Alvin Ailey

Last night after the opera, I headed down to the Kennedy Center to see a performance by the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. 

They're a remarkable modern dance company -- predominantly African American, with a tremendously positive vibe at their performances and exquisitely talented dancers (which makes up for sometimes less than stellar choreography).  This is the third time I've seen them since 2005 and the first time since Robert Battle came on board as their new artistic director last year.  I was excited to see what he'd done with the group -- his pieces were vibrant and strong, giving a valuable update to the company's repertoire (which can sometimes feel dated). 

Of course, they didn't devote the whole evening to new works -- they ended the show, as they almost always do, with Revelations, their iconic piece set to African American spirituals.  It was first performed in the early 1960s, but it's a classic that I love to see.  One of my favorite pieces within Revelations is a duet between man and woman to a song that pleads "Fix Me Jesus."  It's a prayer that so many of us sing every day.

Patron of the arts

The Alvin Ailey concerts are always one of the highlights of the modern dance season at the Kennedy Center.  They come every year, and every year I go and I love them.  (Here's what I wrote about their performance last year.)  I saw them perform at the Kennedy Center on Thursday and, as always, the athleticism and beauty of the Ailey dancers left me in awe of the human form in motion. 

What was different this time around was my new status as a "Member" of the Kennedy Center.  Their telemarketers had been pestering me for years to become a member -- which essentially is the entry-level donor program -- and this year I finally gave in and sent them a check.  In return, I received a flimsy ID card, some vouchers for reduced parking fares, the promise of having access to members-only lounges during intermissions, and the internal satisfaction of having begun (in albeit a very small way) to achieve one of my life's goals.  When I left my fundraising job at the Kennedy Center (a job that I loved), I told myself that I'd rather be a patron of the arts than a person who solicited donations from patrons.  And now look at me:  a bona fide donor! 

Now, don't get me wrong:  This is NOT fancy.  I am by no means a high-roller or important at all.  And I thought I knew that, but I was still excited to go to the members' lounge during intermission.  It seemed like a sophisticated thing to do, and I figured it would be fun to take my friend Amy along with me. 

So during the first intermission we walked up to the Opera-house lounge.  As we went, Amy asked, somewhat uncertainly, if my membership was enough to cover her, too, or if she'd have to wait outside for me.  Bah, I said, of course they'll let you in!

Little did I know that they shouldn't have let either of us in!  We came to the door of what I thought was the members' lounge and greeted the hostess.  She knew me from when I worked at the Kennedy Center, and she was happy to see me.  I cheerily told her that I'd finally become a member and was looking forward to using the lounge.  She took one look at my card and laughed -- You've got the wrong lounge!  Your lounge is on the other side, up a few levels and on the right-hand side -- there are no drinks or refreshments there!  But don't worry, I like you, so you and your friend can come in anyway. 

And in we went!  We got some refreshments and enjoyed the lounge that should have been out of our league.  I was a little mortified at my mistake and made a note to myself to keep my delusions of grandeur in check.  On the other hand, I was gratified to realize that, regardless of whatever money I may give (or not give!) to the Kennedy Center, I was already a "member" in the way that really counts -- I was friends with the folks who run the place!

We finished our drinks and went back down for the next act of the performance.  During the second intermission we decided not to press our luck too far among the fancy donors.  We stayed among the plebes and agreed that we'd leave our hunt for the correct members' lounge for next time.

 

Mark Morris Dance Group

I love dance.  In the eight years since I moved to the East Coast, I've seen a lot of it.  As with anything, the more you see and know, the better you can judge the quality.  If you'd asked me this morning what I thought were the best dance performances I'd seen, I would have listed the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater's performance of Revelations that I saw at the Kennedy Center in 2005 and the Paris Opera Ballet's performance of Prokofiev's Cendrillon that I saw last November. 

Now, I would add tonight's performance at the Kennedy Center of Handel's L'Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato by the Mark Morris Dance Group. 

The history of this piece is as follows:  John Milton wrote two poems, L'Allegro (Mirth) and Il Penseroso (Melancholy), that were published as companion pieces in 1645.  In 1740, George Friedrich Handel and his librettist interwove those two poems into a single poem, added a third poem called Il Moderato (Moderation), and set the three poems to music in a pastoral oratorio for solo voices, orchestra and chorus.  In 1988, while in residence at the Theatre Royal de la Monnaie in Brussels, Mark Morris choreographed an evening-length dance to the oratorio.  That is what I saw tonight. 

It was perfect.

