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@kwanfan1818 and
@Marge_Simpson and anyone else who is interested:
Fall for Dance at City Center: I skipped programs 1 and 2, but so far have seen 3 and 4 and am going to 5 tonight. Program 3 was a miss for me, but 4 was a stunner. Absolute highlight was Lil Buck (Petrushka), Tiler Peck (the Ballerina) and Brooklyn Mack (the Moor) in Jennifer Webber's modern take on Petrushka. Lil Buck has no bones in his body, I swear; he is just liquid personified. I don't know how he does what he does, but he's amazing, and it's not just his dancing: he produced real pathos in this role. Then came the complete contrast of Mack: gorgeous physique, classical training, explosive jumps. I could go on and on. My seat was a mixed blessing: way down front, 5 rows from the stage, so up close and personal, but the seats are not staggered there and there is no real raking, so my view really wasn't great. Thank you very much to the person in front of me who didn't show up, so I got a good view of one part of the stage at least. I have seen Lil Buck before and, of course, Tiler Peck many times at City Ballet, but this was my first time seeing Brooklyn Mack. OMG his jumps, his explosiveness - more please!
The other big highlight was Cornejo and Cojocaru in excerpts of Ashton's Rhapsody. What can I say? Of course they were great, but way down front up close and personal was not the place to be confronted by Cornejo's costume. White tights? God no, men should not be wearing hospital white.** Top was a vey pale color, sort of a very bland cafe au lait or very pale off yellow with a lot of bling on it: copper, gold, silver, ruby accents: it was hard to tell from my obstructed view exactly what the colors were. Farther back would have been much, much better for this piece.
I also really enjoyed the Lucinda Childs piece, Canto Ostinato, performed by INTRODANS. It was very repetitious, but very hypnotic at the same time and I thought the dancers were superb and really pulled the piece off.
I also enjoyed the excerpts of Rennie Harris Funkified by Rennie Harris Puremovement, but I didn't love them. I had seen RHPM a few seasons ago at FFD; that program was amazing: no sets (that I can recall), minimal costuming and just straight up high energy street dancing. This year's piece is high energy and all that, but too overproduced for me: lots of costume changes, various backdrops, musicians on stage getting into the act, different style of dancing and so on. I liked it but didn't love it.
** This goes for you, too, Platov, Ovsiannikov, Sikharulidze and any other skaters we care to mention. No white ice cream suits for you.
Meh Program 3 was Tayeh Dance with Heather Christian doing Reclamation Map, Balamouk with Dance Theatre of Harlem, Midnight Raga with Nederlands Dans Theater 2 and National Ballet of China with an except from The Crane Calling. This was a seriously unbalanced program. NBoC could have been interesting if 1) they weren't put last on the program after all the modern pieces that came first and 2) they had included some hint as to the story behind the full piece. My favorite of the night was Balamouk; it was high energy entertainment that should have been last on the program. The other 2 pieces had great dancers but I just couldn't get into the concepts or choreography.
After I see 5 tonight I shall report if I think anything is worth talking about.
OK, that's my no teknik review.
