Did you know Martha Graham had two dachshunds at one point?

In her autobiography, which I read way back in college, she talked about how they would lie on either side of her injured knee, like they were trying to heal it. Good doggies!

Another random Martha thought, from The Birdcage:

You do an eclectic celebration of the dance!

You do Fosse Fosse Fosse Fosse Fosse!

You do Martha Graham Martha Graham Martha Graham,

or Twyla Twyla Twyla,

or Michael Kidde Michael Kidde Michael Kidde Michael Kidde,

or Madonna Madonna Madonna Madonna...

but you keep it all inside.

Good advice for us all!

Le Mauvais Choix, February 12, 2005, Super Happy Fun Land

Le Mauvais Choix is the first independent work created by Aileen Mapes of Suchu Dance. Ms. Mapes is a beautiful dancer with a strong, clean line and good stage presence. We saw a lot of the stage presence in this performance, but not so much of the line. To be fair, she was limited in choreographic freedom by the smallness of the stage area - to give you some idea, the three dancers in the show more than filled it up. This show was what might be called "random;" 30 minutes of vignettes connected by the merest hint of a thread. The other two dancers were described in the program as non-dancers "who [have] decided to make [their] first appearance as a dancer." While Ms. Mapes did an excellent job of finding movement for non-dancers, the other cast members were likely a large factor in why the choreography seemed less than developed. That said, the eclectic nature of the show and the enthusiasm of the audience made for a very entertaining production. Some meaning could be gleaned from the dance where Ms. Mapes, wearing a long, blonde wig, struggled with the "bad choice" of the title: two hairbrushes that both tangled horribly in the wig. In another section, Ms. Mapes moved from pose to pose in front of a sheet showing a shadow puppet manipulated by one of the men, who amusingly brought the puppet back from escape with "the claw." The music shifted genres as well, from classical to children's songs to a song called "Cowboy" and back to classical. A few random thoughts related to the performance: Super Happy Fun Land is indeed super, happy, and fun. And they can help you out with ALL your sock monkey needs. Mr. Silvershoes actually went to this performance with me, a rare occurance. When we got home, we found that the back toilet had been running the whole time we were gone. This seemed fitting in some existential manner. (Not a negative comment!)

Silver Slipper Dance Hall

This morning I read a review in The New York Times of Off the Wall and Onto the Stage: Dancing the Art of Jonathan Green, a new work for the Columbia City Ballet of South Carolina. The second act is inspired by a painting called "The Silver Slipper Dance Hall." Cool! I can't find an image of it online, though. [2-13-05] Apparently I misinterpreted the article. The painting is actually called "The Silver Slipper Club." See the comment for a link. Thanks, Lindsey!

Il Trovatore (Houston Grand Opera), February 4, 2005, Wortham Theater Center's Brown Hall

I know the first thing about opera, but that's about it, so don't expect much of a critique of the singing. Houston Grand Opera's production of Verdi's Il Trovatore included some great singers and some good singers. I was really impressed with the performances of Bruno Caproni (Count di Luna), Sandra Radvanovsky (Leonora) and Jill Grove (Azucena). Marcello Giordani as Manrico was an excellent singer, but didn't match the emotional intensity of Ms. Radvanosky. I have a CD with ballet music from several of Verdi's operas, including Il Trovatore. I was disappointed that there was no dancing in this production, but it was understandable given the considerable length of the show even without the dancing. The opera consists of four acts; HGO split the show with one intermission between Acts II and III. I was dead tired when I went to this performance, and by the end I found myself thinking, "How long does that poison take to work? Die already!" But one of my favorite pieces was the duet between Manrico and Azucena at the end of the fourth act. Il Trovatore includes the famous "Anvil Chorus." I was charmed by the fact that the singers used swords on the stage to achieve the requisite metal-smacking sounds. Maybe all productions do this, but this was my first time seeing this opera, so I was pleasantly surprised. The swords were an integral part of the magnificent set designed by Benoit Dugardyn. (That's a Belgian name, if you're wondering.) We saw rain, snow, and real flames on the stage. One disconcerting moment occurred when Ferrando (Daniel Borowski) leaned again what was supposed to be the solid wall of a fortress; he didn't have the knack and instead swung the wall upstage a few inches. Sort of killed the illusion.

