fairly familiar with McLaren, though not enough to know offhand who was who in the ballet. The score was taken, I think, mostly from McLaren's films, and there were lots of audio effects, which meant no orchestra in the pit. I was in standing room in the fourth ring so I still had a pretty good view, but it seemed like it would be odd to be in the front of the orchestra with this yawning black chasm between you and the dancers.

The actual plot of the ballet was mostly chronological and depicted his evolution of style via inspiration from the people he met, as well as balletic recreations of his works. Some of these were more successful than others - a black-light version of "Chairy Tale" was cute but unnecessary, an otherwise pumping and energetic version of Synchromy was interrupted by an inexplicable twirling harlequin jester character, and while I know it's his most famous work, recreating Neighbors felt like killing time that could be better spent on McLaren himself. On the other hand, "Canon" was oddly astonishing, and the ballet's climax, a live version of Pas de deux, was strange and terrifying and beautiful. I felt like I was floating out of my shoes watching it.

It's funny that every review I've read has shot down the "Time" segment, which depicts McLaren's relationship with his partner Guy Glover with a set of colored lights downstage that project their overlapping shadows on a curtain upstage. I'm told it was generic, but it made me cry - maybe it's just because my husband and I were finally able to start our lives together, but the shadows overlapping and coming together and forming one figure broke me down.
 
#88 ·
My first trip here in Toronto - saw the new ballet Frame By Frame, about the animator Norman McLaren, directed by Robert LePage and choreographed by Guillaume Côté. I'm sort of familiar with LePage via his work in opera, totally unfamiliar with Côté, and fairly familiar with McLaren, though not enough to know offhand who was who in the ballet. The score was taken, I think, mostly from McLaren's films, and there were lots of audio effects, which meant no orchestra in the pit. I was in standing room in the fourth ring so I still had a pretty good view, but it seemed like it would be odd to be in the front of the orchestra with this yawning black chasm between you and the dancers.

The actual plot of the ballet was mostly chronological and depicted his evolution of style via inspiration from the people he met, as well as balletic recreations of his works. Some of these were more successful than others - a black-light version of "Chairy Tale" was cute but unnecessary, an otherwise pumping and energetic version of Synchromy was interrupted by an inexplicable twirling harlequin jester character, and while I know it's his most famous work,Pnr Status TextNow VPN recreating Neighbors felt like killing time that could be better spent on McLaren himself. On the other hand, "Canon" was oddly astonishing, and the ballet's climax, a live version of Pas de deux, was strange and terrifying and beautiful. I felt like I was floating out of my shoes watching it.

It's funny that every review I've read has shot down the "Time" segment, which depicts McLaren's relationship with his partner Guy Glover with a set of colored lights downstage that project their overlapping shadows on a curtain upstage. I'm told it was generic, but it made me cry - maybe it's just because my husband and I were finally able to start our lives together, but the shadows overlapping and coming together and forming one figure broke me down
.
why the shadows overlapping and coming together and forming one figure broke you ?
 
#97 ·
The piece was a document of their relationship, and the basic concept was that there were the two dancers, and there were, I think, five colored lights downstage pointing up at them, each a different color, so as they moved around their shadows overlapped in different ways. The music, if I remember it correctly, was both rhythmic and melancholy, suggesting the passage of time and its effect on the two men and their relationship, and the dance itself depicted it as being both loving and occasionally difficult. The shadows seemed to suggest the multitudes each of them contained, and for most of the segment there were six or eight or ten different silhouettes moving around, growing and shriking and blending, only occasionally in harmony.

At the end, when they've not only accepted each other for who they are but that time has passed them and that they are nearing the end of what they have together, they, in time with the rhythmic, melancholic movement, came together, all of their shadows coming and meeting to form one unified silhouette as the piece, and their lives, drew to a close. It was so beautiful and romantic, and since I saw it in my first couple of weeks after moving here to be with my husband I found it overwhelming.
 
#85 · (Edited)
I was at New York City Ballet last night. It was a part of the Robbins Centenary celebration. The highlight for me was the first work - Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun." Robbins' choreography, of course. The dancing was wonderful. It's a pas de deux. The man, Kennard Henson, was from the corps, but he was wonderful as was his partner, Lauren Lovette. But most memorable was the orchestra conducted by Andrew Litton, the music director. On a number of occasions, I was distracted from the dancing by the beauty of the playing. That's rare for me at the ballet.

Edit - I should add that the next two ballets did not use the orchestra. The final item, an awkward amalgamation of dance moments from Robbins' Broadway musicals, did not work for me in any sense, including the musical arrangements. This was a shame as Jerome Robbins' Broadway a full evening presentation on Broadway is a treasured memory.
 
#86 ·
I think it's a combination of different things. Some people are intimidated by sitting quietly and watching respectfully (you know, and not jumping and screaming to the point you aren't even aware of the performers; I don't understand how that is appealing, but I guess; whatever floats your boat). Others, as Ginger said, don't have access to ballet performances. And perhaps the ones that are available in their area are too expensive for them. Also, ballet is classical, not contemporary. I mean, there are probably contemporary dances in ballet, but it's not the modern way of dancing. And just like classical music, people think it's sophisticated (which I somewhat agree with; it's a sophisticated, graceful art, but in a good way), and stuffy.
I think men are intimidated by it because it's percieved to be more feminine, even though there are male dancers, many composers are male, and it doesn't matter how "feminine" or "masculine" something is. People shouldn't allow superficial things like that stop them from enjoying something. But dancing in general is percieved to be more feminine. Which, by the way, I'm a teenaged girl and I hate dancing (general styles), and I know several men who love dancing (general styles). It depends a lot on individual personalities, as well as how they're raised. I wasn't raised to really care about gender stereotypes, but others have been. So if a guy was raised to believe that attending ballet would damage his macho ego, he probably wouldn't want to go to one for that reason. Again, it's foolish to me. There are no biological behavioral differences between genders. Yet people still feel the need to separate them.
I've never been to a ballet, but I'd love to next year. I think my aunt might enjoy it, too.
 
#93 ·
I think men are intimidated by it because it's percieved to be more feminine, even though there are male dancers, many composers are male, and it doesn't matter how "feminine" or "masculine" something is. People shouldn't allow superficial things like that stop them from enjoying something. But dancing in general is percieved to be more feminine. Which, by the way, I'm a teenaged girl and I hate dancing (general styles), and I know several men who love dancing (general styles). It depends a lot on individual personalities, as well as how they're raised. I wasn't raised to really care about gender stereotypes, but others have been. So if a guy was raised to believe that attending ballet would damage his macho ego, he probably wouldn't want to go to one for that reason. Again, it's foolish to me. There are no biological behavioral differences between genders. Yet people still feel the need to separate them.
"There are no biological behavioral differences between genders."

Why do you think so? Is this a conclusion you arrived at on your own or is it something you were taught?

As for dance being perceived to be feminine, maybe this is true for ballet, but not for all types of dance, and not everywhere in the world. Is break dancing considered feminine?
 
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