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~ arts journal~ Lewis J Whittington

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Category Archives: Elements

BalletMetros~extra

23 Wednesday May 2018

Posted by alternatetakes2 in BALLET, classical music, Dance Theater, DanceMetro, dancers, Elements, musicians, PhillyDance, Stage

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Premier soloist James Ihde bids farewell with ‘Diamonds’

29- Jewels ( Diamonds _ PDD ) Principals Dancers ( Lillian DiPiazza ) and Soloist ( James I

May 13 on the Academy stage ~ Lillian DiPiazza & James Ihde in Diamonds photo: Arian Molina Soca

Red roses sailed over the Academy of Music stage on May 13 landing at the feet of Pennsylvania Ballet soloist James Ides, retiring from the company after 25 seasons, a favorite with audiences and three generations of PABallet dance artists. Ihde’s career with the company is almost unparalleled & he is has continued to dance in top form in his final seasons.  His swansong dance is indeed one of the most demanding roles for a danseur, the male lead in George Balanchine’s ‘Diamonds.’  It was suggested to Ihde by PAB artistic director Angel Corella and in his final performance James would partner prima ballerina Lillian Di Piazza.

Back to those roses in a moment, but first, there the matinee performance of Balanchine’s trilogy “Jewels”~  ‘Emeralds’, ‘Rubies’ and ‘Diamonds’~  representing a range of neoclassical choreography.   The dramatic glittery backdrops and sumptuous costumes by Karinska elicited applause and wows as the curtain went up on each one.  Much credit goes to Balanchine Trust repetiteur Elyse Borne’s for her technical precision and distinct musicality she brings to each ballet in this revival.

‘Emeralds’ is scored to music by Gabriel Fauré and is one of Balanchine’s most decorative ballets, and at its best as it was in this performance, a haunted mystique.  Karinska’s costumes have the mens in velvet emerald doublets and the women in pale green tulle ballet skirts.

Both lead couples, Yuka Iseda-Jermel Johnson and So Yung Shin- Jack Thomas,  captivating in their technical artistry.  The featured trio also proved a dazzling mise-en-scene for corps dancers Alexandra Heier, Emily Davis and Ashton Roxander.  Affron brought forth all of the lyrical mystique of Faure, and among the sterling soloists principal violinist Luigi Mazzocchi, harpist Mindy Cutcher, oboist Nick Masterson & cellist Jeannie Lorenzo.

‘Rubies’ is Balanchine is another defining collaboration with composer Igor Stravinsky and an undisputed masterpiece.  The propulsive drive of Stravinsky’s ‘Concerto for Piano and Orchestra’ inspiring Balanchine to break out of his own signatures and conventions. ‘Rubies’ choreo in a completely different choreographic key for Balanchine, so different from the austerity of his most famous modernist ballets. It’s witty and wry choreography that leaves room for liberated interpretation by the dancers. And lead couple Ian Hussey and Oksana Maslova revel in its propulsive virtuosity as a most fiery balletic romp. Balanchine’s angling the choreography in counterpoint to the Stravinsky dominant piano solos. played with breathtaking command by PAB pianist Martha Koenemann.

And the third lead, a breakthrough role for PB apprentice Sydney Dolan. Commanding technical artistry and star power. Five men are in position to move her around in arabesque variations, a dancer version of the ‘facets’ to a ruby’s inner ‘fire.’  And really that concept extended, in this performance to the corps women,  who throughout with sharp ensemble pointe & (counter)pointe work.

33- Jewels ( Diamonds _ PDD ) Soloist ( James Ihde ) PC-Arian Molina Soca _ 5-13-2018

James Ihde about to launch his final performance (photo: Arian Molina Soca)

Then it was all about ‘Diamonds.’ The anticipation for James Ihde entrance was building during the extended corps de ballet scene that opens Balanchine’s ‘Diamonds’ his glittering distillation of  Imperial Ballet classicalism set to the sonic waves of Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 1.  when they finally exit and then the burst of applause as Ihde and partner Lillian DiPiazza make their entrance,   Di Piazza and Ihde have radiant chemistry together from the start.  Ihde had a few tentative moments and completely pitched out of grand pirouettes, but, powered through, with incredible authority and artistry.

His jete circle nicely paced. DiPiazza’s steely pointe work and subtle expressiveness make this an indelible partnering. The full corps de ballet executing the crucial unison ensemble work without looking mechanical. And this was another opportunity for Corella to showcase what has been developing all season, a more uniform strength in the mens corps.

