A Study in Equilibrium

I recently won this piece of ephemera from 1910 on eBay. It is currently being matted and framed so it will shine in all its 4 inch by 8 inch glory. I  can remember as a young boy having my parents tell me about a show they had seen on a recent trip to Las Vegas. They referred to one of the acts as “Living Statues” I later found out it was a celebrated hand balancing act called David and Goliath. When I finally did see the act a few years later, I understood the original description. In their little gold bikinis, covered from head to toe in gold paint, and moving through a series of gravity defying poses, they indeed looked like something Michelangelo would have hewn out of marble or poured from liquid bronze. But what really struck me was the tension that they were building and the slowness at which they moved. As if they were literally carving their bodies into shapes. In the moment, they WANTED us to know exactly how difficult it was. In ballet, when we do pas de deux work, the point is often to make it look NOT difficult. NO one wants to see a male ballet dancer grunt or grimace when he is lifting his partner overhead. Likewise, we do not want to see ballerina’s muscles popping out from the strain of holding a pose. But sometimes it IS necessary to show the audience that there is some bit of tension between the dancers in order to make the dancer’s poses seem as if they are connected to each other. A visible shared energy. This is especially important in one of the ballets in our upcoming show, TANGATA. Without tension, a tango is nothing. Oh and just to be clear that isn’t a picture of David and Goliath (Fred Randall and Jerry Howard). The turn of the century duo are Ottley Coulter and Charles Shaffer, whose act was billed as A Study in Equilibrium.  

Deep Thought

Today, I had a lovely early afternoon chatting with a friend overlooking San Diego’s beautiful bay. As we were chatting about spending the holiday season alone (contrary to popular belief, you actually see more people than usual because everyone is worried about you being alone on the holiday), general theatre gossip, and specific San Diego dance gossip, I found out something that I had never known. Her long deceased husband’s brother had been a dancer… a ballet dancer to be precise. Since I have known her for years and have often spoken about our families, I was quite surprised this had not come up. Like many artists, it seems that he had toiled over the years, barely making a living in his pursuit of the artistic life. Unlike my personal history, his parents were not supportive. Neither was his brother. Only his sister offered a safe harbor. My friend told me that she had often encouraged her husband (who was pretty well off) to maybe send him a small sum (like $100 weekly) to help out. The answer was always No. He was not going to encourage his sibling’s foolish endeavor. She finished by saying that she always felt sorry for her brother in law and his unhappy life. That was when I said, “Oh, no. You shouldn’t assume that he was unhappy. Maybe he was (I certainly didn’t know), but… he had something that many people never get in life. He had a passion. He had a connection to that thing that we call the divine. He had that spark to pursue something that inspired and elevated him. Maybe he was never ‘comfortable’, but I don’t think he would have traded his ‘discomfort’ for all the security in the world.” Either way, the thought seemed to be a comfort to both of us as we sat in the sun and looked over the sun dappled wavelets in the harbor.

 

Dancing with a rhinoceros should not be attempted be attempted lightly

Happy New Year to All!

Hope you like the dancing rhino, I promise he is there for a reason.

Carnival of the Animals is coming up in February (see there was a reason) so we are gearing up for that while the dancers are still on a break. 

This is an important time for us.

Although we just finished up our Nutcracker season (which meant 6 different venues in 3 different states) and our New Years appearances (3 different venues in 5 days) meaning we have been go-go-go since Thanksgiving, we really can't take a break in the office.

We have to just reset and attack the next performance which takes place in about a month. While a month seems a long way off, it really isn't when you are marketing a show that is so different from what you just did. We go from a very family friendly holiday entertainment to more serious adult oriented programming in a serious venue with serious commissioned score paid for by the very serious National Endowment for the Arts. And yes, it includes a dancing rhino. :) Wish me luck!

 

Crossing the Stars

In the spirit of the long standing tradition of films/theatre pieces/operas/dances that have been reinterpreted and placed in different cultures (like our Spanish colonial Giselle), over the next few days, I will be posting images from some of those works other works. Have there been MORE retellings of any story other than Romeo and Juliet?

