DVDs

DVD Review: BALLET 422

November 16, 2015 by Rachel Hellwig

BALLET 422, a documentary by Jody Lee Lipes, offers a behind-the-scenes look at the creation of Justin Peck’s Paz de la Jolla, his third ballet for New York City Ballet and the company’s 422nd new work.

Without the use of voiceover narration or intermittent interviews, the film shows scenes of Peck dancing alone in the studio for a phone camera, making sketches of steps and formations for the ballet, using his computer as an aid, and giving directives in rehearsal–“isolate the elbows”, “it’s not crispy enough”. But if you’re looking for more detailed insight into his choreographic process and the ideas behind Paz de la Jolla (as a well as the filmmaking process), you’ll want to turn on the commentary by Peck and Lipes in the Special Features section. You’ll have to do this on your second viewing though, because it will be layered over the film’s sound. I found the commentary enriching and I wish it could have been incorporated into BALLET 422 instead being a supplement. Nonetheless, there is an effective, quiet drama evoked in the film’s minimalist approach.

BALLET 422 also features backstage scenes, Peck’s collaboration with costume designers, discussions with lighting director Mark Stanley, and work with the late Albert Evans, former NYCB dancer and ballet master. As for the dance scenes, they give glimpses of the unique qualities of the principals of Paz de la Jolla: the athletic, lightning-speed sprightliness of Tiler Peck (no relation to Mr. Peck), the rebounding energy and charisma of Amar Ramasar, and the understated sophistication of Sterling Hyltin. Moreover, the dance scenes and performance clips capture some of the most exciting elements of Peck’s choreography –the Balanchinian propulsion of speed extended into a digital-age pulse and the prose poetry in his manner of melding contemporary and classical movement.

Magnolia Pictures, 75 minutes.

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DVD Review: Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland

January 26, 2015 by Rachel Hellwig

by Rachel Hellwig

The opening of the Royal Ballet’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland interposes a psychological basis for Wonderland. Alice (Lauren Cuthberton) is not a little girl in this version, but a young teenager who shares an infatuation with the gardener’s son Jack (Sergei Polunin). But, tsk tsk, this is the Victorian Era and Alice’s mother (Zenaida Yanowsky) disapproves of this class-disparate romance. She takes the opportunity to dismiss Jack after she erroneously believes he stole a tart. Not surprisingly, Yanowsky returns in Wonderland as the Queen of Hearts and Polunin returns as the Knave of Heart who “stole tarts”. The premise of dual characters is carried farther as family friend Lewis Carroll (Edward Watson) reappears as The White Rabbit, and tea guests such as the visiting Rajah (Eric Underwood) and Magician (Steven McRae) later morph into The Caterpillar and Mad Hatter.

Video projections are appropriately used to portray Alice falling down the rabbit hole. In the sequences that follow, a combination of projections and more traditional theatrical effects help create the famous “Eat Me” and ”Drink Me” episodes (where Alice grows and shrinks) as well as the “Pool of Tears”. All of these scenes are fun to watch, although, if you haven’t read the book in while, they might be hard to follow in places. “The Pool of Tears” is actually the most visually effective though it’s also the most conventional – dancers “swimming” in between rows of stationary scenery painted to look like waves. While suggesting just enough of reality, it retains the charm of a storybook illustration – something that is not as easy to accomplish with video projections.

A challenge in adapting Alice in Wonderland for a non-verbal medium is the fact that much of the story’s potency comes from wordplay and parodies of poems and songs. The wordplay, of course, can’t be translated into dance, but there is a perhaps a nod to it in some of the projected backgrounds which feature skies of scrambled letters. The element of parody though does find an interesting parallel in Christopher Wheeldon’s choreography which incorporates spoofs of classical ballet, most memorably in the Queen of Hearts’ botched Rose Adagio. Elsewhere, Wheeldon employs a mix of non-satirical classical ballet, contemporary ballet, and, occasionally, other styles of dance. The Mad Hatter is in fact reimagined as a tap dancer, an effect which works remarkably well.