The curtain coming down on the full company ensemble grande processionale by Balanchine and DiPiazza and Ihde the glittering center. And then it was all over, the applause building as the curtain came back up on Ihde alone on the Academy stage for several moments that were, indeed, like an intimate, a once in a lifetime moment with an old friend…

James Ihde final bow
James Ihde final bow
photos: Beverly Wexler
photos: Beverly Wexler

 

…As the current roster of PABallet dancers came onstage with roses & heartfelt embraces. Many of James’ former dance colleagues were there to bid him farewell including  legendary founder of Pennsylvania Ballet Barbara Weisberger, who was a protégé of Balanchine dating back to the 30s when she was the youngest dance student in his class.

A most memorable moment as Conductor Beatrice Jona Affron came onstage to take a bow with Ihde. Affron has been conducting  PABallet Orchestra since the early 90s, in fact, as long as James’ tenure.  And without doubt, this performance of Tchaikovsky, Faure and Stravinsky has to be among the finest programs this orchestra has ever played.

PABallet founder Barbara Weisberger & soloist James Ihde

PABallet founder Barbara Weisberger & James Ihde (courtesy PAB)

Artistic director Angel Corella presented Ihde with a bouquet and champagne as confetti and more roses sailed out from the orchestra pit during the 20 minutes of lusty applause for a great contemporary danseur, an indelible dancer in this and many another ballet season to remember.

August poem

06 Sunday Aug 2017

Posted by alternatetakes2 in all poetry by LewJWhittington, Elements, LJW poetry, Uncategorized

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  deco

     Serō^               {fr Days of Mercury}

                               

Wind tide
scarred sometimes
By dust spikes
blinding
pulverized
trajectories exhaled
in coarse flight bolted
bloodier feral heart
iridescent
dodgy
tracks
soars
scape unlocks
as waters trisect
frieze northward
to an invisible gorge
balancé
shimmer
trace^untouched
geo quantum
finally along the promontory

Mercury
at vanishing point
embark
It is all over for now
Iron eyes obliterating
light years
cataloguing the isles of the dead
Hermes  ignites
winged temples to
eclipse the
eternal outlier
blood Venus
unguarded in the
ice basilica
its innards collapsed into
the fevered expanse
a tether
a theory
a twitch
that recalls
thought
but Mercury still dreams
With the
disappeared
Liberated
Reconvened in mighty silence
It is all water music
heard inside
energy concussed
hovers at azimuth
sometimes a dusk reveals
that all his missions had
been vaporized as
Mercury enters the cobalt fury of Olympus

 

LGBTQ=+PridePoetries

07 Tuesday Jun 2016

Posted by alternatetakes2 in all poetry by LewJWhittington, dancemetros, Elements, GLBTQI, LJW poetry, Uncategorized

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decoendlessly, from last night

   fr Right Before I Met Vincent

the pulse
blue echo

the concussive
murmurings earlier
spying my belly button
in a drawer between
with shredded  biker socks

still molting at 7:42

rusty gaze

as marble sinews pulse
from vodka/quaalude
vision

geometric ink

butterfly on your left shoulder

(that you don’t remember getting when
you were stationed in San Diego
the day you burned your dress blues)

danced the night away out of our minds
lusting off
to eternity
this trail of

whispers
ending in a
glitteringly butch
shadows
dreamt only once before now hover in
diamond movement
tattoo

à l’après-midi d’un faune
Angling over a
busted wall
-when did you
share me
with candy-
from the other club last night
it is time to go out to dance, no?
is it still 3:20

1972 drenched
In sex forgotten in a flash with  all the
beautiful ones inhabiting the
Atlantis galleria
busted open

in the rumbling
strata of debris or the glorious
basilica liberated from any former crime
in faith knowing we
we are giving our bodies to each
other

resplendent sweated mighty

unlost

human havoc

sane all the same
sounds of falling onyx
& crystals
dripping
cracks below
Leaves scrapping  branches
of blue mercury

running through
Fingers onto
the temples
we hear
sonic psalms
La la la Sacre du Printemps
to escape the sound
Of the blood pulsing together

of the blood of ancestors

of the blood of ideas

of the blood of body

the blood of mind

the blood of soul

witness to live

inside a
Coldest room
waiting for scarred
voices down here

behind
Flamingotangerinefucshia
Dahliadarling ascendent
souls’ blood dancing

from the  indigo  sea

Andy-was-here-once&
Paul&Assotto
Larry&Timmy&
Keith&Ted&Pearl&SarahVaughan&Joey&Christopher
Georgio&Alberto&Michael&Marcel&Menage

&PeterMiguelJimmy&Sylverster&JohnAnthony=et. fuckin’ al. baby
nobody walked away
empty hearted
the corners
of the rooms folded up
not inside shadow
on bluer shadow
pulsing resonance
concussive dissonance
as the body starburst

endlessly through that smashed atom
still dancing with Shiva we dance for you&we dance for with you perpetuo molto

on ink-night beholden to our rainbow warriors
                                                                                                                          so mighty real

for Sylvester & all warriors

from Gyroscopes

03 Tuesday May 2016

Posted by alternatetakes2 in Elements, LJW poetry, Uncategorized

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From Gyroscopes  (appendix)

