Kirov/Forsythe

The female dancers of the Kirov Ballet are otherworldly. Their extensions are breathtaking, verging on the grotesquerie of circus contortionists, yet always done with apparent ease and bravado. The extremeties of their positioning, the twist in the torso, the unlikely balance they hold, is truly shockingly virtuosic. One imagines they have been taking class and rehearsing nonstop since they were four years old.

Truth be told they aren't as good at dancing itself--that is moving from one position to another, with grace. But they sure do not how to punctuate their arrival at a position. I'd also say that their turns are not as strong as New York-based dancers, but no one can equal the stretch in their limbs--and no one else should even try. My favorite was the copper-headed Ekaterina Kondaurova though it must be said that the hoopla around Diana Vishneva is deserved.

The male dancers are not as muscular as their American counterparts, which allows them more flexibility in their torso and expressivity in their limbs, though they are not as athletic. Less concerned with extensions than the female dancers grants them with more of a chance to achieve grace in their movements: they have more time because their limbs have less distance to travel. The women move at breakneck speed--its exciting to watch but cuts into their ability to express movement; they focus too much at racing to the next position.

The angularity and litheness of the Kirov dancers is well suited to the choreography of Forsythe. I have no desire to see them attempt to perform Balanchine, except maybe his later leotard ballets, which are stark and dwell so much on the extreme female body. The Kirov dancers seemed liberated from Petipa and Folkine doing these modern works--they may not have intellectually understood Forsythe's subversiveness and attacks on theatrical conventions, but they certainly bonded with Forsythe's interest in the dancers' life--coming to class or rehearsals with street swagger, adopting the pose of the committed dancer in class and in rehearsals, and then going for broke in live performance. They responded to these tensions in Forsythe's work with integrity and commitment.

The ending of the dance "Approximate Sonata" is beautiful. It ends with the final couple discussing the dance to each other, repeating phrases. The man then reclines in a pose that cites Nijinsky in "Afternoon of a Faun" and the woman dances a solo in perfection. She moves to the lip of the stage as the curtain begins to come down slowly. She continues to dance--as if she might move forever--regardless of the audience, now that she has the admiring attention of her male counterpart, energized by his gaze, but lost in the intensity of the logic of the steps. The final image is of her dancing feet as the curtain lingers for a second before its descent is complete.

Elitists Can Be Bitter Too

Like Obama (according to Hillary), I am an elitist. I don't go to small towns--unless it is charming, has a film, dance, and theatre festival and is near a mountain or along a coast. I only visit a church when I'm in Europe or South America and the edifice is old and historic and considered architecturally significant. The only beer I'd ever consider drinking is from Belgium. I will never believe in Yahweh. I will never hunt. I will never own a gun. I am not a vegetarian so I guess I am okay with other people killing animals. Forgive me Goddess, but I eat foie gras far more often than a hamburger.

Like Obama (according to Hillary), I am out of touch with small town America. I don't consider a town filled with gun totting, church-going, perhaps underemployed white people more American than my hardworking neighborhood of trendy gays, upwardly mobile straight people, Dominican, Puerto Rican, and Eastern European families, and Japanese, Bangladeshi, and Isreali restaurant owners

I agree with Obama. Trained as a lawyer, he clearly has an inner sociologist inside him. (Hillary is also trained as a lawyer but she is truly a policy wonk.) I think his comments go a long way in explaining why working class and middle class white people in small towns vote against their economic interests in order to vote for a party or a candidate that professes to take away the rights of women, glbt people, and ensure their access to firearms and decrease the separation between church and state. One imagines Obama read the book What's the Matter with Kansas? by Thomas Frank.

Is the country ready for a sociologist as President? Obama explained Rev. Wright's conspiracy theories by focusing on the Reverend's generational experiences and the racism of an earlier age. He distanced himself from the Reverend's anger. Rightly so. Likewise, he noticed that small town people often feel ripped off and have given up on the government helping them and have turned to restricting others' rights as compensation for decreased economic power. And he should distance himself from this anger too.

Anger is not always righteous...unless it is the well thought out anger of an elitist.

The Seagull with Dianne Wiest and Alan Cumming

For my birthday, K took me to the see new production of The Seagull. We had front row seats at the right corner of the stage area! The audience sat on three sides. The actors raced passed right in front of us when they make their entrances, storming onto the stage, in order to utter their witticisms, self-deprecations, and iterations of despair and/or joy. The experience was very exciting but disallowed us from stretching out or legs lest we trip one of the stars. A few thoughts:

• in the last 20 years, I've only seen "deconstructions" of Chekhov done by the Wooster Group and truth be told it was so good to see an interpretation of the play (by Viaccheslav Dolgachev) rather than a pretentious reconsidering.
• Dianne Wiest, who recently shocked me with her performances in In Treatment, was even better than I suspected. She was furiously exciting to watch as Arkadina. At times I felt as if she/Arkadina looked at me with disdain, disagreeing with my colorful green shirt when she responded with disdain at one of her Konstantin's challenges. When Wiest wasn't onstage, I grew impatient, always eager for her return. Yet I wanted her to be able to change outfits! After all Arkadina needs to laud herself with the line "say what you want about me, but I know how to dress!"
• Chekhov is very funny, even though the play ends darkly--particularly in this production which digs into the humor and irony embedded in the first three acts.
• I now realize tha Alan Cumming is a good actor. I had found him almost annoying before but his Trigorin was entracingly manipulative and he was never overshadowed completely by the necessary histrionics of Dianne Wiest.
• the play documents the burgeoning entrance of the aesthetics of modernism--sounds pretentious, but the character of the son and his artistic aspirations, even though they are defeated in the play, also suggests that theatre that aspires to naturalism will no longer be possible. Chekhov uses humor and plays within plays to attack "the old ways."
• Americans, including the Wooster Group, don't understand this. The Wooster Group adds postmodern schtick rather than mining the radicalism of Chekhov's work itself. Other Americans view the play too seriously, overlooking the subversive wit that challenges the enterprise of traditional theatre itself.
• the best scene occurs when Arkadina realizes that Trigorin has been tempted by a younger woman. Flattering him, his talent, his importance, she ensnares him again. He can't help but respond to her over the top adoration (when a man is prisoner of his own ego, he is vulnerable to anyone who utters sweet words of praise) . After they embrace, reunited, they part and laugh, realizing that they have repeated one of the rituals of their relationship, and each has been acting up a storm. Also, the actors move momentarily out of their parts, laughing and enjoying each other's performances, as a way of contining to play their roles. Arkadina and Trigorin need to perform for each other in order to keep their relationship going; and at the same time Wiest and Cumming salute the wit in each other's acting. Total virtuosic genious, well directed.