Baz Luhrmann gave us an updated version set in some sort of contemporary beachy milieu

Matthew Bourne gave us a R and J that was set in a mental institution

And of course there is the beloved West Side Story, which put the whole thing on the streets on New York. So the idea of re-interpreting classic pieces is not something new and it is not something that is being fueled by "woke"-ism. It is a natural response by artists who wish to present works in ways that will resonate with thier current audiences. Sometimes that means doing everything exactly as it was done hundreds of years ago, but sometimes that means getting rid of the tutus and putting a bunch of men in feathered pants.

In the world of San Diego Ballet... today was a day off, so time to reset for the upcoming weeks. Of course that doesn't mean a real day off. As our Giselle has a decidedly Mexican slant, I spent some time today doing some invites to local Latin organizations. 

Thank You Facebook

In the spirit of the long standing tradition of films/theatre pieces/operas/dances that have been reinterpreted and placed in different cultures (like our Spanish colonial Giselle), over the next few days, I will be posting images from some of those works other works. I WAS going to post all of the different iterations of Romeo and Juliet today, but I serendipitously saw this pop up on my Facebook feed.

The 20 year old Orson Wells made New York City theatrical history when he directed an all-black cast in a production of Shakespeare's Scottish play, MACBETH in 1936. Wells set his adaptation on a Caribbean island resembling Haiti. The show allowed black actors to be seen more seriously in the theatre world.

Meanwhile in Balletland... Taught class today. Finished getting the SDBS students into Act Two. Cleaned it up a bit. Worked on some details in Act One, beefing up the parts for some small girls and a new role I added for Alberto's squire. Looking forward to the day off tomorrow.

Nothing More American Than A Western

In the spirit of the long standing tradition of films/theatre pieces/operas/dances that have been reinterpreted and placed in different cultures (like our Spanish colonial Giselle), over the next few days, I will be posting images from some of those works other works. As the title states, the Western is them most American of movie genres... except when it isn't. Case in point...

The Magnificent Seven (1960) Gunslingers saving a tiny town from bandits. Steve McQueen AND Charles Bronson AND James Coburn. And years later, Chris Pratt and Denzel Washington. Too bad,  Akira Kurasawa made it 6 years earlier in Japan as...

The Seven Samurai. :)

Back in Balletland, we worked on Act Two today with some of the students who are taking part as part of the corps. In ballet companies, you will often see a slight blurring between the professional company dancers and students at the school. Sometimes, the students are 100 percent ready for the opportunity. Sometimes, the opportunity is going to stretch their abilities. The important thing is to make sure that an environment is created where both can succeed. And that usually means... lots of repetition and practice. :)

Wait A Second, I Thought She Was Spanish

In the spirit of the long standing tradition of films/theatre pieces/operas/dances that have been reinterpreted and placed in different cultures (like our Spanish colonial Giselle), over the next few days, I will be posting images from some of those works other works. Behold Carmen Jones.

Carmen is pretty much synonymous with fiery Spanish heroines, but not so fast. Once again, the book was written by Frenchmen and the composer (Bizet) is French. So all that Spanish music in the opera... isn't. To add insult to injury, it is even sung in the French language, even though it takes place in Spain. And to top it all off, Carmen herself is supposed to be a gypsy. That means, she isn't Spanish at all. She would be Hungarian. 

That said, in the 40's, Oscar Hammerstein decided that it would be cool to move the whole story to the contemporary American South creating the musical, Carmen Jones. A few years later it was filmed with the beautiful Dorothy Dandridge in the lead (and the equally beautiful Harry Belafonte supporting her). Ah well...

On the home front, Giselle is moving forward. More cleaning today. Spent some time adding a few more folkloric steps to Act One, integrating a couple of Act Two Fantasmas into the action and finessing some of Giselle's first act solo. It's all in the details.