Les Ballet Trockaderos de Monte Carlo, January 29, 2005, Jones Hall

Take great love for ballet, intimate knowledge of its history, artistic achievement, and men in pointe shoes and tutus, and you get Les Ballet Trockaderos de Monte Carlo. This all-male troupe performs classical ballet with a twist. It's real ballet, but it's also really funny! The company identity plays on the grand traditions of Les Ballets de Monte-Carlo, a company founded in 1909 by the great dancer Sergei Diaghilev and known for a time as Les Ballet Russe de Monte-Carlo. This is the company that first brought great Russian ballet (and ballerinas) to Western Europe. The performances of the Trocks pay homage to this classical tradition. The program started with what is, according to the program, the signature work of the company, Act II from Swan Lake. (For those of you unfamiliar with the ballet, this is the act where Prince Siegfried finds and falls in love with the Swan Queen, Odette.) Svetlana Lofatkina (Fernando Medina Gallego), who played Odette, was my favorite dancer of the night. He let us know right from the beginning that he meant business with a solid balance of a releve arabesque. Wow - seeing any ballerina doing that would be amazing, but it's doubly amazing from a man since pointe technique has developed to suit the female physique. His "white swan" solo was equally impressive. The essence of Trock performances can best be called "campy." The dancers take ballet and exaggerate its idiosyncrasies. Take for instance the entrance of the corps de ballet in Swan Lake. Now, bourrees are beautiful and elegant, but set 8 men bourreeing (sp?) across the stage, looking like their next steps will land them flat on their faces, and you get comedy. Another Trock characteristic is expressing what is undeniably the inner monologue of dancers: the urge to waive at a friend on the other side of the stage, or to let out a big "Yes!" when you nail a turn. Odette ends up being partnered by Benno, the prince's friend, who was a little height-challenged. The second time Benno fumbled Odette, as much as dropping her on her tutu, she turned to him and held up two fingers with a look that said, "That was twice. Don't let there be a third time." The program also included a pas de deux that is apparently decided somewhat last-minute, as it appears in the program only as "Pas de Deux or Solo." The dancers performed a lively tarantella announced to be "in the style of Balanchine." You just don't see tambourines on stage enough anymore. The pas de deux was followed by La Vivandiere, a dance originally presented in 1844. The big joke here was that the leading lady was about 6 foot 4, while the leading man was about 4 foot 6. There was one absolutely hilarious point where the man promenades the woman, who's in arabesque, by going under her leg. Predictably, he ended up on her knee at the end of the dance rather than the other way around. This second section of the performance was rounded out by The Dying Swan, a solo originally choreographed for Anna Pavlova in 1905 to music by Saint-Saens. This was performed admirably and with much molting by Ida Nevasayneva. (Now seems a good time to point out that the performers all have two fake Russian stage names, one for when they perform male roles, and one for female roles. There are several members of the Legupski family in the show, as well as Yakaterina Verbosovich and Doris Vadanya.) Chances are that with all the feathers, the fact that Ida stayed on pointe for almost the entire dance went unnoticed by most. The third act consisted of excerpts from Raymonda, which according to the program "has baffled audiences since its premiere at the Maryinsky (then Kirov, now Maryinsky) Theater in 1898." This act contained the most serious dancing of the night, including 5 solos. Ms. Lofatkina did a lovely solo that concluded with strong pique turns en manage. Olga Supphozova shone in her solo, brilliant and precise. Lariska Dumbchenko took a brief break in her solo as Raymonda to talk on the phone (brought on stage by her leading man) - but she didn't come off pointe for it. The show concluded, as all good ballets do, with a resounding finale that made me wonder where the dancers found the energy. One final treat was an encore after the curtain call spoofing Riverdance - doubly hilarious because the dancers were in tutus and pointe shoes. I haven't laughed this hard at a ballet performance in... well, I've never actually laughed this hard at a ballet performance. It was fabulous, darling.