The NYTimes 4.25.2016 reports that

……………..half of which includes “candidate phyla radiation” that are still waiting to be discovered. Humans are in the bottom branch of eukaryotes…

 

Eukaryotes the gods

so underoversidewaysdown

 

 smashing neologic

mirrors obliterata

recited on the bottom of the ocean

Not a glimpse or                                        word will be revealed 

vaporized on our way

So the creatures stay under

don’t acknowledge heavens

fly unsidedownoveroverover

visera oceanic

There is a clue that

A million blood tongue hydra sleeps

For now gurgles conceals 

metagallatic

In a cell

& Spica bacillica   

cosmic ice 

 a vanquished hole

chains devolved 

unvoided              reheard            quantum swallowed

fucking     unvoided

ibidibidibid

 vaulted from the Blacksea

until  until until

the infinite if

or Igor unleashes Le Sacre du Printemps

or Cocteau smokes enough for Beauty and the Beast

& Isadora crashes  through the trees in the Urals

to smacks into Vaslav midair

& Monk’s releases chromatic infinity

or Chet Plays the Mercury L

after night falls

Renaldo escapes and writes in water for all  Atlantis 

evidence of things not seen

making  the safe path for the pagans to return

DanceMetros pt. deux

28 Wednesday Mar 2012

Posted by alternatetakes2 in Acrobats, Dance, Elements

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Known for its explosive physicality, eye-popping aeriels in a mix of Capoeira and Afro-Brazilian dance, the New York based troupe DanceBrazil made their first appearance in Philly as part of the Annenberg Center’s ‘Out of this World’ dance series last week. Actually they just made it, arriving late on the first day of their run because their passports were being held up by the Brazilian government, after performances there.

Randy Swartz, artistic director of Dance Celebration, announced at the Saturday matinee performance that DB just made their performance on Thursday night after the hold up, but that one dancer was still in Brazil. Meanwhile, the company not only performed well, the next morning kept their dates for the student outreach capoeira performances and workshops.

At the Sat matinee performance, the troupe opened with the 35 minute rhythm expose called “Batuke” which refers to the street music that is made from make-shift instruments at Carnivale. The work has an formal score by Daniel Santos, that revolves around a single – stringed instrument called berimbau. A trio of women in ribbony skirts over move in oscillating torso patterns, then break out in liberated dance.

The men followed, in the regimental, but no a no less dancey, rainstick jousting exhibition. The unison footwork is hypnotic, but the precision of the stick wielding thrills. The men and women are finally together in modern garb, ripped ribbed dance togs, mixes more idioms of free dance- from ensemble pulses ala Ailey to gyroscopic salsa moves, for instance, is playful, if less potent, but tons of fun.

DB premiered ’Imfazwe’ an expose of the fight expressionism and the dance aesthetic that form the template for Capoeira has the feel of a company classic on its first outing. Twelve dancers form the physical dialogue in the Capoeria roda to summon and sanctify the energy field. Vieira uses unison work sparingly it seems, perhaps he wants the dancers connected to the moment. All of the fight sequences are showing singular artistry and technique are highlighted with low to the ground butoh slo lurches, hair-trigger body jousting and those mach-speed gladiatorial kicks, are spellbinding

Botanicals

11 Monday Jul 2011

Posted by alternatetakes2 in Elements, Jan Carroll, LW poetry

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from The Reading
Tarquam

His heaving blue shoulders face away
from the rust moon
singing Father of Water
naked on the dead soil
pierces ground by centimeters
with the specter of the dove
crowned in the masculine principal
foretold in jagged mountain
hidden beyond thundercloud
the masque of creativity
closing her eyes
in the afterburn of
quicksilver rainbow
dead Iris lurks
she feels the livid sun
thrown by the shade of the palm
digs her feet into the putrid soil
envisions the Earth finally
visible from its axis
reflected in the tranquil seed sounds

Elements

20 Monday Dec 2010

Posted by alternatetakes2 in Elements, Jan Carroll, photography

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‘Pointed piece’  by Jan Carroll

All poems by Lewis Whittington unless otherwise noted

Acrobats BALLET bloggerdriller bloglog booksbooksbooks classical music composers Dance dancemetros Elements film GLBT GLBTQI Jan Carroll jazz life LJW poetry LWpics LW poetry metroscape musicians operaworld photography poetry political theater politictictic Queens Stage Theater Uncategorized world of music
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