Tchaikowsky - Swan Lake - Rudolf Nureyev - Margot Fonteyn

Sylvie Guillem, Icarus and extreme beauty of dance, said Princess Haiku

I am musing about the absolute beauty of dance and the sacrifice that it requires. In Sylvie Guillem's art we can imagine the dangerous flight of Icarus, beauty and the capability of the human spirit to soar.





Icarus
Son of Daedalus who dared to fly too near the sun on wings of feathers and wax. Daedalus had been imprisoned by King Minos of Crete within the walls of his own invention, the Labyrinth. But the great craftsman's genius would not suffer captivity. He made two pairs of wings by adhering feathers to a wooden frame with wax. Giving one pair to his son, he cautioned him that flying too near the sun would cause the wax to melt. But Icarus became ecstatic with the ability to fly and forgot his father's warning. The feathers came loose and Icarus plunged to his death in the sea.

How far to the edge of the human experience can artistic beauty go?


Sylvie Guillem
Diva. Rebel. Perfectionist. And the most dynamic dancer of her era. Tim Adams meets the radical ballerina.

The Little Mermaid, said Princess Haiku

The San Francisco Ballet is premiering, The Little Mermaid, starring Yuan Yuan Tan and I must absolutely see it. You can see a short preview of the performance on the video below and of course more information is available via the ballet's website.



photo

“The Little Mermaid presents a variation on the theme of love, which is quite unique, said Neumeier. “Someone whose love is so strong that they will pass boundaries — a boundless love.”

San Francisco Ballet’s Artistic Director Helgi Tomasson, who describes The Little Mermaid as “a feast for the eye,” had the pleasure of seeing the ballet in Hamburg and “loved it.” He thought it would be a fantastic production to bring to San Francisco.

“It’s very, very different than anything we have done before,” said Tomasson.

The debuting ballet still encompasses the popular film’s major concept – a mermaid who falls in love with a prince and transcends through both worlds to be with him. However, this ballet reaches a whole new psychological and emotional level, as the mermaid’s two physical states represent a battle between lifestyles and state of being.

The Little Mermaid will also feature an original commissioned score by renowned composer Lera Auerbach.

I wonder what it would be like to be a mermaid and torn between sea and mortal world? Perhaps like the undertow, the pull of deep feelings of mystical consciousness and the need for practical daily interaction with humans would leave one haunted. The mythical and archetypal possibilities of this kind of musing are endless.

Such blue, such an eternal sea of doubt..

Congratulations to Ron Guidi for bringing the Oakland Ballet to life AGAIN

Oakland Ballet To Reopen This Weekend
Went Belly Up In 2006
KGO By Don Sanchez

OAKLAND, Calif., Oct. 16, 2007 (KGO) - The Oakland Ballet opens a new season this weekend at the Paramount Theatre.

It's remarkable news since the ballet went belly up in 2006.

The new life comes, ironically, via the man who started it 40 years ago.

Fluid moves as bodies intertwine during a rehearsal for Saturday's inaugural performance of the new Oakland Ballet.

Ronn Guidi has come out of retirement and is now guiding the ballet.

"I felt the repertoire was too brilliant. These masterpieces could be lost," said Ronn Guidi, Oakland Ballet director. "When you go into the artistic world you go into the abyss. You need to know where the next step is going to take you. So I made the decision."

Guidi brought back the ballet for three primary reasons.

"Passion. Madness. Love."

Principal dancers David Bertlin and Denise Roman Scmalle are bringing a work of art to life.

Guidi started the Oakland ballet in 1961, and served as its artistic director for more than 35 years.

When he brought back a production of the Nutcracker last year, he knew he had to resurrect the ballet.

The old Oakland Ballet ran out of money, though Guidi says that isn't going to happen this time.

"The Paramount is very expensive. To do two shows that is about $120,000. So we know what ticket sales will be. It won't be $120,000, right? So what we did ahead of time is we fund raised. To raise the money to pay for what we'd lose. So we'll break even," said Guidi.

Major East Bay corporations and foundations are sponsors. Their logos will be everywhere. and there is motivation.

"When the arts die in the city, the culture dies. It implodes on itself," said Guidi.

The Oakland Ballet has been reborn, and now it's up to the people of Oakland and others to support what is certainly a cultural treasure.

Copyright 2007, ABC7/KGO-TV/DT.
Don Sanchez

ABC7 News Team

Don Sanchez, Arts and Entertainment Reporter

Blue Flowers of Spring Dancing

Ballerina; blue flowers of spring via this link.

Jacques Lacan in a Tutu; a Review of Boris Eifman's, Anna Karenina.

Kudos to Boris Eifman for his stylish, avant-garde ballet, "Anna Karenina" performed at Cal Performance last Sunday, March 11th. Eifman's dancers are lean, honed, metallic comets of speed and flashing motion. Eifman's ballet; a model of "scenic psychoanalysis" is a study of Karenina's descent into despair and suicide, as a result of a tragic love triangle and unresolvable conflict between her roles as mother, wife, lover.

The smoldering eroticism of the ballet is reminiscent of the dancing style of the late Rudolf Nureyev. Somber stage sets, haunting music, incense, sex, prayers and rituals of purification occur as the ballet unveils, for the soul of Anna Karenina is on fire. Viewer beware for Eifman's ballet insists that the audience participate in rituals of regression, self purification and pathos. It is impossible to watch this ballet and not be singed by shadows of past love and lost possibility.

True to psychoanalytic form Anna seeks integration of her multiple identities. When social restrictions prevent her from doing so, her psychotic decompensation reflects Lacanian images of "the other." Anna becomes a symbolic snake in the garden of Eden shedding illusory skin. The flow of the dance is dreamlike in its surreal depiction of scene within scene; feelings open as black flowers and vanish as smoke.

Boris Eifman belongs to the discourse of the surrealists and it would be interesting to see him step outside his Russian motif altogether. If anyone could choreograph an essentially surreal "Dante's Inferno," or the world of Andre Breton or Salvador Dali, it could be him.

However, it should be noted that there is a hyperbole in "Anna Karenina" which slightly detracts from its magnificence. I also felt that the costuming, intended to express social repression detracted from the beauty of the dancer's bodies. At times it appeared as though the women were dancing inside of tight balloons.

According to Lacan, verbal discourse is the agency of the unconscious, understood as intimately related to functions and dynamics of language. Boris Eifman in his amazing originality becomes a transmitter of Jacques Lacan in a tutu.