As for the music, I admit I have mixed feelings about the original score by Joby Talbot. Of course, it makes sense that a soundscape for Alice in Wonderland would express the madness, confusion, curiosity, and even violence that are integral to the story. However, whether or not you enjoy Talbot’s approach to this will depend on your taste for modern symphonic music, which, of course, doesn’t shy away from dissonance and percussion-heavy moments. At the risk of sounding like a throwback, I think it’s harder to pull off effective dissonance than it is effective melody. So, to me, the score is most compelling when it sticks to the latter. During these moments, such as Alice and the Knave of Hearts’ courtroom pas de deux, the music takes on an engaging cinematic quality which enhances the already engaging visuals onstage.

Speaking of engaging visuals… the costumes, colors, scenery (with a small caveat about out-of-place grimness of the kitchen set with its sausage maker and pig carcasses), lighting, and overall composition of each scene is top-notch, sometimes to the degree that the designs begin to compete with the dancing for your attention. The courtroom in Wonderland just might be the best for its geometry, full prism of costumes, and a giant house of cards looming in the background.

When that house of cards literally and figuratively falls and Alice awakens in reality, we notice that she is now wearing a modern-day dress. The Knave of Hearts/Jack, sitting nearby her, is sporting a t-shirt and blue jeans. Yes, as it turns out, this story wasn’t about a Victorian youth dreaming of madness, love, confusion, and discovery based on her real-life experiences. It was instead a dream about a Victorian youth who had such a dream. Hmm… I’m not sure this conclusion is quite as interesting as the scenario seemingly set forth at the beginning.

The dancing, of course, is world-class all around, as you would expect from the Royal Ballet. As Alice, Lauren Cuthbertson is like a music-box ballerina in her seemingly effortless precision, line, and musicality – her technique so pure it’s almost startling. She also possesses a natural girlish playfulness and lightness that are ideally suited for the role. The other standout is Zenaida Yanowsky as the Queen of Hearts. Her acting is spot-on, and, even more impressively, her classical grace radiates so thoroughly through her every movement that you’re simultaneously in awe of how well she embodies her comical character and how she makes it so beautiful to watch — without dampening the fire of the satiric choreography.

This OpusArte DVD of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland is from 2011. Since then, the Royal Ballet has revised and extended the production. I haven’t yet seen the updated version, but Sarah Crompton of The Telegraph wrote that the changes were all improvements. I truly believe that this ballet has masterpiece potential, though, as with all art, it takes time and revision to achieve that end.

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DVD / CD Review : Sur Les Pointes avec une Etoile and Ballet Class Music

September 8, 2014 by Rachel Hellwig

Sur Les Pointes avec une Etoile
Ballet Class Music
Sylvain Durand, pianist
Andrey Klemm, producer
Isabelle Ciaravola, dancer

by Emily Kate Long

This DVD/CD pair highlights the articulate pointe work of Paris Opera etoile Isabelle Ciaravola and the exceptional musical talent of accompanist Sylvain Durand. In the 72-munite Sur Les Pointes DVD, Andrey Klemm leads Ciaravola through a fast-paced, advanced-level barre and center. The accompanying CD features all of Durand’s music from the DVD, 52 tracks for 39 exercises.

Klemm’s combinations showcase Ciaravola’s exquisite footwork. The barre is quite typical, but several center exercises are a pleasing hybrid of Russian and French style, which the Bolshoi-trained Klemm discusses further in a short interview.

Sylvain Durand plays passionately throughout, and the fact that the CD was recorded live gives it tremendous energy. The sensitivity and attention to the subtle differences in dynamic is stellar, especially for the barre and allegro selections. Unfortunately, the short tracks limit the album’s overall usefulness. Only ten are longer that ninety seconds, making longer combinations or reversals inconvenient. In center, there are just a handful of pieces long enough to accommodate more than one or two groups of dancers without restarting the music.

Durand and Klemm both have other music and DVD releases available. This is their only collaboration to date.

DVD Review: TuTu Much!

