JoSelle Vanderhooft's Blog, page 10
December 30, 2010
This is amazing.
If anyone can make me an icon of the part with Alestaire Crowley I will love you forever.
December 29, 2010
Oh for fucking serious?
Seriously, Southwest? It's snowing so hard outside that I can't see the road and your website doesn't have a winter weather update for Utah? When I have to fly out tomorrow?
Oh, right. I forgot. Utah. We're a western state that isn't Colorado, aren't we? So of course we don't count.
Right now, everything about today can bite me.
Oh, right. I forgot. Utah. We're a western state that isn't Colorado, aren't we? So of course we don't count.
Right now, everything about today can bite me.
December 26, 2010
WTF Nutcracker??
So, it's no secret that Jo loves Christmas, the whole Christmas season (please don't ask why, she has too many reasons ;), and that Jo adores the Nutcracker ballet (and the Hoffmann story) as much as she does A Christmas Carol. Thus, it is a surprise to no one that I'm watching the non-stop Nutcracker dance off today.
Currently, Maurice Bejart's interpretation of the ballet is on. And I am wondering what the hell it has to do with anything, including the source material.
Ah...folks? I love experimental work. I love work that bends culturally familiar stories in new and exciting ways. I am not terrified of postmodernism, and I'm willing to follow along if something is interesting even if I don't grasp what's going on.
But, seriously, I have no idea what Bejart is trying to do here. This version of the Nutcracker, as far as I can tell, takes place in a ballet studio and follows the adventures of a young male dancer rather than a female Clara figure. So far, Mephistopheles, mechanical toys, men doing what looks like scary drag (beards with femme clothes and make up) and a troupe of shirtless camp boyscouts have shown up, as have Adam and Eve, and a giant statue representing Bejart's mother. Oh, did I also mention that every now and then we pause the ballet to watch footage of Bejart, his family, or is sketches of dancers on a giant screen?
Here's what the official product review on Amazon.com said of it:
Don't expect battling mice, giant Christmas trees, and waltzing snowflakes in world-renowned choreographer Maurice Bejart's boldly different take on Tchaikovsky's beloved ballet, The Nutcracker. Discarding entirely the traditional story of Clara and the statuette she rescues and accompanies to a candy kingdom, Bejart uses Tchaikovsky's score to accompany his own life story (which only briefly portrays Christmas). When his mother "departs on a long journey," the 7-year-old Bim (danced by Damaas Thijs) is seduced into the world of dance by a character (Gil Roman) who represents both Faust's Mephistopheles and Marius Petipa, the groundbreaking French choreographer and dancer who brought Tchaikovsky's original ballet to life. While Bim learns dance, he still envisions the ideal of his mother, who is represented by a towering Botticelli Venus-like statue and with whom he finally achieves a bond in a near-nude pas de deux that more than hints of incest.
As in the original, the second-act divertissement is mostly different dance vignettes, here represented as acts in a Marseilles circus. In the greatest divergence from the original score, the middle of the act adds a handful of French café tunes featuring Yvette Horner's accordian, which can be heard embellishing a few other dances (and has something of a parallel in Tchaikovsky's innovative use of the celeste). The grand pas de deux, however, is performed very traditionally following Petipa's original choreography. On a screen above the stage, Bejart himself appears in occasional segments explaining certain plot points, and he goes into more detail in the DVD's 22-minute behind-the-scenes feature, which also includes comments from collaborators and members of Bejart's loyal and longstanding company, Théâtre Musical de Paris Châtelet. If your mind is open to a nontraditional production that includes bare-chested boy scouts and a pair perhaps best described as "drag kings," you'll probably be fascinated by this strikingly envisioned, expertly danced performance.
The so-called "near-nude pas de deux" is going on now and I'm more than a little terrified o_O.
Maybe I just don't get good art.
ETA: Er, well, at least the Spanish Dance was interesting and had a bull puppet.
ETA 2: OK. So far the divertissement has been interesting for the most part.
Currently, Maurice Bejart's interpretation of the ballet is on. And I am wondering what the hell it has to do with anything, including the source material.
Ah...folks? I love experimental work. I love work that bends culturally familiar stories in new and exciting ways. I am not terrified of postmodernism, and I'm willing to follow along if something is interesting even if I don't grasp what's going on.
But, seriously, I have no idea what Bejart is trying to do here. This version of the Nutcracker, as far as I can tell, takes place in a ballet studio and follows the adventures of a young male dancer rather than a female Clara figure. So far, Mephistopheles, mechanical toys, men doing what looks like scary drag (beards with femme clothes and make up) and a troupe of shirtless camp boyscouts have shown up, as have Adam and Eve, and a giant statue representing Bejart's mother. Oh, did I also mention that every now and then we pause the ballet to watch footage of Bejart, his family, or is sketches of dancers on a giant screen?
Here's what the official product review on Amazon.com said of it:
Don't expect battling mice, giant Christmas trees, and waltzing snowflakes in world-renowned choreographer Maurice Bejart's boldly different take on Tchaikovsky's beloved ballet, The Nutcracker. Discarding entirely the traditional story of Clara and the statuette she rescues and accompanies to a candy kingdom, Bejart uses Tchaikovsky's score to accompany his own life story (which only briefly portrays Christmas). When his mother "departs on a long journey," the 7-year-old Bim (danced by Damaas Thijs) is seduced into the world of dance by a character (Gil Roman) who represents both Faust's Mephistopheles and Marius Petipa, the groundbreaking French choreographer and dancer who brought Tchaikovsky's original ballet to life. While Bim learns dance, he still envisions the ideal of his mother, who is represented by a towering Botticelli Venus-like statue and with whom he finally achieves a bond in a near-nude pas de deux that more than hints of incest.
As in the original, the second-act divertissement is mostly different dance vignettes, here represented as acts in a Marseilles circus. In the greatest divergence from the original score, the middle of the act adds a handful of French café tunes featuring Yvette Horner's accordian, which can be heard embellishing a few other dances (and has something of a parallel in Tchaikovsky's innovative use of the celeste). The grand pas de deux, however, is performed very traditionally following Petipa's original choreography. On a screen above the stage, Bejart himself appears in occasional segments explaining certain plot points, and he goes into more detail in the DVD's 22-minute behind-the-scenes feature, which also includes comments from collaborators and members of Bejart's loyal and longstanding company, Théâtre Musical de Paris Châtelet. If your mind is open to a nontraditional production that includes bare-chested boy scouts and a pair perhaps best described as "drag kings," you'll probably be fascinated by this strikingly envisioned, expertly danced performance.
The so-called "near-nude pas de deux" is going on now and I'm more than a little terrified o_O.
Maybe I just don't get good art.
ETA: Er, well, at least the Spanish Dance was interesting and had a bull puppet.
ETA 2: OK. So far the divertissement has been interesting for the most part.