The music, performed live in the orchestra pit by a strong orchestra and excellent baroque singers, was very lovely and had the best of everything I love about Handel -- delicate melodies, lively choruses (including one similar to the Hallelujah chorus), lots of ornamentation. 

The set and lighting were breathtaking.  There was a series of rectangular arched panels that framed the stage, spaced evenly from front to back, and between which sheer scrims could be lowered and raised.  The panels and scrims were lit with rich and various colors and, when the scrims were moved, the effect was of being immersed in a moving Rothko painting.

Through that landscape the dancers moved with incredible grace, lyricism and expression, performing lovely choreography that was neither quite narrative nor entirely abstract.  It was beautiful and moving and sometimes whimsical -- and it captured, in an astonishing way, the essence of mirth and melancholy that Milton had sought to convey in his poetry. 

During intermission, I heard the man behind me say the choreography was like a painting, and I couldn't have agreed more (obviously, art already was on my mind).  The tableaux that emerged through the movement seemed to be what might result if you mixed a Rubens with a Seurat and then framed it in a Rothko.  It was, to my mind, the best sort of performance, where all the art forms combine to create something so lovely that, for a moment, you forget the rest of the world and want for nothing but what you have before you.

Hello, New York!

On Tuesday morning we left sunny San Juan and flew to New York.  I spent most of the 3.5-hour flight zonked out beneath my eye-mask (our dissolute vacation habits of getting roughly 5 hours of sleep each night were catching up to me) and landed at the Big Apple bright eyed and ready for the next adventure.

We caught the E line into the city at Jamaica Station, which brought back memories of meeting Ashley there on a cold winter's day during her mission approximately a million years ago.

Ashley said that if only she'd known we'd be passing through Jamaica, she could have
hooked us up with some delicious Dominican and Salvadorean food.  Next time!

 The ride into Manhattan went smoothly.  We emerged into crowds of people and made our way to the hotel.  We're staying in the Marriott on Times Square, where I saw my first Broadway musical almost 14 years ago.  I remember then thinking how cool it would be to stay here someday . . . .

The place is huge, with vertigo-inducing glass elevators running up and down
an internal shaft in the middle of the atrium.

After dropping our things off in the room, we headed out for a quick dinner at a new place that Amanda described as a "Hipster Food Court", and which was conveniently only a block away.

Nothing says "of the moment" like subway tiles, reclaimed wood, and exposed Edison bulbs

While Justin went for falafel, and Amanda had a burger, I opted for a spice bowl of ramen

There are few things more interesting than people-watching in New York.
This lunch counter was perfect for that.

Hipster doughnuts!  I got one covered in cinnamon and sugar.

Once we had eaten, we headed across town to the New York City Center to see the Alvin Ailey dance group perform.  They're a favorite of mine, and I was eager for Justin to see them dance.  They didn't disappoint:  Two pieces, in particular, stood out for me.  One was a male/female duet that I hadn't seen before, called "A Case of You", that was intensely lyrical and had some exquisite moments between the dancers.  The other was "Revelations", which they perform at nearly every concert -- it's a masterpiece and a crowd-pleaser, and for as many times as I've seen it, it's never lost its power to uplift and inspire.







As we emerged from the concert, we felt the rumblings of hunger.  Amanda led us to a little Indian shop she had discovered on a recent trip.  They sold tasty kati rolls and were open late -- perfect for a post-theatre snack!

I got a roll with chickpeas, and another with lamb; also a mango lassi

Justin takes great glee in capturing us photographing our food.

Then we walked back to the hotel for bed -- looking forward to tomorrow!

Ballet boy

Today I pulled a Billy Elliot and went to ballet class.   

I didn't go alone -- it was my friend Amy's idea.  Amy and I have had a subscription to the modern dance season at the Kennedy Center for the past few years (remember Mark Morris, Alvin Ailey, and Keigwin + Company?), and we've also been watching a lot of dance-related television lately (think Dance Academy, Ballerina, and So You Think You Can Dance).  When she discovered that the Joy of Motion Dance Center offered drop-in beginner classes for adults, she proposed an excursion.  We checked our schedules and picked today's beginning ballet class.

We arrived a few minutes early to register, and as we got to the top of the stairs, we found ourselves in a sea of pink-tutued girls all under the age of 8.  With some trepidation, Amy turned back and said, "We did sign up for an adult class, right?"  Thankfully, yes -- our studio was full of grown women (and only women, I may have been the only dude in the building other than the dads who were picking up their daughters). 