January 29, 2014 by 4dancers

by Emily Kate Long

TuTu Much! Follows nine female ballet students through the audition process for Canada’s Royal Winnipeg Ballet School. These girls are pushed to their physical and emotional limits over the course of the four-week summer school, which serves as an audition for the RWBS year-round professional division. They compete with friends, classmates, and roommates, but most intensely with themselves. They’ve taken to heart the message that dance is hard work and not for the faint of spirit, the indifferent, or the undisciplined. They’re regular kids with big, serious ambitions, and they handle themselves with poise where there are careers are concerned. To balance the solemnity of the studio, there’s plenty of levity in endearing shots of the girls video chatting with family, mock-fighting with water sprayers, and raiding the school vending machines.

This film is an honest look into one school’s selection process, and the nine young subjects, their teachers, and their families are all very candid about the ups and downs of professional ballet training. The film hit selected movie theaters across Canada in 2010, giving the general public a peek into this foreign, mostly inaccessible world. Producers Vonnie Von Helmolt and Merit Jensen Carr and Director Elise Swerhone deserve kudos for presenting to the public a much more realistic look at professional dance training—what it actually takes to “make it”—than any American TV program ever has.

TuTu Much! made me root for all parties involved. I wanted these young women to succeed. I felt for their parents facing tough financial and family decisions. I sympathized with the teachers’ demands that every student bring her full effort into the work. Though most appealing to a dance audience, the film is important in a broader sense because it presents a set of highly driven young people, something that seems to be increasingly rare. It’s mostly straight talk about the sometimes harsh realities of the dance world, with just enough sweetness and charm to be satisfying.

DVD Review: Ballet Russes

June 25, 2013 by Ashley David

by Emily Kate Long

Alice Nikitina and Serge Lifar in the ballet La Chatte, 1927. By Sasha via Crossett Library Bennington. — Alice Nikitina and Serge Lifar in the ballet *La Chatte*, 1927. Photo by Sasha; Courtesy of Crossett Library Bennington.

This collection offers three colorful, humorous ballets. It’s the ninth volume in a series which includes, on other discs, works by Stravinsky, Tchaikovsky, Poulenc, Debussy, and Ravel. The entire “Diaghilev-Ballets Russes” series intends to highlight one surviving aspect of the artistic and cultural powerhouse that was the Ballets Russes. Where stagings evolve, records of choreography are lost, or dancers’ memories fall short, scores last and continue to recall this vital period in dance history.

First on the disc is Darius Milhaud’s Le Train Bleu, which premiered in Paris in 1924. The ballet was choreographed by Nijinska with costumes by Chanel. It illustrates with irony a set of light, sunny episodes at the beach—right in line with the carefree spirit of the “Roaring Twenties.” The ballet takes its name from that of a luxury train to the French Riviera. Milhaud’s work strongly influenced that of Copland and Bernstein, composers with whom today’s dance audience may be more familiar. Those roots are easy to hear in Le Train Bleu. The score also shares jazzy, humorous elements with the work of George Gershwin. Think “Rodeo” meets “Candide” meets “An American in Paris,” all tangled up in an exaggeratedly pompous Offenbach march.

Next is a suite of dances from Les Femmes de Bonne Humeur, Tomassini’s orchestration of five Scarlatti sonatas. The score was commissioned in 1917 for a ballet to be choreographed by Massine and designed by Bakst. Here again is a set of ebullient, joyful episodes. It’s easy to imagine the comedy that must have taken place onstage—the plot of the ballet, whose title translates to “The Good-Humored Women,” centers around games of romance in a small Italian town.

The third work in this collection is Henri Sauguet’s La Chatte, commissioned in 1927 for the Ballets Russes’ twentieth season—just one year before Diaghilev’s death. It was choreographed by Balanchine and designed by Naum Gabo and Anton Pevsner. Colorful and vibrant, La Chatte tells the story of a young man who falls in love with a cat. With Aphrodite’s help, the cat turns into a girl but is put to the test during a fantastic Scherzo when the goddess sends a mouse through the bedroom. The girl is unable to resist her instincts and chases the mouse; she is then transformed back into a cat.

This collection is enjoyable to listen to for its variety and brightness, in addition to being significant for its history.

Diaghilev-Ballets Russes Vol 9

SWR Music/Hanssler Classic

German Radio Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Robert Reimer

74 minutes

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