Now, keep in mind that, before today, I had never danced a day in my life.  I felt extremely conspicuous and totally awkward, but I expected that some motherly dance teacher would come in, walk me through the different positions, and then let us run freely around in the middle of the room to let out extra energy -- I mean, that's how it worked when I watched my 3-yr-old neice's dance class!  But no.  This instructor (who was nice but not motherly) came in, rattled off an unintelligible string of instructions (lots of numbers and mispronounced French words), and then hit play on the music.  !!!  I had no clue what I was doing!  Apparently most of the other gals did, because they started trucking right along as if nothing was the matter.  I just stood there and looked around, wishing I'd gone to the 3-yr-olds' class instead. 

But the longer I watched, the more I realized that I wasn't the only one without a clue.  The girls may have fancied themselves dancers (one went so far as to come in pointe), but by no means was this The Juilliard School.  I began to relax.  Then I started paying more attention to the instructions.  Turns out, once you deciphered the butchered French, they actually made sense.  So I started following along:  rond de jambe, en l'air, battement, tendu, écarté, plié, chassé, penché -- it all made sense! 

In fact, that last one provoked my favorite conversation of the class: 

Teacher:  Promenade, arabesque, penché . . .

Student:  What did you say?  Plongé?

Teacher:  Yes, penché [Note that these women are both making almost the same sound] 

Student:  Great.  What does that mean?  

Teacher:  Umm, it means you should pencher.  Like this. [demonstrates] 

Student:  Huh.  Maybe "dive"?  Are we DIVING forward?  [She clearly knows what her vocabulary word means; she's less adept at observing how the teacher is not demonstrating a diving motion]

Teacher:  No, it isn't diving, per se.  Not sure how else to say it . . .

Me [muttering in the background, trying not to be the obnoxious new kid who's fluent in French and clueless about everything else]:  Bend.  That's the word you're looking for.  Bend down.  "Pencher" means "bend down."  And "plonger" means dive, which clearly is not what we're doing.

The teacher and student didn't hear me, but a girl next to me did, and she looked at me with properly admiring eyes:  "You speak French!"  So that ended well.

And so did the class.  The barre stuff was bewildering and hard.  The floor-work was better, because we relied more on the teacher's demonstrations than on a list of commands.  I was passable (by the standards of the class) at the arabesques and other balancing combos we did in the middle of class (thank heavens for yoga!).  Spins were a disaster (spotting is SO HARD), but I think I managed to redeem myself with the pirouettes and the chassé/sauté combinations.  By the end of class I could tell that I'd had a workout -- and now that I'm sitting here writing, I can tell that it worked muscles I didn't know I had (so much leg lifting!).  

The teacher was very nice afterwards, pretending to be surprised when we said it was our first time ever ("You have such great body awareness!").  She did, however, suggest taking a six-week "Intro to Ballet" class so that we could learn all the stuff that we should have known for Beginning Ballet.  Naturally, Amy and I instantly signed up -- give us six weeks, and we'll be back to fumble through a barre routine with the best of them! 

Keigwin + Company

Getting seasons tickets to the Kennedy Center's modern dance series was one of the best decisions I've made in recent years.  There's just so much great dance! 

Last night I saw Keigwin + Company perform.  If Merce Cunningham was cerebral, Mark Morris gorgeous, and Alvin Ailey exhilarating, Keigwin + Company was pure fun.  The company is based in New York -- and boy, does that show.  The pieces were glitzy, sexy and mischievous, with tons of energy and style and a healthy dose of winking irony.  If kind of felt like they were flirting with everyone in the audience all night long.  Enormously entertaining. 

My favorite was "Megalopolis," which the Kennedy Center describes as follows:

"[A] work that blends the structure of a futuristic city with the vibrancy of its late-night scene performed to a mash-up of music by Steve Reich and pop artist M.I.A. The hyper-kinetic piece has space age black and silver costumes and choreography that combines hip hop with club moves. Keigwin describes the work as "…a blend of formalism and pop.  It's fun and serious."

Some of the critics I found online thought it too populist and accused it of "pandering to the audience," but as a member of the audience, sometimes it's nice to be pandered to!  Especially when that pandering comes in the form of good-looking dancers doing beautiful moves in outrageous costumes.  Unfortunately, I can't find any good photos of said costumes, but here are some photos from other pieces they did.

This video has excerpts from the Runaway piece, which was the final piece of the evening.  It was my least favorite of the lot, mostly because it had a darker vibe and because I didn't quite get it (something about fashion, I think).